Germ theory denialism explained

You forgot fraudulent quotes of recantation on the comparison checklist.

usually softer germ theory denialism, such as the kind that says a healthy body can can fight off any bacteria or virus

What exactly is germ theory, that the above can be counted as a form for germ theory denialism? Or is it that ignoring all the implications of germ theory counts as denialism? The later would be stretching the definition of “denialism”, in my opinion.

MosesZD, Orac did not make the video. If you and mcwindertosh double click on the video it should take you to that particular Youtube page. Then you can tell the author/editor what he did right or wrong.

As I started watching this video, I was concerned I might be a germ denialist, because I tend to have the following beliefs:

a) Overuse of things like bacteria-killing sanitizer in every day settings (note, not settings like hospitals or science labs, where the necessity for them is obvious) create an environment where people become less able to deal with mild, occasionally helpful bacteria and creates an environment that is not conductive to bacteria resistance. Also, by using bacteria-killing sanitizer constantly in the home, it seems like that would create an opportunity for bacteria to evolve into stronger forms.

b) If you eat healthy and exercise a lot, your body will mostly take care of itself.

After watching your video, though, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m not a germ denialist, because Pastuer’s theory is obviously correct, and I agree with every point made. I do think medications, flu shots, vaccines are necessary and desirable — I just tend to wait a little bit after I get sick with a mild illness before going to the hospital or doctor, waiting to see if I need to or not. However, I always make sure my son is up to date on his shots, and when prescribed medications I take them.

The waiting to visit the doctor is really partly because I can’t afford to go even when it’s an emergency, let alone for preventative healthcare.

@augustine:

So, do you disagree with the germ theory? Or agree with it, but don’t like the way the creator of the video argued about it? Or some third option?

They simply may chose to focus on the denominator of the equation while the status quo focuses on a factor in the numerator.

Could you explain that? I don’t understand.

@augustine:

Germ theory = number of pathogens * virulence or pathogen/ resistance of host.

Oh, I hadn’t noticed your first comment. Nevermind.

@augustine:

Since vaccines are vaguely on topic, some questions of mine that you didn’t answer in a previous thread:

From the time the smallpox vaccine was first invented, to the time that smallpox was eliminated from the wild, did there exist any person for whom the risk/benefit ratio of the vaccine made it worth taking, for that person, in your opinion?

———-

I have a problem with prophetic medical practice.

Okay, that seems to go beyond saying that the risk/benefit ratio of vaccines isn’t worth it for you or your immediate family. For example, consider someone (lets call him John Doe) who lived back when the smallpox vaccine was first invented, and he was considering whether or not to get vaccinated. Regardless of the risk/benefit ratio of John Doe taking the vaccine, it’s not guaranteed that he’ll ever catch smallpox, and even if he does catch it there’s a 70% chance he’ll survive. So him taking it would have been a “prophetic medical practice”.

Anyways, I don’t see why you’d call it “prophetic” medicine. John Doe wouldn’t be taking it because he can see into the future and knows he’ll die of smallpox if he doesn’t get vaccinated, but is taking it to reduce the risk of dying of smallpox. I don’t see how reducing the risk of something that might happen in the future as being “prophetic”. Indeed, calling it “prophetic” seems to imply that there’s something flawed in the concept of risk/benefit analysis.

———-

If you or one of your family members were to be so unfortunate as to be bitten by a rabid animal, would you consider it worth it to take the post-exposure rabies vaccine series?

Heh–tied with the raw foodies and the raw milkies. Yep. I actually saw them turn on one of their previous heroes the other day. Marion Nestle referred to them as “teabagging” after Bill Marler (also previously a food safety hero to some of them) as “organic tea baggers”. It was funny.

http://www.foodpolitics.com/2010/08/we-need-s-510-to-pass-despite-tea-bagging/

@8, Lana:

Regarding point 1, Overuse of antibiotic sanitizers does breed stronger bacteria over time. Y’know how they say those products kill 99.99% of bacteria? Well, the 0.01% continue to multiply, and the bacteria population is stronger as a result. This is an oversimplification, I admit, but a concern of mine nonetheless.

Regarding point 2, if you eat healthy and exercise lots, you will of course be stronger and healthier in a lot of ways. But whether or not you get sick depends on a lot of factors, most of which you can’t control. Have you already caught this particular strain of X and/or do you have antibodies targeted for it? How strong and infectious is strain X? How strong is your immune system in general? These things vary from person to person, and most of these factors are not within your control. Exercise and eating right can probably help strengthen your immune system enough to fight off minor infections faster, but won’t protect you from nastier bugs.

IANAD, but as an educated layman I certify that these explanations are correct to the best of my knowledge.

Matthew, regarding #4, it’s ridiculous to think that a perfectly healthy person can fight off AIDS, rabies, etc. That’s essentially a form of denialism.

Mathew @19,

So you have evidence that 100% of people who have been exposed to rabies, HIV, etc. die?

Critical thinking eludes you Matthew.

What do germ theory denialists say about their dental problems?

It suddenly occured to me that the hypothesis that perfectly healthy humans are immune to infections is de facto an assertion that diseases have inexplicably evolved not to infect healthy people, or an assertion that the human immune system at 100% strength has magically evolved to have immunity even from diseases it has never encountered before. As is often the case then, one can believe in Evolution or believe in the views of these denialists.

My brother was nearly killed as a child by someone practicing woo woo denial herbal medicine. The idea was that a fever is the body responding to the disease and we should help the body by increasing the fever, in this case to 106F which sent my brother to the hospital and into a delusional state. He could have easily died.

I also am very opposed to anti-bacterials. Studies show that they are no more effective than handwashing in eliminating bacteria. They do breed immunity, and I would rather have effective anti-bacterials available if I need surgery. And the active ingredient does accumulate in our lakes and rivers, does not degrade over time, and is completely untested for what effects it may have on wildlife and plants and so on. No positives and a lot of negatives…no idea why anyone would use that crap.

I am going to show this video to my doctor who I think may be a germ denialist. I wanted a prescription for some antibiotics when everyone in the office had a bad cold but me. I didn’t want to get sick since I knew that the germs could spread to me. Now I have the hard science to show him that germs can spread and cause diseases and that I needed the antibiotics to kill the germs and prevent me from getting sick as well. Its amazing that even after going to medical school some doctors don’t know the science data in this video.

A little bird suggests the force behind our favorite plexiglass box of blinking lights has just completed another 365 days.

Happy Birthday!!! May you have many grant approval notices in your mailbox!! 🙂

@ Mattand: I watched all season long and noticed that he was remarkably silent on the topic ( Will wonders ever cease?). However, I venture a guess that perhaps rather than being swayed by Shermer’s realistic criticism, he might have feared televised ridicule from the likes of guests like Chris Matthews more as well as backstage innuendo from snarky writers he employs. In short, I doubt he’s learned anything except perhaps turning down the volume about his woo-tastic beliefs when on-camera.

@22 According to an article in Scientific American, only one person is known to have survived symptomatic rabies without being treated with the rabies vaccine. According to the CDC, the risk of contracting rabies varies based on the type of exposure, with bites being the most likely to cause infection. In a quick search, I’m unable to find anything that lays out the specific odds of showing symptoms once bitten by an infected animal.

Yes, the creator of this video is using rhetorical tactics. This is, in my view, entirely appropriate as the people that require convincing have willfully chosen to ignore mountains of data, logic, and reason in favor of what their emotions and “common sense” tell them. I would take it one step further and say that, at this point, these people have proven themselves incapable of reason, and that only emotional, irrational, and faith-based appeals will work on them. This is because they are emotional, irrational, faith-based people.

For example, when framing the vaccine debate, it is clear that these people will never accept the data no matter how much is offered. They simply move the goalposts, ignore the data, or play the pharma shill gambit in regards to the veracity of the data. It must be framed as a moral issue. This argument should then be framed thusly: People who choose to neglect their children’s health by refusing them access to vaccines should be viewed as morally corrupt parents, and their children as unclean, diseased things.

