Anti-vaccination is not about offering a choice, it's about removing a well established and proven safety net for everyone. Vaccines have all but eradicated some very serious illnesses, like polio and whooping cough.
Many who were born prior to these vaccines existing, or who have conditions preventing vaccination, are kept safe only if the rest of the population is vaccinated. Also, a vaccine does not always prevent you from contracting the illness due to biological factors.
The idea is called "herd immunity," and it requires that the majority of the herd be made immune. This is extremely important in light of how dense our population centers have gotten due to over population.
The only way to justify offering parents a choice to endanger the entire population is by discrediting vaccines. To date, no one has come forward with any empirical evidence suggesting any major risks are associated with vaccines.
Let's look at autism first, a common claim is that vaccines cause autism yet these people who make this claim are only looking at numbers increased by medical advances which allow for better diagnosis. Most autistic people would remain unnoticed in the past, often dismissed as just "slow," "unsocial," etc.
Today we know that autism is a spectrum and many instances remained undiagnosed in the past, a vast majority of autistic people suffered in silence. We also know it's genetic, as for exactly how it's contracted, there is still some debate among scientists.
It is jot something you contract later in life, you are born autistic or not, that we do know for certain. So there is no connection to vaccines in any way, we just know more about autism now.
Another that is being linked to vaccines by the deluded anti-vaxxers is SIDS. A horrible event in which an infant dies for no apparent reason. The fallacy here is in the abuse of the term, ironically.
SIDS is not an illness, it is like the term UFO, it means we don't know what caused it. With today's media, even known causes of death are often called SIDS, which illustrates my point very well.
Media is rarely a source of facts, and media is also the only real driving force of anti-vaccine. The cases of actual SIDS should be lower, but parents are often too lazy or dishonest to have a full investigation done, usually the parents are directly at fault.
Seizures seem to be a new one, okay, there is a possibility of this being true. However, the chemicals that can cause those are no longer present in vaccines, oops.
A very common tactic of the anti-vaxxer is to present old, outdated, even outlawed vaccine formulas. Modern vaccines use only demonstrably safe chemicals, chemicals present in almost all medicine, food, and living organisms.
They avoid the modern formulas, even denying that those are used now. This is a display of cognitive dissonance, remove the chemicals that have low overdose levels and they lose their entire argument.
Sunday, September 27, 2015
Friday, September 25, 2015
Male Privilege
Privilege is often conflated by statistics showing misfortune, such statistics could demonstrate many things but none of it is privilege. So, the lesson in what privilege is begins, using male privilege as the example.
Bring victims of crime does not show privilege, criminals are not the system of governing in power. But a statistic showing wrongful prosecutions, harassment by law enforcement, and unfair judicial rulings does show privilege.
Women are often plagued with rape and abuse, men do as well, but the difference is what happens when such instances are reported. Often the woman is blamed in every instance, regardless of who actually perpetrated the rape, and shamed for "dressing wrong" or being courageous enough to stand against their attacker.
Most rapes of men are never reported, yet the few that are reported will always blame the attacker. In instances of abuse, the men are treated with dignity and respect while women run to homeless shelters for protection.
In the media, male victims are always portrayed as strong, while female victims are portrayed as weak, even in nearly identical stories. When society blames the victim it is always the female they are blaming.
Even in courts of law, you often hear the persecutor make statements about the clothing, location, or choice of transportation instead of presenting facts. To make it worse, the judges do consider such ignorant statements as facts, if the victim is female.
A well dressed woman walking down the street alone is often harassed and accused of prostitution by law enforcement, while males are almost never harassed just for looking good and being alone.
In domestic abuse cases men are usually never prosecuted, even though the law states that perpetrators must be prosecuted. Female victims are usually left with the abuser and told to file their own report, while female perpetrators are arrested on the spot.
These facts are common knowledge among social workers, most women who are in the shelters are hiding from dangerous abusers and not even reported in statistics. Anonymity is a rule in women's shelters, punishable by banishment or even criminal prosecution, depending on who breaks it.
So before anyone presents any idiotic statistics about men, present the ones of those reported rape and abuse cases where the perpetrator was prosecuted and the victim made safe. Present the homeless statistics of those who are fleeing from a dangerous situation, not just homeless by circumstance.
Present the statistic showing the deaths caused by abuse, number of officials who are female, how easy it is to get medical care, ...
Bring victims of crime does not show privilege, criminals are not the system of governing in power. But a statistic showing wrongful prosecutions, harassment by law enforcement, and unfair judicial rulings does show privilege.
