Several years ago, at the beginning of 2016, on the Skeptics Guide to the Universe forums, there was a thread about driverless cars. All the skeptics were going on about how great it was going to be, how it will be here in two years, five years at the most, how we will overcome all the “small” problems by 2017, maybe 2019 at the latest, blah, blah. And at the time, I had told them, well, you may want to hold on a while, its not quite as easy as you think. And how was that met? By a barrage of insults, of you ridiculous troll, what do you know about anything, if you wouldn’t be so ignorant and just learn, can we just block this guy moderator, on and on it went… (typical skeptic fare).
That thread was viewed 117,000 times. There was exactly ONE person who was adamant that their time frames were wrong, that we still have a long way to go. And boy, they sure didn’t like that. Looking back now at the litany of nonsense the skeptics spewed kind of makes me laugh now. Its the same nonsense you see here at TSZ every day. Now, in 2020, some of the most ardent skeptic cheerleaders have reluctantly finally started to admit, ok, yea, you was right, it was a a lot harder than we all said.
That site is propagated by a whole host of computer programmers, professors, tech experts…and not ONE of them was even close in their predictions. And me, oh I am just a dumb rice farmer, what do I know.
Well, I knew one thing, that’s for sure. And that is, that when someone calls themselves a skeptic, and then starts preaching about all they know about the world, take that with the largest grain of salt you can find. Skeptics are a cult. They don’t think for themselves, they team up with some club narrative, and go around chanting, we are skeptics, rah, rah, close your mind and believe. Its pervasive. It spreads to academia, and to the church leaders like Degrasse Tyson, Shermer, Krauss, Coyne, the Novellas, and out it goes. Rarely do we get the chance to see just how closed minded and simply wrong these preachers are, because they will never admit it. But the driverless cars in five years evangelists, its one easy example where you can see how nutty their group-think is. And how empty their cult actually is of dissenting voices that actually think.
I guess the main reason is that, if a person is actually curious and actually free thinking about the world, they would never, in a million years, label themselves a “skeptic.”
PeterP,
Here is what the label says under adverse reactions. Good luck:
phoodoo,
But give it to your child, because its safe!
……..but I usually read the label/insert provided with the vaccine or medication for whatever particular information you are interested in.
or the entire sentence for context:
Yes, it is safe for example”
Can you venture a guess or provide the actual statistics for adverse outcomes in 1.5 million children and adults contracting wild-type measles? Then add rubella. Then add mumps. How does that compare with adverse events from the vaccine?
phoodoo I’ll give you a starting tidbit:
measles results in death in 2 of 1000 infections. In 1.5 million cases of children and adults contracting measles you would expect 3000 deaths. How does that compare to the death rate due to MMR vaccine administration?
phoodoo, is blindness a adverse side effect of MMR vaccination? Do you know what the frequency of blindness is in children who contract measles? Hint: it isn’t zero.
PeterP,
Thanks, but I won’t be relying on your safety analysis anytime soon. I also wouldn’t use the results from a narrow set of factors, involving only people in Finland, to conclude that using vaccines is always the best option.
But thanks for your uneducated opinion. Sort of not what I was asking.
What would you use? Or more to the pointis what info source do you use?
You asked for a website with vaccine info. Moving the goalposts? Of course!
This number is also wrong, where are you getting these figures?
Furthermore, virtually ALL of those deaths are in countries that are third world, with very poor health care. In America, almost no one who gets the measles dies.
What results do you use to inform your opinion/decision? any specific country? Multiple countries? Where do you gather your information?
Try rereading.
try to respond to the data
For me, the question is always whether the rate and severity of symptoms directly resulting from the vaccine are worse than if no vaccine existed for the condition. If hypothetically you’d get 500 deaths per million without any vaccine, and 5 deaths using the vaccine, this is a good cost benefit ratio, despite no vaccine being absolutely safe.