I even sent out birthday party un-invitations to some fruity parent’s children who are in my daughter’s class in school, asking her to refrain from bringing her disease- infested children to my home. We can’t legally force these people to do the right thing. What we can do is create a hostile social environment where they feel emotionally compelled to be less selfish scumbags.

@ Adam_Y, the antibacterial ingredient in most hand soaps is triclosan, not alcohols.

And yeah, regular ol’ washing with hot water and detergent or soap works fine. The worst problem in disinfection chemistry is not usually the innate chemistry of spore-forming bacteria, but rather the soil they are gooped with. How effective a disinfectant really is, must be tested in context: Just about anything on the face of the earth works pretty well on hard, clean surfaces with the bacterial sample suspended in saline, but very very few things work well on a bacterial sample mixed with Hucker’s Soil (peanut butter, milk, regular butter, eggs, flour and ink). Most antibacterials added to soaps & detergents are tested on hard, clean surfaces rather than the more challenging soil or porous ceramic tests.

Anyway, back on subject: the germ theory denialists I have met have all been, without exception, youngish Baby Boomers or younger. My own mother, who saw for herself how her childhood friends often died of infectious diseases, is about as scientifically ignorant as anyone can possibly be (we’re talking, “magnets? how the eff do they work?” ignorant, women didn’t go to college much in her day), but still knows the reality of germ theory and what miracles vaccination and penicillin were when they were discovered.

Weirdly, a lot of these same young people who are anti-germ theory are also sorta New Age-y types who believe in the wisdom of elders. Just not enough to actually talk to their elders about what life was like pre-vaccination and pre-antibiotics, I guess.

@23: “Was it worth it for the person who died BECAUSE of the vaccine whom was told it would save them?”

I suspect it was more worth it to him/her than car ownership is for the thousands who will die in traffic accidents this year.

Nothing is perfectly safe. Taking a shower, for instance, carries its own potentially-fatal risks. (Slip and fall, allergic reaction to soaps, scalding, and I suppose drowning might be possible.) That doesn’t mean that people should stop taking showers.

I take a certain level of comfort in the germ theory of disease; it doesn’t blame the sick for getting sick, for starters. Add in that it can make useful suggestions on how to prevent illness, expressly including such lifestyle improvements as hygene, exercise, and proper diet that so enamour the vitalist crowd… but not limited to those, adding such collossal advancements as antisepsis, vaccination, and pasturisation that the wholesome-thoughts-and-wheatgrass advocates can’t match.

I like the 21st century, and I wouldn’t trade it for the 19th in any field of human endeavor… particularly the field of medicine.

— Steve

@Matthew 37

Was there ever anyone for whom the decision to not take the vaccine was a rational decision?

The answer to my question will be the answer to your question.

Hucker’s Soil (peanut butter, milk, regular butter, eggs, flour and ink).

Mmmmm, Hucker’s Soil. Yum yum.

@augustine:

If you’re going to ask “Was it a rational decision for the person who died BECAUSE of the vaccine whom was told it would save them”, let me preemptively say: what happens after a decision is made doesn’t retroactively change whether or not that decision was rational. Whether or not the decision was rational is based entirely (and only) on the information available at the time the decision was made.

What kind of germs? Be specific: bacteria, virus, fungus or protozoa?

@44: Lame troll is lame, also troll. (Or another victim of Poe’s Law, but lame anyway.)

— Steve

So what’s the deal with osteopathic physicians?

Was it worth it for the person who died BECAUSE of the vaccine whom was told it would save them?

If we restate Goofus’ rhetorical question into a syllogism, we come out with the following:

1) In very rare cases, people have experienced fatal reactions to vaccines.
2) (unstated premise)
3) Therefore, vaccines are not worth taking.

What is Goofus’ unstated premise at 2? We must conclude that it is something like: “We should base our decisions on very rare and extreme outcomes, ignoring outcomes which are much more likely.”

Obviously, then, Goofus must be a great advocate of gambling.

1) In very rare cases, people have gone to casinos and bet money they couldn’t afford to gamble with, and won huge million-dollar jackpots.
2) We should base our decisions on very rare and extreme outcomes, ignoring outcomes which are much more likely.
3) Therefore, we should go to casinos and bet money that we can’t afford to gamble with.

Obviously, this is ridiculous. You don’t gamble your last money away on the slim, slim chance that you’ll get a fortune back — not unless you’re a gambling addict or a fool. And only a fool says “There’s a slim, slim chance that I might have a fatal reaction to a vaccine — so I’m definitely not getting the vaccine, even if my chances of dying because I didn’t get it is worse!”

Obviously our Goofus is exactly that kind of fool. Witness his quote from even earlier in the comments:

So you have evidence that 100% of people who have been exposed to rabies, HIV, etc. die?

What Goofus is really saying here is “Let’s ignore the fact that rabies kills 55,000 people a year and that the people who have survived exposure to rabies without vaccination in all of medical history number less than 10! Once again, I choose to ignore the overwhelmingly most likely outcomes and pretend that everything is decided by the incredibly rare exceptions to the rule!”

The bottom line: the risk of having a bad reaction to a vaccine is much, much less than that of suffering consequences just as bad or worse from the disease the vaccine prevents against. And when this ceases to be true, we stop using the vaccine. The smallpox vaccine is now almost never used, because smallpox simply doesn’t exist out there in the wild anymore (it would be extinct if some of the last remaining stocks had not been weaponized, and then lost in the fall of the Soviet Union.) It’s worth doing what we can to reduce the likelihood of even rare negative outcomes — but only a Goofus would suggest that we try to reduce the likelihood of rare outcomes without even paying attention to the more common outcomes that are just as deadly.

Chris (#50):
He did not clarify that in the USA osteopathic physicians are just about the same MDs. The ones in the UK are close to chiropractors.

Thanks. My recollection about the ones in the US was correct but I did not know about the ones in th U.K..

@Antaeus Feldspar

Anticipating the application of the rigorous rhetorical gifts of our self-appointed answer a question with a questioner…

All those EXPOSED to rabies don’t get rabies. However, all those exposed who get treated survive and with rare exception (less than 10 in recorded history), those who become symptomatic die. Die slowly and horribly. (Sorry, was that last bit an appeal to emotion?)

Yes, foregoing the rabies prophylaxis is like hoping to be the guy who survived the car crash because he was thrown clear. Long odds. And it’s still going to hurt, a lot.

The author of the video is using rhetoric and propaganda simply by the fact that he has chosen to use the term “germ theory denialism” to label a group of people whom he happens to disagree with.

They simply may chose to focus on the denominator of the equation while the status quo focuses on a factor in the numerator. It’s rhetoric. They are germ theory denialism only in the sense that they have been labeled by one group who fears they oppose their means.

Posted by: augustine | August 7, 2010 1:04 PM

I call bullshit and, further say, who cares? From the first post of “denialism” blog (when it first came to Seed):

Denialism is the employment of rhetorical tactics to give the appearance of argument or legitimate debate, when in actuality there is none. These false arguments are used when one has few or no facts to support one’s viewpoint against a scientific consensus or against overwhelming evidence to the contrary. They are effective in distracting from actual useful debate using emotionally appealing, but ultimately empty and illogical assertions.

That’s denialism. A denialism is one who practices denialism which is, virtually always, detrimental to the individual and to society.

The germ theory of disease is a FACT. It is one of the most important theories ever discovered by man. Period. There is NO legitimate counter-argument that diseases cause illness.

Denialism, itself, is usually independent because it comes from out-side the main-stream of economic actors. By people who are, usually, peddling something that doesn’t work.

However denialism is a lucrative industry in some scientific areas where corporate profits (from BIG corporations) are severely threaten by potential governmental actions due to the extraordinary danger in how those profits are generated. These denialism attacks are carried on by public relations men who are, frankly, more interested in money than facts.

