Musgrave on vaccine denialism 4 Sep 2009 Ian Musgrave has a smackdown of the false claims and, let’s face it, criminal lies by the antivaxxers in Australia here. Since Ian always knows whereof he speaks, it is a useful and educational post. About a decade ago, a medical researcher at the place I worked, who also practised as a general practitioner, said to me that he was seeing babies die painfully from pertussis (whooping cough) for the first time in thirty years, because of the antivaccine movement. They are murderers in my opinion. Australian stuff General Science
General Science Only government approved labs can do experiments, see? 13 Aug 2008 A retired chemist has had his home lab confiscated in Maryland because a government official was scared of it. Sayeth Robert Thompson: Pamela Wilderman, the code enforcement officer for Marlboro, stated, “I think Mr. Deeb has crossed a line somewhere. This is not what we would consider to be a… Read More
Australian stuff Bees on coke 2 Apr 2010 Isn’t this just the funniest fucking thing you’ve ever read?! Read More
Evolution Philosophy is to science, as ornithologists are to birds: 1. Introduction 4 Jun 200724 Nov 2022 This three-part series is a talk I gave a while back to some ecologists and molecular biologists. It is a brief overview of the aims and relationship between science and philosophy of science, with a special reference to the classification wars in systematics, and the interface of science and the… Read More
I had whooping cough when I was a kid, and I was old enough to remember what that was like. Pretty grim. But it was nothing compared to the measles, which very nearly killed me and permanently weakened my eyesight. There wasn’t an effective vaccine for these diseases then, so one simply had to try to survive. Just because some of these childhood illnesses sound quaint now, doesn’t mean they aren’t a real threat or can’t come back.
It’s very unfortunate that these nuts have gained so much traction in some parts of the world. It’s hard to imagine that one of the great advances in public health is under such assault, but a combination of quacks, crooked lawyers, and yes, a supposed scientist or two, has done some real harm. Jim Harrison makes a good point. All these people live in the post-vaccine world. Their ignorance of just how terrible and destructive these so-called “childhood” diseases can be is at least part of the problem, though as usual, the real enemy is psuedo-scientific and anti-scientific quackery.