Chris Mooney

Refusal of neonatal vitamin K injections: antivaccine déjà vu all over again

oracknows — Tue, 05 Aug 2014 02:04:55 +0000

Refusal of neonatal vitamin K injections: antivaccine déjà vu all over again

As prolific as I am, I have actually slowed down. Long time readers know this, as I used to have a post up seven days a week and sometimes two or more in a day. These days, I’ve made it a rule that I don’t post on weekends (except if something really catches my eye and I can’t control the blogging itch until Monday), and I almost never post more than once a day on weekdays. Heck, of late I’ve even been known to miss a weekday every now and then without even recycling posts from my not-so-super-secret other blog. It’s good, as I was a bit insane back then.

What I’m talking about is an article that appeared a week ago in Mother Jones by my old ScienceBlogs fellow blogger Chris Mooney. Now Chris and I might have had our differences over the years, but more often than not he’s right on, and even when we disagree we’re usually not so far apart that the gap is unbridgeable. In any case, a week ago, Chris published an article entitled Babies Are Getting Brain Bleeds—Are Vaccine Fears to Blame?, where he described a problem:

In May, the Tennessean reported on a truly shocking medical problem. Seven infants, aged between seven and 20 weeks old, had arrived at Vanderbilt University's Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital over the past eight months with a condition called "vitamin K deficiency bleeding," or VKDB. This rare disorder occurs because human infants do not have enough vitamin K, a blood coagulant, in their systems. Infants who develop VKDB can bleed in various parts of their bodies, including bleeding into the brain. This can cause brain damage or even death.
There is a simple protection against VKDB that has been in regular medical use since 1961, when it was recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics: Infants receive an injection of vitamin K into the leg muscle right after birth. Infants do not get enough of this vitamin from their mother's body or her milk, so this injection (which is not a vaccine, but simply a vitamin being delivered via a shot) is essential, explains pediatrician Clay Jones on the latest installment of the Inquiring Minds podcast (stream below). It's also quite safe.

Mooney’s article was based largely on information supplied to him by a pediatrician, Clay Jones, who also happened to blog at my not-so-super-secret other blog about the efficacy and safety of neonatal vitamin K injections for preventing brain bleeds, in a post from last year entitled Separating Fact From Fiction in the Not-So-Normal Newborn Nursery: Vitamin K Shots… and an installment of the Inquiring Minds podcast. The long version is in Clay’s post, but the short version is that newborn infants are considered universally deficient in vitamin K because of poor transfer of the vitamin across the placenta, immaturity of the liver leading to decreased storage capability and inefficiency at using available vitamin K, and deficiency of vitamin K in breast milk. In addition, the gut of the newborn, which starts out sterile, doesn’t significantly contribute to vitamin K levels for several weeks. (Vitamin K is actually synthesized by bacteria in the intestines and then absorbed.) The primary function of vitamin K is in clotting, where it’s a cofactor necessary for the activity of several enzymes involved in the clotting cascade. Indeed, the mechanism by which the anticoagulant drug warfarin (Coumadin) is by blocking the conversion of inactive precursors into active vitamin K, which is why vitamin K is used to reverse the the effects of Coumadin, and patients are told to avoid foods rich in vitamin K.

Without supplementation, babies are at risk for a potentially life-threatening complication known as vitamin K-deficient bleeding (VKDB). It primarily occurs in breastfed babies who didn’t receive an intramuscular dose of vitamin K as a newborn. There are two forms, an early form that occurs in the first week of life with an incidence of 0.25% to 1.7%) and a late form (late VKDB) that occurs between 2 and 12 weeks of age. It is this late form that tends to be associated with brain bleeding. Worse, VDKB can occur in perfectly healthy babies spontaneously (i.e., no obvious trauma is necessary), and it can range in severity from mild to life-threatening. Bleeding commonly manifests itself as skin bruising, bleeding from the mucus membranes, bleeding at the umbilical cord stump, and, worst of all, bleeding into the brain. Although the risk of late VKDB in babies who don’t receive prophylaxis is low (4.4 to 7.2 per 100,000 children not receiving vitamin K prophylaxis, according to Clay), intramuscular vitamin K is virtually 100% protective, and oral vitamin K supplementation doesn’t work nearly as well, so much so that some countries who had previously switched from recommending intramuscular vitamin K to recommending oral supplementation switched back to intramuscular injection after they noted a spike in cases of VKDB. Moreover, the intramuscular vitamin K injection is about a safe an intervention as you can imagine. Even though the incidence of late VKDB without prophylaxis is very low, the consequences are so devastating and the prophylaxis is so safe and effective that it makes perfect sense to recommend it.

Whether vaccine fears or not are responsible for the increase in parents refusing the vitamin K injection for their newborns is unclear. The wag in me wants to point out that it’s probably not fear of vaccine that’s driving this phenomenon. After all, most antivaccinationist or vaccine-averse parents love vitamins, given the prevalence of “natural medicine” among those who tend to distrust vaccines. Rather, I tend to believe that it’s a similar phenomenon, the fear of injections driven by the naturalistic fallacy that assumes that an injection of “synthetic” vitamin K is somehow “unnatural” and therefore inferior or dangerous, that drives rejection of the vitamin K injection. However, a lot of the same fallacies that drive vaccine rejectionism drive vitamin K rejection. A great example of this comes from someone whom we’ve met before.

I’m referring to a woman named Megan from a woo-infused website LivingWhole.org. We first met Megan, who brags about being a naturopath, Certified Natural Health Educator, Registered Power Yoga Instructor, writer, and stay-at-home mama, when she wrote a mind-bogglingly ignorant antivaccine screed that later disappeared because Megan confused criticism for persecution and harassment. An example of the sort of pseudoscience Megan regularly lays down is her “classic” post, Dear parents, are you being lied to?, which is still periodically pops up on Facebook and Twitter. Regular readers here will have no problem deconstructing its many...issues.

Cut from the same cloth is her post from yesterday, Synthetic vitamin K shot for my baby? No thanks. The article declares its dedication to pseudoscience from the very first paragraph, but the second one is where the nonsense starts:

The about four babies who get vitamin K deficiency bleeding (VKPD) out of the four million babies born in the United States each year? That’s not due to the medications women take while pregnant, trauma women and babies suffer during a modern childbirth, early cord-cutting, the low levels of gut bacteria infants have because we wipe it out with antibiotics, infant circumcision, or the hep B vaccination given to your babe during its first 12 hours of life to “protect” it against a disease that’s transferred via sex and dirty needles. It’s just a coincidence that one of the many possible adverse reactions of all infant vaccines includes encephalitis, which coincidentally can cause hemorrhaging.

That’s right. Right off the bat, Megan is trying to insinuate that it’s the neonatal hepatitis B vaccine that causes VKPD, not vitamin K deficiency. Based on what evidence? None, of course! Not surprisingly, she zeros in like the proverbial woo-infused laser beam on just the brain bleeds, which are uncommon, ignoring the other forms of bleeding due to VKPD, which are much more common, with an incidence between 0.25%–1.7%. She also keeps claiming that there is little evidence for the efficacy of the neonatal vitamin K shot. The American Academy of Pediatrics would beg to differ, pointing out that it’s been the standard of care since 1961. When faced with the ill-informed opinion of a naturopath and “natural” mother (or father) and the opinion of a major medical society based on evidence, guess which one I’ll lend a lot more credence to.

None of this stops our Megan, who dives further and further into bad science. If early VDKB to her is caused by the hepatitis B vaccine right after birth, then what could possibly be causing late VDKB, which is what causes the the highest risk of intracranial hemorrhage. One wonders, one does... Actually, one doesn’t. Megan is as predictable as she is medically ignorant:

But what else happens between 2 and 12 weeks that could cause a hemorrhage? Breastfeeding in and of itself does not and cannot cause trauma that induces bleeding. Let’s see what can:

Between four and twelve weeks, we give babies twelve vaccines including a second dose of Hep B, and two doses of DtaP, IPV, Hib, and PCV, all of which can cause vasculitis and brain encephalitis that can induce a hemorrhage. Our children also get two doses of a live rotavirus vaccine that can shed, infect others, and cause hemorrhagic enteritis and thrombocytopenic purpura (a bleeding disorder). Have you read your child’s vaccine inserts?

Forget “Late-onset VKPD” (vitamin K deficiency bleeding). Let’s call it “Late-onset VIB” (vaccine-induced bleeding). When these babies get sick from their vaccinations, we then put them on antibiotics, which wipe out their gut flora hindering their ability to synthesize vitamin K from breast milk leaving them at risk for an uncontrollable bleed.

Yes, indeed. It has to be vaccines, too! But, then, you knew that that’s what it had to be, given Megan’s history. Never mind that she has not one shred of evidence to support this hypothesis. Like many antivaccinationists, she’s good at tying together disparate observations without having the scientific background to realize that what she is doing is complete and utter nonsense. I’ve discussed before what this sort of speculation reminds me of, but first I’ll give you another example of it:

You know what else “synthetic vitamin K” enthusiasts don’t understand? The thought that babies (and all animals for that matter) have lower levels of vitamin K at birth for a beneficial, protective, reason. I’m just going to throw these “common sense-based” thoughts out there but let’s consider them:

First, in order to absorb vitamin K we have to have a functioning biliary and pancreas system. Your infant’s digestive system isn’t fully developed at birth which is why we give babies breast milk (and delay solids) until they are at least 6-months-old, and why breast milk only contains a small amount of highly absorbable vitamin K. Too much vitamin K could tax the liver and cause brain damage (among other things). As baby ages and the digestive tract, mucosal lining, gut flora, and enzyme functions develop, baby can process more vitamin K. Low levels of vitamin K at birth just…makes…sense.

Secondly, cord blood contains stem cells, which protect a baby against bleeding and perform all sorts of needed repairs inside an infant’s body. Here’s the kicker, in order for a baby to get this protective boost of stem cells, cord-cutting needs to be delayed and the blood needs to remain thin so stem cells can easily travel and perform their functions. Imagine that, baby has his/her own protective mechanism to prevent bleeding and repair organs…that wasn’t discovered until after we started routinely giving infants vitamin K injections.

Megan thinks she is brilliantly synthesizing medical knowledge about vitamin K on the “just makes sense” model. I’m surprised, but relieved, that she didn’t invoke some sort of reason based in evolution. Still, I’m amazed at the turn Megan managed to make in invoking cord blood stem cells, and the alleged shortage of them due to premature clamping of the umbilical cord, as the “real reason” why low vitamin K in the newborn is adaptive, so that these stem cells can do what it is they do. Again, of course, there is no good evidence to support her speculations. How Megan comes to the remarkable conclusion that low vitamin K is natural and allows stem cells to prevent bleeding and “repair organs” is a brilliant example of the Dunning-Kruger effect, in which Megan relates diverse observations to each other without understanding the context of those observations or even the basic science that makes her conclusions from them incredibly implausible. To her they just “make sense”; so they must be right. Never mind whether they make sense from a scientific standpoint. It’s the sort of thing that the crews at antivaccine blogs like The Thinking Moms’ Revolution and Age of Autism routinely do do when they string together all sorts of scientific studies and observations willy nilly into a narrative that sounds compelling to a non-scientist but that scientists scoff or laugh at because they have a deep understanding of the actual science that provides them with an exquisite BS detector.

One other myth about vitamin K shots is that they cause childhood leukemia, and Megan hits this one as well. She cites studies that are over 20 years old, ignoring the mass of evidence since then that has shown that vitamin K injections are not associated with childhood cancer. As Clay pointed out, this question was thoroughly investigated after those small studies, and no association was found. Moreover, more recent science on the pathophysiology of childhood leukemia weakens the plausibility of a link to neonatal vitamin K injections, given that newer evidence strongly suggested a prenatal origin to the cancer. Megan even hits the package insert for vitamin K injections the same way that antivaccinationists mine the package inserts for rare adverse reactions to vaccines, leading her to wax fearful about rare anaphylactic reactions and the “toxicity” of aluminum, the latter of which can only reach toxic levels after prolonged intravenous administration, not a single intramuscular dose.

In the end, Megan pontificates:

When it comes to my children, I err on the side of biology, evidence, caution, and common sense. Whether you believe in God or biology, I don’t think either messed up, and the “data” hasn’t shown otherwise. Who’s with me?

Given that Megan is wrong on just about everything about vitamin K injections, her appeals to “biology” and “common sense” notwithstanding, the answer to that question should be crickets chirping.

oracknows Mon, 08/04/2014 - 22:04

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I'm sure that a homeopath could achieve the same result with C30 Warfarin.

The about four babies who get vitamin K deficiency bleeding (VKPD) out of the four million babies born in the United States each year?

"about"?
I guess the low yearly figures of "about 4" over 4 million babies have nothing to do with near-universal vit K injection.
Similarly, I guess the low incidence of measles and other infant illnesses have nothing to do with near-universal vaccination.
/sarcasm

she didn’t invoke some sort of reason based in evolution.

She is getting close. She did say that "Whether you believe in God or biology, I don’t think either messed up,"

Meh. I used to go for this fallacy when I was in my 20's - if it's this way naturally, then there should be a good reason for it.
I eventually outgrow it. Mostly.
For some biological trait to tag along, it just need not to have a good reason against it.

Nature/god/evolution doesn't seem to care if a few babies die, as long as enough of them survive into adulthood to reproduce and ensure the perpetuation of the species.
So yeah, sorry, nature is a big mess. Or god was operating on a string budget. Or was drunk.

Urghhh! This comment - posted on the Vit K rant by a fawning follower of the afore-mentioned Megan, says it all really:

'Megan…

Your write ups are so well written…..so thoughtful…..& contain so much truth!

You conclude your posts with the words ‘I am not a physician and this is not medical advice. It is my humble, entirely uneducated, opinion as a parent’

I’ve seen, over my entire life, probably around 50+ physicians (both at work, and through personal visits) – and the knowledge that they all possess collectively, doesn’t even scratch the surface in comparison with the knowledge that you possess…

so essentially – you’re much more effective than a doctor…even though you don’t walk this earth with a professional looking document with gold stars/medals on it.

you’re the doctor of planet earth and humanity.

thank you for always following your inner light; and always keep on shining.

ell-low-vee-ee'

Helianthus beat me to it. It's the same reason why the risks of VPD's are so low in countries that vaccinate properly.

Whether you call it God or Nature it's religious thinking - that every part of us is perfectly designed and intended.

Reality is messier with a lot of trade offs. Vitamin K is made by bacteria. You can either have low vitamin K and a sterile uterus for the baby to develop in, or you can have bacteria in there. I think uterine infections vs extremely rare bleeding is a good example of a 'strong selective pressure.'

We are as we are because of a fascinating history where every turn has consequences, not a grand design. The type of hubris that can't accept that is also the type that thinks it can know better than doctors because it just. makes. sense.

That disclaimer at the end of her rant: ‘I am not a physician and this is not medical advice. It is my humble, entirely uneducated, opinion as a parent’

Humble? Not by a long shot.

Entirely uneducated? Bingo.

"Whether you believe in God or biology, I don’t think either messed up"

Megan needs to be transported back into the 19th century to get an idea of how well Nature managed childhood mortality.

@dangerous Bacon: it's a little different when we talk about God, but I really don't see why the nature adherents believes Mother Nature prefers us over germs. If my anthropomorphic ideal was nature, is assume that like the Childish Empress, she accepts all her children as they are, with no favorites.

Anyone dumb enough to err on the side of biology with Megan should go the whole distance. Forget about delivering in a sterile environment, forget about having medical treatment available for mother and/or baby. Just let rip anywhere at all without any particular precaution with regards to sanitation or hygiene. Just squeeze it out and cut that cord with anything sharp layout around. And if the baby / mother suffer complications up to including death during delivery then hey, that's just biology. It's all natural. It's all good.

Good grief. What an ego-driven, science-illiterate individual Megan is. Scroll on down to see the "Mommy Lionesses" who post their inane comments.

https://www.facebook.com/LivingWhole.Org/timeline

"We're not just "anti-vaccination." Apparently we're also "anti-vitamin." Good one. Here's my take on the vitamin K shot. Fair warning...I call it what it is...a patented, synthetic, non-naturally occurring substance (complete with additives and preservatives) associated with death, cancer, and brain damage."

BTW, that G-d fearing naturopath is also a proven pathological liar:

http://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/papa-scared-shme…

I presume it's called VKDB because it's been established that it's caused by vitamin K deficiency--otherwise, it would be called neonatal hemorrhage, or [insert medical researcher's name here] Syndrome, or something of that sort. And perhaps it did have such a name long ago, before the cause was determined. I've seen this process in my own field, which like medicine is driven strongly by observational results. Megan seems not to have considered this notion.

As for the hepatitis B vaccine being a possible cause: If that were true, VKDB incidence should have increased dramatically with the introduction of the neonatal hep B vaccine, which wasn't available when I was born. I'm not seeing that correlation; if there is one, it's in the wrong direction (i.e., greater VKDB incidence because vaccine-averse parents refuse the vitamin K injections for their newborns).

We’re not just “anti-vaccination.” Apparently we’re also “anti-vitamin.”

Well, if the shoe fits...

non-naturally occurring substance

Oh gosh, that a maroons and proud of it.
Megan, if you really believe the sh!t you are spewing, go eat some Nux vomica (not in homeopathic form), strychnine is a all-naturally occurring substance.
Kids, don't try this home.

Oh gawd! The stupid, it burns! I have lost all patience with these lunatics. To people who believe as Megan does, they do indeed need to go the whole distance: if you refuse a Vitamin K shot for your newborn and your newborn develops a brain bleed, then your newborn doesn't get any treatment for it. You get to live with the consequences of your "beliefs", OK?

" they string together all sorts of scientific studies and observations willy nilly into a narrative that sounds compelling to a non-scientist" wrote Orac.

Exactly. This is the fruit of their *research* ( i.e. shuffling googled pages into a semblence of confabulated order) which sounds like what woo-meisters have been doing in their 'scholarly' tomes ( see Skyhorse Publishing).This is what Jake does when constructing his conspiracies and what Mikey does when he forecasts upcoming evils nearly ripened and about to befall upon unwary mankind. And what Teresa Conrick does as she infinitely plays upon the many permutations and variations of neurology and toxicology as interlocking parts in the autism puzzle.

Here's a hint, oh anti-vaxxers and woo-meisters:
just because you can think something doesn't mean that it has to be real.

Adam, you really don't even need to cut the cord according to this philosophy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_birth

Do anti-vaxxers dislike their kids or something? They gamble with the kid's health on a daily basis, and the loudest ones don't seem capable of caring about anyone but themselves.

PGP@16: There is reason to think the ones who blame vaccines for their children's autism hate their kids--consider the Spoudourakis case, or the rhetoric about their kids being "damaged". I'm not prepared to extend that claim to all anti-vaxers. However, I would say that not caring for anyone but themselves is a fair cop. Many people, and not just anti-vax types, view their kids as extensions of themselves. That's wrong, too, but it's a different sort of wrong.

How does this dippy wench reconcile her beliefs with her husband's employment? The last time I checked the DOD mandates vaccination for all active duty personnel for damned near everything.

@Sara: Someone told me, how seriously I don't know, that the proper natural thing to do is for the mother to sever the cord with her teeth.

I'm not sure if hate is the right word, but I wonder if there is some narcissism involved where the parents believe they deserve only the most perfect of children. Add to that they, of course, are smarter and better than all the scientists and experts in the world so must find the one true cure for their child no matter how painful it is to restore them to the glory that was due the parent.

@ Andreas Johansson:

That is correct if you are a cat.

@Denice: What about catgirls?

I guess the low yearly figures of “about 4″ over 4 million babies have nothing to do with near-universal vit K injection.

Actually, it comes from "Dr." Megan Heimer's being too boneheaded to even understatnd her own source. That figure is for eight months. In Nashville.

Shay: The husband's Air Force, I believe, and DOD lets the Air Force get away with a lot.

Eric Lund: Your summary seems spot-on to me.

KM: Certainly seems to be the case with Ms. Megan Heimer and the infamous Dachel. A lot of anti-vax people seem to be living in a parallel universe and are blithely oblivious to facts.

The husband’s Air Force, I believe, and DOD lets the Air Force get away with a lot.

Whether he's finished his residency is not something I've checked, but please elaborate on how the Air Force has a carefree attitude about the vaccination status of their commissioned physicians.

@ Narad

it comes from “Dr.” Megan Heimer’s being too boneheaded to even understatnd her own source. That figure is for eight months. In Nashville.

Ah. Indeed. From the article you linked to:

During February–September 2013, four confirmed cases of late vitamin K deficient bleeding were diagnosed at a children's hospital in Nashville, Tennessee.

These "about 4" infants were described as otherwise healthy until they developed VKDB symptoms.
No mention of antibiotics or other action which could have destroyed the infants' gut flora, if one wanted to check Megan "hypothesis". However, this is something which would have to be specifically confirmed.

Also of note:

Parents of the four infants with VKDB were asked why they declined vitamin K prophylaxis for their neonate. Reasons included concern about an increased risk for leukemia when vitamin K is administered, an impression that the injection was unnecessary, and a desire to minimize the newborn's exposure to "toxins."

Another good question to ask these parents would be, in their desire to minimize exposure to "toxins", did they also forgo or delay vaccination shots?
Not to blame them. Again, just to check on Megan's hypothesis of vaccine-induced bleeding. If these poor babies received fewer vaccines than their fellows newborns but were the ones to become nonetheless sick...

Just in case you missed any of my posts on the Mother Jones article...Brisbane Coroner's report about a 33-day-infant whose parents refused a Vitamin K shot:

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/07/vitamin-k-injection-infa…

Senseless and needless death of a baby from multiple brain bleeds...sad.

I will refrain from maligning a sister service (reluctantly) and merely point out that the USAF's embrace of acupuncture has not, so far, led them to abandon immunizations.

I've been out of the AF for a few years, but in the 8 years I served, I received 34 immunizations. You could say I'm a bit of an outlier, because I was in a unit that traveled a great deal (typically over 100 days per year), including overseas, so we had to stay current on everything. I don't remember it being optional.

Say what you will about PGP, but you gotta admit she has a very active imagination.

"if you refuse a Vitamin K shot for your newborn and your newborn develops a brain bleed, then your newborn doesn’t get any treatment for it. You get to live with the consequences of your “beliefs”, OK?"

Unfortunately, the child lives with the consequences. The parent only deals with them.