It produces strange bedfellows. Climate denialism is funded by the oil companies. Tobacco denialism is funded by tobacco companies. I use the word “is” because Tobacco denialism is still practiced in many areas of the world, even though they’ve lost in the “west.”

Amazingly, many of these tobacco denialists have taken on global warming on the behalf of the oil companies. You will see them working for the same “think tanks” who will whore themselves out to any big business.

And it is NOT a cottage industry or a few fellows. Looking at the documented major funders of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (one of the major denialism groups):

Exxon: $262,146,651 from 1998 to 2005 (ExxonSecrets);
Scaife Foundations: $521,477,117 from 1985 to 2007 (Media Matters Transparency);
Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation: $583,162,647 from 1986-2007 (Media Matters Transparency);
Koch Foundations: $151,321,081 from 1986-2004 (Media Matters Transparency);
Coors foundations: $33,164,113 from 2000-2006 (Media Matters Transparency)

Documented Total for Exxon, Scaife, Bradley, Koch, Coors from 1985-2007: $1,289,124,958

And there’s a TON more. Billions of USD, over the past couple of decades, have been going into funding climate denialism to the same “think tanks” that took billions of USD to deny smoking is dangerous.

http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/global_warming/global_warming_denial_machine.html

So… Once again, who fucking cares? The denialism is well compensated for his evil ways. A few names won’t hurt him.

LW @ 56,

Who? How many? Evidence based or assumption based?

@augustine:

From mulling over your previous comments, I think I’ve got a grasp on what you’re saying, which I’ll attempt paraphrase. Please correct me if I’m wrong (or if I leave out any details):

For large populations, we can figure out the risk of catching a certain contagious disease, the risk that the disease will cause death (or other permanent harm), the chance that the vaccine will be effective, and the chance that the vaccine will cause averse affects (including death). However, for an individual, all of those chances are very likely to be different. For any one individual, those chances are unknown, and thus for any one individual the risk/benefit ratio of taking the vaccine is undefined. But risk/benefit analysis is the only method one could use to make a rational decision to take a vaccine. Thus, if one decides to take a vaccine, the only possibly reasons for taking the vaccine must be irrational.

… Unless you could see into the future and tell if that individual will catch that disease and suffer permanent damage, and if s/he will have an adverse reaction to the vaccine. With an undefined risk/benefit ratio, that’s the only way that taking a vaccine could be a rational decision. Hence, you calling vaccination “prophetic medicine”.

I really think y’all should be kinder to “Sick of germs.” Ignorance is not the same thing as stupidity, and if she does not understand the difference between bacteria and viruses, well, she is probably in the majority of people, to be honest. One should take the time to explain that viruses (which cause colds) are not tiny animals which can be killed by using antibiotics the way bacteria can. Do not ridicule her for not having this knowledge already; teach her.

If I thought “Sick of germs” was being honest and sincere, then I would certainly do my best to educate her, and most certainly not ridicule her or her misconceptions. However, I thought it was fairly obvious that SOG is not someone with an honest confusion about the details of germ theory, but someone attempting a sarcastic “straw man” argument against germ theory.

If you go back and read SOG’s comments, you see that she refers to her doctor as a germ theory denialist, because his advice to her does not comply with what she claims must be true because the video says so. Does that make sense?

Would any reasonable person say “My lawyer obviously does not know anything about the law, because I saw a YouTube video that gave an introduction to legal theory and my lawyer gave me a different answer than I would have expected based on the video”?

I believe that a reasonable person would say “This is a professional who has studied the subject in detail; if what he says differs from what the video would have led me to expect, it’s almost certainly because the video is dealing with the very basics of the subject, perhaps glossing over details that may apply in certain situations, and the professional has moved well beyond those basics and is dealing with my specific situation.” Or maybe a reasonable person would just say “Look, the video says X; the professional I talked to says Y; how the hell can the two be reconciled??” I can’t picture a reasonable person deciding that the professional must be a denialist because what they say doesn’t accord with what the reasonable person thinks the video says.

I have not watched the video myself, actually, so I do not know whether it provides any basis whatever for SOG’s unstated premise of “Germ theory posits that diseases are caused by creatures called ‘germs,’ which come in different kinds but are all dealt with by the exact same methods.” (That is, after all, the assumption on which her arguments depend, that if there is an appropriate treatment for one organism which falls under the classification of “germ” then it must be an appropriate treatment for any organism which falls under the classification of germ.) I rather suspect that there isn’t, though; I suspect that SOG is someone who was already vigorously opposed to germ theory before she saw the video and decided that a great way to argue against germ theory would be to unfairly throw the principle of charity out the window, and willfully misinterpret the video not going into details as an affirmative statement that germ theory believes no further details exist.

@augustine:

Finding that a certain organism under certain conditions can cause a disease is a scientific endeavor.

Coming up with a chemical that opposes the organism is engineering.

Applying that chemical to humans while trying to cause the least amount of short term let alone long term damage to the recipient is ….less than scientific.

When you say “less than scientific”, do you mean irrational or illogical? If so, why is it illogical/irrational? If not, what do you mean?

Also, all medicines have a chance of causing adverse reactions. Is there something special about antibiotics and antivirals that they shouldn’t, or do you have the same problem with all medicines?

Dangerous Bacon: “I’m working on getting my observations published in Medical Hypotheses.”

You can afford that?

😉

Climate denialism is funded by the oil companies.

An inaccurate and misleading statement.

The major oil companies give ten times as much to pro-climate change groups as they give to their opponents.

The Hadley Climate Research Unit was initially funded by Shell and BP. If you look at the oil companies donations, you will see that they are consistently donating to similar groups.

They also fund some groups opposed to CO2 reduction, but at a far lower level.

I’m not claiming it is altruism on the part of the oil companies. They are playing both sides: they fund pro-AGW in the knowledge that politically their is no way the oil will be cut.

But the premise of your statement is untrue. The pro-AGW groups are much better funded than their opponents.

For those of you who think climate change opponents are the big boys, and the brave scientists the loners, you would be well to check out the details.

Greenpeace has a much bigger budget than any of its opponents. They don’t like to publish that they are a $100 dollar a year operation though, as it kind of spoils their image. Then add in WHO, the IPCC etc.

Sorry about the rant, but the oil companies funding the anti-global warming lobby is one “fact” that just plain isn’t true.

Speaking as one of those baby boomers, I’m amazed that anyone from my generation would oppose vaccination. (Though I suppose the ones born around 1960 might be the people you have in mind.)

Anyone who’s lived through a polio epidemic and then had the benefit of a vaccination must believe that it’s the only way to go. I’m appalled that children are dying in Australia from pertussis, not because they weren’t vaccinated (being too young) but because they lived, briefly, in a community where too many children were not vaccinated.

augustine trolled So you have evidence that 100% of people who have been exposed to rabies, HIV, etc. die?
You’d be amazed, 4000 years of reports state that 100% of people die, including those that have been exposed to rabies, HIV etc. But I’m sure this anecdotal evidence doesn’t convince you, so why don’t you give it a shot?

I suppose that Franklin Roosevelt ate healthily and exercised a lot, but that didn’t prevent him from getting polio.

Someone can do those things, but that might not stop them from getting tetanus while they are working in their garden and manage to cut themselves.

Many people think they are protected when they are not because they forget to have booster shots every ten years or so.

Little Augie, you could not argue yourself out of a paper bag. Do stay away from open flames.

@81 contrarian troll

Stay classy will you.

In French, Augustine is a female name. Should I start calling you sexually ambiguous?

I can accept you being contrarian on everything. Everybody is entitled his/her opinion. Sometimes, it stimulates the topic.
But it seems now you are going to play bully and go ad hominem to stop your opponents from posting.
Your posts really look more and more like medicine man. You sure you’re not related?

BTW, running out of arguments are you? You just lose the debate.

By the way, I do not mind being confused with Dr. Hall. She is a lovely person, and we both attended the same university. I started as a freshman about five years after she got her medical degree.