I remember reading some anti-vaxxer claim that the Salk vaccine has a poor ratio. The statistics were that 10 people had died of polio, and six of them (the majority) had had the vaccine. The conclusion was that you were more likely to die from polio if you got the vaccine than if you didn’t. Needless to say, no mention was made of the 30,000+ worldwide deaths from polio before the vaccine was widely administered.
From my reading, it’s very difficult to determine the effectiveness of vaccines in third world nations, because those vaccines are provided only under Democratic administrations, and withheld when Republicans are in charge (because these poor countries don’t outlaw abortions). So vaccinations are spotty and results can be ambiguous.
Looks like phoodoo is afraid to explain where he gets his better data about vaccines.
Hey, phoodoo, remind me how you know the FBI uses psychics? Is it the same way that you know the ‘best option’ and when to use it?
The CDC notes that there were 400 to 500 deaths a year in America prior to the measles vaccine in 1963.
Or perhaps you meant in America, if you are not poor and can afford actual healthcare, almost no one who gets the measles dies.
I’m sure it’s what Jesus would have wanted. It’s not like this information about death rates prior to vaccines is secret. You could find it out for yourself. I won’t link it as you have a problem with everybody’s sources except your super-secret sources that let you and the other anti-vaxxers feel special with your knowledge that nobody else has.
I’ve changed my mind. Improvements in global medicine and hygiene have contributed significantly to unrestrained population growth. Let us reverse this trend, by encouraging anything that increases mortality! Go, anti-vaxxers! Also, more guns.
No, that number is correct for the statistically anticipated number of deaths due to 15 million cases of measles in the USA. If you beleive they are incorrect feel free to link to the ‘correct’ number derived from your secret sources.
If you wish to look at the anticipated number of deaths as a result of measles in third world countries then 1.5 million measles cases would result in 150,000 deaths. FAr higher than the USA.
Sure if you consider 2 deaths for every 1000 measles cases to be almost no one. What is the death rate from the measles vaccine adverse side effects again? What does your source say is the ‘correct’ statistic to apply in these cases, phoodoo?
Natural selection with some help? 😉
I hope we never get to the point where people will be forced to take flu shots, or else…
But other, well proven and necessary vaccines, that have been around for a long time, should probably be given, one at a time to toddlers, but especially boys, just in case science is not 100% certain yet…
What is a necessary vaccine?
Why one at a time?
How many pathogens is a toddler with a mouthful of dirt exposed too in that instant? More than one?
HPV vs polio, for example
No simple answer exists… There maybe a connection between the vaccination overload (too many vaccines) and an autoimmune response leading to some brain developmental issues especially in boys…
No conclusive evidence exist, for now…
The more the better, world leading microbiologists claims… 😉
Preventing polio is necessary but preventing cervical, and other, cancer is not necessary. How does that work, i.e., why the distinction between the two?
What you meant to say is that no rational answer exists. You’d have to ignore pretty much all of immunology to think that a few vaccines taxes the immune system.
then again maybe not….correct? Have any citations to support your allegations?
True! there is no evidence that supports linking vaccines to autism.
Name some names!
jmac is the HPV versus polio vaccine your sole example of a necessary versus unecesarry vaccine?
What is the actual scientific evidence that vaccination overload is a real thing?
This WHO page notes:
It seems J-Mac must know something they do not.
It seems to me that by promulgating the idea that “vaccination overload” exists you discourage some people from getting them at all.
So, J-Mac, unless you want to be a purveyor of lies, could you link to the evidence?
Have you ever heard of prevention? No, eh? 😉 It has less undesirable side-effects but it doesn’t feel as goooood… 😉
No yet… If there is, you, and people like you, will never know 🙁
It’s easy for you but if you had watched your kid turn into a mute within a few weeks of vaccination, you’d think twice, perhaps…
Even if there were, this would neither change anything, nor you…
There is no paper, if that’s what you are looking for to my best recollection but I will check my email … A conference few years back…A Swiss microbiologist says . the West is too sterile therefore allergies, low immunity etc… When he was a kid, he ate carrots strait from his grandmother’s garden without washing…
Today, veggies have to be treated with some antibacterial stuff before they can be shipped to his store… Something like that…
So, I wasted all this time for an uninformed idiot?
