I agree, anti-vaxxers aren't stupid. They're by and large successful, well-educated, concerned parents. They're not negligent, and accusations that they are only offend them and harden their opposition.
This article falls short, however, because we must recognize that on the Internet, many "experts" and even people with medical degrees have an ax to grind against established medicine, and they use the vaccine "debate" as a plowshare to sow seeds of distrust of peer-reviewed medical science in general among these smart, concerned parents. These "natural medicine" proponents cultivate that doubt with junk science and flat-out wrong interpretations of cherry-picked scientific studies. (I know, I've taken the time, unlike most readers, to follow some of their citations of studies that don't support the conclusions they say they do).
Yet when scientific studies contradict natural medicine, the natural medicine proponents say we can't trust it because it's corrupt and "paid for" by Pharma. See, they get to have it both ways.
(Once I responded to a group of anti-vaxxers on Facebook and their leader challenged me to read an FDA label, any label, for all the adverse events that happened during testing, which the FDA requires to be listed, by law. That was the "expert's" aha moment. So I did. And when I pointed out that the FDA nevertheless approved this drug as safe and effective, the expert just said the FDA is corrupted. Having it both ways: case and point.)
The problem isn't that anti-vaxxers are dumb. They're smart. They think they're so smart that their fears and "common sense" can overcome peer-reviewed science; and there is a whole community of anti-science "experts" assuring them they are smart to reject established science.
I will say the natural medicine movement probably does have a lot to teach us about nutrition and preventive medicine (where established medical practice in the U.S. falls way short, due to a lack of attention to it); however, their claims that herbs, food, lifestyle choices, etc. can CURE any illness or PREVENT all infectious disease is unproven and therefore dangerous.
Proponents of natural medicine should find ways to test their hypotheses and publish their results, so that other scientists can attempt to replicate their results. They should rely on the scientific method, not argue that science is one big conspiracy.
Anti-Vaxxers Aren't Stupid
By Emma Green
February 16, 2016 | The Atlantic
URL: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/02/anti-vaxxers-arent-stupid/462864/
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Sunday, July 6, 2014
The universe is huge...So where is everybody?
When we stare up and ponder the starry nighttime sky, we can sometimes feel overwhelmed by the vastness of the cosmos, but in fact:
A really starry sky seems vast—but all we’re looking at is our very local neighborhood. On the very best nights, we can see up to about 2,500 stars (roughly one hundred-millionth of the stars in our galaxy), and almost all of them are less than 1,000 light years away from us (or 1% of the diameter of the Milky Way). So what we’re really looking at is this:
That's pretty humbling. But it gets worse:
As many stars as there are in our galaxy (100 – 400 billion), there are roughly an equal number of galaxies in the observable universe—so for every star in the colossal Milky Way, there’s a whole galaxy out there. All together, that comes out to the typically quoted range of between 10^22 and 10^24 total stars, which means that for every grain of sand on Earth, there are 10,000 stars out there.The science world isn’t in total agreement about what percentage of those stars are “sun-like” (similar in size, temperature, and luminosity)—opinions typically range from 5% to 20%. Going with the most conservative side of that (5%), and the lower end for the number of total stars (10^22), gives us 500 quintillion, or 500 billion billion sun-like stars.There’s also a debate over what percentage of those sun-like stars might be orbited by an Earth-like planet (one with similar temperature conditions that could have liquid water and potentially support life similar to that on Earth). Some say it’s as high as 50%, but let’s go with the more conservative 22% that came out of a recent PNAS study. That suggests that there’s a potentially-habitable Earth-like planet orbiting at least 1% of the total stars in the universe—a total of 100 billion billion Earth-like planets.So there are 100 Earth-like planets for every grain of sand in the world. Think about that next time you’re on the beach.Moving forward, we have no choice but to get completely speculative. Let’s imagine that after billions of years in existence, 1% of Earth-like planets develop life (if that’s true, every grain of sand would represent one planet with life on it). And imagine that on 1% of those planets, the life advances to an intelligent level like it did here on Earth. That would mean there were 10 quadrillion, or 10 million billion intelligent civilizations in the observable universe.Moving back to just our galaxy, and doing the same math on the lowest estimate for stars in the Milky Way (100 billion), we’d estimate that there are 1 billion Earth-like planets and 100,000 intelligent civilizations in our galaxy.
So where are they all, and why haven't we seen them, their self-replicating robot probes, or heard their radio signals? Scientists have several competing theories to explain why that are darn interesting, and a few -- frankly frightening. Scientists wonder: Does our lack of contact with other intelligent species portend humanity's eventual doom? Or have we humans already passed "The Great Filter" of universal species extinction?
Pretty heady stuff, and not at all fantastical. Read on!....