OT: In addition to the incredibly stupid problem with setting a freaking cookie to autofill the comment fields, some yahoo has been playing around with the character encoding for the recent-comments widget today.

Here's a hint: ISO-8859-1 is ALWAYS WRONG in the present day. This might be trivially inferred from the fact that THE MAIN PAGE IS USING A DIFFERENT ENCODING, DIMWITS.

I myself need Warfarin to get by, I think I'll leave the C30 Warfarin "shots" to the homeopaths.

Narad: 1) he's a chiropracter, I think, not an actual MD. 2) Air Force has an awful lot of fundies- he says he wants a religious exemption, he'll get it.

Narad: 1) he’s a chiropracter, I think, not an actual MD.

No, he is not. He is a D.O. (which is an "actual MD") who is doing (or did) a residency with a family practice. This stuff is trivially verifiable, so there's no need for this kind of assignation.

Air Force has an awful lot of fundies- he says he wants a religious exemption, he’ll get it.

It takes a bit more than that-

See http://www.anthrax.mil/resource/archive/qna/waiver.asp

Applicants forward the following information through the appropriate authority: full name, rank and SSN; name of recognized religious group and the date of the applicants affiliation; supporting certification signed by an authorized personal religious counselor. The counselor must attest that the applicant is "an active member in good standing of the espoused religious group, adheres to tenets consistent with the espoused religious beliefs and the religious group has a tenet or belief opposing immunizations".

In fact, his residency goes until 2015, at which point he will presumably become a commissioned as a captain in the USAF. This appears to represent a delay, from what I recall of the original timeline.

I trust that nobody will mind that I'm leaving out the personal details.

She's a frightening person, that blogger. She's so sure of herself. And she doesn't have enough common sense to avoid being suckered by Thomas M. Cooley Law School.

She's a danger to herself and others. It's painful to contemplate.

And she doesn’t have enough common sense to avoid being suckered by Thomas M. Cooley Law School.

She had a reason for being up there to start with. I'm willing to ridicule any attempt on her part of legal argumentation, but not doing the program itself.

@ Andreas Johansson: the proper natural thing to do is for the mother to sever the cord with her teeth.

I'm reminded from a line by Terry Pratchett, to the effect that if you want to live naturally you should sit in a tree and eat your dinner while it's still wriggling.

The argument that nature must have a reason for the low levels of vitamin K in infants reminds me of another Pratchett line: "She rescued baby birds that had fallen out of the nest, then cried over them when they died, which is the fate that kindly Mother Nature has reserved for baby birds which fall out of the nest."

^ I should have added a "now" in my preceding comment; I have little doubt that I've made fun of Cooley more than once.

Religious exemptions, for anything, are damned difficult to get in the military. And if Captain Hubby deploys its a lead-pipe cinch he won't get one.

Oh, why did I read Megan's F'book page? Why? Why? Why? The combination of weapons-grade, syrupy sweetness, creepy religiosity and passive/aggressive self-righteousness is almost too much to stand. I really wanted to throw my iPad out the window. Thanks, thanks a lot . . .

What is with all these people citing scientifically ancient studies? It seems like the anti-vax/autism/VitK/etc people love to dredge up these studies that have been thoroughly debunked or are so old as to be irrelevant.

Regardless of the Air Force's immunization policy, it only applies to active duty service members themselves, not their dependents. So it doesn't really matter what the AF says about shots, because she and her kids aren't in the AF. I'm a Navy wife, and use the military health care system, and I have no obligations for yearly physicals or vaccinations like my husband does. I get them anyway, but the Navy can't require me to since I'm a civilian.

PGP, you continue to make off-the-cuff guesses that are simply absurd and then guess what? it makes you look as idiotic as the people who are rightfully ridiculed here.

ALL active duty members (and in theory but not always in practice due more to constraints of civilian life than any foolish principles) are required to maintain themselves ready to deploy on short notice. Obviously, that's a continuum and is not attained as well as it should be in an ideal world--pregnancy and broken bones being two very obvious and self-limiting conditions for which there are temporary exemptions. Weight issues are another. But having spent 20 years on active service, you get your shots, dental care, and other physical care (including pap smears for women, finger checks for men) with increasing levels of hassle from your chain of command until you do. People who are found to be deliberately avoiding deployment ready status can, in some cases if it's bad enough, be sent home with bad paper. Since your whole value and purpose in military service is to be, by definition, deployment ready, you are a liability if ytou are not ready; vaccinations are a huge part of it. There was a huge ruckus some years ago over anthrax refusers and generally, IIRC, refusers did not fare that well. Haven't followed that particular issue since retirement, but there were a few precedents there that made the anthrax vaccines more of an unusual case. However, refusal of routine CDC shots will do your career great harm. Even if it doesn't send one home, it limits career advancement greatly--type and location of assignments, reputation as a kook, etc.

Furthermore, let's say hubby got an assignment to a plum overseas location that his family wanted to go to. No shots, no family, because they wouldn't qualify physically. So either hubby deploys for 2 years unaccompanied (and in some cases if the tour is intended as an accompanied length tour, usually 3 years but the family chooses not to go, hubby still goes 3 years without his family)---or they get their shots. It's really pretty simple.

"I’m surprised, but relieved, that she didn’t invoke some sort of reason based in evolution."

In addition to being a beloved medical expert and lawyer, she speaks with the voice of God Almighty. I'm not sure evolution is high on her list of acceptable sciences.

Why do I think that Megan's participation on this curiously named website is the appropriate spot for her?

http://www.nutopia.cc/the-collective-co-op/open-door-wisdom-blogs/alter…

I note with some sympathy that Megan's Mind has been removed. At least that's what it says when I click on the link to her blog listed in the link lilady provided.

Megan Heimer spreads misinformation and endangers public health.

@ 19,; "Someone told me, how seriously I don’t know, that the proper natural thing to do is for the mother to sever the cord with her teeth."
Wonderful. Now I have to worry about one of these "mother lionesses" giving her baby Herpes or an anaerobic infection.

#45 - I don't think Megan would be wanting to go anywhere overseas anyway. Time and again in her blogs she refers to the fact that the USA is all that counts, and that the rest of the world apparently doesn't exist - or at least doesn't matter. See how dismissive she is about Ebola.

I've just found a post I missed from May and having read it, I'm sure she must surely be in line for some sort of Mike Adams Special Award for Services to Pseudoscience. She's even surpassed him for cramming so much woo into a relatively small space:
http://www.livingwhole.org/a-vaccine-detox-for-adults/

so scary

I've been trying to find info on exactly what is in Vitamin K injectable preparations, since an assortment of strange things have been claimed on various web sites. It has been surprisingly difficult.
Benzyl alcohol, at 0.9%, is found in most mfr's product. This is the typical concentration found in multi-dose vials of things like water and saline. But the vitamin K is supplied in an ampoule. Can anyone tell me why a preservative would be used in an ampoule? I've always considered ampoules to be single-dose packages, with the intent that the contents be used immediately on opening.
Hospira mentions aluminum on their sheet in the warnings section, but makes no mention of anything that would contain aluminum in the ingredients list. Is this just a posterior covering warning because the Vitamin K ampoules might have caught a glimpse of a vial of something with an aluminum seal, or because the water used might have residual aluminum content of a few ppb?

The kook's detox recommendations are ... kooky.
Apparently she is unaware that bentonite is aluminum silicate. I would have though she would shriek in terror of the dreaded aluminum.

doug: Here, probably the best researched article on Vitamin K injections for newborns. Make certain you open the link to the blog about baby Olive who suffered a brain bleed, but appears to progressing nicely after brain surgery:

http://evidencebasedbirth.com/evidence-for-the-Vitamin-K-shot-in-newbor…

@doug,

You're right about the kooky recommendations.

I see she's also into coffee enemas and Gerson therapy.

lilady: I ran across the article you linked a few days ago after Salon had a piece prompted by the same MoJo article Orac cites. It is very good, except that her descriptions of the purpose of propylene glycol is not really right (it would be solvent, rather than a humectant), and she kind of misses a bit on the concept of an acetate-acetic acid pH buffer. I'm sure she gets labeled a pharma shill because she relies on science rather than "belief" or "feeling."

I found a doc from USP that seems to be the source of the warning about aluminum in the K from Hospira. Any product that might be used in total parenteral nutrition is require to have the specific wording used. Since K would likely be used for such, it gets the warning.
In the comments at Salon, one woman reported rejecting the K shot for her premature baby based on the warning and consultation with her doctor, who was surprised to find the aluminum warning. With only the warning to go on, I would say she made a reasonable decision, even it was most likely quite wrong and put her baby at much greater risk than probably less than about 130 picograms of aluminum that might have been in the K shot (I base that on the 0.25ug/l allowable limit for large volume parenterals for an injection volume of half a millilitre). This is just one more case of the dubious "information" on product sheets - like the mention of autism on vaccine sheets.

My father-in-law just retired from the Air Force; he got vaccinated against basically everything. Regarding religious exemptions, they exist, but in a typically bureaucratic form. There's no sense of "well, you attest you believe this, so it's okay"; instead, there are explicitly allowed exemptions associated with formally recognized religions. The military maintains a list of recognized religions; if your religion isn't on it, it doesn't exist as far as they're concerned and you won't get any accommodation for it. Given that there aren't any religions on the list that have any issues with vaccination, I think we can safely and categorically state that you can't get a religious exemption for vaccination in the US military. After all, if you tried, they'd look up the list, see that none have a problem with vaccination, and order you to go get your damn shots. You might be able to get a medical exemption, though depending on the nature of that, it might come with early discharge papers.

I was in the bookstore a few weeks ago and picked up (despite a gut-feeling I shouldn't), Alicia Silverstone's new book. Knowing her cluelessness regarding vaccination (couldn't resist), I turned to her pages on Vitamin K. Wanted to throw the item at whoever actually put the book on the shelves. Ms. Silverstone actually advocated forgoing the shot, asserting that her vegetarian diet proved enough for her baby. At least she acknowledged that whatever doctor she was consulting on her book did not agree.

I think I need to have a chat with whoever orders books for this place. It's really the only English language bookstore where I live, so I can't just take business elsewhere, although my e-reader helps. They will happily stock the clueless one, the recently fired "view" person, and the so-called pediatrician with his pulled from the nether-regions vaccine schedule, but not books by people who actually know what they are talking about. Do not even mention gluten-free idiocy-I think I counted a dozen different titles there last time I was in. I know it's a business decision, but still, a vague nod in the general direction of actual expertise would be nice.

You might be able to get a medical exemption, though depending on the nature of that, it might come with early discharge papers.

As I remember, in the case of the anthrax vaccine refusers in '96*, it came with an all-expense paid trip to scenic Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas.

(*Yes. I'm dating myself).

This woman pisses me off. To needlessly risk your child's life because you are an idiot then advocating others do the same. If she believes in an afterlife she better be willing explain her choices. I think that the deity or deities in charge will not be amused. This sort of cavalier disregard for children gets my hackles up way more than it should as I spent so long to conceive my son that the thought of anything happening to him leaves me in a cold sweat. I could never forgive myself if anything happened to him through action (or inaction) of my own. He is 100% vaccinated. I want to slap these women.

You have really missed the boat on this one, Orac. You quote an NNT for serious bleeding of 20,000. Twenty thousand! That guarantees that on the order of 50 peripheral nerves will be transsected (by geometrical arguments), and a considerable number of fatty embolisms of muscle arteries will occur.

Those risks are unconscionable in the absence of proof that no possible oral dosing would work. At the most, vitamin K injections can only be justified while an emergency research program in improved oral dosing is carried out. Naturally, doctors have not bothered to carry out such a program—they are barely more mathematically capable than the woo artists.

Bobby, you are making a lot of unstated assumptions. As a maths teacher would say, "Please show all your calculations."

Indeed, Julian. Akin's First Law: "Analysis without numbers is only an opinion."

Especially since this quote is near the beginning of the article: "Seven infants, aged between seven and 20 weeks old, had arrived at Vanderbilt University’s Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital over the past eight months with a condition called “vitamin K deficiency bleeding,” or VKDB."

So, Pawn, what would you have advised the parents of those seven infants?

@pawn

[citation needed]

You quote an NNT for serious bleeding of 20,000. Twenty thousand! That guarantees that on the order of 50 peripheral nerves will be transsected (by geometrical arguments)

Shouldn't "pawn" be replaced by "en passant" here on general principles? (I'll admit to finding anything more than entertainment in chess to be death in life. And I find no entertainment.)

on the order of 50 peripheral nerves will be transsected (by geometrical arguments)
I can almost hear the clinking of ball-bearings rolled in the hand. Did someone steal your strawberries?

Mooney now agrees with us - Denialists deserve ridicule, not debate

denialism — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 13:07:13 +0000

Mooney now agrees with us - Denialists deserve ridicule, not debate

He had to realize Nisbett's framing was worthless and write a whole book on defective Republican reasoning to realize it but it sounds like Chris Mooney has come around to the right way to confront denialism:

The only solution, then, is to make organized climate denial simply beyond the pale. It has to be the case that taking such a stand is tantamount to asserting that smoking is completely safe, no big deal, go ahead and have two packs a day.

Sounds a little bit like what I wrote in 2007 when I pointed out denialists should not even be debated:

The goal instead must be to enforce standards of scientific debate, to delimit sharply what kind of evidence and argument is worthy of being listened to, to educate people about the form of pseudoscientific arguments, and when these arguments are proffered, to refuse to engage on the grounds they aren't even worthy of consideration.

Don't mistake denialism for debate...

The whole goal of denialists is to create the appearance of a legitimate debate when there is in fact no legitimate scientific debate to be had. What is the point of arguing with someone who denies the moon landing? Or evolution? Or that HIV causes AIDS? Or the holocaust? They get real angry when you mention that one as they feel it creates a moral equivalence between the types of denial. But the operative word is "denial" which is totally unrelated to whatever specific topic one denies. It's just another helpful distracting strategy, to try to prevent critics from using the legitimate word to describe their pathology - denial - by suggesting it's a wrongful comparison to one specific type of denial.

The solution to these problems is not in confrontations or debates or even necessarily careful fisking of their arguments every time they appear in the blogosphere. For one, it's somewhat futile. They're cranks. They will just go on and on, immune to any new data, scientific findings, or any evidence the real world can present. Worse, evidence suggests that repetition of false claims reinforces them even if you are debunking the claim. So debating them to supposedly educate those around you is not a legitimate reason because it's probably making things worse, not to mention legitimizing the denialist. It's a constant struggle I have to try to write about things in such a way as to reinforce positive true claims rather than repeat false claims with correction. It's natural, but it doesn't work.

Chris is right, the only way to address denialism is to call it what it is and ridicule it. People have to understand the difference between denialism and debate, and when they encounter denialism expose and attack the tactics. Denialism is an established strategy, likely ancient, honed to a science by tobacco companies, and now used by those attacking everything from global warming to evolution. Some of the same fake experts for the tobacco companies are now working for the global warming denialists. The way to win is to remember the way tobacco science was eventually beaten, and that was with exposure of their deceptive techniques, and public ridicule for denial of the obvious reality.

denialism Mon, 03/26/2012 - 09:07

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Denialism

General Discussion

Chris Mooney

global warming denialism

Denialism

The only way to kill a troll is to ignore it.

@JPGK
The only way to kill a troll is to ignore it.

Sounds good, but I'm not sure it means much. The only way to cure cancer is to ignore it so that it goes away?

I think Mooney and Hoofnagle are right: The only way to kill the troll of science denialism is actively to ridicule it. If you choose just to ignore it, it grows bigger and bigger while you're not looking.

JPGK is right. Cancer is not a troll. Trolls feed on attention, any kind of attention. Ridiculing a troll is the same as praising one, it doesn't matter. The only way to deal with it is to ignore it.

Ridiculing people is not the answer to disagreement. If you present the facts and explain the science, and the other person still refuses to believe you, then the best response is to make sure that they do not spread their nonsense unchecked. Do not acknowledge them or their arguments, even in ridicule; do not debate them, as that lends credence to their words; but make sure that the facts are widely available and easily understood. Education is the only response to ignorance, ridicule will simply reinforce the perception of elitism and snobbery and drive people away from the facts you are presenting.

Not pure trolls. Cranks with a political agenda. Different kinda critter.

Mikey, Chris Mooney would disagree with you.

Education solves nothing. If anything, the evidence he shows is the more educated the crank, the more they use their knowledge to reinforce their arguments rather than examine their core beliefs.

It has to do with the way we think. More and more, we see the failure of reason. Humans think in terms of heuristics, coming up with answers to moral questions, ethical dilemmas, political decisions etc., based on emotion, culture, upbringing etc., and then they use reason to justify a forgone conclusion. Reason is actually a very weak tool to use to change someone's mind, because, sadly, most people are not responsive to it, and those that believe this kind of crap, or are susceptible to it, aren't arriving at these conclusions because reason led them to it. No, they latch onto the crankery that fits their ideology, then use all their powers of reason to dig in.

I'm going to write a post about this soon. But I think it's a mistake to think the psychology of denial is susceptible to reasoned argumentation. I was at reason-rally this weekend and couldn't help wondering why all those atheists bothered arguing with the Phelps protesters. You think they made a dent? They probably loved it! They live for it. Probably far more effective was Tim Minchin just ridiculing their ideas, ridicule is harder to fend off.

Ridicule is actually a powerful tool. When ideas are found to be ridiculous the emotional response to them is balanced against a desire not to be made a fool of. I think it's probably more powerful than reason against a crank or crank ideas.

Completely agree with this approach. Cranks like Ken Ham, Christopher Monckton or Deepak Chopra do not deserve to be treated as just having a different "point of view". They deserve to have their bullshit ripped to shreds. It's the reason I love going to Pharyngula as these lying morons are giving no respect at all. In a sane world, that should be the default reaction to their inane drivel.

One thing I slightly disagree with however, is that reason is always useless to persuade a denialist that they are wrong. They have been many cases of creationists accepting evolution or climate change deniers accepting the evidence for AGW. Some of these would have been pretty hardcore in their belief as well. So reason should still be used in the battle against reality. But yes, let's deploy ridicule a bit more.

Troll is entirely the wrong word for these people. I am sure there is some specific name from Asia, for the sort these type are, but the more common term we should be using is vampire. The distinction being that the "troll" is there to feed itself, and nothing else, and only needs to just sit there to do it. A vampire is feeding with the clear intent to create more victims, and use its powers to confuse and mesmerize people into doing what they want.

Hmm. Maybe Adze (a vampire that attacks mainly children), or Jiang Shi (a vampire that sucks the life force out of others, but doesn't have any real will/mind of its own). I suspect there are cranks that fit both. lol

In general when I rebut creationists in public venues--discussion boards, blogs, newspaper LTEs--my intended audience is not the creationist, it's the other readers, many of whom are not so embedded in creationism that they won't consider counter-arguments. In the mantra of the late lamented Internet Infidels Discussion Board, "Remember the lurkers!"

Recently I had a recent multi-letter exchange with a fundamentalist Christian creationist in the local newspaper. My letters were ostensibly addressed to him, but were written specifically with the larger community of moderate Christians in mind. The creationist's letters were not my target; he was merely a vehicle to speak to other readers. I wanted to educate them by identifying the fatal ignorance in the creationist's letters and pointing them to accessible resources, and also to subtly but unmistakably make him look ridiculous in their eyes. The informal feedback I've received suggested that it was successful for some, at least. Several people told me (unprompted) that they appreciated the resources and wondered aloud how my opponent could believe what he wrote.

"Troll is entirely the wrong word for these people."

Definitely this. Never underestimate the extent of peoples' stupidity. They're full blown cranks and no amount of evidence will persuade them to change their views.

Nisbet is the real virus here - before their BFF period, Mooney was a reliable and useful advocate of scientific accuracy and honesty, and he's mostly back to being one now; I will never completely forgive him but I'm grateful for any improvement.

Meanwhile Nisbet is worse than ever. With his recent "Climate Shift" report (the one saying green groups had access to the entire marketing budgets of giant companies that cut PSAs for them, such as Walmart and GE, and therefore they could never be outspent) I believe he is deliberately trying to confuse the global warming issue and "arm" the denialists in order to broaden the debate and make his own services (*cough*) as a messaging coach seem more relevant.

Like the Butter Battle Book.

I know it's cynical, but can anyone find another explanation for his m.o.?

Re TTT @ #10

It has always been my contention that Mooney was brainwashed by Nisbet over the phony issue of "framing". The discussions between him and, for instance, PZ Myers were a perfect example of much sound and fury signifying nothing.

The only way to kill a troll is to ignore it.

This remark strongly reflects the use of a false analogy to justify a wrong approach to major problems.

In the early days of the internet, "troll" did indeed refer to a type of person who simply tried to disrupt discussion boards with outrageous statements, in the hopes of provoking comically outraged responses from then-naive internet users.

Obvious, the way to deal with that type of "troll" was to ignore them.

However, even in the context of internet discussion discussion, the definition of the word "troll" has changed.

Denialists and others who make false statements, but with the intent to convince others or show solidarity with other denialists, not merely to disrupt, are routinely referred to as "trolls". However, while such individuals may use verbosity and repetition in an effort to shut down logical discourse, and may eventually need to be eliminated by a moderator, and while attention may be part of their motivation, they are not the equivalent of old fashioned "making trouble for the sake of making trouble" trolls.

"Do not feed the trolls" has gone from being good advice about attention seekers, to often being an unintelligent and/or insincere effort to shut down effective rebuttals of denialists.

In fact, a significant number of those who resort to wringing their hands and demanding "DNFTT" are themselves "concern trolls", consciously or unconsciously seeking to help advance denialism, by selectively demanding that those who rebut denialism be silent. Yet these concern trolls never do anything like making pro-science posts on creationist boards, for example, and ignore the fact the pro-science sites tend to allow dispute, while anti-science are usually heavily censored.

If we take the advice of the "DNFTT" concern trolls to its logical extension, even with regard to internet posting, eventually, every pro-science comments section will be filled with denialist comments that can't be "fed" with a rebuttal. Meanwhile, censored anti-science comments sections will also be filled with denialism.

Taken beyond the context of internet discussion boards, the idea harmful social movements are best addressed by ignoring rather than responding to them is patently absurd.

I don't necessarily use or promote "mockery"; it is often more effective to use a civil but rigorously skeptical style of rebuttal.