Women are often plagued with rape and abuse, men do as well, but the difference is what happens when such instances are reported. Often the woman is blamed in every instance, regardless of who actually perpetrated the rape, and shamed for "dressing wrong" or being courageous enough to stand against their attacker.
Most rapes of men are never reported, yet the few that are reported will always blame the attacker. In instances of abuse, the men are treated with dignity and respect while women run to homeless shelters for protection.
In the media, male victims are always portrayed as strong, while female victims are portrayed as weak, even in nearly identical stories. When society blames the victim it is always the female they are blaming.
Even in courts of law, you often hear the persecutor make statements about the clothing, location, or choice of transportation instead of presenting facts. To make it worse, the judges do consider such ignorant statements as facts, if the victim is female.
A well dressed woman walking down the street alone is often harassed and accused of prostitution by law enforcement, while males are almost never harassed just for looking good and being alone.
In domestic abuse cases men are usually never prosecuted, even though the law states that perpetrators must be prosecuted. Female victims are usually left with the abuser and told to file their own report, while female perpetrators are arrested on the spot.
These facts are common knowledge among social workers, most women who are in the shelters are hiding from dangerous abusers and not even reported in statistics. Anonymity is a rule in women's shelters, punishable by banishment or even criminal prosecution, depending on who breaks it.
So before anyone presents any idiotic statistics about men, present the ones of those reported rape and abuse cases where the perpetrator was prosecuted and the victim made safe. Present the homeless statistics of those who are fleeing from a dangerous situation, not just homeless by circumstance.
Present the statistic showing the deaths caused by abuse, number of officials who are female, how easy it is to get medical care, ...
Wednesday, September 23, 2015
Is Abortion Wrong?
Life does not begin at conception, it actually begins long before that. Every cell in your body is a living organism, specialized for a mobile and isolated ecosystem we call your body.
This is a basic fact that is often ignored by opponents of abortion, they arm themselves with ignorance and redefine words simply to scare people into listening to them. Consider the misuse of the word "baby" in place of fetus, it is illegal to abort prior to 21 weeks everywhere, in many states 18 weeks is the oldest.
What they are attempting to assert is that fetuses are sentient, which is still incorrect. They conflate living with sentience, and never learn the difference because of their closed minds.
A fetus is not sentient, it cannot be sentient, sentience requires a functioning brain and nervous system. In AI development they are just now figuring this out, though I pointed it out several decades ago.
For sentience to develop the neural network must begin processing information, this information must come from the senses. The senses receive this information from the world around them.
Limiting the world has a nearly identical effect as removing the senses, it prevents the brain from learning. The first step to sentience is to record the information, processing cannot begin until enough information is recorded.
By widening the definition of life, opponents of abortion inadvertantly equate human life to cancer cells, which is not entirely inaccurate but that is a different topic. Scientifically, we define life loosely because we have no clear definitive boundary, even our machines fit the definition of life, so morally we act based on level of sentience.
A fully sentient organism is considered of higher value than those not sentient, thus a cat is valuable but a germ is not. By extension, a baby is valuable but a fetus is not.
This is why then opponents of abortion are calling a fetus a baby, a sad and dishonest attempt to force value onto something which has none in science. By doing this, they prove that they are not using science in their argument, their entire argument is based on objectifying women.
Ultimately, being an opponent to abortion is the perfect example of hypocrisy, they are delegating women to less valuable than nonsentient organisms.
Tuesday, September 15, 2015
The Unexplainable
Often the word "unexplainable" is misused by people grasping at straws to call anything they want "supernatural." What's more, they often claim that they are not calling it supernatural, adding insult to injury.
Something that is unexplainable is, by default, supernatural. All things natural can be explained even if we have not yet found an explanation.
Alien visitations and hauntings are the claims this miswording is often applied, usually with the implication that because the person telling the story has no explanation that none exists. The fallacies are plain as day, but the reasons they do this is so they can feel special without having to earn it.
Lazy thinking is the most common problem in our species, we even invented a tool to help correct this. Jumping to the conclusion takes no effort,study, or even practice, it is simply asserting what you want it to be.
I am brought back to the analogy best explaining what a true skeptic is. Walking through a graveyard the lazy thinker will tell themselves "ghosts are not real" or "I hope I don't see a ghost."