I would think that Little Augie considers any woman who has some kind of education to be abhorrent. He/she has similar sexist/racist leanings to the ever idiot MM.

@augustine:

“By the way, I do not mind being confused with Dr. Hall. She is a lovely person,…”

Do you have scientific evidence of that? Because that is arguable.

How in the world can you have scientific evidence that someone is a lovely person? You can have evidence that someone is (or isn’t) a lovely person, but it isn’t going to be scientific in nature.

jest.

Except, when he/she has tried to give “scientific” evidence he/she usually has it very wrong. I am still not quite clear on why he/she thinks he/she is immune from tetanus, nor how he/she figures he/she will never encounter any Bordetella pertussis, especially with its recent increase.

I also think his/her opinion on how we should feel about a person shows that he/she is basically a callous and despicable person. It is almost sad.

Chris,

Do you believe a transgender cross dressing transexual is sane?

augustine:

I can’t get this beautiful picture out of my head everytime you post.

Funny thing, I can’t get this beautiful song out of my head every time you post(especially lately).

Chris,

Do you believe a transgender cross dressing transexual is sane?

Okay, I’m missing something here. Who is the transgender cross dressing transexual being talked about?

Matthew: “Okay, I’m missing something here. Who is the transgender cross dressing transexual being talked about?”

No one in particular. There are lots of them. The question is for Chris or any hardcore SBMer. Do you believe a transgender crossdressing transexual is a rational person?

augustine said: “You need to go over to emotionblogs.com or politicalregimeblogs.com. Your rant has nothing to do with real science.”

Firstly, the correct word is, “should.” As in, “you should go over to emotionblogs.com…” Visiting a particular website will in no way satisfy any of my essential needs. Secondly, this is a tu quoque argument, typical of lateral thinkers. I point out that CAMmers are emotionally based people, and you repeat the accusation back to me. Amateur.

augustine said: “It’s quite possible that you psychologically devastated some little children because of your ideology that says these children will hypothetically “spread disease” to others at a birthday party and kill or ill (sic) them. Forget the fact that those children are supposedly protected by vaccination means and verified by yourself (sic).”

My goal is to start a social movement. If some hippie’s coddled brats get their feelings hurt in the process of eradicating horrible diseases, tough. It beats being on a ventilator for a year with polio induced paralysis. Your statement regarding vaccinations reminds me of a creationist asking why there are still monkeys or an AGW denialist waxing on about how last winter was one of the coldest on record. In short, it reveals your ignorance about the entire subject, particularly relating to the concept of herd immunity.

augustine said: “Did you check to see if they had antibody titers? Would they be allowed in the party then. (sic) Or would the fact that they refused your methods be the clincher?”

An antibody titer is unnecessary. I do know that they have never had polio nor received the polio vaccine, and are therefore a danger to society.

augustine said: “I suspect that many others on here share your neo-fascist sentiments.”

I am impressed that you didn’t shoot your whole wad early by playing the Hitler card, opting to play it safe with only the fascist gambit. I was clear that I would not support any legal measures mandating vaccination. What I am advocating is for rational people to exercise their right to free speech to shame and embarrass parents into doing the moral thing by having their children vaccinated. There is nothing at all fascist about this. In fact, it’s about as democratic as it gets.

Matthew Cline:

Vaccines aren’t 100% effective. Not everyone who gets them will get immunity from it.

It has been noted that the only who claim that vaccines should be 100% effective are anti-vax trolls like Little Augie. Who for some strange reason thinks just because he/she does not believe in germs that pertussis is not a threat… even though it is increasing in incidence.

He/she is like the doctor who came by a week or so ago saying that HPV vaccine was unnecessary if we taught our daughters about safe sex. I asked her if she had a magic machine to tell me who my daughter will marry in the next ten to twenty years so I could tell him about safe sex. She did not answer.

It seems Little Augie is in possession of the magic machine that tells him he will never encounter any pertussis, nor any tetanus. This is the reason he will not tell what evidence he has that the DTaP is more dangerous than pertussis.

He has also not revealed how the deaths of the babies from pertussis in California could have been prevented. He makes lots of silly claims, but has no real answers, and definitely no evidence or facts. But he loves to cast aspergions as to whether one is male, female, young or old… as if that is some kind of cute way to avoid answering questions.

Harriet: “Who for some strange reason thinks just because he/she does not believe in germs that pertussis is not a threat… even though it is increasing in incidence.”

Harriet,
you can stop your little fallacy games.Show me where I said I did not believe in germs.

“This is the reason he will not tell what evidence he has that the DTaP is more dangerous than pertussis.”

I don’t answer it because it is a misleading a fallacious argument question. What evidence do YOU have that I will get pertussis. What evidence do YOU have that someone else getting a vaccine will stop me from getting pertussis? What evidence do YOU have that says that I will die from pertussis?

I hope you see the error in your way and don’t attempt to answer those.

Looking forward to your androgenous answers. “Girl Power”-spice girls.

Chris: “I asked her if she had a magic machine to tell me who my daughter will marry in the next ten to twenty years so I could tell him about safe sex. She did not answer.”

I’ll ask again in another way. Do you believe that a person who believes they are trapped in the wrong body and therefore dresses and has surgery to fix the “problem” is a rational being?

@ 104 TGAP Dad,

You know one DO with shortcomings. You generalize from this one DO, to all DOs.

You could not do the same with one MD and generalize to all MDs?

I know of plenty of excellent DOs.

I know of plenty of excellent MDs.

Should I judge MDs/DOs by the worst examples in practice, by the best examples, by the average, or should I use some other criterion?
.

By the way, what does the Bible have to say about gender reassignment surgery?

What does it say about cross dressing?

I am sure it has something to do with his/her bizarre misunderstanding of probability, under which he/she apparently cannot even grasp that the chance of a flipped fair coin coming up heads is 50%.

It seems you’re confused about probability and liken an individuals chances and probability to something like this.

AFTER the fact, numbers are counted up and the universe is closed off to get percentages. Without a denominator it would be impossible to count probability.

WHEN you determine probability in something trivial as quarters you now without a doubt how many factors you’re dealing with. It’s a closed system. You have knowledge of all of the pieces. No matter how many times it’s flipped the probability is 50%.

But if I flip it and then count the results does that tell me what the probability is? It may come up heads 9 times out of ten. Does that mean I have a 9x greater chances of “catching” heads? NO! It’s still a 50/50 probability.

Antaeus, you can tell me all about the probability of trivial matters such as flipping a coin or counting marbles in a jar. They are closed, fixed systems. But you can’t tell me jack about real world and an individual. So tell me do viruses spread in a linear pattern? What is their lifecycle? Why is pertussis endemic every 4 years despite very high vaccination rates for it? Are cases counted accurately? Does the population stay the same? A common measles stat is 1/1000 die. Do you know when that stat was recorded. Is it static? What is it today. What was it yesterday. Ohh you need more than one day to calculate that? Why? ON and on and on. Don’t talk to me about probability when you yourself don’t even know what it is when it comes to real human beings and the real universe.

Brucy: “Yes, much more so than a bigot against sexual orientation.”

Brucy, It figures you would. This could be good. I’ll wait for Chris’s reply. Any others?

Little Augie has no data and no argument, just pure sexist bigotry. He/she cannot deny that the data show Vaccine refusal is associated with a nearly 23-fold increased risk of developing pertussis.

I wonder if Little Augie’s head would explode if he/she read Ursula K. LeGuin’s Left Hand of Darkness?

Augiebigot still hasn’t recovered from the first time he heard “Take a Walk on the Wild Side”.

“A bigot is a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices. The correct use of the term requires the elements of intolerance, irrationality, and animosity toward those of differing beliefs.”

Chris, this fits you to a “T”. Intolerant of those who choose not to vaccinate, believes irrationality is ok when it’s politically correct, and has animosity towards parents who don’t vaccinate.

I don’t hate cha.

There are many a SBMers who exhibit bigotry.

