The Other Worlds Shrine

Your place for discussion about RPGs, gaming, music, movies, anime, computers, sports, and any other stuff we care to talk about... 

  • Austim/Vaccinations ...or Not This Shit Again!

  • Somehow, we still tolerate each other. Eventually this will be the only forum left.
Somehow, we still tolerate each other. Eventually this will be the only forum left.
 #135628  by SineSwiper
 Sun Apr 26, 2009 10:10 pm
Jim Carrey Loves the Pro-Disease Movement

I used to think that it was a bad idea to put mercury in as a preservative for vaccinations, but after researching the science, I realized that claim was based on bad information. Now, I'm pretty astonished at the amount of bad science and straight up lying these guys are putting out.

 #135629  by Tessian
 Sun Apr 26, 2009 10:12 pm
I must have missed the debate... what's this about misconception with mercury in vaccinations?

 #135633  by SineSwiper
 Sun Apr 26, 2009 10:45 pm
Look up Thimerosal, or look at one of the top comments on that article.

 #135636  by Tessian
 Sun Apr 26, 2009 11:16 pm
That's... scary. The only reason I can see for fighting against vaccines like this with such wrong evidence would be too many wealthy parents with autistic kids looking for someone to blame.

 #135639  by Mental
 Sun Apr 26, 2009 11:26 pm
The problem is, Thimoseral and the mercury in it *might* actually have something to do with autism development in something like 0.001% of children it's used on. Maybe. Kind of. If you pick only the kids who actually got autism out of the sample supply and hold them up as "proof".

Parental fears, however, have a magnitude multiplier of around 96,000, last I checked.

Ignorance and populist rage is kind of "in" right now, sadly.
Last edited by Mental on Sun Apr 26, 2009 11:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

 #135641  by Mental
 Sun Apr 26, 2009 11:28 pm
Sine, Jenny McCarthy's son has autism. Kind of. Or did. Which is why Jim is up in arms about all this.

She claims to have "cured" her son of his autism with various health treatments, which kind of adds to the whole aura of witch-doctor-science about the whole thing.

 #135647  by Kupek
 Mon Apr 27, 2009 12:44 am
This whole clusterfuck makes me incoherently angry because it is obvious that these people, and the media covering them, don't have a real understanding of science.

 #135652  by SineSwiper
 Mon Apr 27, 2009 8:13 am
Replay wrote:The problem is, Thimoseral and the mercury in it *might* actually have something to do with autism development in something like 0.001% of children it's used on. Maybe. Kind of. If you pick only the kids who actually got autism out of the sample supply and hold them up as "proof".
There have been around 12 billion studies on this matter since it became a huge concern, and nothing (credible) showed any link between Thimerosal and autism. If it only affects 0.001% of children, and given the larger sample size of each experiment, then the odds are extremely slim that somehow some linkage slipped through all of those studies.
Replay wrote:Sine, Jenny McCarthy's son has autism. Kind of. Or did. Which is why Jim is up in arms about all this.

She claims to have "cured" her son of his autism with various health treatments, which kind of adds to the whole aura of witch-doctor-science about the whole thing.
Yes, I understand that Jim is fucking Jenny and somehow her stupidity has been transmitted to Jim like a STD. And you don't "cure" anybody of autism. You either have it or you don't. It's possible that her son never did have autism, or that he still has autism. But, you don't "cure" autism.
Kupek wrote:This whole clusterfuck makes me incoherently angry because it is obvious that these people, and the media covering them, don't have a real understanding of science.
Since when did the media EVER have an understanding of science? Besides, the old media is harking up this bullshit, but the new media (blogs, internet-based news sites) is actually calling it out as the stinky bullshit it is. Just goes to show exactly where the lines of misinformation are drawn. You know, sort of like this...