July 5, 2014 | Wait But Why
Friday, May 30, 2014
You have no business challenging scientists
For my conservative friends who fancy themselves level-11 paladins at Googling self-affirming summaries or excerpts of somebody's scientific articles, this article will dismay and disappoint. That's the point [emphasis mine]:
Read all the online stuff you want, Collins argues—or even read the professional scientific literature from the perspective of an outsider or amateur. You'll absorb a lot of information, but you'll still never have what he terms "interactional expertise," which is the sort of expertise developed by getting to know a community of scientists intimately, and getting a feeling for what they think."If you get your information only from the journals, you can't tell whether a paper is being taken seriously by the scientific community or not," says Collins. "You cannot get a good picture of what is going on in science from the literature," he continues. And of course, biased and ideological internet commentaries on that literature are more dangerous still.
That's why we can't listen to climate change skeptics or creationists. It's why vaccine deniers don't have a leg to stand on.
So you and I can't debate scientific research because we're not scientific experts, we're not part of the scientific community. We can only acknowledge or ignore the scientific consensus. But that's not a real debate; it's recognition vs. denial.
If you feel left out then, well, tough. That's the choice you (or your parents) made when you decided to study business or psychology instead of a higher education in a hard science. You're also left out of the NFL, NASA and a lot of other closed groups that influence your life. Deal with it. Maybe in some other group or hierarchy you're a big deal, just not in this group.
The good news is twofold. First, these guys really care about what they do; there is intense international competition and human rivalry; yes, corporations do have their say in it all; and somehow, little by little and through intense collaboration (not through "eureka" moments) scientific knowledge is advanced all the time. Indirectly, we all reap the rewards of their collective efforts.
Second, the policy debate belongs to us: we must decide what to do about the reality of man-made climate change, for example. Certainly we should consult with scientists, economists and other experts, but ultimately what we do about it is ours, a political decision.
Second, the policy debate belongs to us: we must decide what to do about the reality of man-made climate change, for example. Certainly we should consult with scientists, economists and other experts, but ultimately what we do about it is ours, a political decision.
I for one tip my hat to these scientists and don't imagine that I can tell them their business. As I've said before, if there were any justice in the world, we'd have statues dedicated to physicists instead of athletes in our cities....
By Chris Mooney
May 30, 2014 | Mother Jones
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
We cut science funding at our peril
Not good:
The US still leads in biomedical research spending, and output measured by research publications, but it has been declining for over a decade. Funding for the NIH is now down to 2000 levels, taking inflation into account. NIH funding was doubled under presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton; it should be doubled again.Worse, its budget has been slashed by another 10 per cent for the second half of this year under "sequestration", the US's austerity programme. And things are going to get worse. Sequestration will lead to an additional 9 per cent cut next year in overall government spending, and the non-profit Coalition for Health Funding reports that the House of Representatives is considering NIH cuts of a further 19 per cent, stopping work in progress and shutting down new ideas.Additional cuts will also strike the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the finger in the dyke against new pandemics – there is abad one fulminating right now in the Middle East. The CDC is in the process of cutting virtually all of its funding to schools of public health for research on epidemic preparation.
Thanks, Tea Parties!
By Andrew Feinberg
August 5, 2013 | New Scientist
Friday, March 15, 2013
Forget global environmental 'tipping point'
Never let it be said I'm some kind of eco-hack. I'm pro-science all the way, wherever that leads us. This does not mean that climate change isn't a threat -- it is -- it just demands a more nuanced, localized view of the problem. Making bold, broad claims that global events will not bear out will not help the environmentalists' cause. If environmentalists and conservationists subjugate themselves to good science then they can never be wrong. The good news is that good science is on their side, as long as they don't stray from it.
By Erle C. Ellis
March 11, 2013 | New Scientist
How much can our poor Earth take? We've already transformed most of the biosphere beyond anything our early ancestors could have imagined, clearing, ploughing, burning, building, damming, domesticating, driving to extinction, dousing with chemicals and even changing the climate. Surely at some point, the biosphere will simply collapse in the face of such a massive and unrelenting onslaught.
Or will it? This is a question that inspires intense debate among ecologists and global change scientists. Some say that we are heading rapidly for a global tipping point – a threshold beyond which the entire biosphere will shift into a new and mostly undesired state. Others, like me, are convinced that no theoretical or empirical evidence exists for such a claim, and that a widespread belief in the existence of such a point of no return threatens to push ecological science and its application in the wrong direction.
Let us examine the evidence. Ecologists have long been aware that tipping points exist in local and regional ecosystems. For example, when nutrients are added to a lake, its ecological properties tend to continue as before until the lake suddenly shifts to a new state. The water changes from clear to turbid; communities of plants, fish and other species change almost completely. Shifting the lake back into its previous state is possible, but requires massive efforts.
Among other examples of local and regional tipping points are the rapid collapse of coral reefs in the face of rising ocean acidity and the transformation of ecosystems by the extinction of a dominant species, or the introduction of a new one.