@ 122 augustine,

You demonstrate an amazing ability to lie, while accusing others of being immoral.

You claim that you get your morality out of a Book, but repeatedly act in a way that is unChristian.

We all have opinions and prejudices. You have not shown that Chris does not come by his opinions and prejudices in a way that is less than objective.

Since vaccines are overwhelmingly beneficial to people, including to the individual, it is not at all irrational to exhibit intolerance and animosity to those who attempt to endanger people by means of telling lies about the risks of vaccine-preventable diseases and by telling lies about the risks of vaccines.

While you do occasionally rarely make statements that are factually correct, that does not demonstrate any understanding or intelligence on your part.

You are a liar, augustine.

You claim to be more religious moral than those of us who try to help others.

You use your religion to excuse your disgusting behavior.

You act as if you are trying to bring about an epidemic in the expectation that this will be the disaster that causes the Second Coming.
.

augustine said, “Ah, the slippery slope fallacy! Any day now!”

Slippery slopes are not invariably fallacious and not every concept that lies on a continuum is a slippery slope. For example, if one could provide, oh I don’t know, data that shows that an unvaccinated or undervaccinated populace would lead to increased incidence of polio infections, then my statement could hardly be considered fallacious. To wit:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2560703/pdf/10812730.pdf
http://jcm.asm.org/cgi/reprint/33/12/3252?view=long&pmid=8586711
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2271413/pdf/epidinfect00053-0073.pdf
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2596452/pdf/yjbm00110-0214.pdf
I have more when you’re done with these. I don’t want to be a total hyperlink spammer.

augustine said: “tu quoque!”

My statement can hardly be properly called a tu quoque, as you never initially posited that I was in any way amateurish. The phrase are looking for is ad hominem. I won’t deny that I attacked your character. I think it was an absolutely appropriate and factual assertion.

augustine said: “Oh, do they have polio in it’s (sic) infectious stage? Is hypothetical polio dangerous to you? Do you believe in EBM or HBM (hypothetical based medicine)?”
Has your childe (sic) received the polio vaccine? Is it effective? If not why do you insist with passion that others must get the ineffective vaccine? Just the principle of it? What if they’ve gotten the vaccine but their doctor recommended tylenol (sic) to offset the risk of seizure and rendered the vaccine ineffective. Is that OK?”

I hardly feel it is my duty to teach you rudimentary immunology. Nor do I feel I have any obligation to explain to you the fundamentals of the concept of herd immunity. Instead, I’ll let Dr. Crislip do the dirty work for me: http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=516

augustine said, “Sorta (sic) like the KKK using free speech. I get it. Or maybe the OHHH…. religious.”

Aaaaaaaaaaand you’re one step closer to an argumentum ad Hitlerum. Are you seriously equivocating the open and direct criticism of parental neglect with an organization known for terrorism, assault, and murder? Let’s get some perspective here.

anton the meterologist: “* The meteorologist who looks at all the data coming in from the instruments and says “there’s an 80% chance of rain,” however, is only correct (in Goofus’ mind) about there being a chance of it raining if it rains!”

You’re the goofus. It’s all a language game really isnt’ it silly?

You’re only correct in terminology. Not about if it ACTUALLY rains or not. What about this: all of the instruments tell you that you have a 99.999% chance of not having permanent sequelae from the measles prevaccine era. Yet you cry for your shot and your neighbors. If it’s 30% chance of rain I don’t even carry an umbrella.

First off before I retort. In authentic SBMER snark fashion, I have to tell you I don’t take health advice from ambulance drivers in the same fashion would I take it from a cab driver.

RM”You demonstrate an amazing ability to lie, while accusing others of being immoral.”
——————–
Where do I lie? Where do I accuse one of being immoral. Take a look. Maybe your just sensitive and defensive.

RM”You claim that you get your morality out of a Book, but repeatedly act in a way that is unChristian.”

I didn’t claim such. What do you know about Christianity to make such a claim?

RM “We all have opinions and prejudices. You have not shown that Chris does not come by his opinions and prejudices in a way that is less than objective.”

Yes, he is ambiguous isn’t she? And I have posted a question that shows Chris is biased and accepts rationality based on political correctness.

——————————–
RM: ‘Since vaccines are overwhelmingly beneficial to people, including to the individual, it is not at all irrational to exhibit intolerance and animosity to those who attempt to endanger people by means of telling lies about the risks of vaccine-preventable diseases and by telling lies about the risks of vaccines.”

Lies? What lies? It’s funny that since you don’t like FACTS that don’t fit into your little flashing world then you get emotional and claim “LIAR!”
———————————–
While you do occasionally rarely make statements that are factually correct, that does not demonstrate any understanding or intelligence on your part.

You are a liar, augustine.

All of my factual statements are factual. My opinions are my opinions. You can continue ad hominmems all you want. It just shows you can’t uphold your standard of SBM. NONE of you can. It’s easier to just say “you must be stupid” or you just don’t understand”.

There is a reason why your brand of science will ALWAYS be abdicated to cult status and you’ll NEVER endear yourself to the people who you claim to be doing this all for. Your ideology is elitist by nature. It can’t be all inclusive.
—————————————————
RM: “You claim to be more religious moral than those of us who try to help others.”

I know you’re “just trying to help” Aren’t we all? Except where did I claim “more religious morality”?
—————————————–
RM: “You use your religion to excuse your disgusting behavior.”

What? Oh you don’t like snark? Like I said. I learn from here and then I repeat. I raise and lower the intensity to mirror the poster. What’s the matter? You like to give it out. Don’t like it when you recieve it?
————————–
You act as if you are trying to bring about an epidemic in the expectation that this will be the disaster that causes the Second Coming.

More of that ole slippery CDC propaganda “what will happen if we don’t continue to vaccinate the hell out of your children with no end in sight?”

LW: “It can’t be from actual statistics since it’s way wrong,”

Before I tell you. You first tell me how it’s wrong. Or do you just feel it in your spirit that it MUST be wrong, therefore it actually IS wrong. After that you sit back down and don’t ever challenge me again.

Man i love this snark thing. I feel like a real SBMer. except different.

@augustine:

Quoting myself:

Then what information can be used by an individual to reach a rational decision about taking a particular vaccine?

Wait, I forgot: we won’t listen to anything you say, so you aren’t going to answer questions like that.

I give up.

anton the meterologist: “* The meteorologist who looks at all the data coming in from the instruments and says “there’s an 80% chance of rain,” however, is only correct (in Goofus’ mind) about there being a chance of it raining if it rains!”

You’re the goofus. It’s all a language game really isnt’ it silly?

You’re only correct in terminology. Not about if it ACTUALLY rains or not.

Notice that Goofus is avoiding a question that he has no answer to: why is it that the person assessing the probability of one outcome of a coin flip is correct if he assesses the probability correctly, but the person assessing the probability of one outcome of the weather is correct only if that outcome comes to pass? (And why only that one outcome? Does this mean that if the weatherman predicts “80% chance of rain, 20% chance of sun”, he’s both 100% right and 100% wrong whether it rains or shines??)

What Goofus is really trying to do is bolster arguments he has built up on the foundation of the Nirvana fallacy. The Nirvana fallacy involves rejecting an alternative because it is not perfect (while of course failing to demand that standard of all the other alternatives.) Goofus may claim that the evidence for vaccines is insufficient, but the standards he sets for “sufficient” are frequently not achievable in this universe: demanding 100% certainty that something which hasn’t happened yet will happen, or even more crazily, demanding 100% proof that something which did not happen would have done so if different choices had been made.

(Think about that second one; could you prove anything by that standard? If you put on a parachute before you jumped out of the plane at 30,000 feet, could you ever prove — to someone irrationally convinced of the pointlessness of parachutes — that the end result of jumping without a parachute would have been injury and death?)

augustine, I’m not the one who cites numbers with great precision (99.999% chance of avoiding harm from measles or other diseases) on every single thread. You are. Nor am I the one who claims that probabilities with respect to human beings cannot be meaningfully computed. You are. You have done both in this very thread. So what does this number, which you cite and which you say cannot reflect probability, actually mean? This question does not require any citation of sources from me or anyone else because we do not offer the number nor do we claim that probabilities cannot be computed. It’s your number; tell us where it came from and why you think it is meaningful.