""Do not feed the trolls" has gone from being good advice about attention seekers, to often being an unintelligent and/or insincere effort to shut down effective rebuttals of denialists."

Plenty of this.

It's the basis and reason for the topic of this post and Chris' change of mind over "rapport" with denialists and why, before, his calls for "calm" were both wrong and uncalled for attacks on those giving the deniers the DISrespect they deserve.

And was also used by many fellow trollers or sockpuppets to do exactly this: stop the ridicule because it was working.

Thanks for this, Mark.

An interesting observation: when I drift into ridicule of denialism on my blog at Fortune.com, I get slammed for reducing the level of debate. I probably have gone too far on occasion, but I've also had to remind myself that we are not trying to reach the rational; we're trying to engage the emotional.

I wish I'd found your site sooner. Thanks for the good work.

Rock Stars of Science, part deux: coming to a GQ near you

tsmith — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 11:20:00 +0000

Rock Stars of Science, part deux: coming to a GQ near you

The second edition of the Rock Stars of Science is now out online, and in the November 23rd ("Men of the Year") edition of GQ magazine. As Chris Mooney notes, this is a campaign funded by the Geoffery Beene Foundation, working to raise recognition of scientists' work (and scientists, period, since roughly half of the American population can't name a single living scientist). Part of the campaign is to make science noticeable and "cool;" I'll quote from the press release:

ROCK S.O.Sâ¢ aims to bridge a serious recognition gap for science, observes journalist Chris Mooney, co-author of the recent book, Unscientific America, and a partner of the campaign.

"The current gap between science and our popular culture," says Mooney, "keeps Americans from recognizing the centrality of science to their daily lives. They think science is some strange activity performed by slightly geeky others in white coats. In fact, science fuels our economy and is our great hope for cures to diseases that affect all of us."

"The RSOSâ¢ campaign shines the spotlight on this critical national issue," says G. Thompson Hutton, CEO and Trustee of the Geoffrey Beene Foundation, supported by the designer menswear brand Geoffrey Beene, LLC, which dedicates 100 percent of net profits to philanthropic causes. "If we invest in research, we will save lives now and trillions of dollars later."

So, I think it's a great cause, and a unique way to spread the word. From that side of things, I'm all for it.

But... (there has to be a "but," right?)

The first campaign didn't exactly knock my socks off. Chris gives an update on the participants at The Intersection; if you read through it, you may notice the 2009 participants had many things in common: they were universally older, white men. To be sure, they include older white men doing great things (Tony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIAID, was one of those featured)--but they promoted the stereotype of scientists as, well, old white guys.

This time around, the lineup is more diverse, featuring 17 scientists--including 4 (white) women and 2 men of color (though still, mostly older). The scientists chosen include notables such as Nobel prize winner Elizabeth Blackburn and physician/astronaut Bernard Harris. The lineup is also heavy on cancer researchers and other biomedical types; understandable, since they are focused on disease and cures. I realize these are easier to "sell" to the public, because we all know someone who has experienced cancer--but if the foundation does a round 3, perhaps some more physical scientists could be included? Even if they maintained the focus on health, climate change, for instance, has the potential for huge impacts on health--and many engineers, physicists, and chemists work on health-related problems.

They also have a cutesy Q&A with each scientist, providing them all the same questions. Some I find to be fairly lame ("What was your worst part-time job?" "Alternate career choice?" "Longest med school study session" [!? why the emphasis on med school?]), along with some that I think make a better impact, like discussing misconceptions of their work, or their best moment in science/research. I realize the "lame" ones are to help the audience see that scientists are just like them, and spent time in crummy jobs, but diversity in the questions would be nice to shake things up a bit. Then they have a portion where the scientist's research is described...which is terrible. I don't know if this made it into the print version or is only online, but in many cases, these descriptions are lifted right off the scientist's professional website. Look at Catriona Jamieson's, for instance (taken verbatim from her lab website):

Dr. Jamieson specializes in myeloproliferative disorders (MPDs) and leukemia. Myeloproliferative neoplasms are a family of uncommon but not rare degenerative disorders in which the body overproduces blood cells. Myeloproliferative neoplasms can cause many forms of blood clotting including heart attack, stroke, deep venous thrombosis, and pulmonary emboli and can develop into acute myelogenous leukemia. Although some effective treatments are available, they are laden with serious side effects. In addition, individuals can become resistant to the treatments. Dr. Jamieson studies the mutant stem cells and progenitor cells in myeloproliferative neoplasms. These cells can give rise to cancer stem cells. Cancer stem cells may lie low to evade chemotherapy and then activate again later, causing disease progression and resistance to treatment. Her goal is to find more selective, less toxic therapies. In the past two years, Dr. Jamieson's stem-cell research studies have taken a great leap: from identifying a promising treatment in the laboratory to opening and completing the first clinical trial to target cancer stem cells in humans. This trial is the result of teamwork that has brought together her discoveries in myeloproliferative neoplasms and a local pharmaceutical company's drug development track.

I mean, really?? I'm a scientist, and just reading that even made *my* eyes glaze over. If one thing they're trying to convey is the importance and relevance of the scientist's research to GQ readers, what percentage of the readers are really going to walk away with a deeper understanding of what Dr. Jamieson does by reading that description? It would have been a small thing to ask each participant to submit a layman-friendly version of their research (their "elevator talk" description, for example) for GQ to include.

Finally--one of the "scientists" is Dr. Oz. What is he doing in there? One, I would think he's already well-known enough; why not save that spot for another scientist? Two, yes, I know he's actually done research and published, and is on the faculty at Columbia. Fantastic. He's also a serious woo peddler, who has even featured everyone's favorite "alternative" doc, Joseph Mercola, on his talk show, and discussed how vaccines may be playing a role in autism and allergies (despite mounds of evidence to the contrary). This seems to completely contradict their goal of "research funding as a national priority," since Oz is often (and Mercola is always) highly critical of "mainstream medicine." I really don't understand his inclusion, and think it's to the detriment of the rest of the campaign.

I know, this is quite a lot of complaining (isn't that what bloggers *do*?), but I'm sincere in hoping that this campaign does raise awareness. I hope they expand it beyond GQ--why not do something similar in magazines with a larger female readership, such as Good Housekeeping or even People magazine? Women are the ones who make many of the healthcare decisions, after all. We're often advocates for health and healthcare research--and if more funding is what they're ultimately looking for, we vote too.

[Edited to add: Science has an article on the campaign as well.]

tsmith Thu, 11/18/2010 - 06:20

Tags

science communication

Categories

So......who would you want to pose with?

Hm, good question. Unfortunately one of my favorite musicians (Josh Ritter) isn't a huge "rock star," but he does have a science song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s85qlz-qWLA

Part of the campaign is to make science noticeable and "cool"

The question is: will this campaign be able to achieve that objective? For the all the tremendous service that science does to humanity, is that all it is expected to be remembered for, the coolness quotient? Is this the pinnacle of science 'communication'?
I am sorry for my (perhaps undue) scepticism, but given our collective previous experience, I am wary of anything that Mooney touches or approves.

As one of the initial fans of the 2009 I was pleased to see things evolve a bit for 2010. All science/scientists need some good PR and this truly is a great campaign that gets a lot of attention. But I can't say it is all that inspiring, especially to young folks. Over at Future-ish, we're trying to increase interest, literacy, and involvement in science, design, and culture so we've highlighted 'scelebs' (celebrity scientists) as well as Smart Stars.

I don't know, and I don't know what (if any) measures are in place to determine public response. I know (from one of the articles I've read on this) that the website has gotten a lot of hits, so word is spreading, but had it had any influence? Are mostly scientists checking it out? A poll of GQ readers probably could be done, but don't know how much good data we'd really get from that...

All science/scientists need some good PR and this truly is a great campaign that gets a lot of attention.

Tara, you say Dr. Mercola "discussed how vaccines may be playing a role in autism and allergies (despite mounds of evidence to the contrary)."

You need to go to Pubmed Tara. If you go to Pubmed (library of the National Institute of Health) and type in âautism and mercuryâ you will get references to 146 papers. The vast majority of papers (over 90%) that involve the generation of original data support the link between mercury and autism. The papers that donât are literature reviews and epidemiological (statistical manipulation) studies done by the makers, promoters and administrators of vaccines. Itâs hard to talk mercury without mentioning vaccines. Hereâs why:

200 ppb mercury = level in liquid the EPA classifies as hazardous waste based on toxicity characteristics.
http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/hazard/tsd/mercury/regs.htm

25,000 ppb mercury = Concentration of mercury in multi-dose, Hepatitis B vaccine vials, administered at birth from 1991-2001 in the U.S.

50,000 ppb mercury = Concentration of mercury in multi-dose DTaP and Haemophilus B vaccine vials, administered 8 times in the 1990âs to children at 2, 4, 6, 12 and 18 months of age and currently âpreservativeâ level mercury in multi-dose flu, meningococcal and tetanus vaccines. This can be confirmed by simply analyzing the multi-dose vials.

Perry, feel free to poke around the blog archives--I've written many posts on vaccines & autism. I'm not going to get into it here, but suffice it to say that I'm quite familiar with Pubmed and with the autism/vaccine/mercury literature, and my point stands. And I actually said that Dr. Oz said that, not Dr. Mercola, if you check out the link.

I nearly choked when I saw Dr. Oz in the layout. And I agree with you about the lack of diversity of scientific fields. I still find myself disturbed by the "fawning over" of the rock stars by the scientists. I still proclaim we should get the rock stars and other celebrities in the lab or field with the scientists and have them help for a day or week, and get a real feel for what scientists do. The scientist would HAVE to explain what is going on at the celebrity's level, which I think would then make their work understandable to the public.

Seriously though the Hannah poling case proved vaccines cause autism.

Hannah poling was fine developed normally and got several vaccines at once and suddenly became sick with seizures fever etc and then autistic. Her Dad, an expert along with the courts saw this deterioration.

The PDR gets many of its adverse effects list on case studies like this one where people are totally healthy (a mitochondrial disorder that didn't cause a single symptom? yeah right, probably the result of her illness) and challenged with a drug and become horribly sick.

So Dr. Mercola is truly speaking fact and evidence based medicine.

So Dr. Mercola is truly speaking fact and evidence based medicine.

When did that start?

http://theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=341

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2008/03/the_hannah_poling_case_and_th…

Some links for you, scienceelite.

Hi Tara - sorry for the non sequitur, but I was wondering if have you heard about any further developments regarding the 'blood' they collected from that T.Rex and others a few years ago...

I have been corresponding with a creationist author who cited Mary Schweitzer's work as more 'evidence' that the earth is young.

Thanks in advance...

Steve

"The current gap between science and our popular culture," says Mooney, "keeps Americans from recognizing the centrality of science to their daily lives. They think science is some strange activity performed by slightly geeky others in white coats. In fact, science fuels our economy and is our great hope for cures to diseases that affect all of us."

Seriously though the Hannah poling case proved vaccines cause autism.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/02/gender-discrimination-science…

Study: Traditional Focus on Sex Discrimination in Science Is Misplaced
By Ars Technica February 15, 2011 | 9:45 am | Categories: Miscellaneous

By Kate Shaw, Ars Technica

Today, more than half of all PhDs in the life sciences are awarded to women, compared to a measly 13 percent bestowed upon women in 1970. However, women still lag far behind men in full professorships and tenure track positions in math-intensive fields.

Despite claims that this disparity is due to discrimination against women in the processes of publication, grant review, interviewing, and hiring, a review in PNAS last week, written by Stephen Ceci and Wendy Williams of Cornell University, finds that there is actually little evidence for sex discrimination in these areas, and concludes that womenâs underrepresentation stems from other causes

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What to do with the climate denial zombies

hrynyshyn — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 08:20:54 +0000

What to do with the climate denial zombies

My first reaction to the papier du jour among climate communications activists was "meh." It's not that Chris Mooney's latest ruminations on the gap between what the public thinks about scientific issues and what scientists have to say isn't worth reading. It's just that we've been down this road so many times now, the standards of what passes for new and remarkable are getting rather high.

That didn't stop Andy Revkin, Joe Romm, and Evil Monkey from posting lengthy and hard-hitting responses, though. So I gave it a second look, and I've now concluded that "Do Scientists Understand the Public?" does give one useful idea some new clothes. That being the suggestion of a kind of equivalency of blame among scientists and the public. In his Washington Post precis of the paper, Mooney asks "what if the fault actually lies with both sides?"

I am reminded of the false equivalency that so many journalists afforded "both sides" in the public conversation about anthropogenic climate change. Somewhat ironically, this is an idea that Mooney successfully criticized in his first book, The Republican War on Science. So could it really be possible that scientists are as much to blame as the denialists for the failure to convince millions of Americans that scientists know what they're talking about when they warn us that pouring more fossil-fuel emissions into the atmosphere will warm the planet to levels that pose a threat to civilization?

Hmmm.

Having just returned from a weekend in Nashville listening to Al Gore make a respectable stab at reinvigorating his PowerPoint troops, the question of how best to get our message across to those who aren't already on our side is front and center this week. It seems that we're all just preaching to the choir. The denial zombies, who stagger nonplussed through an environment rife with worrisome climatological projections backed by solid science, seem impervious to both rational and emotional argument.

Indeed, I can think of no better an metaphor for the pseudoskeptics who refuse to accept the science. The one thing that is symptomatic of all zombies -- by coincidence, today is Zombie Day here at ScienceBlogs -- is a complete lack of concern for their own condition. They are impervious to anything that would give normal people pause.

So Mooney's thoughts are particularly timely. Are scientists just as guilty as the zombies of the crimes that led us into this polarized impasse? Is it really true that "a more scientifically informed public is not necessarily a public that will more frequently side with scientists"?

Much is made by Mooney and others of the finding that the most-educated Republicans are less likely to accept the science of climate change than their least-educated party colleagues. Indeed, there are few other data points that inform this argument. (Democrats exhibit the more predictable, opposite trend, and most of the other evidence marshaled consists of social science speculation.) He concludes that

... politics comes first on such a contested subject, and better information is no cure-all -- people are likely to simply strain it through an ideological sieve. In fact, more education probably makes a global warming skeptic more persuasive, and more adept at collecting information and generating arguments sympathetic to his or her point of view.

But does this mean, as Mooney argues, that zombies' minds could be susceptible to change, if only the scientists understood zombie psychology better, and took ideology into account? My own take leads me in a different direction. If the zombies consistently disregard the facts of science in favor of the faith of ideology, then there's really no point in trying to engage them at all. Pollster Anthony Leiserowitz, who seems to be making a living asking people about their thoughts on climate science, tells the journal Nature that there are limits to what even the best science communicators can do.

"Even if climate-change scientists suddenly had the abilities of Carl Sagan to bring complex ideas to the public, there's only so much they can do," says Leiserowitz. "It's hubristic to think that if we could just communicate better, suddenly we would change the world."

It's not a very comforting thought, but maybe trying to change a zombie's mind is a waste of time. Should we instead be focusing exclusively on policy-makers and other members of the "elite" strata that the zombies hold in contempt? That approach makes all this musing over why the zombies think they way they do moot.

[Profile picture of me at upper left by Joseph Hewitt.]

There is also the question of how long each strategy will take to bring about the required change. I suspect that the solutions (as nebulous as they are) advocated by Mooney would take a long time. And it's time we don't have. If fossil-fuel emissions need to be on their way down by 2015, as many have convincingly argued, then we don't have the luxury of chipping away at zombie intransigence with sophisticated and subtle communications tools. We need to effect change now.

I have no idea whether there's much hope of changing public policy without dragging the public along. But I know of few examples in history where urgent policy shifts waited for public support. That's why we have representative, rather than direct, democracy. Isn't it?

hrynyshyn Thu, 07/01/2010 - 04:20

Tags

Communication and Politics

Media

Musings

Chris Mooney

climate change communications

zombies

Categories

Policy

Something that occurred to me recently: in over a decade of arguing with people about GW on the internet, I can't recall even one single occasion when anybody (on either side) was ever persuaded to actually change their position. Change their talking points, yes, but not their position.

Anybody else?

The position of commenters may not have (publically) changed since lots of people have a problem saying they were wrong, but the vast majority of people reading a blog do not comment and may not have an entrenched position that they need to maintain against all data and arguement.

Yes, at least once.

1) A PhD biochemist was expressing doubts at RealClimate about climate modeling, of which he was very skeptical. After a lot of back-and-forth, it occurred to me that he was over-generalizing from software like protein-folding, a multi-stage process in which an error at one step can cause radically-different outcomes, and that was very different from climate modeling.

Once I explained that, light dawned on him.
See comment at RC that explains the specific ways people from different technical domains often overgeneralize.

2) In retrospect, this was a simple *communication* issue. The problem is that the number of people in the world who have any familiarity with both protein-folding-style computations and climate modeling is ... very limited. I my have been the only one in that particular discussion thread.
In general, the key requirement is to translate knowledge into terminology that makes sense to the listener.

3) For many people, +3C (for example) or "go read the IPCC" really don't mean anything. That's why I always recommend the USGCRP 2009 report, as it is well-written for a general audience, and especially because it has ~5 pages per region of the USA. That is *much* more impactful for most people, especially those who have children. Someone living in Arizona doesn't relate well to their area and that may get their attention. Likewise, +3C might sound good to Minnesota, but maybe more and bigger floods doesn't. +3C might sound good to Vermont, but the end of ski resorts, maple sugar, and foliage tourism probably doesn't.

4) But, all this begs the question. Should we blame medical researchers that 46 years after "The Surgeon General...", smoking is still widely prevalent?How do we apportion the responsibility:
X%: bad communication from scientists
100-X%: brilliant marketing and lobbying by tobacco companies

Of course, the climate anti=-science folks are some of the same people and organizations as learned the trade in the tobacco wars. The only way tobacco companies stay in business is to get kids addicted in ages 12-18, and they still manage to do this quiet effectively, even if they aren't allowed to make nice packages for candy-flavored tobacco like Twista Lime.

Compared to addicting kids to something often lethal, confusing people about climate is child's play by comparison. If I had a real wish, it's that we had a "tobacco archives" equivalent for the climate anti-science efforts.

Let us not forget the expenditures of the fossil fuels industry. They are spending millions of dollars to spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Scientists don't have a marketing budget. Mark Twain supposedly said "A lie can run around the world before the truth can tie its shoelaces." It appears that the lie is now using private jets.

I'm surprised at the amount of fuss Mooneys' article has caused. Yes, the denial industry is highly effective, and yes, the media is dreadful at covering the subject (Ros Gelspan has an excellent article on his site about this).

But the fact remains, climate scientists in general (and here in the UK in particular) totally suck at getting their point across to either the media or the general public.

The BBC has pretty good science coverage, with various Professors popping up all over the place to explain their particular subject. Prof. Brian Cox does both a radio programme and has just finished a highly acclaimed TV series on the solar system (and he used to be a pop star). There are also academics fronting programmes about chemistry, physics, medicine, archaeology, biology, etc.
Climate change? Nothing. Nothing. Nobody. Zilch.

When they do have someone on to talk about the subject, they get people like Mike Hulme (whose misquoting the other week was bascially an accident waiting to happen, considering his complete ineptitude to give a simple straight answer). In short, climate change scientists don't bother to communicate at all, or if they do, so badly that it does them no good. Don't expect the better part of the media to do your heavy lifting for you - you have to give them a hand.

Denalists love a vacuum. Or failing that, they love an 'expert' who doesn't call them out on their misquotes and falsifications. The media will continue to give credence to these people while climate scientists hide in the shadows.

Bring some personality and some straight talk to the screen, and even the media might listen. Don't blame the messenger (Mooney) - he has a point, and someone had better start listening.

@Chris C:
Cute quote. I found two versions:

Mark Twain: "A lie can run around the world six times while the truth is still trying to put on its pants"

James Watt: "A lie can run around the world before the truth can get it's boots on"

Watt's is much earlier.

Policy makers are exactly the level to aim at, and on this the scientists have had spectacular success. The anti-science stuff is to a large extent just a side-show and has little practical effect. Recently the NAS and other bodies have made efforts to make public statements on climate change, but again these are likely to have their greatest effect by reinvigorating the policy makers.

Late to the party here, but...

> "the most-educated Republicans are less likely to accept the science of climate change"

Question - what happens (and why didn't I think of this last month) when you hang out at a college graduation and survey the young Dems&Repubs then - which'd minimize Fox-news-type influences, and maximize college-education-type influences.

IMO we have to accept that there's a half-life to formal education, esp. where disinformation runs rampant; but it'd still be interesting to know if formal education was in fact doing its job, in educating its students while it had them.

I Am Baffled Regarding Chris Mooney

drorzel — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 08:49:37 +0000

I Am Baffled Regarding Chris Mooney

The kerfuffle of the moment in the science blogosphere once again relates to Chris Mooney, who is pretty much a kerfuffle looking for a place to happen at this point. This time around it centers around a Washington Post op-ed that is basically the executive summary of a American Academy of Arts and Sciences paper that is itself the executive summary version of a series of four workshops on science and the public. You can get a reasonable sense of the kerfuffle from the links in Chris's responses to the responses.

I'm currently making one of my intermittent attempts to be a better person-- trying to eat less, biking to work, etc-- so I did the responsible blogger thing and read the whole AAAS paper (which you can download for free at the link above), and I'm baffled. Not by the paper itself, which is very clearly written and not overly complicated.

I'm baffled by the reaction.

As I said,t he paper is a summary of a set of four workshops discussing different aspects of science communication, relating to specific problems with both technical and policy aspects: Nuclear energy and nuclear waste, the Internet, genetic testing, and new energy technologies. It pulls examples from all four to show how communication breakdowns between scientists and the general public exacerbate problems with the development of these fields, and how this is not just a matter of an ill-informed public, but is partly do to failures on the part of scientists and policy makers, who don't appreciate the real concerns motivating opposition to scientifically based policies. Public concerns are misunderstood or brushed off, people get upset by this, and by the time anybody understands what's really wrong, the whole situation has become an intractable mess.

Nothing in the paper struck me as remotely controversial. Everything was backed up by anecdotes or references to prior studies of these communication issues, and the whole thing hangs together. The policy recommendations made in the paper-- basically, that scientists and policy makers should get some social scientists to poke around and figure out what the likely trouble spots will be before important and expensive projects get too far along the path to implementation-- strike me as perfectly sensible. If anything, it's just a call for public institutions to do what private corporations have been doing for decades-- nobody launches a major new product line without first doing some research into the potential market for it. (They don't always do a good job of this, leading to some spectacular flops, but they at least make the effort...)