There is just no way we can keep you on … 😉
OMagain,
Another one…Looks like agripa will make his reappearance soon… The Alzhe Club…
God help us! 😉
Uninformed? Hardly. but it is easy to see that the HPV versus polio is the sole member of your list of necessary versus unecessary vaccines.
sure like in vaccine preventable diseases!
Are you advocating the cessation, or prevention, of sex between humans, young, old, and middle age? Seems like an untenable idea to me. How are you proposing to implement such a policy? Seems easier and much more efficacious to adminsiter a vaccine which would prevent nearly ALL cervical cancer as well as other associated cancers.
Likely symptoms were already present prior to vaccination.
Sure follow the evidence where it leads and do not make unsupported claims or base
positions supported soley by ‘the evidence doesn’t exist yet’. That seems like a stupid idea but I always consider the source.
The hygeine hypothesis has been around for a long time. Typically it is associated with the increased cases of paraylitic polio in the 1950’s.
Presumably you and your wife were both virgins when you met? Presumably you also believe that your children will also be when they eventually wed.
Or is it that the effects are mainly suffered by women so it does not matter to you so much?
Or perhaps it is that it is seen by you as just punishment for sex outside marriage?
Do tell. As right now it seems to me you would prefer your children had cancer then enjoy sex outside marriage. Given that approximately 3-5% of Americans who ever marry are virgins at the time of their first marriage that seems the most likely outcome, as presumably you wont’ be getting your children the HPV vaccine.
What will you tell your daughter when she asks you why she did not get it and that it could have prevented her cancer?
Facts don’t matter. Check.
Or if one of his sons infect his wife, who might or might not be a virgin prior to marriage, and the end result is cervical cancer. Males are not exempt from HPV related cancer.
It certainly isn’t a case of following the evidence where it leads. Appears more of a case of following not yet existing evidence to where ‘I’ (jmac) wish it would lead.
One prime example of this skeptic mindset I recently saw online, is from Robert Sapolsky, a Stanford neuro-endocrinologist. I started listening to one of his lectures online, about the limbic system or something, and only a few minutes into one of his lectures, I could already recognize the tell-tale skeptic/atheist talking points.
So I looked up more on him, and of course there is was, the biologist here to tell us all about his take on God and religion, because, why not, he is a clan member after all, of course this is what an endocrinology professor is going to be spending most of his time preaching about. Welcome to academia folks. he even got a glowing mention from Jerry Coyne, praising him for his Freedom From Religion Foundation award, whoppeee. Separation of church and state only goes one way in the worlds of Jerry Coyne and all.
Biologists sure hate it when religious scholars talk about religion, but they pretty much love it when biologists talk about religion. Self-appointed experts. I am sure he must have a speech all about global warming out there somewhere, or about Lee Harvey Oswald.
Maybe vaccines.
Suppose you don’t know that having more than one partner puts you at risk of cervical cancer…
Suppose you live few thousand years ago…
Suppose someone tells you those facts long, long time ago…
Exodus 20:14
“You shall not commit adultery”.
1 Thessalonians 4:3-5
“For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God….”
How could someone know those facts few thousand years ago, what scientists discovered to be the facts just recently?
If you are from the The Alzhe Club, or worse, I don’t want to be told what to do club, no matter what the facts or truth club, than you need prevention of your choice with the side-effects and poor effectiveness criticized by experts…
Effectiveness of HPV Vaccination Heralded Despite Criticism of Studies
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/924113
This is the beauty of choice… 😉
your poor kids.
Next up, on the infinite list of hot air skeptics, Brian Greene.
You know the mathematician, and string theorist, who is going to tell us all about biology, and how consciousness emerges, and anything he has not training in.
Religion, of course, another New Atheist, just listen to him talk about anything over 1.2 minutes.
The list of people phoodoo dislikes – The Thread.