While walking through a graveyard the skeptic will think to themselves "if ghosts exist, I hope I can find some empirical evidence to demonstrate this." The difference is not as subtle as it appears, the lazy thinker has already made the assumption one wah or the other, while the skeptic seeks evidence to help demonstrate the positive possibility.
When facing religious people I am often told what I should believe, and yet when I ask for empirical evidence they recite anecdotes or repeat the stories over an over. Like they are stuck in a loop, they decided what they want to accept and cannot allow facts to get in the way.
James Randi, one of the people I look up to as an example of a true skeptic, once told a story about an "out of body experience" that he had. Asleep on a bed, he recalled seeing himself sleeping with the cat on the bed next to him, even details of the bedsheets.
He woke and told someone in the house about it, then he learned the truth based on empirical evidence. The cat had been out all night, and the bed sheets on the bed were not the ones he saw.
The video explains it in full, but the point was that in spite of the fact that he had no explanation at the time, it was explainable. Everything natural is explainable, and we have explanations for most natural phenomena.
The fact of the matter is, science is about finding explanations, not about making assertions.
Something that is unexplainable is, by default, supernatural. All things natural can be explained even if we have not yet found an explanation.
Alien visitations and hauntings are the claims this miswording is often applied, usually with the implication that because the person telling the story has no explanation that none exists. The fallacies are plain as day, but the reasons they do this is so they can feel special without having to earn it.
Lazy thinking is the most common problem in our species, we even invented a tool to help correct this. Jumping to the conclusion takes no effort,study, or even practice, it is simply asserting what you want it to be.
I am brought back to the analogy best explaining what a true skeptic is. Walking through a graveyard the lazy thinker will tell themselves "ghosts are not real" or "I hope I don't see a ghost."
While walking through a graveyard the skeptic will think to themselves "if ghosts exist, I hope I can find some empirical evidence to demonstrate this." The difference is not as subtle as it appears, the lazy thinker has already made the assumption one wah or the other, while the skeptic seeks evidence to help demonstrate the positive possibility.
When facing religious people I am often told what I should believe, and yet when I ask for empirical evidence they recite anecdotes or repeat the stories over an over. Like they are stuck in a loop, they decided what they want to accept and cannot allow facts to get in the way.
James Randi, one of the people I look up to as an example of a true skeptic, once told a story about an "out of body experience" that he had. Asleep on a bed, he recalled seeing himself sleeping with the cat on the bed next to him, even details of the bedsheets.
He woke and told someone in the house about it, then he learned the truth based on empirical evidence. The cat had been out all night, and the bed sheets on the bed were not the ones he saw.
The video explains it in full, but the point was that in spite of the fact that he had no explanation at the time, it was explainable. Everything natural is explainable, and we have explanations for most natural phenomena.
The fact of the matter is, science is about finding explanations, not about making assertions.
Sunday, September 13, 2015
Going Organic
Genetic modification is not new. We use to modify genes by cross and selective breeding, which produced things like bananas, corn, peaches, and modern pigeons.
The method is very random, and produces many invasive species. The result is that all of our food supply is best described as weeds.
Most foods grown in these so called "organic" farms drain the soil of nutrients, which is not how healthy plants behave. The reason for this is because we don't test their genetic component prior to use.
Cross breeding and selective breeding rely on luck, chance, and the results are rarely beneficial. Most of the plants and animals produced this way are not viable, many are downright dangerous, and there is no way to know for certain what the offspring will be.
Every plant produces something that it toxic to humans, but the amount is so low that we don't see it's effects. All it takes is a single random mutation to cause this toxin to increase in the offspring, making the plant poisonous.
But crossbreeding and selective breeding are not tested, or regulated. The end result is that you cannot trust the companies who use those outdated methods.
Today we have a very complete understanding of genetics, a side effect research into evolution. So we developed a more controlled method of genetic modification, using endogenous retroviruses, which modify genes in predictable ways.
This results in predictable outcomes, which means we know what the most probable result will be. Using these ERVs is heavily regulated and regularly tested because of the inherent dangers, much the reasons we regulate medical drugs, automobiles, factories, etc.
Then the offspring are tested as well, and regulated. Something the "organic" industry does not want you to know, because "organic" is unregulated.
The "organic" industry usurped that name for a reason, it's misleading and and a method of scaring you from opposition. In reality all life is organic, the compounds we use for medicine are also all organic, almost all chemicals we use are refined from organic sources.
That last point is often ignored or largely unknown by almost every consumer, oil is organic and it is the perfect example. All oil products are organic, and they are refined from the organic soup that we call oil.