I honestly don't see what the problem is, here. I didn't find the argument muddled or confusing, I don't find the recommendations offensive, I don't really understand the kerfuffle. Is it just that Chris is blogospherically radioactive? Maybe, but then I've never really understood that, either.

The problem may just come down to the fact that none of my oxen are being gored, here-- none of the issues talked about are things where I have a huge personal stake in one side or the other. But ultimately, what he says makes sense to me. In fact, it seems almost too obvious to be controversial.

So, what gives?

drorzel Wed, 06/30/2010 - 04:49

Tags

I haven't read the AAAS piece, but the reaction to Mooney that I have seen has centered about his piece being so obvious and bland that it's useless. Take his conclusion, for instance:

Rather than simply crusading against ignorance, the defenders of science should also work closely with social scientists and specialists in public opinion to determine how to defuse controversies by addressing their fundamental causes.

What does this mean?

Perhaps because the negative reaction has primarily been to Mooney's op-ed, which preceded the paper, and not the paper itself. (Maybe I have missed something, but I haven't seen any other responses to the actual paper as yet - I expect they'll start popping up soon). Hence I am baffled by your being baffled. The negative reactions published so far - which you don't link to in favor of linking over to Chris's responses to responses - specifically cite the op-ed, so complaining that people aren't addressing what was in the paper doesn't make sense.

Here are Orac's complaints.

I'll summarize the key complaints:

1. Mooney is reinforcing the egghead/condescending stereotype of scientists that isn't true for many of those attempting to communicate science.

2. Mooney himself has been naive and proposed counterproductive measures in the past (see Orac's links to the "Building Bridges" post) in the spirit of communication.

3. Mooney doesn't propose anything beyond "listening" and assumes a very dodgy hypothesis, i.e., that denialists are actually interested in dialogue.

4. Scientists moving towards ideology and straying away from the science in public debates risks their perceived objectivity and credibility.

Here is the Evil Monkey's reaction. Mostly, (3) is repeated. He links to PalMD here. These are common point:

5. Mooney wants to treat science like a democracy. It isn't, and it isn't a good idea. (Note: In his response, he appears to only mean listen to public opinion as regards scientific fact. Are we not? What does he mean?)

6. Though there's little doubt some scientists are unaware of the problem of ideology over ignorance, scientists active in addressing denialism are very aware of the role of ideology, and it's rather hard to miss.

Here is PZ's take.

7. The conclusion is do-nothingness (like (3)).

8. When we attack ideologies, do we lose support for the science in doing so? (What has Mooney been saying about New Atheists all this time, who agree with him that ideology is at the root of the issue?)

I read Mooney's response to criticisms (the only worthwhile ones listed were those of PalMD). But, he seemed to miss some of the big ones. I think his piece would be useful for scientists with little to no experience in engaging with denialists. Otherwise...

Well maybe it is because your oxen are currently immune to the sights of Mooney, framing, etc. I think one of the perennial problems is that Mooney is great at saying "this is a problem" and "you are doing it wrong," but sucks at giving concrete suggestions at how to fix things or do it right. He is great at throwing out (IMO) meaningless pablum, but that does not really help in the real world.

Also, like Don Quixote he seems to spend his time fighting windmills and not true opponents. When attacking the New Atheists, he initially took the approach that New Atheists (aka atheists he disagrees with) need to let other people do the talking because they are not helping. Some inferred that Chris was telling them to shut up, which seems like a reasonable conclusion. Chris then railed about how he never said "shut up" completely ignoring the point.

He frequently props up strawmen and set ups talking points as new that are anything but (maybe this is framing). Mooney has learned that more education is not sufficient and goes off in the WaPo op/ed like this is unknown to the practicing evolutionary biologists, public health officials, doctors, etc. Its frustrating trying to engage him because he seems to habitually ignore and squash disagreement.

In his response to response post he wrote:
PalMD also raises the question of the publicâs role in science policy. To be clear, I donât think the nonscientist public has any role in determining what the scientific facts are. However, that is very different than saying it has no role at all. It needs to be included, and it needs to be listened toâand those who ignore it are going to find their own policy goals thwarted, Iâll wager.

my response to this was
Im sorry but I havent the foggiest idea what you are talking about. Who said the public has no role at all? John Q. Strawman? The public needs to be included and listened to you say. How and when are the public not included/listened to? In the US, the public elects the legislatures that provide funds to NIH NSF etc. If the public is unhappy, then they can elect representatives to not fund these organizations. Whenever public education decisions are made, the public is invited for feedback at many levels. Short of making science a democratic enterprise, what more do you want?

Those who ignore it are going to find their own policy goals thwarted. WTH does this mean? So, a group of anti-vaxxers, or creationists, or global warming denialists, talk with the relevant scientists. The medical doctors, evolutionary biologists, environmentalists then do what?! We have established that more facts will not change the views of this part of the public, so what are we supposed to do? You say we ignore them at our peril. So what do we do? Do we give the creationists a little time in the classroom? In Mississippi, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and many other states the majority of the public wants some form of Genesis taught in the science classroom. Tell me how this problem is solved by listening to the public. Scientists pastors and education policy makers sit at a table and have a non-combative 6 hour discussion of the issues (evolution, big bang, plate techtonics) and the concerns (poorly educated students in science, eternal damnation), then what?!?! Because at the end of the day, when good science is maintained the majority public is not going to say âWell at least we were involved in the discussion, we wonât worry about evolution anymore.â

Now maybe Im missing something, but I think these real world issues are not solved by throwing the word engagement around over and over and over with a slice of scientists are arrogant and will eat your babies tossed in every so often.

People don't like Chris Mooney because he's had the gall to speak out against the fundamentalist atheists (more often known as "new atheists"). They are legion in the science blogosphere, and you offend them or say something bad against their prophets (Dawkins, PZ) at your peril. Try to be a voice of conciliation and reason, and they will find excuses to jump all over you.

Chad,

Thanks for this. and, Zach, what a helpful summation of all the points....(I disagree with almost all of them.) I am still doing responses, to all the reactions to my oped and the American Academy paper, e.g., here:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2010/06/30/do-scientists…

I will probably try to go through something like Zach's summation of all the points and respond one by one. # 3/# 7 is the easiest:

"3. Mooney doesn't propose anything beyond "listening" and assumes a very dodgy hypothesis, i.e., that denialists are actually interested in dialogue."

Yes, much beyond "listening" is proposed--especially in the paper. Of course a 1,000 word or so Washington Post oped can't give the same level of detail that a 15 page paper can. Interestingly, the people making this critique don't seem to mention the longer paper, yet it is referred to in the Post piece's byline.

I don't assume "denalists are interested in dialogue"...I don't think I've ever said that. I don't think all "denialists" are necessarily unreachable, but there is a much more important point here. One key conclusion of the American Academy's work is that there are many different subsets of the public and you have to identify them and treat them differently...the extremely hardcore ideologues would be only one part of the public. On global warming, for instance, the "dismissive" are only one of six major subsets of the public, according to Anthony Leiserowitz's work

http://environment.yale.edu/uploads/SixAmericasJan2010.pdf

More soon

chris

... Knop, you are aware that Orac isn't a fan of New Atheists either, right? There are plenty of criticisms of the Mooney approach that do not come from New Atheists.

I'm a New Atheist, and I don't have any problem with criticism of Dawkins or PZ. My problem is that a lot of the criticism is misguided, speculative, or just inaccurate. So, "PZ is sometimes unnecessarily rude" and "name-calling doesn't help" are items to which I can assent.

The self-aggrandizing "voice of conciliation and reason" line is interesting. So is the "fundamentalist atheist" moral equivalence you seem to be implying. If you want to avoid being mocked, you might want to be careful with how you communicate.

Otherwise, don't give hypocritical lectures about tone.

I partly understand his motive. After all, I taught Evolution by Natural Selection to high school classrooms roughly 1/3 filled with Creationists and Intelligent Denial teenagers whose parents sometimes tried to have me fired. I had students in my college Astronomy lectures tell me that they thought the Apollo moon landings were hoaxes. But I'm unclear on his proposed methodology. Maybe after I read the paper one more time...

What Rob Knopp said, and a bit more. By this stage it is only all too obvious that there are some who will attack Chris Mooney for anything at all, and they also attack Sheril Kirshenbaum. The attacks have sometimes been very dishonest.

There are two reasons for the personal attacks and/or dumping on Mooney, Kirshenbaum, Rosenau and others like them:

1) some, no matter what, dislike hearing that some scientists really do have problems communicating, and show arrogance and marked hostility in reaction.

Even looking at Evil Monkey's blog post on it all, what is striking is how much first Evil Monkey devotes a whole lot of space to venting and to denying that it's scientists at fault at all, then he actually ends up admitting:

" .... We need to get out there and engage the public more, as scientists we've always fell short here. ... "

Contrary to what Evil Monkey says there, Chris Mooney is obviously not just advocating "listening".

2) Some of the atheists, more especially the demagogues. Since Mooney has made a point of his stance that advocating science is more important than advocating atheism, and since there are some atheists who simply cannot stand such deviance and seek to stamp it out, then they're going to attack no matter what, for whatever excuse they can manufacture.

I point out I am an atheist myself, I simply don't buy the rationalizations put out by the demagogues.

Zach -- the term "fundamentalist atheist" is absolutely appropriate. They are a group of people absolutely convinced that they have the One Truth about religion, and who heap scorn of some sort over those who disagree with them, and who who even think that there might be some value in talking to those who disagree. They behave about religion in much the same way that fundamentalists of other faiths behave, up to and including the attitude of smug superiority that you show when you think that people are labelling you wrong.

You are aware of what the term "fundamentalist" denotes, are you not? Granted, there is ambiguity in how it is used, but it is generally used to describe a person who has a certain set of inflexible, unchangeable beliefs unmotivated by or in spite of evidence and reasoned argument. Do New Atheists satisfy this condition? Let's look:

"Absolutely convinced"?

No, every New Atheist I have read has been able to offer lists of things that would change their mind. No one that I have read affirms absolute certainty, and in fact, they usually assert the strong opposite: nobody can reasonably maintain absolute certainty. And "One Truth"? Really?

Certainly, some "heap scorn," but the basis for doing so is not "disagreement" generally. We don't spend a lot of time heaping scorn on pantheists, deists, and theists broadly on the basis of their being X. Rather, a terrible argument or use of a slur (like "atheist fundamentalist") very well might become a scorn heap, as well as ridiculous positions like creationism. However, scorn heaping is usually done on the basis of argument. But as I noted in my comment above, I don't pretend that every bit of it is justified.

But this is interesting as well:

"...and who who even think that there might be some value in talking to those who disagree."

That is just false. Coyne, among others, is quite happy to engage with theists. The difference is that not all of the talking is going to consist of agreement. If you haven't noticed, recent squabbles over exclusion of New Atheists from certain panels have been about the exclusion of New Atheists, not the existence of the panel.

They behave about religion in much the same way that fundamentalists of other faiths behave, up to and including the attitude of smug superiority that you show when you think that people are labelling you wrong.

Do we really?

I guess I've been over the basics here already. But as for my "smug superiority," where was it? Your comment about "conciliation and reason" was egoistic. You blamed New Atheists for all of the kerfuffle even though criticism of Mooney came from other quarters. You called PZ/Dawkins "[our] prophets."

And my accusation of hypocrisy still stands, but with an added example.

Keep assigning yourself moral superiority, and that's what you will perceive. I have no pretenses of superiority to you, Knop, as sometimes I fall into the same traps. However, don't describe my criticism of your comment as proof of your slur-usage of "fundamentalist." It isn't.

That Orac post Zach links to is not about the paper but about the WP article, which Chad accurately says is the executive summary.
Chad's post is about the paper, which is more complete and does give concrete recommendations for what to do and, more importantly, when to do them.
Zach disingenuously used Orac's legitimate post to mischaracterize Chris' report.

Those who worry about a communication gap between scientists and the public would do well to read David Foster Wallace's essay "Tense Present" in which Foster celebrates a success story of sorts. He describes how someone who is very much a technocrat managed to tread a very fine and measured path between two very contentious groups concerned with English usage: the Prescriptivists (proponents of traditional grammar) and Descriptivists (anything goes, basically). The whole essay is very fine, but here are two key paragraphs:

"The most salient and timely feature of Garner's book is that it's both lexicographical and rhetorical. Its main strategy involves what is known in classical rhetoric as the Ethical Appeal. Here the adjective, derived from the Greek ethos, doesn't mean quite what we usually mean by ethical. But there are affinities. What the Ethical Appeal amounts to is a complex and sophisticated 'Trust me.' It's the boldest, most ambitious, and also most distinctively American of rhetorical Appeals, because it requires the rhetor to convince us not just of his intellectual acuity or technical competence but of his basic decency and fairness and sensitivity to the audience's own hopes and fears."

"Garner recognizes something that neither of the dogmatic camps appears to get: Given 40 years of the Usage Wars, 'authority' is no longer something a lexicographer can just presume ex officio. In fact, a large part of the project of any contemporary usage dictionary will consist in establishing this authority. If that seems rather obvious, be apprised that nobody before Garner seems to have figured it out â that the lexicographer's challenge now is to be not just accurate and comprehensive but credible. That in the absence of unquestioned Authority in language, the reader must now be moved or persuaded to grant a dictionary its authority, freely and for what appear to be good reasons."

In the same way, I think scientists would do well to recognize that they are not by default accepted as authorities at the intersection of science and public affairs, but have some work to do to establish it. And a large part of that will be establishing that they share the public's values and priorities, or at a very bare minimum that they are willing to listen to the public seriously and respectfully.

The essay is here:
http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/DFW_present_tense.html

TB,

The bafflement is over the reaction the the op-ed (which Chad stated at the beginning of his post), which is where most of the criticism has been directed as it came out earlier. Most of the posts I linked to were to the summary.

So, that stated, we'll look for reactions to the paper specifically. But if the confusion is due to things omitted from the op-ed that were included in the paper, then the "bafflement" is explained.

A few comments were held for moderation, and only just approved, which may make some of the above discussion look weird. Apologies for the hold-up, but I was at the gym.

I have errands to run, and thus can't respond to anything at great length, but I'll note one short example. Comment #1 quotes the WaPo piece:

Then asks:

What does this mean?

See, this is what I don't get. That sentence seems perfectly clear to me. It's saying more or less what I said in the post:

basically, that scientists and policy makers should get some social scientists to poke around and figure out what the likely trouble spots will be before important and expensive projects get too far along the path to implementation

Mooney gives a number of examples where public resistance to science policy issues has caught scientists off-guard, and points to evidence suggesting that those objections spring not just from simple ignorance, but from other grievances that scientists and policy makers failed to anticipate, and then misunderstood for a long time. That sentence is saying that next time around, it would be a good idea to get some social scientists to investigate the public's attitudes first, rather than plunging ahead, creating a giant PR debacle, and waiting for social scientists to start writing Ph.D. theses about it.

There are a number of examples of this given in the paper-- as I recall, one of them was that much of the opposition to the Yucca Mountain site sprang not from ignorance about the dangers, but from a feeling that Nevadans had been cut out of the decision-making process. This is not a situation that can be fixed by lecturing people about how they fail to understand the risks properly-- that may be true, but it's not getting at the root cause. If you assume that the problem is just ignorance, then you end up with the public feeling not just disenfranchised but patronized, and they get even more irritated, not less.

This is the root of my bafflement: that sentence, taken in context, seems absolutely clear to me. I don't see what's confusing about it, let alone what's offensive.

I'll try to get to the longer list of responses later this afternoon, but I need to go somewhere without Internet access and check over the index for the forthcoming UK edition of my book, first.

So much energy/conversations is devoted to the denialists. I don't care about them - let them make noise and remain intractable.

The science community should remain focused on my constituency: the middle. A group that by in large has a positive view of science and scientists, but are largely underengaged.

I have been running a science cafe for 3.5 years to meet that challenge. Participating scientists comment with surprise in regards to certain perceptions of their work. Maybe this is naive, but I hope that their "listening" to local public audiences over the long term will encourage them to consider public perception as they approach research. And this happens not just with the hot button topics (vaccines, climate change, etc) but with the more innocuous topics like particle physics and modern engineering of bridges.

Scientific research happens in the context of society. I interpret Chris' report as a reminder of that, with broad encouragement from scientists to evolve what public engagement has been.

Kishore is right -- the extremists are probably a lost cause. (Not certainly; even some of them may be won over.) The real issue is the broader public, who are put off by the image of the arrogant ivory-tower scientist who can't communicate with "regular" people. There are lots of reasons why this has come about, and it's not just ignorance of science -- scientists themselves are partially to blame, as Mooney and Kirshbaum lay out in their book "Unscientific America".

This is also where the "New Atheists" do the most harm. There are many out there who are religious but not fundamentalist, who would be very open to learning more about science-- but who are going to react predictably when they hear bloggers and science popularizers loudly proclaiming that science is incompatible with religion. The creationists and religious fundamentalists already have a whole line of (bogus) defenses against science, and they're not going to be much moved by anything any pro-science person says. But the folks in the middle are the ones who will be pushed away by extreme claims of the incompatibility between science and religion, whichever side it comes from.

Zach said:

"The bafflement is over the reaction the the op-ed (which Chad stated at the beginning of his post), ..."

That would be an adequate response, if Chad hadn't written this:

"...so I did the responsible blogger thing and read the whole AAAS paper (which you can download for free at the link above), and I'm baffled. Not by the paper itself, which is very clearly written and not overly complicated.
I'm baffled by the reaction."

And that would have been an adequate response if you had noted that the objections you listed were ALL regarding the WP article. Except you didn't. You just trolled a bunch of criticisms without regard to whether they're valid in light of the report.

You do say the criticisms are about the op-ed and not the report, but only after I called you out on it: "... which is where most of the criticism has been directed as it came out earlier. Most of the posts I linked to were to the summary."

So no, I don't find your explanation compelling. You uncritically posted out-of-date criticisms to a newspaper op-ed in a post clearly about the op-ed AND report.

"So no, I don't find your explanation compelling. You uncritically posted out-of-date criticisms to a newspaper op-ed in a post clearly about the op-ed AND report."

Ok, TB, you accused me of being disingenuous. I didn't claim to adhere to the criticisms I posted, and I noted that Mooney had responded to many of them (as given by PalMD). Orzel said he was baffled by why people objected to things he considered common sense. An explanation of this is that the reaction was to the op-ed and not to the paper itself. That's what I proposed in response to your comment.

Does that clear up this? "And that would have been an adequate response if you had noted that the objections you listed were ALL regarding the WP article. Except you didn't. You just trolled a bunch of criticisms without regard to whether they're valid in light of the report."

If my comment left the impression that these were criticisms of the paper and not the op-ed, then I apologize for the error in communication. In retrospect, I should have clarified, but it wasn't an intentional misrepresentation of Orac and others. However, I never claimed that these were criticisms of the paper. If Orzel took them as such, then that would explain his bafflement.

Yes, I was just listing criticisms I had found. I never pretended otherwise. Actually, I thought that it was quite clear that that was what I was doing.

If you're interested in my impression of the paper and problems I find with it, you're free to ask. I think it has shortcomings relevant to addressing politically motivated denialism, but I think it's a good paper overall, and yes, as said by Orzel, much of it is common sense, solid stuff that's hard to object to.

I posted a comment on Matt Nisbet's site (http://scienceblogs.com/framing-science/2010/06/reflections_on_american…)about my take on what Chris Mooney had to say about Yucca Mountain. This is different than that expressed by Chad in #15 above. I would largely agree with Chad if that is what I though I had read.

My objections to the paper, and to the previous op-ed are what I see as drawing divides that are too sharp between scientists and non scientists. Are the scientist directly involved going to poke around, find new information and revise their positions accordingly if necessary? Or are they just going to be extra clever in how they present things?

Gurdur-

Quote me where I denied it wasn't the scientists's fault at all. Please. I beg you to show me you're not a moron.

OK Zach, I apologize for misinterpreting your intentions.

TB,

No big deal. It happens. Thanks in any case for criticism that lead to clarification.

Chris,

After reading the paper, I wouldn't maintain most of the criticisms either. In particular, I don't feel that #3 and #7 are accurate.

But, looking forward to further response.

Zach: I could have offered it better. I appreciate you taking it so well.

Hi all,
I just read the first part of the paper. I haven't seen the op-ed piece. Maybe I was primed poorly by reading blog posts on the subject, but I think the paper is not as effective as it could be. It suffers from the same maladies it warns against.

For the purposes of this post I'll distinguish two different goals one might want to undertake: firstly, to understand the world, and secondly to change the world to achieve a certain outcome. Of course this is not a clear division and many things are a combination of both. I think of the first as traditional science, and I think of the second as politics (or engineering, but politics is relevant here). Scientists are people that do elements of both: they try to understand the world, but they also try to change the world based on that understanding. This is particularly true when their understanding seems to point to an obvious way to change the world. Some examples: understand climate = science, reducing CO2 emissions = politics. Understanding evolution = science, teaching evolution = politics.

To the extent that the paper says, "If you want to solve a political problem, you are better off to solve it in a political way", I think that is obvious. That is also a 'scientific' statement. But if we also say that the goal of the paper is to change scientists behaviour, then the paper also has a political goal: "Scientists should change their behaviour to be more political". If that really was a goal, then the author didn't follow his own advice. He didn't study the sociology of scientists and see how his 'advice' would be received. From the reaction, this seems particularly true of the op-ed piece (although I haven't read it).

As I said, the paper suffers from the same maladies it warns against.

(As a final aside, I was listening to a talk once on better teaching methods. The speaker noted that lectures are a very poor method of changing people's behaviour, and that this has been known for a long time. He then had the self awareness to note that the reason lectures were still widely used was because the people who thought we should move away from lectures tried to achieve that change by lecturing about it.)

The main problem is that Mooney pretends he has something meaningful to say but doesn't. He has a sort of "humanist" approach to writing - he writes sentences which sound nice to him and he seems to think it makes them correct and insightful. But meaningful communication takes much more than that, it takes logic and internal consistency and it takes a clear message. But all that is lacking in Mooney's writing, his is just writing for the sake of writing, as he has nothing meaningful to say.