With such strong evidence of tipping points in regional ecosystems, why wouldn't we expect such tipping points to exist in the biosphere as a whole? Examine the mechanisms that produce tipping points, and the answer becomes clear.
Tipping points happen when the components of a system respond gradually to an external force until a level of change is reached at which the response becomes non-linear and synergistic. This amplifies the effect of the force and rapidly drives the system into a new state.
To respond in this way, systems must meet certain requirements. Either external forces are applied uniformly and each part of the system responds in the same way, or the system must be highly interconnected to allow synergistic responses to emerge. Or both.
Do these criteria apply to the biosphere as a whole? I think not. For planetary tipping points to exist, the forces of humanity would need to act uniformly across the planet, all ecosystems would need to respond to them in the same way, and the response would need to be transmitted rapidly across Earth's many ecosystems and continents.
Even the force of human-induced climate change, so evident across the planet, does not meet these requirements. For example, it warms and dries some regions while cooling and moistening others. Even if it did uniformly heat Earth's ecosystems, this would not produce a coherent global shift in ecology because local ecosystems respond so differently, often in opposing ways.
Finally, organisms and ecosystems in different biomes and on different continents are not strongly connected. Animals, plants and microorganisms are limited in their interactions by distance and barriers such as oceans and mountain ranges. Even with human-induced species invasions, there is no species capable of colonising all of Earth's biomes – not even the mighty cockroach.
So there is little chance of anthropogenic climate change leading to a global tipping point in the biosphere. When it comes to other changes, including land use, habitat fragmentation and extinction, the case for a global tipping point is even weaker.
How, then, does the biosphere as a whole respond to human pressures? To put it simply: every ecosystem changes in its own way. We are driving massive long-term changes in the ecology of our planet, one ecosystem, one community, one species at a time. The biosphere's response to human pressures is merely the sum of all of the changes.
Viewing things this way puts the emphasis back where it belongs: on understanding and managing ecosystems at the local and regional level.While we must continue to think and act globally, it is the local and regional levels that are the key for conservation and management.
To deny the likelihood of an impending global tipping point is not to deny that we are transforming the biosphere profoundly and permanently in ways that are likely to disgrace us in the eyes of future generations. Much of our planet's ecology can and will be lost unless we focus much greater effort on conserving and restoring it.
With this in mind, the concept of a global tipping point has major policy implications. It suggests that below some threshold nothing serious will happen, but after that all will be lost. Holding such a view risks breeding complacency on one side and hopelessness on the other. Both are misplaced: to lose even one species is more than we should accept lightly. The same holds for our local ecosystems. To conserve them is to conserve the biosphere.
The claim that the biosphere is approaching a global tipping point remains no more than a contested and untested hypothesis. As we strive towards more sustainable stewardship of our planet, we must think globally – but let us not lose track of problems on smaller scales. The fate of the entire biosphere depends on it.
Friday, February 22, 2013
Study: Top predators affect climate
It's called the Law of Unintended Consequences:
Trisha Atwood of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, studied the effect of removing predator fish from ponds and rivers in Canada and Costa Rica. Across a range of ecosystems, climates and predators, she found a consistent pattern: carbon dioxide emissions typically increased more than tenfold after the predators were removed."It looks like predators in many types of ecosystems – marine and terrestrial as well as freshwater – can play a very big role in global climate change," she told New Scientist.
When we start unbalancing the natural order, either out of ignorance or hubris, we can't always predict what will happen. Hence conservation is inherently a "safe bet" for humanity, it is for the good even if we can't predict exactly why.
By Fred Pearce
February 17, 2013 | New Scientist
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Artificial conflict between science and religion?
Gee, whaddya know? Only 11 percent of Americans belong to religions that reject evolution or the Big Bang.
So ask yourself: are you more anti-science than your own church? Relax. You don't need to be dumb to be faithful... although it probably helps.
By Max Tegmark
February 12, 2013 | Huffington Post
Saturday, February 9, 2013
Liberals against science are not liberals
Never let it be said that I am not Fair and Balanced!
[T]here is a disturbing and largely unreported trend among influential progressive activists who misinterpret, misrepresent and abuse science to advance their ideological and political agendas.
Well shame on them, too!
Like I always say, statistics and empiricism are what separate true liberals from conservatives, who use anecdotal evidence to bend reality to fit their ideology.
True liberals are comfortable living with temporary uncertainty, until study, data, dialogue and facts uncover the true answers. Conservatives cannot tolerate uncertainty for even a moment; they cannot assume the scientific frame of mind that accepts that what we believe today may be proven wrong tomorrow. Conservatives believe that if it is right today then it must be right forever and ever, amen. And they will suppress, bury or ignore any science that could shatter their ossified beliefs.
This is all to say that any liberal who is anti-science is not a true liberal, by definition.
By Alex Berezow and Hank Campbell
February 4, 2013 | New Scientist
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