 #135662  by Mental
 Mon Apr 27, 2009 3:06 pm
Kupek wrote:This whole clusterfuck makes me incoherently angry because it is obvious that these people, and the media covering them, don't have a real understanding of science.
This is a country that still uses BMI as a predictor of individual health. I've seen a Harvard M.D. in a magazine diagnose someone he'd never met and never seen based on BMI. According to our government obesity guidelines, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, George Clooney, Will Smith, and Kobe Bryant are overweight. Tom Cruise, Matt LeBlanc, Donovan McNabb, Shaquille O'Neal, Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Mike Tyson in his prime, and Arnold Schwarzenegger in his - the good old Austrian Oak himself and probably the most famous bodybuilder of all time - are or were considered obese.

Not to be blunt or anything, but if you can get a HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL DEGREE and still be allowed to diagnose someone you've never met based on a statistic that was NEVER, ever supposed to be used to diagnose individuals in the first place (BMI was developed by a social scientist during the course of population studies), it shouldn't surprise you that the rank and file in this country can't tell the scientific method from the Jenny Craig Weight Loss method.

 #135664  by Mental
 Mon Apr 27, 2009 3:10 pm
SineSwiper wrote:
Replay wrote:Sine, Jenny McCarthy's son has autism. Kind of. Or did. Which is why Jim is up in arms about all this.

She claims to have "cured" her son of his autism with various health treatments, which kind of adds to the whole aura of witch-doctor-science about the whole thing.
Yes, I understand that Jim is fucking Jenny and somehow her stupidity has been transmitted to Jim like a STD. And you don't "cure" anybody of autism. You either have it or you don't. It's possible that her son never did have autism, or that he still has autism. But, you don't "cure" autism.
Hey, no argument from me. I just thought that first sentence was funny. :D

Even Newsweek is trying to debunk the populist hype, they ran an article a few weeks ago on it, so that's good. And like I said, stupid populist ignorance is in right now. You can find all sorts of new friends if you come up with some theory about how the big bad government is going to usher in the Book of Revelations. It makes ignorant people feel less ignorant to call other people ignorant as well. File under the same category as "this is okay because God told me it was okay to do it."

 #135665  by Mental
 Mon Apr 27, 2009 3:11 pm
Also, Hollywood stardom selects for a sense of humor, an entertaining personality, and personal charisma, not scientific literacy.

 #135683  by SineSwiper
 Mon Apr 27, 2009 4:49 pm
Replay wrote:You can find all sorts of new friends if you come up with some theory about how the big bad government is going to usher in the Book of Revelations. It makes ignorant people feel less ignorant to call other people ignorant as well. File under the same category as "this is okay because God told me it was okay to do it."
Nah, the government will usher in the Book of Revelations by harnessing the power of the ocean's currents, which will slow the rotation of the earth by point-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-six percent.

 #135693  by Mental
 Mon Apr 27, 2009 6:04 pm
SineSwiper wrote:
Replay wrote:You can find all sorts of new friends if you come up with some theory about how the big bad government is going to usher in the Book of Revelations. It makes ignorant people feel less ignorant to call other people ignorant as well. File under the same category as "this is okay because God told me it was okay to do it."
Nah, the government will usher in the Book of Revelations by harnessing the power of the ocean's currents, which will slow the rotation of the earth by point-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-six percent.
<img src="http://www.thepaincomics.com/Horrors%20 ... color).jpg" height="75%" width="75%"></img>

 #135694  by Mental
 Mon Apr 27, 2009 6:05 pm
The second panel is unquestionably the finest thing Tim Kreider has ever done.

 #135714  by SineSwiper
 Tue Apr 28, 2009 7:27 am
The Wikipedia news page about the flu has been having vandalism problems with people talking about Madagascar closing all of their ports.

 #135722  by Mental
 Tue Apr 28, 2009 2:30 pm
*sigh*

 #135727  by Tessian
 Tue Apr 28, 2009 3:04 pm
SineSwiper wrote:The Wikipedia news page about the flu has been having vandalism problems with people talking about Madagascar closing all of their ports.
*snicker*

Image

 #135736  by SineSwiper
 Tue Apr 28, 2009 10:19 pm
You should have seen one of the Fark threads on that. They were posting that animation, like, 50 times.