OK, here's a crack at some of the other complaints, based on my reading of the paper. Taking the laundry list from comment #3, and throwing out the third and seventh per comment #24, we have:

1. Mooney is reinforcing the egghead/condescending stereotype of scientists that isn't true for many of those attempting to communicate science.

This is pretty much irrelevant. Yes, many scientists who have a strong interest in public communication avoid many of these pitfalls; they're not the problem. The problem lies with the many scientists who do come off as condescending eggheads to the general public, and make a mess of science-based policy issues.

2. Mooney himself has been naive and proposed counterproductive measures in the past (see Orac's links to the "Building Bridges" post) in the spirit of communication.

Again, this is largely irrelevant to the current argument. It's entirely possible for Chris to have made naive proposals in the past, and still have a valid point here.

4. Scientists moving towards ideology and straying away from the science in public debates risks their perceived objectivity and credibility.

This varies a lot from case to case, but I think one of the important points of the article is that in many cases scientists have already lost their perceived objectivity and credibility. The argument is that with more attention paid to ideology from the start, that loss of credibility and objectivity could be avoided.

5. Mooney wants to treat science like a democracy. It isn't, and it isn't a good idea. (Note: In his response, he appears to only mean listen to public opinion as regards scientific fact. Are we not? What does he mean?)

I have no idea where this is coming from. Both the paper and the op-ed are very clearly (to me, at least) talking about involving the public in science policy decisions. The key bit of the op-ed is:

These three controversies have a single moral, and it's that experts who want Americans to take science into account when they form opinions on contentious issues need to do far more than just "lay out the facts" or "set the record straight." What science says is important, but in controversial areas, it's only the beginning. It's critical that experts and policy makers better understand what motivates public concern in the first place; and in this, they mustn't be deceived by the fact that people often appear, on the surface, to be arguing about scientific facts. Frequently, their underlying rationale is very different.

Thus, for instance, resistance to climate science in the United States seems to be linked to a libertarian economic outlook: People who resist what experts tell them about global warming often appear, at heart, to be most worried about the consequences of increased government regulation of carbon emissions. Similarly, based upon my observation, vaccine skepticism seems closely connected to distrust of the pharmaceutical industry and of the federal government's medical research establishment. As for Yucca Mountain, much of the outrage appears to originate in the perceived unfairness of having Nevada proposed as the sole dump site for the waste of an entire nation.

This is not saying that the scientific facts about Yucca Mountain, vaccination, or climate change are in any way up for a vote. Quite the contrary-- it's saying that those facts are not the real problem. What they're recommending is that scientists and policy makers find out what people are really worried about on the policy level, and move to address those issues. Had the Yucca Mountain site, for example, been selected in a more open process, with input from and outreach to the communities involved, it might not have become the colossal mess that it is now.

Both the op-ed and the paper are explicitly concerned with science policy-- those areas where science intersects with the public interest. They're recommending that scientists take public opinion into consideration in setting policy, not doing science.

This is the closest thing to a valid criticism of the current paper and op-ed on the list. The main thrust of both the paper and the op-ed is toward trying to avoid situations where denialism becomes entrenched in the first place. The only really on point comment in the paper is pretty pessimistic on this front (page 10):

[D]ecades into such debates, the political and societal rift already exists. The crisis-communication opportunities have probably been missed or squandered,and much analysis is retrospective and âwoulda, coulda, shouldaâ in nature. Battle lines have hardened (as in the Yucca Mountain case), and it may be far too late to âfixâ the situation.

I would like to see something more positive here, but that's all there really is.

I do think, though, that in many cases the understanding people think they have of the ideology of the situation may be mistaken. There may be ways to re-cast the discussion that could lead to positive results, or at least progress-- if the fundamental issues around climate change denialism are economic in nature, as suggested in the quoted bit above, then it may be possible to address those concerns more directly, and thus undermine the support for the denialist position. But then, I'm an optimist at heart.

I will agree, though, that this is the weakest point of the current paper and op-ed-- it doesn't really make recommendations about what to do when you've hit an intractable ideological gulf. The argument for the defense is that it's asking those documents to be about something that they're not trying to be about. Which may or may not work for you, but that's all there is.

What I don't understand is why many people seem to be attributing the whole package - the paper, the talk, and the op-ed - to Chris Mooney as if he's the prime mover in this. The Academy organized the workshops without Chris Mooney; I know one of the people who did organize them (and yes, she's a PhD scientist, like many of the participants). The Academy brought Chris in, if I understand it correctly, to communicate the results. If one has complaints about that communication, those may well be appropriate to lay on Chris. But for anyone who thinks the series of workshops was a stupid or redundant idea, go tell the Academy of Arts and Sciences that; it was their idea.

You know, Chris Mooney and I haven't always seen eye to eye, but I see so much vitriolic hostility directed at him - and at anyone who admits to agreeing with him on one point or another - that I'm now inclined to back him up just out of the principle of the thing. I'm just ornery that way.

Bioephemera-

Wholly off-topic, but both times you've posted, the link to your blog has been broken.

I think we are talking by each other. In your noble defense you note that:

This is NOT irrelevant! You note that many scientists, note you used the word many, are interested in communication. But many don't. I agree, many don't. So fucking what! Do all scientists have to be involved in public communication? and be good at it (otherwise its problematic not helpful)? I was trained to do research and barely to teach (although I seem to do a good job). My job description is to do research and to teach. WTF do you want from all scientists? This is the unrealistic BS that gets many of us, ie me, annoyed.

This is not saying that the scientific facts about Yucca Mountain, vaccination, or climate change are in any way up for a vote. Quite the contrary-- it's saying that those facts are not the real problem. What they're recommending is that scientists and policy makers find out what people are really worried about on the policy level, and move to address those issues. Had the Yucca Mountain site, for example, been selected in a more open process, with input from and outreach to the communities involved, it might not have become the colossal mess that it is now.

Let's use your vaccination example (evolution would be another excellent example). Ok, we are agreed the facts of vaccination are not the problem or in any way up for a vote. Do you think for even a second we don't know what people are really worried about on the policy level regarding vaccination? Its fucking AUTISM! Sure we can argue that there is some philosophical issue regarding distrust of government and big companies, but I anecdotally know educated individuals who are concerned about the vaccine-autism link even though they are pro-vaccine! The other side of the issue has a great frame and deep coffers. So, how do we address that issue that hasn't been done? We are investing NIH research dollars pursuing this well decided issue (which means other research is not getting done)! We have even more facts addressing these concerns now because we have listened and responded to these public concerns. This is why I call Mooney's suggestions pablum, we already do what he suggests and still lose fucking ground, but he tells us we suck (my words) and need to frame and engage without saying how (and I appreciate your acknowledgment of that critique).

You note that the Yucca mountain decision might have come out differently. The use of "might" I think completely undercuts your argument. I will counter that the "not in my backyard" philosophy MIGHT beat out any engagement by scientists/policy makers.

Engage the public, NIH has the National Center of Complementary and Alternative Medicine. That seems to me to be a pretty good example of what Mooney is arguing for and it hasn't changed a thing, I would argue it has helped the pseudoscientists gain more credibility.

In K-12 education, the public is heard at all levels numerous times, yet we still constantly fight for evolution, geology, and physics. Mooney is currently being paid to argue that we need to be cognizant of the Christians who may be scared by the geology physics and evolution. Ok, let's be cognizant. Biologos (these arguments don't exist in a vacuum) says Adam and Eve fit perfectly with evolution. Well they do, but only if you contort Adam and Eve to such a degree as to be meaningless from a biblical perspective, most Christians concerned about this issue won't go for these contortions. Earth 6000 years old or more than 1000000000, do you think the population that believes the former, and admittedly will not be swayed by facts, will get on board by talking with them or by telling them to alter their beliefs? These real problems are not solved by saying frame and engage ad nauseum.

This is probably futile from the standpoint of direct communication, but comment #31 is such a perfect example of what the paper is talking about, that I'll respond to highlight the issues.

Not every scientist needs to be an expert in public communications, but those scientists who will be involved in setting public policy damn well better be. Or at the very least they should be willing to listen to people who are experts in public communication, and take their advice.

A relevant bit from the AAAS paper (bottom of page 6):

As [Janet] Kotra [head of the NRCâs High-Level Waste Public Outreach Team] put it at the American Academy meeting: âI will never forget a former colleague who said, âYou mean, I have to dumb down my presentation for Ma and Pa Kettle?â And of course, the answer to that is, yes, if you see it that way. But if you see it that way, I donât want you talking to them.â

If your view is that public communication is beneath you, find a line of research that won't ever require you to communicate with the public. Otherwise, you're going to have problems, and more importantly, you're going to create problems for everybody else.

Because, of course, your personal anecdotes trump data collected by social scientists.

This is such a perfect demonstration of exactly the kind of communication failures the paper is talking about that it's too good to pass up (even though I will likely regret continuing this conversation).

The argument that Mooney and the other participants in the American Academy workshops are making, along with communications researchers who have studied these sorts of situations is that distrust of government and drug companies isn't a side issue, but the fundamental problem that's blocking acceptance of the science. If people don't trust the government and drug companies on this issue, you can show them study after study debunking the link between vaccines and autism, and never make a dent. Because who funded those studies? Drug companies and the government, who we have already established are not trusted.

The entire argument of the paper and op-ed, and the social-science research that backs them up, is that you need to address the concerns about trustworthiness of the government and drug companies before you can get people to accept the science. When you treat those concerns as some insignificant side issue, not only do you not speak to the real concerns of many people in the general public, but you make them feel like you're arrogantly talking down to them. Which pisses them off, and makes them even less likely to accept the next government-funded study showing no link between vaccines and autism.

But you very badly want this not to be about social science and public opinion, so you are willing to casually dismiss the scholarly work of people who study public opinion for a living because you know some people who appear to behave otherwise.

Think about that for a second-- if you put a study in front of someone showing no link between vaccines and autism, and they responded with "I anecdotally know individuals whose kids got vaccinated and two months later became autistic," would you find that convincing? Because that's exactly what you're doing.

Social science research, like public health research, necessarily deals in aggregates and averages. The fact that you know a couple of people who don't seem to fit the trend does not invalidate the trend for the population as a whole. If responsible social-science research into these issues shows a correlation and provides a reasonable model for that correlation being causal, the scientific thing to do is to take that seriously, and see if it leads somewhere promising.

The alternative is to keep throwing money at new studies that won't do a bit of good, and fuming about the idiocy of the public. Which, as you point out, has been done already, and isn't working out too well.

(The big question, of course, is how you fix the trust gap, if that's the problem. That's a hard problem, and I don't have any answers. But then, I'm not a scholar of public communications, or a marketing expert. We've got universities full of social scientists who study this stuff, and ad agencies full of people who put it into practice-- ask them. Which, again, is the whole point of these papers.)

Bravo Chad, a very good response, exactly what I intended to write, written better.

I find it weird that when presented with an argument that says "Science is not being communicated to laypeople for many reasons, one of them which is often denied is that scientists appear arrogant to some and do not engage in ways which we have some evidence will work better- for example situations X and Y may have worked better handled differently" some people react by saying "People are idiots, we've tried telling them what's right, we've tried engaging them (with the implication that they have tried it exhaustively and completely) and it doesn't work, mainly because they're all illogical idiots who wouldn't know good science if it was dripfed to them by Steven Hawking himself. TELL ME how we reach idiot Q?!" - where Q is a complete basketcase who does not fall into the group of laypeople Mooney is suggesting we can reach with different tactics.

Thanks for the response and I am more convinced than ever that we are talking by each other and am inclined to think you actually don't want to consider what Im saying. Its just easier to make accusations based on superficial interpretations of what Im saying (clearly I am at fault in this by not being explicit in my responses).

First, we both agree that many scientists are good communicators (plus there are many non-scientists that are great science communicators). I even agree with you that scientists involved in policy issues need to be good communicators. I call this a "Duh" statement, you know what scientists should probably be pretty good at? research. So we agree people should be competent at their jobs. Currently, stem cell research is a politically hot button issue, should all SC scientists be required to be great communicators? Before it was a hot button issue did this requirement exist? If not, does a poor communicator in SC research have to change fields based on the political changes? I expect you think this is absurd, but my point is that these arguments seem to exist in a vacuum with no history. When a field of science (this is independent of scientists directly involved in policy all of whom should be able to do their job competently) becomes a publicly sensitive issue, I think its ridiculous to yell at scientists for not magically gaining some new ability.

Second, I do not think anecdotes trump data. My point, which I obviously made poorly, was that some real life human beings are concerned about vaccines because of all the press on vaccine-autism. So I am not questioning that distrust of government and/or big pharma is the driving force behind the anti-vaccine movement, I am only suggesting that the problem is compounded by the advertising and vocalness of the anti-vaxxers. If trust can be restored, the anti-vaxxers lose their momentum and both problems are solved.

Also, I did not disparage social science research. And while Im trying to maintain civility and consideration of your points, I think you are being kind of a douche by saying multiple times that I am.

We agree that at least some of these problems are about trust in certain entities. We also agree that social scientists, professional communicators, et al are best to help deal with these issue. However, I found a fair degree of scientists are poor communicators and need to do better dealing with the public, listen to the public, etc in Mooney's OpEd (did you not see any of that?). I did not read the AAAS paper, which obviously makes me evil. But my concern is that many lay people are reading the OpEd and being reinforced with how arrogant and elitist (my words) scientists are, none of them are reading the more flushed out AAAS paper, which may make the reasonable (and dare I say somewhat obvious, because I am slightly familiar with the research on public communication) point that concerned scientists should seek help from social scientists.

Observation: The main objections are to the op-ed, not the paper.

Judgment: Many of the complaints are due to items lost in summary. I think that many of the criticisms I listed previously are inaccurate or unfair once the paper has been read.

Other Judgment: The op-ed is itself a problem of communication. It seems to have failed to deliver an accurate impression of the paper. Given, summarizing has inherent difficulties, but we can expect most people to read the op-ed and not the paper. So, we can reasonably expect the popular impression of the paper to be something similar to what many of the comments/blogs have denounced.

Suggestions:

1) In the future, we could circulate similar papers around the critical blogosphere and gain feedback/criticisms before publishing a summarizing op-ed in order to preempt these problems. IMO, many bloggers have taken the article/paper as an attack against themselves that, for example, did not recognize their understanding of the problems with the "deficit model." Note: I haven't checked to see if this has been done, but it's an idea.

2) An accompanying blog post explaining who the paper targets as poor communicators, and further, specifically to what group that the recommendations apply. As again, it is difficult (or impossible) to give such specifics in a short news article without sacrificing other details, many critics (seem to) have taken the article as an attack on their experience.

3) It would help if institutional barriers to communicating scientists were discussed in this same accompanying post. This way, it doesn't come across so much as a simplistic "blame the scientists" approach.

Just some ideas.

Currently, stem cell research is a politically hot button issue, should all SC scientists be required to be great communicators? Before it was a hot button issue did this requirement exist? If not, does a poor communicator in SC research have to change fields based on the political changes? I expect you think this is absurd, but my point is that these arguments seem to exist in a vacuum with no history. When a field of science (this is independent of scientists directly involved in policy all of whom should be able to do their job competently) becomes a publicly sensitive issue, I think its ridiculous to yell at scientists for not magically gaining some new ability.

I don't think that all stem cell researchers are required to be great public communicators. If somebody really wants to work in the lab and not deal with the public, that's fine-- we need great researchers at least as much as we need great communicators.

However, I do think that researcher who aren't great public communicators should recognize that they're not, and stay out of policy making. Or, if they have a burning desire to get involved in public policy, they should consult with or hire somebody who does understand public communication, and follow their advice to the letter. The problem is, too many scientists assume that being a really good scientist is enough, and everybody will see the rightness of their position. The "Ma and Pa Kettle" comment is all too typical, and that's the sort of thing we can't afford.

Cases where humble bench scientists are catapulted into the middle of a policy firestorm with no possible advance warning are actually pretty rare. What generally happens is that a field becomes a political hot button over a period of years, which provides ample warning for someone to start developing communication skills, if they're paying attention. We need scientists to pay a little more attention to politics, and we especially need scientific and policy organizations to be aware of these issues, and keep their members apprised of potential trouble spots.

Science doesn't happen in a vacuum, and can't. Too many scientists want to pretend that they can be completely insulated from politics and public opinion, and that's just not feasible in the modern world.

So... what's the problem, then? Your previous comment made it sound like suggesting that distrust had anything at all to do with the situation was completely outrageous.

This is also the origin of the comments about disparaging social science. The obvious reading of "Do you think for even a second we don't know what people are really worried about on the policy level regarding vaccination? Its fucking AUTISM!" is "Despite what social science research says about public attitudes, I know what the real problem is." Which is pretty much the definition of disparaging social science research.

I saw that just fine. I don't object to it, because he's right. Particularly in the policy realm, which is where this stuff really matters. The track record of scientists in policy making is pretty dismal, as illustrated by the examples in the op-ed and in the paper, and scientists as a group do need to do better. It's not a message that I particularly like to hear-- I'd love it if we got more "Scientists are awesome!" stories in the Washington Post-- but it's a message that needs to be heard.

The aid and comfort this might provide to the enemies of science is trivial compared to the damage that can be done by continuing on the historical path of dismal public communication and policy making.

I have another thought on the reaction towards Mooney's work. While he can think intelligently about communication, personally, he's a mediocre written communicator (never heard him speak), and the briefer the piece the worse he is at communicating.

Every time he writes an op-ed or even a controversial blog post, it's not just the push-back from others, but the number of times he repeatedly says something like "you didn't understand what I was getting at" or "I couldn't get into more detail in this format, but you should read my book/longer paper." Simply put, these are comments of someone who is writing in the wrong medium. If he wasn't able to put the core points of a long article into the opinion piece he should have either focus better on a specific part of the story or simply not write the piece. Writing it and then asking people who were confused/bothered by it to read the longer work is simply amateur.

Like I said, he has interesting things to say, but I suspect that a side effect of becoming a comfortably selling author and popular speaker is that it doesn't push much introspection on the quality of his own writing and communication.

While I have disagreed with some of Mooney's ideas in the past and probably will again, I respect that he's clearly working hard and trying to make things better. I just wish he'd get better and getting his own message out in a clear manner.

Chad,

On your comment #28, I note my overall agreement and thank you for the responses!

Some qualifications:

With #6, I agree that our main goal should be preventing the creation of these severe impasses. However, as many of them are grounded in a deeply entrenched aspect of American politics, such as the conspiratorial element, reflexive anti-authoritarianism, and etc, there are many cases where attempts at prevention stray immediately into these "situations where denialism becomes entrenched in the first place." So, I think much of the pessimism Mooney expresses is justified.

Criticisms #4 and #8 are related, though the parenthesized portion of #8 is dealing with a case separate from the paper. If, for example, scientific organizations work in any perceptible way against a popular political strain of thought, might we only be reinforcing (and justifying) the perception of scientists as political advocates?

More separately from the paper, but relevant: how does this apply for criticisms of (certain forms of) religion as a means for removing ideological barriers to accepting evolution?

I guess word choice to sidestep ideologies might be relevant, like in the case of the absence of term "climate" from proposals. So, this works as a way to sneak the science around the ideology as to avoid denial up to moving through bills, etc. But in cases where the science states something in flat contradiction to a given ideology, e.g. common descent vs. special creation, this is a lot trickier. It's also trickier when the results translate into items with which the population at large has immediate contact, e.g., science education, vaccines, etc.

From my memory of Orac and SBM, anti-vaccination is largely based on fallacies of correlation vs. causation (I vaccinated my healthy baby just weeks/months before signs of autism started occurring!) which are reinforced by propagandists. On this issue in particular, how are we to sidestep fallacious thinking with word choice when the results depend on compliance in the face of misguided intuition and false pattern seeking?

So, for many issues related to denialism, I'm just not sure that prevention is possible. Still, I think it's always worthwhile for potential ideological problems to be investigated beforehand, so Mooney's call for attention to the social sciences remains relevant.

But again, thanks for the feedback.

Writing it and then asking people who were confused/bothered by it to read the longer work is simply amateur.
******************************
In other words he is doing exactly what he complains too many scientists do. The truth is many of us in the sciences do have that problem. Guess what, same is true of doctors and lawyers. Ever sit in a room with teachers as they talk about their day was like? Every field (& sub-field) has its shorthands and jargon. In other words, scientists are people too. Their is nothing unusual about how we communicate. Teachers are trained specifically how to translate their jargon, same with doctors and lawyers who on a regular basis interact with patients and clients. Why? It is their job. They routinely practice overcoming the bias of expertise.

The hardest part is not finding the right frame but remembering your audiences' knowledge level. Most fellow scientists know what interests others about their work (the right frame), it is scaling back the knowledge level.

Why? My guess is that we get used to speaking in certain way about a subject and when we talk about said subject that becomes our cognitive bias to speak in that manner. To overcome it as mentioned above takes training and practice.

How many PIs really have the time to do this along with interacting with family members, friends, and communities outside of science? The PIs I have seen are extremely busy as is. They manage labs, write grants, papers, and letters of recommendations, serve on various committees on the department, program, and university levels not to mention reviewing grants, articles, etc. of other scientists, filling out paperwork, dealing with budgets.

Do enough of them have the time to communicate to the public? To lobby scientific organizations to rise to the occasion (& more importantly raise enough $$?

Having grad students trained in communication is all well and good but the whole argument against education is that we need changes now not when these students finish their training.

On a pragmatic level, I just don't think Mooney's suggestions will really make much of a difference and resources are better placed by strengthening the scientific communicators we have and undermining the entrenched interests that feed denialsm, which is what Mooney used to do I might add.
.

Again, we circle around to the ultimate cause of my bafflement, which is that I don't find either of these documents confusing. I read the op-ed before the long paper, and didn't have any trouble getting the point-- if anything, I was slightly disappointed that there wasn't more new stuff in the longer paper.

The only thing I find confusing here is that other people think there's anything confusing about what Chris wrote.

The only thing I find confusing here is that other people think there's anything confusing about what Chris wrote.
*******************
Given the past on such things, is that surprising? Chris speaks to your frames. You have agreed with him in the past and mostly likely will again in the future. Nothing surprising. It fits with everything Nisbet and Mooney have mentioned about communication. He evidently doesn't speak to the frames of Mike the Mad Biologist, Orac, Evil Monkey, Paul MD, and Joe Romm at Climate Progress.

If he is writing to get people like you motivated then he is doing his job. If on the other hand he is trying to get the latter group on his side, he is doing a poor job at communicating. His framing is failing. And lets face it, the latter group has to actually deal with denialism that we need to overcome on a regular basis.