TODD W.: “Which reminds me, that’s another thing you will not find from augustine: acknowledgment of an error.”

If I make one I’ll acknowledge it.

https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2010/07/i_know_you_are_but_what_am_i_medical_voi.php#comment-2675438

–

Later in the same comment thread:

So tell me how many people get pneumonia from measles. Citations please. Science mom says 25%. You say 3%. That’s a pretty big difference.

A decrease in life expectancy just for getting pneumonia? I’ve never heard that. Can you reference that also?

https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2010/07/i_know_you_are_but_what_am_i_medical_voi.php#comment-2679217

–

In response to that comment, I point out that pneumonia is a significant factor in limiting life expectancy. It is, with influenza, the 8th most common cause of death in the US, where augustine seems to think that we are too healthy to die from pneumonia:

8. Influenza and Pneumonia:…………..52,717

Source: Deaths: Final Data for 2007, tables B, D, 7, 30
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm

Why would augustine the omniscient not realize that such a lethal disease has an effect on life expectancy?

Probably because augustine appears to filter everything through his biases, before deciding to believe.

augustine rejects the scientific method. The scientific method is a way of minimizing the influence of our biases on our understanding. augustine does not appear to think think that his biases lead to mistakes. Or is it that augustine does not believe that he has any biases?

augustine seems to think that pneumonia is safer than a vaccine.

https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2010/07/i_know_you_are_but_what_am_i_medical_voi.php#comment-2686825

–

There were no further comments from augustine on that post. The style of augustine is to change the subject when caught making mistakes or telling lies.

Science is about admitting mistakes.

Science appears to be too humble a discipline for the undisciplined and hubristic augustine.

Science is about continually improving the knowledge that we have. Since augustine cannot seem to accept anything less than perfect knowledge, he seems to pretend that it is possible or he extols the virtues of mystery.

Any claim to perfect knowledge is a lie.

–

Back to some earlier comments from augustine on the same post:

Yes and what you say today can be wrong in 50 years according the history of medical science. But today you will steadfastly claim it as truth and knowledge in the name of science. If it is true today then it should be true in 50 years. If it were really “scientific” 50 years ago then it should be “scientific” today. The problem is science doesn’t say a lot of things that people say it says.

https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2010/07/i_know_you_are_but_what_am_i_medical_voi.php#comment-2669584

The above quote, sentence by sentence.

Yes and what you say today can be wrong in 50 years according the history of medical science.

Wrong in the sense of being misleading in only a small number of cases, but the overwhelming majority of what augustine is describing is just wrong in the sense of being incomplete. As more is learned, the information accumulates in a Bayesian fashion.

augustine misrepresents what is meant by self-correcting. Either augustine does not understand or augustine lies. We cannot expect augustine to admit to either.

But today you will steadfastly claim it as truth and knowledge in the name of science.

Those presenting scientific information are pretty good about making clear what we only understand poorly. The actual errors are far less common than augustine suggests. Unlike augustine, scientists actually do point out their mistakes. augustine will change the subject, switch to another comment thread, or continue to repeat the same mistakes with different phrasing.

If it is true today then it should be true in 50 years.

That which is only corrected by making it more complete, is not untrue in 50 years, it is buttressed in 50 years.

In 50 years it has not been made untrue.

There will be some things that are untrue in 50 years.

Show some evidence that the untrue will be a major portion of scientific knowledge, augustine.

–

“There are many differences between science and religion, but perhaps the most important is this: Science changes its conclusions on the basis of new evidence.”

This common defense needs to be looked into and scrutinized more. The main problem with this defense is in the difference in the way the term “science” is used and interchanged to fit the defenders argument. More on this one later because this statement has confused SBMers.

https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2010/07/i_know_you_are_but_what_am_i_medical_voi.php#comment-2669584

–

No.

The main problem with this defense criticism is in the difference in the way the term “science” is used and interchanged to fit the defenders critic’s argument.

More on this one later because this statement has confused SBMers.

I am still waiting, not expecting anything, because augustine is all about atmosphere without any substance. There is no understanding of SBM, only posturing about what augustine does not understand.

.

Oh, I know it won’t answer. It just irritates me that it keeps throwing around numbers indicating death rates of 1/100,000 or 1/1,000,000 (including once when it claimed a death rate from measles of 1/1,000,000 and simultaneously cited figures showing a death rate of almost 3/1,000,000 per year. Unfortunately I don’t have access to a computer with Internet connectivity, and couldn’t find its comment using this little iPhone, or I’d link to it.)

But in this thread it claims that probabilities can’t even be meaningfully computed for human beings. So why does it keep throwing around numbers that purport, on the face of them, to be probabilities?

LW: “But in this thread it claims that probabilities can’t even be meaningfully computed for human beings.”
———————————
They are erroneous and misleading in the way they are presented.

Does it really matter how many 9s after 4 decimal places?

My source? CDC and U.S. census bureau.

Ah, that’s what I thought! It really doesn’t understand that all those 9s mean something!

“[Probabilities] are erroneous and misleading in the way they are presented.” Yes, augustine, especially when you make them up.

Also, death is not the only bad outcome from measles. For every child who died, there is at least one or two who become permanently disabled (I’m still waiting for someone who is against the MMR to explain how those two boys could have been protected, or why they deserved what happened to them).

Yes. I used to work in a law office. One day a woman came in to make a will putting all in trust for her daughter, for life. Her daughter was my age (within a week) but unlike me she didn’t get vaccinated against measles. She was a normal, happy child until she was about six or seven and got the measles. She suffered brain damage and was rendered blind, mostly deaf, partially paralyzed, and severely mentally deficient. She was in an institution and would remain there for life. Everything she might have been was destroyed by that disease.

But augustine is okay with that.

@Dr. David N. Andrews M.D. M. Ed., C. P. S. E. L.M.N.O.P. and LW

“What a shite Augie really is, eh, folks? Augie wants suffering. The rest of us would rather people were spared that.”

“Everything she might have been was destroyed by that disease.
But augustine is okay with that.”
——————

Those are called logical fallacies. Quite below the SMB membership standard but too low to use.

Unless you want to present the air tight logic used to come up with those conclusions.

You guys are falling apart. Focus! Do it for the lurkers. Oh, and the children. Except for those two little ones that Zaxter devastated for the good fight. Ok do it for SOME of the children. The ones whom you’ve confirmed attempted CDC compliance for.

Sheesh.

Once more, we see augie cruelly flogging numbers. Silly augie is forgetting that, in order to determine the number of people that will potentially suffer consequences from measles, one needs to use as the denominator the number of susceptible people, not the total population. Prometheus has an excellent post about this here.

It’s hard commenting on this iPhone because the screen is so small. I went from memory on augustine’s number of deaths. It wasn’t 400, it was 440. So the percent that survived is 99.999725%, even lower. Also, I picked 160 million as a nice round number that was over 150 million.

He’s acting like a *troll*. He’s using the chauvinist asshole schtick and other insults because it’s getting attention and not for any other reason. Let that awareness guide your responses.

@ 159 Kristen,

Thank you for the defense on qualifications, but I also do drive the ambulance. One of my favorite blogs is by a paramedic friend of mine – A Day in the Life of an Ambulance Driver.

http://ambulancedriverfiles.com/

For augustine’s comments to bother me, I would have to think that augustine actually understands what augustine is writing about or that augustine’s opinion is more important than the opinion of the combative drunks I deal with. Maybe augustine is not any more sober than these drunks are.

augustine does not seem to think that women ought to think. That works, only if we completely ignore all of the intelligent contributions of women to science and . . . Oops, augustine thinks that science is a lie, because science does not support augustine’s biases.

