Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
“Bullying” over vaccines?
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2013/11/01/bullying-over-vaccines/There’s been a post over at the antivaccine crank blog Age of Autism that I had meant to address when it first broke its head through the surface of the stupid to spew more stupid. Fortunately, nothing much was going on in the blogosphere that compelled me; so this was a good time to revisit the post and take care of some unfinished business, particularly given that there have been followup posts since then. It also goes to show how antivaccine cranks like to misuse language, sometimes unintentionally (which is probably the case here) and sometimes intentionally (too many examples over the years to list). For example there’s the word bully, and I will say right here and right now to the the woman who wrote the post, Cathy Jameson: “Bully.” You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
The post I’m revisiting is entitled, amusingly enough, Things to Know or Do When You’re Up Against a Vaccine Bully. It should really be called “When up against someone who knows what he’s talking about regarding vaccines, stay calm and baffle him with BS.” You’ll see what I mean in a minute, but first, let me just state my annoyance again at the antivaccine movement for trying to co-opt October, which has been Breast Cancer Awareness Month for over a quarter century, as Vaccine Injury Awareness Month. Jameson starts out with this canard right in the first sentence, also pointing out that it is National Bully Prevention Month. Naturally, she can’t resist trying to put the two together, much as an antivaccinationist tries to put two neurons together arguing science. Like that antivaccinationist, she fails, and fails miserably. However, there are amusement and, perhaps, education in her failure.
First, she whines about headlines about vaccines that she doesn’t like:
My head spins when I see headlines like those above. But, to the average reader, they may truly not know why some of the content of those stories are absolutely ridiculous. The reader may not be aware of the many risks of vaccinating or realize how much money goes into this industry. This happens when mainstream news refuses to offer both sides of the vaccine story.
Jameson amuses me here. When I started paying attention to the antivaccine movement about a decade ago, one of the things that drove me crazy, as it still does for many forms of pseudoscience, was the false balance in many news reports. In any story about vaccines, or so it seemed, every journalist seemed to feel obligated to interview antivaccinationists like Andrew Wakefield, Jenny McCarthy, or J. B. Handley antivaccine propagandists like David Kirby or Dan Olmsted; or local vaccine-averse parents. This was done in the name of “balance,” of “telling both sides.” Indeed, one of the key messages that I’ve been hammering home here again and again and again is that science is not politics. It is not a popularity contest. In science there are questions where there really are not two sides to an issue. The issue of whether or not vaccines contribute to the development of autism is one of these issues; a mountain of science and clinical studies has failed to find a link between vaccines and autism. Although science can never say never with the absolute religion-like certainty that antivaccinationists demand, it can tell us that the odds that there is a biological link between vaccines and autism is infinitesimally small. For that reason, in stories about vaccines, there is no need to bring out a crank antivaccinationist (but I repeat myself) for “balance,” because there really is only one side to the story.
I think Dara O’Briain puts it best when he talks about homeopaths:
The post I’m revisiting is entitled, amusingly enough, Things to Know or Do When You’re Up Against a Vaccine Bully. It should really be called “When up against someone who knows what he’s talking about regarding vaccines, stay calm and baffle him with BS.” You’ll see what I mean in a minute, but first, let me just state my annoyance again at the antivaccine movement for trying to co-opt October, which has been Breast Cancer Awareness Month for over a quarter century, as Vaccine Injury Awareness Month. Jameson starts out with this canard right in the first sentence, also pointing out that it is National Bully Prevention Month. Naturally, she can’t resist trying to put the two together, much as an antivaccinationist tries to put two neurons together arguing science. Like that antivaccinationist, she fails, and fails miserably. However, there are amusement and, perhaps, education in her failure.
First, she whines about headlines about vaccines that she doesn’t like:
My head spins when I see headlines like those above. But, to the average reader, they may truly not know why some of the content of those stories are absolutely ridiculous. The reader may not be aware of the many risks of vaccinating or realize how much money goes into this industry. This happens when mainstream news refuses to offer both sides of the vaccine story.
Jameson amuses me here. When I started paying attention to the antivaccine movement about a decade ago, one of the things that drove me crazy, as it still does for many forms of pseudoscience, was the false balance in many news reports. In any story about vaccines, or so it seemed, every journalist seemed to feel obligated to interview antivaccinationists like Andrew Wakefield, Jenny McCarthy, or J. B. Handley antivaccine propagandists like David Kirby or Dan Olmsted; or local vaccine-averse parents. This was done in the name of “balance,” of “telling both sides.” Indeed, one of the key messages that I’ve been hammering home here again and again and again is that science is not politics. It is not a popularity contest. In science there are questions where there really are not two sides to an issue. The issue of whether or not vaccines contribute to the development of autism is one of these issues; a mountain of science and clinical studies has failed to find a link between vaccines and autism. Although science can never say never with the absolute religion-like certainty that antivaccinationists demand, it can tell us that the odds that there is a biological link between vaccines and autism is infinitesimally small. For that reason, in stories about vaccines, there is no need to bring out a crank antivaccinationist (but I repeat myself) for “balance,” because there really is only one side to the story.
I think Dara O’Briain puts it best when he talks about homeopaths:
Another home run from Gorski, and the Dara O'Brien video is fucking brilliant.
Sid
2 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