Given the past on such things, is that surprising? Chris speaks to your frames. You have agreed with him in the past and mostly likely will again in the future. Nothing surprising. It fits with everything Nisbet and Mooney have mentioned about communication. He evidently doesn't speak to the frames of Mike the Mad Biologist, Orac, Evil Monkey, Paul MD, and Joe Romm at Climate Progress.

That's probably a good way of looking at it.

I don't think he's writing for the latter group, though. It's important to remember that science bloggers are not all there is to science, and they're not even a representative sample. The vast majority of scientists and policy makers don't write blogs, and most don't even read science blogs. Those are the people he's trying to reach by writing in the Washington Post, not the tiny handful of already-committed bloggers and activists.

I just reread Chris' Post piece with the eyes of an editor. I think the first half of the article was pretty good. He starts with some assumptions that people have and shows how those assumptions are often wrong. My one complaint, as others have noted, he keeps talking about "the public" and "scientists." Making "scientists" a group of people that isn't part of "the public" is terrible framing. Simple phrase changes like, "When scientists try to communicate with OTHER members of the public" can go a long way.

His writing is significantly weaker in the second half. He obviously has a space limit, but instead of trying building on an example for recommendations, like he does at the beginning, he throws out two disjointed examples with minimal explanation about them. The brevity of these examples is what opens complaints for more questions.

I'll put some numbers on this. He has a 220 word intro. In the examples laying out the problem, he devotes 228 words to climate change, 185 words to vaccines, and 108 words to Yucca Mountain, and another 205 words to summarize the conclusions of these three examples. Like I said, these sections are good, but a bit long.

When Chris switches to his examples of applications, there's 64 words on nuclear waste, 35 words on nanotechnology, 64 words as core recommendation, and another 61 words to end on a happy statistic that doesn't directly relate to the recommendations.

He wanted to summarize a long document, but chose to try to include as many examples as possible from that document rather than summarize the overarching point in a way that stands on its own. If I was editing this, I would have suggested to cut one example from the first part (Yucca mountain is the most incongruous), and remove a few asides from the intro and other examples. In the recommendation, I'd focus on only one example for 200-300 words to give a better picture how this approach led to success.

Like I said, I thought the writing was mediocre, not bad. It's better than a good chunk of the stuff that ends up in the Washington Post. It's simply that I think he can do better if he doesn't get defensive when people criticize what he writes.

To make my own writing a bit more brief, although it seems the criticisms are about omissions, that's not the case for made of the serious critiques. The criticisms are presenting half a story and omitting the other half. The examples and conclusions in the piece need to stand on their own. In the current text, they don't.

BSCI: I disagree with your edits - I don't believe they would be particularly helpful. And using a word count to help judge the impact of words isn't particularly useful. Some of the most effective communication can come in brief sentences.

And mediocre is such a vague description. Mediocre in what context? The op-ed isn't intended to be great literature, it's intent is to inform a mass media audience using a limited amount of print space.

The op-ed also wasn't just a summary of the paper - that's a useful characterization as far as it goes, but that characterization doesn't fully describe what it needed to accomplish. For many it was an introduction to the entire issue and using multiple examples served a couple of purposes:

- It showed that the problem was one that touched multiple issues. If it was found in just one issue, there could be questions about whether it's too parochial to address. But no, multiple examples of it in different situations show that it could be a legitimate field of study.

- It kept the focus on the problem on not on one hot button issue. To use only one example - like Yucca Mountain - would have left the article mired in the overall debate about Yucca and nuclear waste disposal.
Instead, we know that the article isn't just about nuclear waste, vaccinations or global warming.

It's about effective communication, in this case anticipating resistance to actions taken in response to solid, scientific information.

Chad:

There is, of course, another reason for resistance to Mooney. The goal of better science communication and advocacy conflicts with the political goal of New Atheists in that the advocates have no problem including the religious with their efforts, whereas New Atheists seem to want use science as a dividing line for their political purposes. This is characterized by lumping all religious - even religious scientists - into the same camp, even going so far as to redefine the popular notion of creationist to describe them.
Mooney doesn't buy that meme and has openly criticized it and the people who promote it, so politically he is opposed in all areas.

If it will help to stop people from throwing out the new atheist strawman for this particular discussion, I'm not an atheist (new, old or whatever) and I'm leaning towards the criticisms by Mike the mad biologist and Orac. Perhaps because I have to deal with cranks because of my field of research.

TB,
A short piece, like the op-ed, is a compromise of what to include and omit. When a writer, as Chris is doing, says, "I had to omit X because there wasn't enough space," what he's really saying is, "I decided it was more important to write about Y than X."

You're right to say this touches multiple issues, but is the gain from 3 instead of 2 examples a useful prioritization of space? Does mentioning both the Canadian system and nanotechnology without any serious details contribute anything to the piece?

I'm calling the piece mediocre based on it's goals. It's goal was to communicate a clear point of view to the people who read it (both scientists and non-scientists). While disagreement is fine, the responses and lack of understanding of the piece show that it's fallen short of clarity.

I'll also call you out on blaming this on New Atheists. I've never seen several of the prominent critics like, Orac and PalMD, call themselves "New Atheist" or express that point of view. I definitely don't fit in that label. It's generally not considered a good persuasion skill to assume anyone who disagrees with you is part of group X and can therefore be ignored.

Or, to put it in terms less flattering to the uncomprehending, they are falling prey to their own hidden preferences and preconceptions ("ideology" is a terrible, terrible word for this) in the same way that the people they are failing to reach do.
*****************************************
You could also say the same about you and Chris. It works both ways after all, just a question how you want to frame yourself and those who disagree.

The vast majority of scientists and policy makers don't write blogs, and most don't even read science blogs. Those are the people he's trying to reach by writing in the Washington Post, not the tiny handful of already-committed bloggers and activists.
***************************************
And do we have any idea how they are responding to op-ed? And really how many scientists will read it in the Washington Post let alone the full report? I am guess a high percentage of those in science policy will but isn't the point to change scientists? They are the ones who review grants, who review tenure, who are the membership of scientific organizations.

TB:

There is, of course, another reason for resistance to Mooney. The goal of better science communication and advocacy conflicts with the political goal of New Atheists in that the advocates have no problem including the religious with their efforts, whereas New Atheists seem to want use science as a dividing line for their political purposes. This is characterized by lumping all religious - even religious scientists - into the same camp, even going so far as to redefine the popular notion of creationist to describe them.
Mooney doesn't buy that meme and has openly criticized it and the people who promote it, so politically he is opposed in all areas.

New Atheists do not generally treat theistic evolutionists as "in the same camp" or "equal to" creationists in any way. In the technical sense, theistic evolutionists can be said to believe in "intelligent designers" and "creators" (Miller himself said this), but obviously, this is not a conflation of TE with ID. I haven't seen this behavior by any of the New Atheists I have read, at least not in any way that is designed to be deceitful. Are you thinking of a particular example?

And I'll second bcsi on this, just as I called out Knop before. I will at least qualify that since Mooney has "othered" New Atheists, it is very well likely that many might react reflexively against him. However, up to the communicating evolution issue, I find myself agreeing with New Atheists more than I do Mooney or Rosenau. My points in comment (when discussing criticisms 6/8) #38 relate to why I feel this way.

I'll also add that we should take care when othering New Atheists just as we should take care when othering accommodationists. We end up addressing a preconceived notion of the other side instead of the relevant arguments at hand. As far as I can tell, this debate and related items have this as a property, not any particular side.

And a factual note (not an argument, just an observation): the primary concern of non-accommodationist atheists is, as far as I can tell, the use of scientific/educational organizations to write/endorse (bad) apologetics for religion. In the name of tactics in increasing support for evolution, this approach has been supported, however, New Atheists disagree that this tactical approach has or will work, and that ultimately, removing resistance to science necessarily involves working against religious doctrine and/or the public influence of religion. They agree with Mooney that ideology is the issue, however, they disagree about how that ideology is to be circumvented and/or countered.

BSCI: "You're right to say this touches multiple issues, but is the gain from 3 instead of 2 examples a useful prioritization of space?"

Perhaps not, but you wanted to cut it down to one example.

"I'm calling the piece mediocre based on it's goals. It's goal was to communicate a clear point of view to the people who read it (both scientists and non-scientists). While disagreement is fine, the responses and lack of understanding of the piece show that it's fallen short of clarity."

Clarity? None of the criticisms listed so far highlighted clarity as a problem. And I pointed out the goal: "it's intent is to inform a mass media audience using a limited amount of print space ..." and " ...For many it was an introduction to the entire issue."

I'm just not convinced by your arguments.

"I'll also call you out on blaming this on New Atheists. I've never seen several of the prominent critics like, Orac and PalMD, call themselves "New Atheist" or express that point of view. I definitely don't fit in that label. It's generally not considered a good persuasion skill to assume anyone who disagrees with you is part of group X and can therefore be ignored."

I didn't call Orac or PalMD or you "New Atheists." The remark wasn't directed at you, but to Chad. I have no idea if you fall into that camp. But you could certainly put PZ in that camp, and over at Intersection the first comment on this thread ...

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2010/06/29/do-scientists…

... on the subject started out with ...

"Crud, I sully myself by venturing onto this blog to comment, ..."

You think maybe a few posters are coming at this with some preconceived notions? If you don't want to self-identify as a New Atheist, that's fine - I wasn't labeling you as such.

But seriously, too often I've had commentors assure me that "New Atheists don't believe X..." and then someone who self-identifies as a New Atheist comes along and defends X to the high heavens.

Zach seems to be an example of this: There are those who self-identify as "New Atheists" who do not necessarily know what other people who self-identify as "New Atheists" think and say. And many times they don't necessarily agree with them.

So, to Zach, who I mistakenly assumed had nefarious motives (sorry about that friendly fire), I have to point out in reply to "New Atheists do not generally treat theistic evolutionists as "in the same camp" or "equal to" creationists in any way."

Coyne: "Although Giberson and Miller see themselves as opponents of creationism, in devising a compatibility between science and religion they finally converge with their opponents. In fact, they exhibit at least three of the four distinguishing traits of creationists: belief in God, the intervention of God in nature, and a special role for God in the evolution of humans. They may even show the fourth trait, a belief in irreducible complexity, by proposing that a soul could not have evolved, but was inserted by God."

Moran: "The difference between Ken Miller and Michael Behe is trivial compared to the difference between Ken Miller and Richard Dawkins. Coyne is not the only one who has trouble seeing why Behe isn't a theistic evolutionist and Miller isn't an intelligent design creationist."

Rosenhouse acknowledged that some have already taken that step and warned against it:

"This is a prelude to an argument that Miller and Giberson are effectively creationists themselves.
There are a number of people on my side of the issue who go this route. Carving out space for a meaningful Christian faith within an evolutionary view of the world, it is argued, somehow reduces you to the level of a creationist. Considering that, among scientists, calling someone a âcreationistâ is pretty close to calling them an ignorant jerk, I think we ought to be real careful about how we apply the term."

I think he's been ignored:

Moran: "Theistic Evolution is a form of creationism that limits God's involvement in the creation event. "

And just a few of the commenters I see all the time:

"And yes, if you are religious, you are not a real scientist, thatâs correct. Hopefully the mistake will not be made and we will be spared having to listen to creationists bringing up Francis Collins as an example of not only a very outspoken religious scientist, but of a very outspoken religious Nobel Laureate in the field that clashes with religion the hardest"
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2010/06/21/science-and-r…

"Indeed, any useful definition of creationist encompasses Collins very specific belief in a designer/interventionist deity."
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2010/06/21/science-and-r…

I don't point all that out to dredge up an old argument, but simply to note that Zach may not represent what a "New Atheists" is. I think it would be useful if someone like Zach were commissioned to write the official "New Atheist" platform as he seems like a reasonable person, but until then we're stuck with the evidence we have.

I will agree that it's wrong to make assumptions about specific people. Hey, when I'm wrong about a specific person I apologize. But I don't see enough evidence to disprove the observation I made to Chad. Indeed, I've just provided evidence to support my analysis and if need be I can provide more.

If someone has a problem with that observation, I would recommend changing the conditions that contributed to forming that observation. Or stop self-identifying with a movement until that movement is more completely defined.

I have a comment in moderation, due to the number of links included.

Ah, and there it is! I do want to emphasis a few things:

- I'm not going to get into a discussion regarding who's a creationist and who isn't. That wasn't my intent in posting those quotes and links. I'm merely showing that I didn't produce my analysis in a vacuum.

- I'm pointing out the political goals of the "New Atheists" conflict with the political goals of science communicators such as Mooney, specifically regarding religion and how to perceive the religious. That conflict has contributed to ill feelings toward Mooney that carry over into other areas and that is what I'm pointing out to Chad. With that understanding, I have to say that I'm also not interested in dredging up the "accommodationist" debates.

- Zach questioned my analysis and that's fine. I've provided evidence to back up my analysis. I can provide more. I do believe NAism exhibits the characteristics of a political movement. And in that context, it's fair to point out messages that come from people who self-identify as NAs - both major figures and foot soldiers. If someone disagrees with those messages that's fine. But it doesn't change the fact that those messages are associated with NAism as I have shown.

- I did not address Zach's observations about "accomodationists" because A) I disagree with it and B) I'm really not interested in dredging up the "accommodationist" debates here, as I said above.

I'm pointing out the political goals of the "New Atheists" conflict with the political goals of science communicators such as Mooney, specifically regarding religion and how to perceive the religious. That conflict has contributed to ill feelings toward Mooney that carry over into other areas and that is what I'm pointing out to Chad.

Believe me, I'm familiar with the different political goals of Mooney and the New Atheists. I'm less committed to it than Chris, but I've made the same argument about incompatible goals before, and gotten the charming comments that come with such discussions. I'm really not interested in hosting a repeat of that particular pissing contest, so let's try to bring this line of argument to a close.

I've added my own gloss to the Zach Voch/Chad Orzel criticisms and responses list.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2010/07/02/more-response…

thanks everyone for a valuable dialogue

chris

Chad: Agreed!

TB,

This is your original statement:

This is characterized by lumping all religious - even religious scientists - into the same camp, even going so far as to redefine the popular notion of creationist to describe them.

Now, my response is that I haven't seen this done in a way that misrepresents theistic evolutionists or assigns moral equivalence, a message I tried to convey with this:

New Atheists do not generally treat theistic evolutionists as "in the same camp" or "equal to" creationists in any way. In the technical sense, theistic evolutionists can be said to believe in "intelligent designers" and "creators" (Miller himself said this), but obviously, this is not a conflation of TE with ID. I haven't seen this behavior by any of the New Atheists I have read, at least not in any way that is designed to be deceitful.

Note that I qualified the "equal to" statement with the line concerning technical sense, and I emphasized the importance of not conflating ID/creationism with TE. I don't think that Coyne, Moran, etc were lumping together in any crude way, at least not in those passages.

Now let's look at what Coyne said. He noted traits that are common to creationism and theistic evolution as positions. For Moran, the second is also, so far as I can tell, true, (or if you disagree, at least tenable). For Moran's first quote, he gets into more dangerous territory, as this is a value judgment. The reference to Coyne in this quote reminds me of his New Republic review of Miller/Gibberson. Coyne noted that Behe and Miller used similar arguments for their positions. Behe, among the IDers, accepts nearly all of evolution. The key distinction between Miller and Behe positionally is over political agendas (morally, there's no comparison IMO). With Dawkins and Miller, there are far more philosophical and positional differences.

So, I willingly grant that Rosenhouse's caution which you referred to should be applied. However, I still do not view these comments as dishonest or conflationary. If somebody says that non-accommodationists and creationists are similar in that they find a conflict between Christianity and science, they'd be right! The question is whether or not Moran or Coyne drew a moral equivalence between the TE crowd and the ID crowd up to value judgments, and up to facts, the question is whether or not this was done using lies and misrepresentation.

On the comments you found, yes we agree that that guy is a moron and that's exactly what we should be avoiding. In defense of Coyne (I don't read Moran as frequently) and other New Atheists, they maintain that religious people can be/often are great scientists. GM was spouting the straw man New Atheists reject most strenuously.

tl;dr: The examples you gave didn't contradict my position. Yes, I've seen New Atheists make observations like "technically, the positions are similar," but they do not, as a rule, equivocate on this matter, and quite frequently, they speak against the sort of nonsense you rightly disdain in GM's comment.

This is my complaint: though there are certainly examples of the behavior which you've noted (the comments), it is another thing entirely to claim that this is representative of those who identify as New Atheists. It's certainly not representative of any of the "big names" in New Atheism.

Moving on:

But seriously, too often I've had commentors assure me that "New Atheists don't believe X..." and then someone who self-identifies as a New Atheist comes along and defends X to the high heavens.

Zach seems to be an example of this: There are those who self-identify as "New Atheists" who do not necessarily know what other people who self-identify as "New Atheists" think and say. And many times they don't necessarily agree with them.

I think the confusion here is understandable... New Atheists are pretty good about disagreeing with each other as well. Agreeing with you, I don't think it's a well defined group either. Perhaps I should write a platform :D

Another note: though I identify as a New Atheist because I agree with them as much or more than any other similar type of group, that doesn't mean that I've committed myself to group mentality. I do not claim to represent New Atheists at all. I think the danger in having a label like this is that it leads to undesirable group behaviors.

If I had first come online and spent time at The Intersection/TFK before reading New Atheists, I'd have a different view, perhaps. I have taken it upon myself to go back and read some of the comments that New Atheists have left. There are plenty of morons, I'll say! I've had to go after several of them myself. The question is this: do we continue to give the benefit of the doubt to any given New Atheist (or accommodationist, similar considerations apply) and treat him/her as an individual, or do we treat him/her as a member of a group (in particular, focusing on the worst examples of the group)?

I'll try circulating a tentative platform, actually. I doubt that it'll succeed :p

And TB, no need to apologize again. I'll bet that you have encountered ill-natured posts frequently enough to have learned to assume the worst. I think that your intentions are honest.

And of course, I sometimes make that mistake as well.

You've distinguished yourself as a sincere, thoughtful commentator, quite distinct from a fisking-bent ideologue with your responses alone. So again, no need to apologize.

Interestingly, getting involved with the comments here as opposed to just lurking all the time has actually increased my hope in the internet. That's different than most places. Just sayin.

And I'll put out a similar qualifying post as yours at #52.

I noted that the end of my post that you responded to was an observation of what I perceived to be the substantive disagreement between Mooney and NAs. It wasn't to put out the position as fact.

So, I don't want to go through the accommodationism arguments here (maybe some other time), but I felt that the nature of the argument was certainly relevant as context for the quotes you provided.

That said, I agree with you that the key differences are political. It's a question of approach.

Forgive me for putting down a fourth consecutive post, but this picks up from my talk with TB, and since it mentions him, I think that he should be able to look at it.

http://zachvoch.blogspot.com/2010/07/new-atheism-or-problem-of.html

tl;dr I've decided to not identify myself as a "New Atheist" anymore in the interest of accurate communication and avoiding groupthink traps.

A single paragraph copy-pasted from another thread rarely reveals the whole story, so let me clarify:

Yes, I stand firm on what I said about Collins. It doesn't mean that the man has not contributed a lot to science. But he is a creationist as everyone who has heard him talk and has basic critical thinking skills would have noticed. And he is not a "real scientist" as he is guilty in egregious violation of the basic epistemological rules of science. People have been fired for research misconduct when they didn't bother to do controls for their experiments (which, ironically, were good experiments, and the conclusions still stand). When asked why they didn't do the controls, they replied that it didn't matter as they were certain that the experiments worked. Collins, and every person who claims that God exists because he "has faith" does exactly the same thing and it would be research misconduct in every other case, except that, even more ironically, it does not concern an experiment in the lab on something fairly small and insignificant in the cosmic scheme of things, but it concerns the grandest claim one can make about the Universe.

What TB has listed here in what he produces at The Intersection consists of little more than mere assertions of how wrong my take on things is. Why is it wrong according to him? It never becomes clear as he rarely bothers to provide argumentation. Just because something looks appalling to you, it doesn't mean it's wrong...

GM,

First, there's a difference between misconduct in the research lab and what we might call intellectual misconduct or laziness, even if we grant the latter in the case of Collins.

Are there no distinctions between the ethical concerns here? I could list the relevant information, but I'll mention "employment," "use of funds and resources," and "opinion right or wrong" as key items to include in your considerations.

Personally, and I think this is an accurate characterization of other more widely known positions, I feel that the incompatibility between science and religion comes from implications of scientific results, not the fact that theistic conclusions are formed outside of the lab.

You would do well to note that some of the things you have said are actually items that bloggers like Coyne have listed as caricatures and straw men of the non-accommodationist position. Just a "hey maybe I should ask them why" suggestion.

Also, I'm not interested in purity oaths and other things. "Scientist" is a job description, not some idealistic model.

Again, one can disagree with Collins, but this does not mean that he's guilty of some tremendous ethical failure.

It's also equivocation and confusion to conflate "creationist" with "theistic evolutionist" for several reasons. Pay attention to the connotations associated with the term "creationist," and you'll understand why statements like this will be taken as careless smears.

First, "Scientists" is not a job description, it has never been and should never be. The members of the Royal Society in the 16th century were not scientists by job description. Neither was Galileo or Darwin. If you see it as a job, you are a victim of the pervasive anti-intellectual sentiment that has permeated most of society's views of science - it exists to bring cures to disease, develop technologies, stimulate economic growth, etc. No, it's none of that, those are side effects. The goal of science is to understand the world around us. It was called natural philosophy before it became "science" and for a reason. Questions regarding God were very much a topic of study back then.

So if you are ready to believe in the grandest possible claims about the world around us on faith, then how confident can I be in your commitment to advancing science towards its goal of understanding the world? You already came to the game with a preconceived views of it. In the case of Collins, it comes down either to basic intellectual honesty or to basic scientific literacy. There is absolutely no way to reconcile the neutral theory of molecular evolution with any form of Christianity. Absolutely none. You are a mathematicians, so you may not understand why, but I do not say this because I have an agenda, it is simply the case. Collins was the head of the HGP, current head of NIH, a world-renown geneticist. So he either doesn't understand the neutral theory of molecular evolution, in which case he is a very poor scientist, or he is lying when he says that evolution is compatible with Christianity. Or, what's worse, he knows about the problem, but lets his religious convictions influence his views on the subject. I don't see another possibility.