The intelligent person would realize that science allows us to test our biases and see if these biases have any validity, but augustine will not accept that augustine’s biases are even biases. These biases seem to be augustine’s absolute and unquestionable truth.

augustine’s apparent belief that women are inferior to men is just one example of augustine’s biases misleading augustine. Where is augustine’s evidence? In augustine’s imagination.

augustine appears to be all about satisfying augustine’s biases. About 99.9999% of the time.

augustine seems to filter everything through augustine’s biases.

don’t worry about augustine ignoring you. It just means that augustine doesn’t have an answer. Not that you are missing anything. Most of augustine’s answers are worthless.
.

Science Mom, there’s the underreporting problem, true. There’s also the problem of permanent sequelae.  

The lovely augustine asserts in the next thread that “99.9999+% of [Americans who had measles in the pre-vaccine era] will not have permanent sequelae” from measles. Those are the ones who didn’t die of measles, of course. But given that there are two to three with permanent sequelae for every one that dies, there would be six to ten permanently injured per million *per year*.  

For augustine, who prefers to “think” in terms of numbers not injured or killed, using 440 dead out of 160 million population,    and six to ten per million injured, that’s 99.998725% to 99.999125% not killed or injured *per year*. Neither of these numbers is 99.9999%, much less 99.9999+%, and they are *per year* not lifetime. 

I’ve been drafting an explanation of the difference between rates per year and lifetime risk, pitched at augustine’s level (i.e., grade school) but the length is going to be downright Oracian, and not easy to enter on an iPhone. Maybe someone with a computer connected to the Internet could tackle it.     

No, augustine, 99.9999% is not right. It is *wrong*. Take a calculator. Multiply the population by 99.9999. Divide the result by 100. That is the number that did not die of measles *in that year*. Subtract that number from the original population. The result is the number that did die of measles *in that year*. In this case that would be 151. Examine that number carefully. It is much less than 440. In fact, it’s just over a third of 440. That means that you have made two glaring errors: (1) you have understated the annual death toll by a factor of almost three; (2) you are under the delusion that the annual death toll in the population is the same as the lifetime risk per person.

Since you can’t even grasp the meaning of numbers, there doesn’t seem much point in trying to get you to comprehend lifetime risk. I’m sure all the lurkers are, like me, bored of my attempts to correct the deficiencies in your education.

I used the 1950 population number because that was all I had to go by. I knew the population would be OVER 150 million so I rounded up. 99.9999% is correct.

But we can go with your numbers if you want to LW.
99.998725% to 99.999125% did not die from measles BEFORE the vaccine.

You have shifted the goalposts. You originally stated that 99.999bazillion% did not suffer permanent complications of disease. You are also not paying attention to the susceptible population.

Ah, I see what you mean. It’s actually 99.99976% don’t die from measles before the vaccine was used. The 4th decimal really does make a huge difference. I was WRONG! You’ve COMPLETELY changed the landscape of the argument! This new number will devastate people to the reality of it. 99.99976% will surely show people the urgency of the matter. Numbers don’t lie. But just in case, I think we should chop down the denominator and subdivide groups so we can make it more emotionally appealling to doubters.

1/1000 die from measles. There. How’s that? No explanation needed.

Since I have the calculator out let’s look at the odds for today. 315,000,000. 1 measles death. Forget about age and underlying health status. I’ll assume it could be me.

1/315,000,000 = 3.174603e-9(100)-100= [99.9999997%] odds of not dying from measles.

Wow, I like those kind of odds. Science has spoken and it said not to vaccinate.

“But you have those odds because of vaccination” you say? Well maybe science told those other people, in a dream, to vaccinate. To that I say thank you Science. But it told me 99.9999997% is pretty good odds.

I asked him (Science) about morals, ethics, “free-riding”, and school policy but he said he was not allowed to speak on those things. He said his father (philosophy) told him if he spoke on those things he would no longer be Science. He would be something other than Science. He said that he also would be attempting to play G-d. And that he was not God. So I said “OK”.

LW, I like you. You’re silly. “In a land far..far…away..In a time forgotten…”

So how did you determine the odds of the game?

Did you know the the odds before the trigger was pulled or did you count the bodies and retrospectively study the odds and then determined there was 6 chambers and 1 bullet?

BTW, the U.S. infant mortality is the highest in the medicalized world. We take the most vaccines and drugs than any other country.

Our cruel king pulls the trigger on almost every child.

augustine, I said specifically that the attendant has a six-shooter and puts one bullet in it. Therefore, we know in advance that there are six chambers and one bullet, hence odds of death are one in six.

The point is that lifetime risk of death is very different from annual death rates for a risk that affects every single person (like measles pre-vaccine) and citing annual death rates as if they reflected lifetime risk is misleading. But since you are either deliberately misleading or too dim to grasp this point, my example was not addressed to you.

[LW: Therefore, we know in advance that there are six chambers and one bullet, hence odds of death are one in six.]

This is a teaching moment for you and Todd.

[I said specifically that the attendant has a six-shooter and puts one bullet in it. ]

So How many chambers does the measles virus have? How many bullets? And how do you know this as opposed to knowing how many the gun has?

Todd, you’re welcome to participate also. But here’s a hint. There is only one answer.

This is a perfect application of arrogance of ignorance.

[LW: Among its many failings, augustine apparently does not grasp the concept of a simplified example.]

You’re attempt at lifetime risk analysis is severely flawed. You don’t have enough knowledge to come even close to making that assessment. Like I said, arrogance of ignorance.

So you know how many chambers are on the revolver. It’s knoweable and fixed. So how many chambers does the virus have. How many bullets? The lethality of the gun’s bullet is 100%. So how do you assess the lethality of the vaccine’s bullets?

Let me know when this gets too complicated and I’ll stop. No matter your arrogance some things can’t be accurately computed.

Forget about age and underlying health status.

This is a perfect application of arrogance of ignorance.

It is indeed.

So you know how many chambers are on the revolver. It’s knoweable and fixed. So how many chambers does the virus have. How many bullets? The lethality of the gun’s bullet is 100%. So how do you assess the lethality of the vaccine’s bullets?

Let me know when this gets too complicated and I’ll stop. No matter your arrogance some things can’t be accurately computed.

As usual, this particular Goofus cherishes and cultivates ignorance on the subject of probability. He tries to pretend that “some things can’t be accurately computed” because if he understood and acknowledged the truth that they can in fact be accurately computed, then he will no longer be able to make up his own numbers for those things.

The simple fact is that when the number of trials is sufficiently large, the probability of a thing occurring can be accurately (if not precisely) calculated by simply observing the frequency with which it occurred. This is an established fact of probability, one on which an entire class of computational algorithms is founded.

(Remember, accuracy and precision are two different things. If you fire eight arrows at an archery target, and the arrows are all clustered around the central bullseye but none of them actually hit the bullseye itself, then your shooting is accurate but not precise. If you fire eight arrows and they all land within a circle two inches in diameter, but that circle is on the fourth ring away from the bullseye, your shooting is precise but it’s not accurate.

Understanding the difference between accuracy and precision also gives you the answer to the old jest about “isn’t a stopped clock better than a clock that’s always five minutes slow? The stopped clock shows the right time twice a day, but the clock that’s slow never shows the right time!” The clock that’s exactly five minutes slow always shows the time accurately within a precision of five minutes; meanwhile, only twenty minutes out of the entire day does the stopped clock report more accurately and precisely than the slow clock.)

So the fact is that you can accurately compute the answer to questions such as “What is the probability that a person who is exposed to disease X will develop it? What is the probability that they will die from it? What is the probability that they will live but develop serious sequelae from the disease?” just by looking at how many people who were exposed to disease X did develop it, how many people did die from it, how many did live but developed serious sequelae.

