Bad Astronomer Phil Plait on vaccinations

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Woo Shot - BAB

IF the government made an effort to keep corporations honest, people wouldn't be so paranoid about whether a corporation is lying or not. I understand the suspicions, even if I haven't jumped on board with the antivaccine crowd -- yet.

thanks singularity (& phil):

... our very strong urge to link something that happens to something that came before. post hoc ergo propter hoc

i had never heard it refer to as such; in Logic & apart from a fitting latin quote, is there a name for this particular fallacy

for a motivation for such ill logic, i would propose a trip down Attribution Lane in Social Psychology, and i wouldn't mind starting around the corner by the Just World Close

also, it's just a basic (gestalting) need for the mind: whatever you think you may see, 2 dots are not a line, nor three a triangle;

This Is Not a Pipe

&:
if it walks like a duck & talks like a duck - do you think is just another ASSie

as long as you remember Don McClean:
Just because you're paranoid, [that] doesn't mean they're not trying to get you, you'll be alright

Why do you want to attribute such responsibility as a duty of the government? Putting such a task as pure honesty and dependability to the ruling power has never, in the history of any known civilization, turned out for the best. Why would you want to put your health and well-being in the hands of such a vague and uncontrollable entity?

What suspicions? If the MMR vaccine really caused autism, almost everyone who received it would be autistic. I say "almost" to account for natural tolerance and other variations in biology.

Paranoia is the blatant lack of reason.

To explore the logic - most children in the US get an MMR shot around the age of 2. Many autistics first have their symptoms noticed around the age of 2. Therefore, the MMR vaccine must cause autism!

Using similar logic, many men in their late 30s are settling (or pretty well settled) into a career. Many men in their 30s notice their hairlines receding. Therefore, settling into a career causes androgenetic alopecia!

Remember, back in the old days, when a child became withdrawn and difficult to communicate with around the age of 2, the accepted explanation was that the real child had been abducted by elves, and replaced with a changeling. In the modern day, of course, no one believes in elves...

Thanks, DeaconBlues. And by this bizzaro-world logic, "Intelligent Design" makes sense. I mean, look at eyes! They're so pretty and complicated! They couldn't have just happened.

But have you ever seen a rabbit's digestive process? Ew.

This is what you get for opening tones of threads in 1 go you post in the wrong one lol

Post hoc ergo propter hoc, AKA the Correlation-Causation Fallacy is exactly what this vaccine crap is. The reasoning is basically no different then the reasoning behind superstitions ("It rained after I danced! The rain god must want us to dance.").

Intelligent design? What's so frakking "intelligent" about the tonsils and appendix - organs with some small value to the immune system, but which, once they stop being of use, stand a fair chance of becoming infected and possibly killing you?

For that matter, why do we have vestigial tails? They don't help us with balance, they aren't prehensile, and they sometimes get in the way during childbirth (my sister-in-law got hers shattered while giving birth - the only longterm effect is that she can't sit down for too long at a time, or it starts to hurt). And why are our feet so poorly suited to the basic task of walking?

If we were intelligently designed, our brains would be located somewhere safer - say, in the middle of the ribcage, cushioned by surrounding lungs - while our cardiopulmonary systems would be decentralized, using peristalsis like the lymphatic system, rather than having one heart, vulnerable to shock and impact.

No, we're pretty much cut-and-try here - either that, or our Designer was an idiot...

To play devil's advocate, many insects and crustaceans are "designed" this way. However, we can step on them with our inefficient feet:

And the poor beetle that we tread upon,
In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great
As when a giant dies.
Shakespeare--Measure for Measure.

Giants like logic, reasoning, and science.

OMFG this thread is like a breath of fresh air.... thank you. I needed that.

and lmao:

DeaconBlues wrote:

I KNEW it was a conspiracy!! That's why I got AHEAD of the curve and SHAVED mine....