Regarding the term creationist: if you recall correctly, Coyne and Moran promoted the term "New Creationist" to describe people like Collins and Miller. And as I am sure you are aware, the people who believe in literal reading of Genesis, are called Young Earth Creationists. And there are Old Earth Creationists, and other variations of the theme. So it is technically correct to call them all creationists, as they all belong to the same continuum of views. Nobody has called them Young Earth Creationists so don't claim that.

So if you are ready to believe in the grandest possible claims about the world around us on faith..

I'm not.

...then how confident can I be in your commitment to advancing science towards its goal of understanding the world?

Don't be, for all anybody cares. As scientific fact is open to independent testing, feel free to contest any result you find shaky. The "commitment" of the scientist has nothing to do with the truth value/reliability of the evidence they provide and claims they make, barring differences in practice.

So again, the problem becomes one of being able to function as a scientist, say, as a job, of being able to honestly apply the methodology. We've no place "disqualifying" religious scientists any more than we've any place "disqualifying" politically-affiliated scientists. Or scientists who enjoy beer and football. It's a question of relevance to practice.

You are a mathematicians, so you may not understand...

Apparently not. My experience with logic is doing me no favors here.

Have I mentioned that I'm not an accommodationist? And further, that I feel that (most popular versions of) Christianity have difficulties in light of the science?

And with that... I've lost the desire to continue. Just do me one favor, GM. Ask prominent non-accommodationists like Coyne/Moran/Myers/Blackford/Benson if they agree with you. If not, at least be sure to warn people.

Sorry to say it, but I am not at all positively impressed by the way you answered my post above.

I'm not.

What made you think that I was talking to you?

As scientific fact is open to independent testing, feel free to contest any result you find shaky. The "commitment" of the scientist has nothing to do with the truth value/reliability of the evidence they provide and claims they make, barring differences in practice.

Yes, the problem is that there is no result here, there is an empty claim with no evidence to back it up that is taken on faith, together with the whole elaborate house of cards built around it. Your problem is that you do not see the existence of God as a scientific question, that's why you think there is no problem if a scientist has faith in God. But that's not the case.

So again, the problem becomes one of being able to function as a scientist, say, as a job, of being able to honestly apply the methodology. We've no place "disqualifying" religious scientists any more than we've any place "disqualifying" politically-affiliated scientists. Or scientists who enjoy beer and football. It's a question of relevance to practice.

I spend some time trying to explain why that science is not a job. Why did you feel compel to state again that it is? Not good way to have conversation...

Apparently not. My experience with logic is doing me no favors here.

Again, what made you think that this was intended to be an insult? I don't understand a lot of the more esoteric math, and I don't fell bad at all when my mathematician friends explain it to me. The purpose of that statement was to indicate that it will take more time and effort to explain that claim than there was available, but this doesn't mean that the claim was not true.

Have I mentioned that I'm not an accommodationist?

What made you think I didn't know that?

And with that... I've lost the desire to continue. Just do me one favor, GM. Ask prominent non-accommodationists like Coyne/Moran/Myers/Blackford/Benson if they agree with you.

In public or in private?

I don't expect you to be impressed. I treated your comment with sarcasm and irony... That's all I could manage.

Your response was another blowing past of all distinctions. If you can't recognize them, I'm not interested in making them repeatedly.

I don't intend to waste your time further. I have to admit that at this point I'm not taking you seriously.

Well, that's one way to get out of a conversation that's gotten too inconvenient for you.

I'll take my responses to Zach over to his blog (if I can post there), but as a taster: I was born in the 60s, followed the events of the '80s, watched the rise of ID in the '90s and read with delight every word of the Kitzmiller trial in the '00s.
In that light, a creationist is anyone who seeks to impose their religion on others by teaching it as science in public school. These people are still around and still working to undermine science. Witness Texas.

TB,

I've put the relevant parts of #56 at my blog to continue.

This thread has gone a different way, but I figured I'd reply to TB's post #50.

I suggested cutting the piece to two examples stating the problem (enough to show it's not an anomaly) and one example showing a solution that was successfully applied.

I'll also stand by my comment that the piece lacked some clarity. You don't need many people complaining something is unclear for it to be unclear. If you have multiple people seeming to pull contracting messages from the same text and wondering why things were omitted because it seemed like half-stories were presented, then it could have been more clear.

As these comment thread show, there's no question that some people who self-identify as "new atheist" will attack any of Mooney's writing, but this piece has seemed to attract a good bit of criticism from beyond that group and ignoring that fact is a way to ignore their critiques.

As a factual aside, Francis Collins is the director of the NIH. I'm fairly sure he's not a Nobel Laureate.

Going back to 36:
However, I do think that researcher who aren't great public communicators should recognize that they're not, and stay out of policy making.

This illustrates one of my recurring puzzlements, which is often incited, as this one has been, by a Mooney article. Namely, you list, by my count, 3 different areas that you think scientists should be expert in. Or at least they should become so if they find themselves working in a field that becomes a hot button:

What generally happens is that a field becomes a political hot button over a period of years, which provides ample warning for someone to start developing communication skills, if they're paying attention.

Not clear is whether you think they should abandon the field if it becomes hot button. Not a snark; if people should be developing certain skills for some situation, then those who don't want to or can't should be doing something else -- what is the something else?

You list 3 expertises in the first quote -- science, public communication, and public policy. While it would certainly be nice if everybody with the first expertise also had the other two, as it would also be if all public communicators had the other two, or the public policy people had the other two, the idea raises two questions. 1) Why is it always and only the scientists who are responsible for developing new fields of expertise? Why does no responsibility exist for the public communicators to learn science, or public policy makers to learn science? 2) Why does anybody think it plausible that all scientists can be experts in those other two fields?

There's a notion out there that it takes 10,000 hours to become expert at something. I don't worry much about the precision in that, or its research backing. It does have some correspondence to the time involved in a graduate program in science. It also looks more or less reasonable for public communication, based on my knowledge of what my journalism student acquaintances spent in school and the first years afterwards to become expert public communicators.

Regardless, it takes time and effort to become expert. Now, in my particular sub-sub-...field we went from being something nobody except us paid attention to, to quite a lot of attention, and even some 'hot button'. It took 3 months. If the only thing I'd worked on was becoming a master public communicator, I'd have been, say, 9500 hours short of expertise. And not at all done my job.

Let the time span for transition to hot button be 3 years. But also let the person spend 90% of the time doing the job they'd been hired for. Still only a few months time to become an expert in public communication, or in public policy. Perhaps the folks are colleges and university can be considered to have public communication as a part of their job. But rather a lot of scientists don't work for universities, and many universities are more concerned about grants than public communication.

So, do those saying that scientists should be experts in public communication or in public policy believe that those areas are so trivial that they can be mastered in just a few months?

If those other areas are taken seriously, which I think they should be, then mastery is about as difficult there as for science. In that case, if scientists are to be required to be masters in science, public communication, and public policy, then the graduate program in science should be tripled in length.

So I see three options:
1) Those other fields are so trivial that scientists can indeed master them in a little spare time, or in a few pressed months.

2) It is important enough that scientists master public communication and public policy that they should be required to triple their time in graduate school.

or
3) The other fields are not trivial, and it is not reasonable to expect scientists to be masters of them.

Goodbye to false balance over vaccines and autism! May you stay gone!

oracknows — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 23:00:40 +0000

Goodbye to false balance over vaccines and autism! May you stay gone!

I realize that Chris Mooney is a polarizing figure here on the ol' ScienceBlogs, but I have to give him props for doing a damned fine job handling questions about vaccines, autism, and Andrew Wakefield's utterly discredited 1998 Lancet study, which was retracted by the Lancet's editors last week:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I wish I could say the same thing for Nancy Snyderman. Although she was mostly right, I cringed--big time--when she insisted that there are no studies that show a link between vaccines and autism. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong! What she should have said is that there exist studies that show a link between vaccines and autism, but that they are all crap and many of them are published in highly dubious journals. Heck, I've even blogged about such crappy studies myself on multiple occasions over the years. I suppose you could argue that it's all semantics and that, technically Snyderman is correct, but the way she says it makes it sound as though there are no studies out there on the other side, which is simply not true. The studies touted by the antivaccine propagandists as showing a link between vaccines and autism are all either preliminary studies refuted by later studies or bad science. Let's also not forget that none of Wakefield's followup studies to his 1998 Lancet article has been retracted. They're still out there in the medical literature, even though, as Stephen Bustin showed, they are in essence false positives because the lab that ran the PCR on Wakefield's samples was incompetently run. In any case, Snyderman's statement grated on me and is the sort of thing that plays right into anti-vaccinationists' hands when it comes to winning the hearts and minds of the fencesitters or parents who simply don't know much about the issues involved.

It's also interesting to note that Joe Scarborough, who, as you may remember, appeared to buy into the whole refuted thimerosal-autism link back in 2005 when Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. was pushing the link far and wide thrugh the media, appears to have rejoined the reality-based world. He seems to have spit out the Kool Aid and no longer appears to buy into the pseudoscience that falsely links vaccines to autism. I wouldn't have thought it possible five years ago.

Finally, do you notice one more good thing about this video? That's right, there's no balance! There are no boosters of pseudoscience pushing the vaccine-autism link and pulling vaccine Gish gallop.

Even though Chris Mooney is right that the supporters of a vaccine-autism link won't give up (heck, I've already written about that a couple of times), I see reason for optimism. The lazy journalistic trope of false "balance" seems to be giving way to letting the science speak.

A guy can dream, can't he?

In any case, whatever you think of Chris Mooney, be aware that I'm giving him props here. He handled himself well in this case.

oracknows Tue, 02/16/2010 - 18:00

Tags

Antivaccine nonsense

autism

complementary and alternative medicine

Entertainment/culture

complementary and alternative medicine

medicine

television

Mooney is fine when he tackles actual science. He's well read in the relevant issues, but when it comes to his solutions to deal with anti-science proponents he's always pushing the golden mean fallacy, then refuses to acknowledge that this approach has been done before and failed, or misunderstands the nature of the issue, calling his critics close-minded and obnoxious, often hypocritically so. And when it comes to saying that doctors are just big, condescending meanies who need to reach out to fervent anti-vaxers lining the pockets of biomed charlatans, he's repeating his classic mistakes and leaves those of us who were right there with him until that moment as the targets of ridicule for realizing that you can't reason with every anti-science zealot.

What a refreshing, Stagliano-free report.

Sorry Orac, I think you are wrong. There are no studies which "show" any link. There may be some which propose or claim a link.

@2 - Orac never claimed there were any - instead he pointed out sham studies are getting futher and further debunked. There are no legitimate studies that have demonstrated any link between vaccination and Autistic disorders, or GI disorders aside from side effects, for that matter. Many people cite VAERS database records as proof that vaccines cause autism, however VAERS also has a report on there that states vaccines turned one British man into the incredible hulk, and has vaccines as the causitive factor in car wrecks, for example.

Wakefield's papers have all claimed a link between the MMR vaccine and Autism as one of causation, not just of correllation - if you're denying this you really need to take a look at the papers again, and pay attention to the large red "RETRACTED" across it. Wakefield depended on this being accepted for his own financhial wellbeing, considering he took up to 300,000 Pounds from Vaccine Injury Attourneys for his study, and stood to gain millions more from his single-antigen vaccines.

Well, I guess we have some good news for a change.
Before, when I see autism-vaccine link being talked about I find myself either laughing at the silliness or cringing at the blazing stupid.

The question Orac raises is less one of scientific accuracy about studies showing links as it is a scrupulous attention to detail to minimize the howling on the other side. Kimmy at AoA does a marvelous job or martyring the cause every couple of days. The less opportunity and material she has, the better.

Jake Crosby has a hit piece out on Gardiner Harris claiming that he is a pharma shill. According to the blog, his brother works/worked at Procter and Gamble. What followed was a connection to many pharma companies. No doubt his mother takes aspirin. I couldn't do more than skim it, sorry. That crap ought to be getting old by now.

The question Orac raises is less one of scientific accuracy about studies showing links as it is a scrupulous attention to detail to minimize the howling on the other side.

As if that could actually be achieved.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong! What she should have said is that there exist studies that show a link between vaccines and autism, but that they are all crap and many of them are published in highly dubious journals.

Yes, this would totally chasten and humiliate anti-vaxers into seeing the error of their ways. Please.

This is being more than a little nitpicky on Orac's part.

Damn. Blew it with the html there. First paragraph was Orac's. Should have been blockquoted.

I had the same reaction as Orac to Dr. Snyderman's "no studies" comment, namely that the antivaxers would eat it up, spit it out and call it foie gras.

As I mentioned over at Bad Astronomy, the fact that there was no "balance" will be crowed over by the antivaxers. They will cry "censorship", which is bad when people they don't agree with do it, but just peachy when done by people they like.

Speaking of studies, has anyone tried to find out how many children are NOT vaxed because of this "debate"? Also, while the tide seems to be turning, how do we know? Woo invades my life on a regular basis and I despair that reason will prevail, but this example is very positive and encourages me. But these are just my personal perceptions. Data, anyone?

Todd W.

How do you feel the anti-vaxers would have responded if she said exactly what Orac suggested she say?

Technically, Scarborough followed up with ,"...not one 'scientific' study?" That would make Dr. Snyderman's answer 100% correct. Frankly, I was more annoyed with her appeal to authority in the poorly framed "Bill & Melinda Gates" argument.

I hate to give Joe any credit but I'm sure he went through the the whole process when they diagnosed his son with Aspergers. Diet, Vacs, whatever....And just eventually came down on the side of science and rejected the Woo.

@mk

Oh, I'm sure they still would react with cries of censorship and how wrong Dr. Snyderman was. Her comment as is just makes it easier for them. Not they would be right either way, mind.

Frankly, I was more annoyed with her appeal to authority in the poorly framed "Bill & Melinda Gates" argument.

I thought that was actually a good approach. And so was the simplification "no studies". Remember the target audience! Strictly logical and rational arguments work well for logical and rational listeners. But the general public is not, for the most part, logical and rational.

The Gates argument is a reasonable way to communicate how ridiculous the conspiracy theories are. And "no scientific studies" is a much more understandable simplification. Being rigorous in phrasing it the way a scientist would consider most correct completely fails to communicate with the general public, who will typically understand "there are some, but they're not high-quality and the weight of evidence is strongly against it" as "we don't really know for sure."

I think mk makes the point the best. It doesn't matter what she said, the loons are going to attack it. If she had said what Orac suggests, all the response would be is, "See, they know there are studies, they just refuse to believe them."

I thought she was fine.

Anthro @12,
I think very good estimates are available in the UK at least as they track the vaccine uptake pretty well if articles I've read are any indication. When I have time (work is so intrusive), I will see if the NHS actually publishes the numbers in a convenient form. I know there was a big drop after St Andy's bomb but the numbers are climbing again.

Maybe someone else will chime in with the data before I take lunch.

@Todd...

Exactly right. For me, though, in the end... she stayed resolute in the face of what appeared to be Scarborough's badgering, his talking over her. That was not the moment to back off and say, "Well, OK there are some studies, but I don't think they're good ones and they're published in dubious journals and..." She could even then start using air quotes with her fingers, "studies" and "journals"... but I was pleased to see her remain resolute and firm and frankly, as katebetrue said, accurate! Oh well, different strokes.

How do you feel the anti-vaxers would have responded if she said exactly what Orac suggested she say?

They would have reacted the same, but that's irrelevant.

The message on this show was not aimed at hard core anti-vaxers. It was aimed at fencesitters and parents not knowledgeable about the issue. So when Dr. Snyderman says there are "no studies" in such a direct way, anti-vaxers can retort, "Yes there are studies. Here they are." You and I know that these studies are crap and have been refuted time and time again, but the target audience doesn't know that. We thus end up with a victory for anti-vaxers because they look as though they managed to catch Dr. Snyderman in at best a gross error in fact or at worst a bald-faced lie. Either way, Dr. Snyderman looks very bad.

It would have been much better to say, "Yes, there are studies out there, even studies other than Wakefield's, that seem to show a link between vaccines and autism, but they were all either later shown to be bad science or eventually refuted by newer, better studies." That's accurate and only marginally less straightforward than saying there are "no studies."

This is starting to look like an instance of the perfect killing the good here. You want your perfectly nuanced cover all bases to be as perfectly accurate as possible so the anti-vaxers can't portray Dr. Snyderman as a liar. The fact that they would do that anyway doesn't seem to bother you.

In a five minute segment on TV when you have to get the information out quickly and accurately and often in the face of cross-talk and badgering what she said and did was commendable. She doesn't deserve, "Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong!"

And BTW, why are you not holding Mooney to the same standard? He had the stage for several minutes and cited all the studies that show no connection but did not once mention those other "studies."

If you read any of the anti-vax "literature", you will see exactly what Orac describes(@ 21).I can almost hear it now:"She said that there are *no* studies.She *lies*.There *are*.*Good* studies. Therefore, she is a liar, a Pharma shill,got her TV job nefariously... ad nauseum".One of their major plot-devices is that vaccine manufacturers knew about the "vaccine-autism connection"(sic), discussed it at a conference (Simpsonwood, Ga.),decided on a "cover-up",rewarded loyalists with CDC positions, and went on selling "dangerous" products anyway because they are greedy and inhuman.Even the most clear statements made by researchers and reporters have been used as evidence of cover-ups, lies, etc."Heads I win, tails you lose".But because of the Wakefield affair, I'm hopeful that most of the fence-sitters will be far mopre sceptical about the antivaxxers' pulp fiction.

I personally felt Joe made a great comment at the end. He pointed out the expanded diagnosis criteria in a way that practically everyone can relate to. We all went to school with a few people that seemed a bit "quirky" (as he said), and it makes you realize that all of those autistic adults and people we grew up with anti-vaxers claim don't exist are actually hiding in plain sight. If I were a fence sitter it definitely would have made a light bulb come on and give a new perspective to the so-called "epidemic". A great point to end the segment, kudos to Joe.

I think Dr. Nancy's only issue in how she said it is that she left the door open slightly to anti-vaxers going "she lied because here is a study that shows it". The main problem is getting across what makes a study worthwhile or not to the lay person (the target audience), without it seeming like it is overly subjective. You don't want appear to be hand picking studies based on the results, because then you are playing by the anti-vaxer rules. You also don't want to make it sound overly complex, because then it all becomes a blur and that will never do well against the anti-vaxer rhetoric (when you don't need facts you can make your point much more clearly).

She was right, in a way. When she said "no scientific study exists" it was qualified under her own assumptions that a "scientific study" is one that follows accepted rules of science and review. In other words, if it doesn't follow the rules it can't be considered a "scientific study".

Anthro,

First hit looking for immunization records in the UK: NHS records.

If you drill down for any year they offer, you come to downloadable files, including excel types, that give you percentages. Have not had time to go through looking for the "Wakefield effect" but maybe later.

Good for Mooney. He did indeed handle himself well. I have been a very harsh critic of his vague views on science communication, but that would never stop me from giving credit where it is due. I applaud him for "walking the walk" here, really doing something to reach out to the public. (Though I notice he didn't exactly engage in any "bridge-building" with the other side... hmm....)

The other wonderful thing about the deluge of stories about the Wakefield retraction is that there is little "false balance" in the comments either. In the past, when one of the rare stories ran about how vaccines don't cause autism, the merry band of AoA faithful were all over the comments, making their faulty arguments. Because they actively targeted these stories, it must have appeared to the public that there was a genuine debate about these issues.

But now, there are thousands of Wakefield retraction reports out there. The anti-vaxers aren't numerous enough to cover them all, so the false balance is gone. This is clearly seen in some of the "Jim and Jenny support Wakefield" stories - where Jenny is getting hammered in the comments. Hammered by real people who finally, actually get it. One of my favorites (already cited by Orac): "Jenny, honey, the science has left the building. Why are you still here?"

I just hope this new direction in the MSM lasts. I would love to see this distraction from real autism research to go away.

Two good things would happen if this turns the tide: Children will not die of preventable diseases, and more time and money can be spent on effective therapies for autistic children.

I would suggest it would be better to simply say "There are no credible studies that show a connection between vaccination and autism."

The way Orac phrased it leaves it open to misuse by only quoting the first portion.

Amazing. Joe Scarborough gets it. I also had classmates back in high school who could easily be diagnosed with Asperger's. Back then, they were simply thought of as weird or nerds.

I agree with Orac on the "no studies" comment. She should have said there are no good studies - a few badly designed studies that cannot be replicated and have since been refuted - but no scientifically valid studies. By baldly stating there are "no studies" she has left herself open to being easily refuted. All the anti-vax groups have to do is link to something like the 14 studies webpage and she has been shown to be wrong.

We don't need balance when your side has Nancy Snyderman. Her reliability in revealing, in just a 5 minute segment, her mind-boggling ignorance is astonishing. "Right now we have children dying from the mumps." Nancy it seems you are the poster child for the scientifically illiterate about whom you speak

We don't need balance when your side has Nancy Snyderman. Her reliability in revealing, in just a 5 minute segment, her mind-boggling ignorance is astonishing.

You're right, you don't need balance, you need some evidence of your implausible claims, without fudging the data that is. I doubt you would notice but she is receiving criticism from those supposedly on 'her side'. Unlike AoA or GenRes critters who blindly accept whatever their talking heads spew forth, without scrutiny, nor criticism. And we are called the sheeple, how rich.

Scarborough said, "no studies, no scientific studies, not a single scientific study..." She's underneath trying to answer, saying no, there are no scientific studies.

Now Skeptico says it should be "scientific valid studies." Sheesh. You guys really need to get together and coordinate what everyone should say so anti-vaxers can't come back and say... well, wait we know they're going to do it anyway!

Sitting there on television in a segment you've been told is about five minutes with another guest taking up time and several potential questioners, director talking in your ear giving "wrap it up" kind of instructions, being talked over, and all the while trying to make the most cogent points possible given the situation... and make sure every single freaking word is properly used in the proper place! You try it sometime.

@12: Here's a fairly recent article that discusses a CDC study of vaccine coverage. Looks like the two biggest problems are 14% of kids not getting their fourth DTaP vaccine and 14% getting their third HepB shot too soon.

1 in 4 Toddlers Improperly Vaccinated

April 29, 2008 â Many young children in the United States have been under- or improperly vaccinated, and vaccine coverage rates are lower than previously reported as a result, the CDC says.