Yes, plastic is an organic compound, refined from oil. Refining is the process of removing impurities, often we have other uses for the impurities as well.
The organic folks would rather you eat a mix of random chemicals than refined, purified, and tested chemicals. They'd rather you get a dose of cyanide with all your medicine as well.
Many plants produce cyanide as a natural pesticide, these herbal medicines are what we refine chemicals from. Modern medicine removes the beneficial chemicals from the poisons, herbals give you the poisons with the medicine.
The biggest problem is that the "organic" industry is misleading, obfuscating, and lying to scare people who know nothing about basic chemistry into paying twice as much for less than half the food. As an added benefit, they are making food more scarce and convincing governments to pay them huge subsidises because most people cannot afford the food.
The method is very random, and produces many invasive species. The result is that all of our food supply is best described as weeds.
Most foods grown in these so called "organic" farms drain the soil of nutrients, which is not how healthy plants behave. The reason for this is because we don't test their genetic component prior to use.
Cross breeding and selective breeding rely on luck, chance, and the results are rarely beneficial. Most of the plants and animals produced this way are not viable, many are downright dangerous, and there is no way to know for certain what the offspring will be.
Every plant produces something that it toxic to humans, but the amount is so low that we don't see it's effects. All it takes is a single random mutation to cause this toxin to increase in the offspring, making the plant poisonous.
But crossbreeding and selective breeding are not tested, or regulated. The end result is that you cannot trust the companies who use those outdated methods.
Today we have a very complete understanding of genetics, a side effect research into evolution. So we developed a more controlled method of genetic modification, using endogenous retroviruses, which modify genes in predictable ways.
This results in predictable outcomes, which means we know what the most probable result will be. Using these ERVs is heavily regulated and regularly tested because of the inherent dangers, much the reasons we regulate medical drugs, automobiles, factories, etc.
Then the offspring are tested as well, and regulated. Something the "organic" industry does not want you to know, because "organic" is unregulated.
The "organic" industry usurped that name for a reason, it's misleading and and a method of scaring you from opposition. In reality all life is organic, the compounds we use for medicine are also all organic, almost all chemicals we use are refined from organic sources.
That last point is often ignored or largely unknown by almost every consumer, oil is organic and it is the perfect example. All oil products are organic, and they are refined from the organic soup that we call oil.
Yes, plastic is an organic compound, refined from oil. Refining is the process of removing impurities, often we have other uses for the impurities as well.
The organic folks would rather you eat a mix of random chemicals than refined, purified, and tested chemicals. They'd rather you get a dose of cyanide with all your medicine as well.
Many plants produce cyanide as a natural pesticide, these herbal medicines are what we refine chemicals from. Modern medicine removes the beneficial chemicals from the poisons, herbals give you the poisons with the medicine.
The biggest problem is that the "organic" industry is misleading, obfuscating, and lying to scare people who know nothing about basic chemistry into paying twice as much for less than half the food. As an added benefit, they are making food more scarce and convincing governments to pay them huge subsidises because most people cannot afford the food.
Friday, September 11, 2015
Your Degrees Don't Make You Smart
So what is it that those on disability do? There was a time when we all sat around, watching television, twiddling thumbs, or reading cheesy novels.
But things have changed, a lot, since that time. Now most of us get internet instead of television, where we can socialize without our disabilities inhibiting interactions, where we can find honesty and places to belong.
As a side effect, many of us are studying a lot, we have access to scientific papers, free lectures, and make friends with many leading minds in various fields. Ultimately, many of us can become as renowned as leading scientific minds in the fields we find the most interest.
For me it was biochemistry, I had already studied much in the fields of neurology to attempt to write artificial intelligence, and DNA was a curiosity to me. I had been through schooling for chemistry, ahead of my class so my professor kept throwing higher levels of study at me, which I just absorbed.
So biochemistry became my latest interest, which I studied for over a decade. Watching lectures, repeating lab exorcises, and life in a more meaningful mindset.
So what makes me a scientist? Being a skeptic, one of the militant skeptics.
I cannot stop asking questions, and answers lacking in empirical evidence are easily discarded. I have no difficulty in determining fact from fiction, facts are always demonstrable, repeatable, and stand on their own.
Most intelligent people are skeptics, but not all are curious enough to keep asking, most don't have the patience or time to continue probing beyond the first answer. So by show of expertise, and a tenacious curiosity, many people have began calling me a scientist.
That's all there really is, demonstrable skepticism and curiosity makes you a scientist. Renown is more difficult to gain, but you need no degrees.