Shakespeare gives me goosebumps, thank you for that. His work is so beautiful... ahhhh.... *melts*

I read somewhere Shakespeare invented quite an amount of words we still use today, I believe "sardine" was one of them. He also wrote a version of the bible. Today's bible is mostly unchanged from Shakespeare's version.

I know all kinds of random stuff



Back on topic- I don't really understand how people can think that people can be controlled by immunisation shots. That is what school is for and if the government wanted to know everything about you they could just use the internet. I dont really think that people would even need influenza shots though if we never had of used antibiotics for influenza it probably wouldn't be so bad as it is.

Thank you AspieDave, I was becoming concerned about the fanaticism running rampant in that anti-vaccine thread ::shudders:: I'm glad to know I'm not alone with this conviction.

Shakespeare, I've noticed, is fantastic for providing anecdotal arguments.

I refuse to believe that people think the government can control people through current medicine, rather, they just seem to think it is a malicious cult of science to spread disease. I think people have been watching too many Hollywood horror movies.

I got my Gardasil vaccinations, but I haven't started prostituting myself out just because I am now immune to a rather uncommon strain of HPV.

SirLogiC wrote:

Ummm.... Influenza is a viral disease. Antibiotics have no impact on virus, at all. They only affect bacterial diseases, and yes, THERE they have forced bacterial evolution greatly. We have only in the last few years developed effective anti-virals and they still are very limited in scope.

On a lighter note... the comment about school and government reminded me of something I did many years ago... High schools here either have National Honor Society chapters, or Beta Club chapters, which is a competing group to the NHS. My high school had the Beta club, and I was inducted in 10th grade. The only thing I ever really liked about it was the pin, which had a stylized eagle rampant, with a B under it and below that three stars in a semicircle on a shield shaped gold pin. The facing was black enamel with the figures in gold. I liked it so much I continued to wear it after graduation, including the lapel of a blazer I wore to work at the bank I was employed at. We had a "problem" customer, who came in almost daily, disliked most of the bills we gave him, insisting they be exchanged until he was sure he had ones that weren't "microchipped" all the while we'd hear about his latest conspiracy theories. He noticed my pin one day and kept staring at it. Finally, he asked what it was, and I said, "Oh this? It's for the Tri-Lateral Commission. The Eagle stands for the New World Order, the three stars are the three parts of the Tri-Lateral Commission, and the B means I'm in the Banking division." He grabbed his cash, practically ran out of the branch, and went to a different office after that for his transactions. Somehow, I never felt the slightest bit guilty about that....

I don't really buy into the 'govt controls you through vaccination' thing either to be honest... as you said, there's so much info about everyone online these days (Facebook, anyone?) and CCTV everywhere that I doubt they really need much else!!

I think that was the point about antibiotics though... they get used for everything, viral or not (I've had the flu twice in a few months and been given antiobiotics both times - I used them once as I had secondary bronchitis, but not the other time as I thought it was pointless). Hence the commonplace 'superbugs' these days.

I don't think people need flu shots anyway to be honest - I think a lot of the things you seem to get immunised against in the US is kinda pointless. Like chicken pox, for example; they don't kill you, they don't do any long-term damage, you just get itchy for a few days. I don't know one person who didn't have it as a young child and I don't know one person who's suffered any lasting damage from them, so what's the point? We'd usually take our kids to visit infected kids so they can get it naturally and thus natural immunity. As for flu shots - everyone I know who's ever had one has developed the flu straight afterwards, which is enough to put me right off it.

Gardasil - I haven't got it (not just because I've already slept with the love of my life and don't plan on being with anyone else ever again!) but not because of the morality thing (come on, what 12 year old doesn't know about sex these days?!) but because of all the reactions that've been reported after it. Fitting, anaphylaxis, Guillaine-Barre Syndrome etc in Australian and Japanese girls... way too many reactions to convince me it's safe in the short OR long term. I believe a couple died after it, though I'll have to check that up.


AspieDave - That's brilliant!! Wish I'd seen the look on his face!