Governor Shumlin (reluctantly) signs legislation to remove philosophical or “personal belief” exemptions from vaccination law.

A 2012 version had allowed parents to claim a philosophical or so-called “personal belief” exemption for their children but required the parents to review “educational materials” before claiming it.  There was no way to enforce the educational mandate. There is no doubt that strategy did not work: areas of the state remain below 80% immunization rates necessary to protect the vulnerable population, those with compromised immune systems or too young to be vaccinated.  Meanwhile the rate of philosophical exemptions filed by parents of kindergartners climbed from 5.1% to 5.9% in 2014, and dense pockets of vaccine non-compliance in some communities provide the ideal environment for an epidemic to take hold.

Vermont was one of the three worst states for cases of whooping cough.  The record number of cases in 2012 should have been enough to get the 2012 bill turned around, but it wasn’t until the recent US outbreak of  measles that the Vermont legislature took a stand for public health.

It’s important to note that Vermont still retains a “religious” exemption from vaccination, as do 46 other states, and medical exemptions as do all 50 US states.    It doesn’t seem possible to predict parental response to vaccination requirements with regards to “personal” versus “religous” exemptions, but the data are certainly clear that allowing only medical exemptions gets vaccination rates up to 99.7%.

It’s nice not having measles in Mississippi.  Now, maybe it can be nice not having measles in Vermont, either.

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…How to have a conversation, (comments open).

I see out good friend whose real name shall not be used despite he himself perpetually linking to it on his website, KirosFocus, has written another copypasta filled FYI / FTR:

http://www.uncommondescent.com/atheism/fyi-ftr-part-6-what-about-howtwerdun-and-whodunit-the-id-case-has-no-hypothesis-about-what-the-designer-was-trying-to-do-how-she-was-doing-it-what-her-capacities-were-etc/

Look, KF, You’re clearly reading TSZ and would like to participate. You can have Admin privileges and start threads. The only thing you can’t do it edit, moderate them or delete them for reasons other than listed in the site. (It is better if moderators don’t moderate their own threads, IMHO).

It is my opinion that your FYI / FTR posts are a bad idea. Here’s why:

• By not allowing criticism to be directly attached to them you are not proceeding in the most intellectually honest way.
• You keep relinking to them so criticisms have to be redrafted after every ‘reboot’
• You post on a blog that censors, edits and even DISSAPEARS whole commenters.
• No rationale or many times even acknowledgement is given by the moderators.
• The above are hallmarks of dogma, not honest inquiry.

If your ideas are good, they’ll hold up under scrutiny. Exposing them to pointed criticism may help you refine them. A quick check shows non constitutional crises in a certain island that shall not be named, so it’s a great time to take the plunge, with a hearty “BYDAND!”

[title truncated by Lizzie]

A few years ago, there was an article in New Scientist by Dan Jones,entitled, Grand delusions: Why we’re determined to be free.  It began:

IT IS the year 2500. Physicists have long had a Grand Unified Theory of Everything and neuroscientists now know precisely how the hardware of the brain runs the software of the mind and dictates behaviour. Lately, reports have begun to emerge that computer engineers at the Institute for Advanced Behavioural Prediction have built a quantum supercomputer that draws on these advances to predict the future, including what people will do and when. Trusted sources say that IABP researchers have secretly run thousands of predictions about citizens’ behaviour – and they have never been wrong.

Suddenly, deep philosophical questions are making headlines as commentators sound the death knell for free will. On the face of it, the consequences of proving all our actions are predetermined look bleak. Psychological experiments have shown that undermining people’s sense of free will leads them to behave more dishonestly, more selfishly and more aggressively. But perhaps there is no need to panic. Some philosophers have found that our sense of free will is less threatened by determinism than the commentators suppose – so even faced with incontrovertible evidence that behaviour is predetermined, we still see ourselves as free and responsible for our own actions. Nothing will change.

Who is correct? Will the public buy this reassuring message? Or will the manifest truth of determinism kill off belief in free will, taking down notions of moral culpability and punishment with it? Will nihilism, moral disintegration and anarchy follow?

I composed a response, which I ended up not sending, but sent to Daniel Dennett instead, from whom I received a very nice reply, in which he attached a relevant article he’d recently written, Some Observations on the Psychology of Thinking About Free Will.  Here is the draft of my own response to New Scientist:

Continue reading →

…- A Sign of Unintelligent Design

In a recent thread here at TSZ William J. Murray brought up the subject of semiosis, to which Allan Miller responded:

Allan Miller: Nice to see WJM has absorbed UB’s ‘semiotic’ nomenclature though. Published nowhere, of course…

Continue reading →

Let’s try this again.

In a recent post here at TSZ Elizabeth Liddle made the following statement:

What undermines the “case for design” chiefly, is that there isn’t a case for a designer.

HERE

Odd, I thought. Surely she knows better. All that time spent over at UD and never a case for a designer? Is this claim believable? I thought not.

Continue reading →

In a recent post here at TSZ Elizabeth Liddle made the following statement:

What undermines the “case for design” chiefly, is that there isn’t a case for a designer.

Odd, I thought. Surely she knows better. All that time spent over at UD and never a case for a designer?

This was later followed by yet another comment from Elizabeth:

I haven’t really taken to the “atheist” label, much although I don’t reject it – but it [the atheist label] implies that my non-belief in god or gods is something categorically different from my non-belief in unicorns or toothfairies, or in the proverbial orbiting teapot.

It’s not, of course, Elizabeth would say. But it is categorically different. For example, no one believes orbiting teapots design anything, and an orbiting teapot would be an instance of design, not an instance of a designer.

As this has now become a topic of discussion in the original thread I think it deserves it’s own thread. Well, not just that, I also think Elizabeth is being dishonest [EDIT: but not deliberately misleading: dishonest, defn. not worthy of trust or belief].

Continue reading →

…Church Was On the Wrong Side, As Usual

http://www.theguardian.com/global/live/2015/may/23/counting-underway-for-irelands-referendum-on-marriage-equality

Ireland becomes first country to legalise same-sex marriage by popular vote

[title shortened by Lizzie]

A little fun, where you can unleash you inner crank / woomeister. Do you think there is anything we’ll discover in the future that will radically change things? Examples include but not limited to:

Life on Mars, Signals from ET, FTL travel,  PSI phenomena, Limitless energy, Immortality, Message from God, Real AI, Crashed UFO, Atlantis, Decent country music,  etc.

Have some fun with this. No-one is judging*

*Probably not true.

to recent discussions here at TSZ:

---

Physics says: go to sleep. Of course
you’re tired. Every atom in you
has been dancing the shimmy in silver shoes
nonstop from mitosis to now.
Quit tapping your feet. They’ll dance
inside themselves without you. Go to sleep.

Geology says: it will be all right. Slow inch
by inch America is giving itself
to the ocean. Go to sleep. Let darkness
lap at your sides. Give darkness an inch.
You aren’t alone. All of the continents used to be
one body. You aren’t alone. Go to sleep.

Astronomy says: the sun will rise tomorrow,
Zoology says: on rainbow-fish and lithe gazelle,
Psychology says: but first it has to be night, so
Biology says: the body-clocks are stopped all over town
and
History says: here are the blankets, layer on layer, down and down.