Renown is gained by demonstrating that you are able to apply your knowledge to advance the subject, you really don't need to write a scientific paper but it helps. Instead you can find things others missed, point it out to them, then they will remember that you helped.
My greatest contributions to science are old, many have fallen to obsolescence. I am not upset about that, I enjoy the fact that my work has helped others to advance sciences that I now get to use to make my life better.
Which leads us to the last important element for being a scientist, altruism. As a scientist you must aim to help those after you progress more than yourself.
But things have changed, a lot, since that time. Now most of us get internet instead of television, where we can socialize without our disabilities inhibiting interactions, where we can find honesty and places to belong.
As a side effect, many of us are studying a lot, we have access to scientific papers, free lectures, and make friends with many leading minds in various fields. Ultimately, many of us can become as renowned as leading scientific minds in the fields we find the most interest.
For me it was biochemistry, I had already studied much in the fields of neurology to attempt to write artificial intelligence, and DNA was a curiosity to me. I had been through schooling for chemistry, ahead of my class so my professor kept throwing higher levels of study at me, which I just absorbed.
So biochemistry became my latest interest, which I studied for over a decade. Watching lectures, repeating lab exorcises, and life in a more meaningful mindset.
So what makes me a scientist? Being a skeptic, one of the militant skeptics.
I cannot stop asking questions, and answers lacking in empirical evidence are easily discarded. I have no difficulty in determining fact from fiction, facts are always demonstrable, repeatable, and stand on their own.
Most intelligent people are skeptics, but not all are curious enough to keep asking, most don't have the patience or time to continue probing beyond the first answer. So by show of expertise, and a tenacious curiosity, many people have began calling me a scientist.
That's all there really is, demonstrable skepticism and curiosity makes you a scientist. Renown is more difficult to gain, but you need no degrees.
Renown is gained by demonstrating that you are able to apply your knowledge to advance the subject, you really don't need to write a scientific paper but it helps. Instead you can find things others missed, point it out to them, then they will remember that you helped.
My greatest contributions to science are old, many have fallen to obsolescence. I am not upset about that, I enjoy the fact that my work has helped others to advance sciences that I now get to use to make my life better.
Which leads us to the last important element for being a scientist, altruism. As a scientist you must aim to help those after you progress more than yourself.
Wednesday, September 9, 2015
Evolution and the Nose
Denying evolution is exactly the same as denying the nose on your own face. Noses are like fingerprints, only the differences between people is much more subtle.
Centuries ago we had much more bulbous noses, as a species. They were more round and slightly larger than they are today, but as you progress through the generations you see that we have arrived at a more slender, smaller, and pointed nose.
But more importantly, your nose is rarely similar to your parents. The genes that express noses span the DNA in a way that almost any mutation will cause a different nose to be expressed.
Even identical twins will have small differences in their noses, a fact that is usually overlooked. The bridge of the nose, which is shaped by the bone protruding from the skull, is one of the key differences in most noses.
Even as you age, your nose remains the same as you were when you first finished puberty, another odd aspect of this interesting trait. As children our noses almost all look the same, but during puberty they begin to look quite unique.
This is because it is mostly cartilage, which is very pliable in youth, becoming more solid as you age. The end result is the nose becomes the best and most visible example of evolution in action.
This is only one of the many things ignored by creationists, even when it's pointed out to them. It illustrates how cognitive dissonance can make us deny even the most obvious facts just to protect an idea which we were indoctrinated with.
Centuries ago we had much more bulbous noses, as a species. They were more round and slightly larger than they are today, but as you progress through the generations you see that we have arrived at a more slender, smaller, and pointed nose.
But more importantly, your nose is rarely similar to your parents. The genes that express noses span the DNA in a way that almost any mutation will cause a different nose to be expressed.
Even identical twins will have small differences in their noses, a fact that is usually overlooked. The bridge of the nose, which is shaped by the bone protruding from the skull, is one of the key differences in most noses.
Even as you age, your nose remains the same as you were when you first finished puberty, another odd aspect of this interesting trait. As children our noses almost all look the same, but during puberty they begin to look quite unique.
This is because it is mostly cartilage, which is very pliable in youth, becoming more solid as you age. The end result is the nose becomes the best and most visible example of evolution in action.
This is only one of the many things ignored by creationists, even when it's pointed out to them. It illustrates how cognitive dissonance can make us deny even the most obvious facts just to protect an idea which we were indoctrinated with.
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