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 Begging questions about philosophy, science and everything else 1 Sep 20121 Sep 2012 Those who know me well take great care not to say (at least when I am in earshot) “That begs the question…” and mean by that “That raises the question…”, or else they will get a dissertation delivered for a period on the right use of that phrase. That’s right, folks,… Read More
General Science Rodney Stark’s idiotic history 6 Sep 200818 Sep 2017 Thony Christie, a regular commenter on this blog, is also a historian of science, and he sent the following guest post that I thought well worth publishing. Commentator “Adam” asked John’s opinion on a book he is reading, The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western… Read More
Australian stuff Australian scientists resign from Murray-Darling Water commission due to a lack of heed 21 May 2011 I don’t usually post these announcements, but GetUp are reliable and on target. Today it was revealed that key scientists have walked away from the government’s Murray Darling Basin Authority process in protest. Right now the Murray Darling Basin Authority is in the final stages of recommending how to deal… 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.