Goofus thinks that the only things you can calculate probability of are things which are “knowable and fixed.” For instance, if you see a coin, a coin has two faces, so if it’s a fair coin, obviously each face has a 50% probability of coming up. But what if it’s not a fair coin? What if, unknown to us, it’s been rigged to come up heads more often than tails? According to Goofus, we’d never know because you can never measure probability from outcome. But in the real world, if we toss the coin 1000 times and we get 600 heads and only 400 tails, we can be pretty sure the probability of getting heads on any one flip is 60%, not the 50% it would be on a fair coin. Is it exactly 60%? Maybe not; maybe it’s 59%, maybe it’s 61%. But the more flips we do, the more precisely we can pin down the probability. And if someone like Goofus comes along and says “Oh, sure, you did 6000000 flips and you got a ratio of 60% heads to 40% tails — but maybe the actual probability of getting tails is 99.99999999999% and it’s just chance that you didn’t get anywhere near 99.99999999999% tails!” you know that this is someone who simply cultivates ignorance of probability and logic so that they can stay in massive denial.

[Saucy: The posters here are in no need of any help with you jack.]

Shirley, you can’t be serious. And my name isn’t Jack.

If measles were an emerging disease and there were no records of how many people had gotten it and how many of those had died, then yes, augustine, there would be a problem with computing the odds. But since it isn’t, there isn’t.

[Anteus: So in order to pretend that there is a “problem of odds predictability” augie tries to ignore more than 1,000 years of history. Kinda tells you all you need to know about augie, doesn’t it?]

You don’t have to ignore history with the revolver odds. You simply count 1,2,3,4,5,6 chambers. 1 bullet. odds 6/1 of little infant surviving roulette gunshot by the king’s henchman.

Why can’t you do that with the measles virus? Go ahead. Count ’em. Get back too me.

Houston, you have a problem!

Anteus: [Why would anyone think there’s a problem with not being able to do it Goofus’ way after we’ve already shown that it can be done in another way that gives better results?]

Stick with me but you may be too entrenched in the dogma to see your error.

What is the problem with just counting the number of deaths from russian roulette and determining how many chambers a revolver has and how many bullets from those deaths?

Just nutting up and saying “science wins and you lose is no consolation for you.” Keep answering the question and you’ll see where your method has taken you. Into a big fat progaganda lie, where analogies are smoke and mirrors for the truth.

You lose this one. Trust me. The deeper you dig the more dogmatic you seem.

“Oh gnoes! Those nasty dogmatic SBM’ers don’t care about the countless millions who are cruelly slaughtered every year in thought experiments!

Wait, I’m only slaughtering 50K per year. It’s those other SBM’ers who slaughter countless millions.

Anteus, your ad hominems won’t help you answer the question and see the error in your ways.

So how many chambers and how many bullets in a measles virus pre infection? You know, the analogy you screwed up on.

I’ll go ahead and give you the next question since you’re too stupid too figure out what’s going on. You’re going into a dogma spiral. Just admit you messed up and I’ll stop.

Why can’t you simply count the number of russian roulette deaths determine the number of chambers in the gun? Please tell us. Whats the problem here, Anteus?

Please stop so you don’t wind up being the stupidist commenter on RI. Well, besides Ender. But not quite as bad as the Andrews fellar. I had somewhat respect for you before this dogmatic presentation of yours.

Ugh troll, as long as you continue to count the costs but not the benefits of real medicine, you are a blight on this blog.

It’s all well and good to talk about iatrogenic mortality/morbidity. This blog does it, Science-Based Medicine does it, I’m sure other blogs do, too. Reducing iatrogenic mortality/morbidity is a worthy and noble goal.

But if you are hell-bent on ignoring the real, calculable benefits of real medicine, then kindly fuck off.

I know, Prometheus. I’ve been trying to tease out from augustine’s pitifully constructed arguments some measure of educational value, but the problem is augustine is just too low-class to even be much good as a negative role model!

When I dissect the arguments of a Goofus it’s because I think that seeing the arguments dissected could be educational for someone who might otherwise be fooled by them. But honestly, how could anyone watch augustine whining about “your ad hominems” in the same comment as “you’re too stupid too [sic] figure out what’s going on” and “please stop so you don’t wind up being the stupidist [sic] commenter” and not see for themselves that he’s flailing pathetically? Anyone who understands that ad hominem is not Latin for “disparaging remark” sees that augie is whining about something that didn’t happen; even someone who doesn’t understand that distinction can see that augie is demanding to be treated with a respect he won’t give to others!

augie just doesn’t seem capable of producing much of substance or quality, and that’s no matter which side or angle you’re coming from.

Peter P: [No, it only takes a few seconds. There’s a measles outbreak in Malawi right now.

That’s 1 in about 400 for Malawi today, and likely yesterday as well.]

Must be that killer Malawi measles strain. It’s twice as deadly as the American strain. It could come over here at any minute if we don’t vaccinate enough. You know all of the viruses in Africa are more vicious than the American viruses. I hope we don’t get ANY virus from Africa. I’ve heard that THEIR measles virus kills 10 times as many as the one we get in America.

Anteus, could you tell us how many chambers and bullets the deadly African measles virus has as compared to the milder American measles virus. I want to get a vaccine for the African strain because the benefit outweighs the risk. I’m not taking my chances. One of those Malwinese? may just jump on a plane and come to my city during his viral infectivity period.

Some history about Malawi that may be of scientific and epidemiological interest:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malawi

Malawi is among the world’s least developed and most densely populated countries.

Societal issues included child abuse and forced child labor, restricted worker rights, human trafficking and violence against women.

Atheists make up around 4% of the population…

Infant mortality rates are high, and life expectancy at birth is 50.03 years. There is a high adult prevalence rate of HIV/AIDS, with an estimated 930,000 adults (or 11.9% of the population) living with the disease in 2007. There are approximately 68,000 deaths a year from HIV/AIDS (2007).[20] Approximately 250 new people are infected each day, and at least 70% of Malawi’s hospital beds are occupied by HIV/AIDS patients.

There is a very high degree of risk for major infectious diseases, including bacterial and protozoal diarrhea, hepatitis A, typhoid fever, malaria, plague, schistosomiasis and rabies.[20] Malawi has been making progress on decreasing child mortality and reducing the incidences of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; however, the country has been “[performing] dismally” on reducing maternal mortality and promoting gender equality.[33]

So I dismiss this report as nothing but the usual vaccine propaganda that many fall for. Just because you’re an SBMer don’t think you are immune to media propaganda.

@Prometheus: It also seems to me that the fatality rate of measles would naturally be higher now than 1950 because the majority of unimmunized individuals today are also at higher risk of death from measles, i.e. babies and the immunocompromised.

Augustine: Pharyngula is thataway – unless you’re in the dungeon there already.

OL: [It also seems to me that the fatality rate of measles would naturally be higher now than 1950 because the majority of unimmunized individuals today are also at higher risk of death from measles, i.e. babies and the immunocompromised.]

Do you have citations for that or is that your personal opinon?

@Promo, nice big fat straw man you argued against there. Pay attention.

[Promo: Or we’ve become more sensitive to measles, which would also speak against Augie’s casual attitude toward measles.]

Yeh, 50 years of measles vaccine and now we have a “deadlier” measles virus. good job.

But, I digress. Your case fatatility numbers are flawed because of the inaccuracy of you numbers. They are based on REPORTED cases. Since measles WAS generally mild, most cases didn’t bother to go to the doctor, hence they were not reported. The CDC estimates that 3-4 million cases per year actually occurred as opposed to the 500,000 cases reported. This changes you fear mongering number greatly.

Little Augie, the directions to Pharyngula are in the blue text. If you hover your mouse of the text you will see the little arrow turn into a hand. If you click on the blue letters you will go to the new page.

Present Science and Medicine is a commersial psudo science.
Or indoctrinated humans attempt to spread the mind virus to the natural and smart people.

Nice bit of necromancy.
Secondly, the correct spellings are “commercial” and “pseudo”. So much for “smart”.
Thanks for the LOL’s. Now shove off.