Hi, I just started listening to your podcast and I’m really enjoying it. I noticed one of the things you discuss often is the anti-vaccination movement, and I’m grateful for that because I was able to use the information you guys were talking about to combat some stupidity. I’m a senior in high school and my health teacher is kind of nuts. She was talking about how it’s bad to eat fish when pregnant because of the mercury levels, but then decided to go off about how vaccines cause autism because of the mercury in them. I raised my hand and told her that the levels of mercury in vaccines were lower than in fish comparatively. She waffled a bit and said something about how some studies show different things and whatever. She then went on to talk about how she doesn’t want to vaccinate her kid and that the doctors just want to shove like 100 vaccines in her and get a kick back. I raised my hand again and told her that that’s not really a good idea because diseases like mumps are coming back because people aren’t vaccinating their kids. She misunderstood me I guess and then said something about how it is good to vaccinate in third world countries because of that and I said no, there have been outbreaks of mumps recently in the united states because some dumbasses decided not to vaccinate their stupid kids. She backtracked and said something about how it was good that I was playing the devil’s advocate, pretending like I was agreeing with her or something and completely ignored what I said. She then went on a rant about how corrupt the medical industry is and how doctors are just giving you pills to make money and the pills don’t really work and it’s all just the placebo effect, and then decided to talk about how awesome homeopathy is. I was so angry by then I was afraid if I opened my mouth an unintelligible stream of curses would just spew out. It just makes me so angry that someone like her is not only teaching, but teaching health of all things. She should not be telling people such bullshit, especially when she’s in such a powerful and influential position. She also earlier said some bullshit about how HIV could possibly not be real or something crazy because they’ve never seen the virus under a microscope and the symptoms are just other diseases. Is this like a new crazy thing that I’ve never heard of? She also loves chiropractors. Ugh.
I just really really really appreciate you guys and the sense that you guys make and in assuring me that there are sensible people out there in the world. Your rationality makes me feel warm and fuzzy on the inside and makes me not want to rip my hair out.
This is, unfortunately, not an isolated example. I frequently receive similar e-mails.
Dr. Jay Gordon is a pediatrician to a particular subculture of pseudoscientific celebrities, such as Jenny McCarthy. He lends his MD cred to this community. He also appears, in my opinion, to be a shameless self-promoter – one of those pop professionals (Dr. Oz, Dr. Phil) who has sold his soul for some easy celebrity.
Regardless of his motivations, he has been spouting arrogant nonsense about vaccines for years, essentially arguing that his clinical gut feeling and anecdotal experience trump the actual science. This is exactly the wrong approach to science-based medicine.
In a recent open letter on his website, he adds to the anti-vax chorus advising not to get the H1N1 (swine flu) vaccine. It’s almost as if this crowd wants to maximize the morbidity and suffering from this somewhat preventable disease. I know this is not literally true, but their ideologically motivated and confused actions will have the same effect.
Last week two Georgia boys, Matt Whitton and Rick Dyer, announced to the world that they had found the dead body of a bigfoot and had it in their freezer. They also said that they found the body at an undisclosed location where they also saw several other bigfeet scurrying off into the woos.
They promised a press conference where they would show their evidence. Skeptics responded with an appropriate level of skepticism – predicting that the press conference would yield no actual evidence as this was all an obvious hoax. Believers, like Cryptomundo, were breathless, declaring, “It certainly looks like the real deal.”
Last Friday they held their press conference and told the world about the evidence that they will provide in the future, but they did not present a body, compelling photographs, scientists who have examined the body or DNA evidence – nothing.
I am not referring to the excellent Showtime series by Penn & Teller – but rather to the very concept of BS. It turns out it is actually a useful concept for science and skepticism. Andy Lewis, who writes the Quackometer blog,recently wrote about the concept of BSas it applies to “alternative medicine”, specifically homeopathy. I liked it and thought the concept can be more generally applicable.
As skeptics we are often confronted with the false dichotomy question of whether or not a certain purveyor of nonsense or woo is self-deluded or a con-artist. My usual response is that for most people they are somewhere along that spectrum, and probably incorporate aspects of both. Since we can’t read minds, we can only guess or infer what a person’s true intentions are. I usually abstain from such speculation – except in cases where the behavior of the pseudoscientist requires conscious fraud. Psychic surgery is a good example. There is no self-deception involved in palming chicken innards and then pretending to psychically remove them from a person who desperately sought your help for their cancer.
Logic…….evidence …….and methodology…….Logic ….rifts and spreads LOOK LIKE pulled apart land under the ocean (flat plate ….precipitus drop….flat wide bottom to the other side ….Precipitus rise to a flat plane.) There were shallow seas on the land, and no EVIDENCE of the existence of deep oceans anywhere on Earth. Then ancient rifting and spreading happened in the shallow seas. When the shallow seas drained into the new deep oceans it left the “skeleton” of the ancient shallow seas,…..the shallow rifts and spreads,….and this is exactly what you see.
That’s what these landforms are, by simple process of elimination. You don’t observe spreading that stopped 100 million years ago, Steven. How else does one explain these landforms. There is no other explanation. “The evidence” is EVERYWHERE.
Steven. In every monkey, chimp or ape EVERY SINGLE BONE AND MUSCLE AND LIGAMENT matches human anatomy 100%. Nobody noticed this before Darwin???? Sure they noticed!………did they make the connection?
You would have said, “But, scientists would have noticed.” Then you would say “Scientists are smarter now.”
If nobody SAYS it, the random “Oh, isn’t that interesting” doesn’t become, “MY God, that must mean…” Don’t ask me why this is.
This is the third part of a point-counterpoint debate between Neal Adams and the author.
Neal Adams responds:
Regarding Einstein:
Thank you, You’ve made my point perfectly. This is exactly what I’m doing, point for point.
Steve wrote: “Also, Darwin’s Origin of the Species is not just the presentation of an idea, most of the book is a painstakingly detailed presentation of evidence.”
The NeuroLogicaBlog covers news and issues in neuroscience, but also general science, scientific skepticism, philosophy of science, critical thinking, and the intersection of science with the media and society.
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Below is an e-mail exchange I had recently with someone who takes offense that we are not more skeptical of the official version of what happened on 9/11. Their letters to me are in italics, and mine follow. It is a fairly good representation of the typical thought processes employed by the conspiracy theorists.
Hi,
I find your podcasts really interesting and it’s interesting to hear the “rational” minded folks too. However I was disappointed with your podcast #89 where you trash everything that is not right off what the mainstream-media is telling you.
While you bash these “celebrities” who speak out for 9/11 investigation, you don’t notice that obviously you didn’t research history really. It’s a proven fact that governments have used false-flag operations to get their thing through. Hitler did it with the reichstags-fire and blamed it on “communist-terrorists” and then used it as a pretext to implement the enabling-act (which is basically the patriot-act that Bush-Nazi then created with the 9/11 event) and invaded Poland (where Bush then tried to associate 9/11 with Saddam Hussein and Iraq, WMD’s).
Dr. Novella is an academic clinical neurologist at Yale University School of Medicine. He is the president and co-founder of the ![[del.icio.us]](http://images.del.icio.us/static/img/delicious.small.gif){kind=small}