--snip--

Despite the study findings, Rodewald says vaccination rates are still high among young children in the United States.

"Coverage has never been higher, and we want to keep it that way," he says.

I'm kind of surprised. That's got to be pretty demoralizing to the anti-vaxxers, it doesn't seem like they're having much of an effect.

That picture is scary. It's like a she-wolf getting ready to protect its cubs - or in this case its vaccines.

She didn't really bring up the mumps outbreak, did she? Doesn't she realize that unless you're an anti-vaxxer you should not bring up the mumps outbreak. 75% of the people who got sick had two doses of the MMR vaccine and 88% had gotten at least one dose. That just plays into the arguments of the anti-vaxxers and should not be mentioned.

Here is what I don't get. Why are the AoA's shouting vaccines are bad?
Is it because they are making a profit off of it? No.
Is it because they want major diseases to come back? I doubt it.
Then why do they act the way they do? Mostly, because they watched their child change after a vaccination.
They are just wanting the truth which is harder than you know to get to these days. If you don't think media bows down to Pharma, just turn on your TV and count the # of ads for Pharma products. Do you honestly think most media will air opinions that go against one of their advertisers?
I read this site and I read AoA and for the life of me I cannot figure out why two groups of people can read the same sh@t and have two TOTALLY different opinions. I think neither of you is "right". I am afraid the truth is somewhere in the murky middle.

That just plays into the arguments of the anti-vaxxers and should not be mentioned.

Only if you don't know math:

http://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2010/02/mumps-new-jersey-77-vaccinat…

@ L. Harper:

Mostly, because they watched their child change after a vaccination.

Strictly false in virtually all cases.

read this site and I read AoA and for the life of me I cannot figure out why two groups of people can read the same sh@t and have two TOTALLY different opinions.

That would be because the folks at AoA don't actually read anything critically or analyze it at all.

I think neither of you is "right". I am afraid the truth is somewhere in the murky middle.

Then you are quite wrong. There is only one "side" with any credible evidence. And it's not AoA, who has only lies, fraud, and hyperbole.

I didn't mean to suggest that the vaccinated were getting sick at the same rate as the unvaccinated. I just don't think it's a good idea to draw attention to the 1000+ (and growing) fully vaccinated people who have become infected with mumps in this outbreak.

Last I saw they're up to 1500 total cases, but no deaths so far. That's surprising.

75% of the people who got sick had two doses of the MMR vaccine and 88% had gotten at least one dose.

That says nothing about the relative risks. Most rap music is bought by white people, not black people, because there are so many more white people.

If there are 1000 people in the room and 99% have been vaccinated, a disease that takes out 50% of the holdouts and 1% of the vaccinated will have 67% of its victims be vaccinated.

@L. Harper

One thing to keep in mind, L. Harper, is that Age of Autism has an agenda. They will not publish anything contradicting their a priori notion that vaccines or their ingredients are the primary, if not sole, cause of autism. Very, very rarely will you ever see a dissenting voice in their comments. Pay a visit to kwombles' Countering Age of Autism for articles or viewpoints you won't see on AoA. Stop by Silenced by Age of Autism to see comments which have been censored by the AoA editors.

And, to see just how their view of the studies can often be skewed, read Science-Based Medicine blog, Photon in the Darkness and other sites run by, y'know, scientists, instead of mommy warriors, MBAs and Indigo Parents.

@L. Harper

Oh, and one other thing. Pay a visit to antiantivax for some additional resources. I particularly recommend you view the videos regarding Correlation vs. Causation under the Additional Resources section.

I just don't think it's a good idea to draw attention to the 1000+ (and growing) fully vaccinated people who have become infected with mumps in this outbreak.

Last I saw they're up to 1500 total cases, but no deaths so far. That's surprising.

Why? This clearly demonstrates the importance of herd immunity. Even though your odds of getting the mumps is only 1/7th of what it would be if you did not get the MMR, you can still get it in an outbreak. It's not enough that you get vaccinated. Your community must get vaccinated as well.

Gah...html fail. Orac, do you mind closing my html code after "antiantivax", if you have a moment?

re: the murky middle:

XCKD: Semicontrolled Demolition

L.Harper said: Then why do they act the way they do? Mostly, because they watched their child change after a vaccination.

No, in reality they didn't in most cases. Sure they say "he changed overnight!", but they are just fudging reality. The Cedillos were guilty of this bias in the Omnibus case, and it is one of the reason they lost. Michelle didn't just change overnight - their evidence, the tape of "perfectly normal" was chock full of signs they had missed or ignored.

The anti-vax ringleader in my neck of the woods also claims her "child changed overnight", but she coincidentily never posts the story on the parenting forums, she will just give vague links where you have to look for it on another site. Then you find out it was *months* after their last shot that symptoms arose. She just believes it was the cause, it's much easier than believing something she couldn't control or genetics are to blame, and it gives a convenient villain that isn't herself. Heck, just this week I saw them say it can take years or decades before their side effects arise. They are even trying to co-op Alzheimer's as a vaccine damage condition.

When you cast the net so wide it covers an entire lifetime they can make up any link they want. And when all you deal in is anecdotes and "personal beliefs" there is nothing to talk you back down.

Last I saw they're up to 1500 total cases, but no deaths so far. That's surprising.

Why? It's virtually impossible to die from the mumps

And once again, we see Sid cherry-picking his quoting. The actual quote is not as Sid stated "Right now we have children dying from the mumps." but rather:

"We have children dying in the United States of America from measles, mumps, polio is still rampant in other countries."

While mumps was included in the same sentence (she shouldn't have included it, imo, as it implies death from mumps), the primary point I think she intended was to mention that kids are still dying from measles, they are getting mumps and polio is still rampant. It seemed to me a slip of the tongue rather than a deliberate statement of fact, but it's really just conjecture as to what she meant.

Needless to say, she made a mistake by implying kids were dying from mumps. Portraying it as if it were her specific intention to state as fact that kids were dying from mumps is just obfuscation, something that Sid seems to enjoy.

No deaths in 1500 total cases is not out of line with the information the WHO provides. Is there information as to rate of encephalitis in these cases?

The discerning reader will also observe that Sid is acting like death is the only adverse outcome of any relevance.

Todd, where are they dying from the measles?

Why? It's virtually impossible to die from the mumps

From CMAJ, Mar 23/99: Mumps meningoencephalitis occurs in 250 out of 100 000 cases, and has a mortality rate of 2%.

It's virtually impossible to believe anything Sid Offit says.

That's because in this case he can't dismiss the afflicted due to being located in Africa.

Todd, where are they dying from the measles?

In the UK, thanks to Wankerfield, they've been dying from measles for years. For example:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/4871728.stm

Truly, your ignorance plumbs new depths every time you post. I have ceased to be amazed by it.

Why? This clearly demonstrates the importance of herd immunity. Even though your odds of getting the mumps is only 1/7th of what it would be if you did not get the MMR, you can still get it in an outbreak. It's not enough that you get vaccinated. Your community must get vaccinated as well.

I'm not sure if you're suggesting that this community had lower immunization rates than others but according to what the health department doctor says in the Times article today, their rates were about the same as for other New York schoolchildren.

Mumps Outbreak in NY, NJ Tops 1, 500 Cases

This part of the article really disturbs me.

Many Orthodox Jewish families are large, and the virus spreads well in packed households, said Kathleen Gallagher, a CDC epidemiologist.

It's frustrating that she would attribute the spread to living conditions. This also just plays into the anti-vaxxers belief that disease transmission has gone down because of improved living conditions rather than because of vaccines. Does she know, for instance, that these Jews don't have some kind of genetic defect that would make them less likely to get protection from the vaccine? Maybe that could explain why it's spreading so much amongst them.

T. Bruce

So if that reference is correct (I can't find it) 1 out of every 200,000 cases of the mumps is fatal. I stand by virtually impossible.

Mumps Meningoencephalitis in Children
Parvin H. Azimi, MD; Henry G. Cramblett, MD; Ralph E. Haynes, MD
JAMA. 1969;207(3):509-512.

Fifty-one children with mumps meningoencephalitis were studied. The disease occurred throughout the year, with higher frequency in boys. The disease was of short duration and was generally benign.

I just re-read my comment and I think some people might mis-interpret it as anti-semitic. That wasn't my intention.

@Scott

Todd, where are they dying from the measles?
In the UK, thanks to Wankerfield, they've been dying from measles for years. For example:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/4871728.stm

Truly, your ignorance plumbs new depths every time you post. I have ceased to be amazed by it.

If you've been following this thread my question to Todd was in regards to Nancy Snyderman's assertion that children were dying right now in the USA from measles and mumps (3:20) As you may have heard the US and UK are different countries.

L. Harper: "Here is what I don't get. Why are the AoA's shouting vaccines are bad?
Is it because they are making a profit off of it? No.

Right now it's the purveyors of ineffective treatments to heal "vaccine damage" that are profiting, and they comprise an important element of the "Vaccines are bad!" shouters.

Is it because they want major diseases to come back? I doubt it.

You should look up Jenny McCarthy's recent remarks, in which she virtually welcomes the return of such diseases, on the grounds that this would lead to the making of "green" vaccines (though it's obvious that no vaccine could ever meet her uninformed criteria of safety).
More commonly, the "AoAs" and other antivaxers either do not comprehend the consequences of, or do not care about a major return of vaccine-preventable diseases. They are very single-minded in their focus.

Then why do they act the way they do?

Lack of knowledge, coupled with lack of critical thinking skills, willful ignorance of overwhelming contrary evidence and fervent desire to find a scapegoat to blame for their predicament.

They are just wanting the truth which is harder than you know to get to these days. If you don't think media bows down to Pharma, just turn on your TV and count the # of ads for Pharma products.
Do you honestly think most media will air opinions that go against one of their advertisers?

Yes. I hear plenty of reports in all kinds of news media questioning various aspects of medical care. The same media that air ads for prescription drugs, run news stories about the risks of drugs. How else would the Mike Adamses of the world get material for their daily diatribes?

I read this site and I read AoA and for the life of me I cannot figure out why two groups of people can read the same sh@t and have two TOTALLY different opinions. I think neither of you is "right". I am afraid the truth is somewhere in the murky middle.

Nope. If you take solid evidence-based medicine on the one hand and irrational scaremongering on the other, the truth lies with evidence-based medicine, not in some imaginary "middle ground".

Sid,

If you could actually write questions that said what you meant, instead of quite specifically asking something that you didn't mean, you MIGHT have a leg to stand on criticizing people who answer the question you actually asked.

@Scott

The question was addressed to Todd. If you can't understand what's going on don't get involved.

So if that reference is correct (I can't find it) 1 out of every 200,000 cases of the mumps is fatal. I stand by virtually impossible.

Arithmetical FAIL, Sid.
It's 1 in 20 000 cases.

I also stand by virtually impossible, as in my comment #54.

BTW, here's the link -
www.cmaj.ca/cgi/reprint/160/6/865.pdf

@Sid: Next time you get in a car, don't wear a seat belt. It's virtually impossible that you'll need it.

From CMAJ, Mar 23/99: Mumps meningoencephalitis occurs in 250 out of 100 000 cases, and has a mortality rate of 2%.

You're right, I did fail. I read 5. as .5 on my calculator. Either way, "virtually impossible" applies to both 1 in 20,000 or 1 in 200,000. You might even call mumps deaths exceedingly rare as does AM Galazka

-----------

Bull World Health Organ. 1999;77(1):3-14.
Mumps and mumps vaccine: a global review.
Galazka AM, Robertson SE, Kraigher A.

National Institute of Hygiene, Warsaw, Poland.

Death due to mumps is exceedingly rare, and
is mostly caused by mumps encephalitis. In the USA,
over the period 1966â71 there were two deaths per
10 000 mumps cases, with 38% of such deaths involving
persons aged Â³40 years

---------------

and even those figures may be high due to underreporting.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2557572/pdf/10063655.pdf

Again Dr. Galazka:

In the pre-vaccine era, mumps
was a common infectious disease with a high annual
incidence, usually >100 per 100 000 population
based on routine passive surveillance (Table 2).
One prospective community-based study in the USA
found the annual incidence of mumps to be almost
2000 cases per 100 000 population â about 10 times
greater than the number of passively reported cases
(24).

Sid,

The primary issue with mumps isn't death. It's infertility.

http://menshealth.suite101.com/article.cfm/understanding_how_mumps_caus…

I know, I know....no big deal.

Unconvinced,

I would say hold on before making any definitive judgments on issues involving mumps immunization and living conditions. The points raised as to the specific demographic that is currently involved in this mess only goes to show how proximity relates to transmission. It's not that we had achieved some improved sanitation standards or living conditions, then stopped, spurring the resurgence of mumps. It's only an example of how infectious these diseases are.

Key points that need to be considered (some of the answers will be forthcoming in time):
1) the fact that children who were immunized (in some cases) over a decade ago may suggest that boosters may be appropriate
2) that if complications/disability do not ensue in numbers seen pre-immunization, the disease may have taken hold but the duration and severity may be significantly attenuated
3) we may be seeing a fundamental changes in the antigenicity of the virus and/or issues with the vaccines made 10+ years ago

We do not have all the information as of yet. Let's hope this is under control quickly and these children recover and are healthy.

Infertility is rare. Besides if you get the mumps as a child it's not an issue. Anyway, isn't anyone troubled by Dr. Nancy's fabricated "children dying" statement on Scarborough? Shouldn't we expect more from our trusted health care professionals?

Infertility is "rare"...according to your standards, but not for the people it affects. Mumps is an issue for teens. Most are in the range where it is a factor.

The largest percentage of cases (61%) has occurred among persons aged 7--18 years, and 76% of the patients are male.

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5905a1.htm

"Anyway, isn't anyone troubled by Dr. Nancy's fabricated "children dying" statement on Scarborough?"

I'm not. It should have been phrased differently but it was hardly fabricated. Did you not hear what she was saying in reference to the Gates Foundation? Those are diseases that cause death and disability that the foundation is working hard toward eliminating. If you listened to the statement in its entirety, it was fine. If you are looking to try and find something...anything, to get all worked up about...well, then help yourself. It was fine.

@Unconvinced: I don't think that Ms Gallagher meant that they were not living in sanitary conditions. I think that what she meant was that there are more people who could be infected because they have large families and live together. When you have 7, 10, 12, 14 children, with 2 parents under 1 roof, you can readily spread a disease like measles which is so infectious (not everyone becomes immune from having measles OR from the vaccine...I should know. I've had the disease and the vaccine multiple times, and still have no antibodies. I live in fear of the measles.)

Barf! Get Nancy out of my country!! I think the really good news here is that the non-verbal behaviour of the newscasters was basically saying, 'No fucking way there are no more studies to worry about- there are more developing as we speak. Also, we got a fucking ton of emails from angry parents who don't buy this shit for a second.'
In case you people didn't know it there are autistic kids dying due to tragic accidents (fire, running away in the cold, being killed by their desperate parents etc.) all the time. In fact, there may be as many of these deaths as deaths from vaccine-preventable diseases soon.
Oh well, you can all just keep spending inordinate amounts of time telling yourself that these vaccines are perfectly harmless.

Infertility is "rare"...according to your standards, but not for the people it affects. Mumps is an issue for teens. Most are in the range where it is a factor.

The largest percentage of cases (61%) has occurred among persons aged 7--18 years, and 76% of the patients are male.

Yo - that would be me you're talking about...

1969, I was 13 years old, dad was in Viet Nam, and mom had a delirious child to take care of. (Military wives don't get half the credit they deserve.)

It's just as well I was delirious for a day or so- seeing my balls swollen up bigger that my fist was a little disturbing, so I'm glad I wasn't (mentally) there for part of it.

Cost me an engagement to a good woman when we decided I should be tested to find out if we could have kids.

Kiss my ass, Sid.

@ 73

"Your" country? What country is this, Salem, where opinion leads to witches being burned at the stake?

"Your country. As if we all don't share a common responsibility to one another. Typical sentiment....fuck everyone else, me and my interest is all that matters.

And since it appears you are at a somewhat of a disadvantage with the English language, if you can show any mathematical examples of the "thousands upon thousands" of autistic kids, dieing every day from accidents and murders, please let us know.

"you can all just keep spending inordinate amounts of time telling yourself that these vaccines are perfectly harmless."

I'm curious though, in your imaginary perfect world, what is acceptable as far as preventative health? If we stop immunizing, what? Infectious diseases just stop?

And why are you not all bent up out of shape over cars? They kill and disable more children than anything? They're OK (because it works for YOU in YOUR country) but preventative medicine is not? What a joke!

@ 73

"Your" country? What country is this, Salem, where opinion leads to witches being burned at the stake?

"Your country. As if we all don't share a common responsibility to one another. Typical sentiment....fuck everyone else, me and my interest is all that matters.

"you can all just keep spending inordinate amounts of time telling yourself that these vaccines are perfectly harmless."

I'm curious though, in your imaginary perfect world, what is acceptable as far as preventative health? If we stop immunizing, what? Infectious diseases just stop?

@ 73

"Your" country? What country is this, Salem, where opinion leads to witches being burned at the stake?

"Your country. As if we all don't share a common responsibility to one another. Typical sentiment....fuck everyone else, me and my interest is all that matters.

"you can all just keep spending inordinate amounts of time telling yourself that these vaccines are perfectly harmless."

I'm curious though, in your imaginary perfect world, what is acceptable as far as preventative health? If we stop immunizing, what? Infectious diseases just stop?

The largest percentage of cases (61%) has occurred among persons aged 7--18 years, and 76% of the patients are male.

Because vaccination has pushed the age back. Largest percentage used to be 5-9.

---------------------
@Johnny

I'm very sorry about your experience.

Infertility is "rare"...according to your standards.

They're not my standards the term comes from the CDC and medical textbooks

"Because vaccination has pushed the age back. Largest percentage used to be 5-9. "

OK, so then we are in agreement that the issues related to infertility are more critical now than in the past because of the age demographic. I guess I would say that, yeah, a mumps outbreak is a big freakin' deal.

This maybe be the best way to deal with vaccine-autism hysteria: support for families in need.

http://www.wtkr.com/news/wtkr-autism-bill-in-virginia,0,7354026.story

Poor Vaccine Coverage in Europe Allows Measles to Hang On:

For instance, the researchers found, 85% of the measles cases reported over the two years came from five countries: Romania, Germany, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and Italy.

Seven deaths were reported during the two years of the study, including six in 2006, all among children 13 or younger.

... and bit earlier, Measles deaths fall by 60 percent worldwide*:

Outbreaks in Europe remain common although fatalities are now rare: 12 deaths were reported in the European Union in 2005, 11 in Romania and one in Germany [3].

Barf! Get Nancy out of my country!! I think the really good news here is that the non-verbal behaviour of the newscasters was basically saying, 'No fucking way there are no more studies to worry about- there are more developing as we speak. Also, we got a fucking ton of emails from angry parents who don't buy this shit for a second.'

The developing studies you are speaking of are contrivances of the revolving door of unethical, biased, incompetent embarrassments to the scientific community. The reason they can't get them published in peer-reviewed, indexed journals is because they are tripe, pure and simple. Don't you think that a decent journal would like to publish a blockbuster study? Such things raise their cachet and their impact factor. But the pre-requisite has to be unassailable science, and yours just can't produce that.

In case you people didn't know it there are autistic kids dying due to tragic accidents (fire, running away in the cold, being killed by their desperate parents etc.) all the time. In fact, there may be as many of these deaths as deaths from vaccine-preventable diseases soon.

Emphasis mine. You can thank your curebie pushers for that; for you and them the guilt and false promises of hope of a 'cure' and pressure to make their children fit some NT mold via biomed help push them over the edge. Since you present the false dichotomy of vaccines or autism, the rest of your strawman fails. Your groups should stop obsessing about vaccines and start actually supporting research into viable therapies.

Oh well, you can all just keep spending inordinate amounts of time telling yourself that these vaccines are perfectly harmless.

Another strawman; no one has made the claim here that vaccines are perfectly harmless; they just don't cause autism.

sciencemom: " no one has made the claim here that vaccines are perfectly harmless..." Now, from your point of view,
what are some of the harmful effects of vaccines? How do you know? Please be as specific as possible. You can use studies to back up your claims. I'm pretty sure you won't be taking me up on this one...
RJ, calm down. "Preventative medicine" is starting to be kind of a joke. Why does the U.S. have such a high infant mortality rate compared to so many other countries?

Do you drive a car, Jen?

jen,
Read the label inserts for any vaccine or any drug for that matter. The risks and percentages are well documented. Is there a point to your rant?

We have higher infant mortality partly due to lack of affordable, universal healthcare.

Whatever else you may say about our health care system in the US, you cannot fairly compare infant mortality in the US to other countries. The terms are defined by each country, and a live birth of an underweight child followed shortly by a death would be called a stillbirth in other countries.

@Dan Weber

I'm not sure which countries you're referring to, but all of the OECD countries use the same definition, and those are the ones to which the US system is compared.

MikeMa: why not let sciencemom answer? Do the vaccine risks include brain damage?(of course they do). The point to my rant is that I find it ironic that you all cling to the many lame safety studies on vaccines and at the same time you once in a while agree that vaccines do indeed have risks. Yet you don't like to get into any detail on that.

MikeMa: why not let sciencemom answer? Do the vaccine risks include brain damage?(of course they do). The point to my rant is that I find it ironic that you all cling to the many lame safety studies on vaccines and at the same time you once in a while agree that vaccines do indeed have risks. Yet you don't like to get into any detail on that.

MikeMa didn't answer any differently than I would have, being members of the Borg collective that we are. All of the vaccine package inserts have numerous studies referenced, it's not hard to see that. Do you know how to use PubMed or Web of Science?

Yes, vaccines, along with any medical product or device can cause harm in a very small percentage of recipients. That doesn't mean that if medicine A can cause J,K,L and M adverse reactions, it must be causing X,Y and Z too, because some git with a degree says so. You have to have biological plausibility. A handful of very unfortunate children incurred serious adverse reactions to vaccines, reactions that were already known about and documented and suddenly, 'vaccines cause brain damage', with the express intent of deeming vaccines as a cause of autism. Colour me unsurprised that you would insinuate that it was, whatever would all of those DAN!s do if they didn't treat their patients as damaged and guilt parents into undoing said damage that they inflicted upon them. What a sick racket.

why not let sciencemom answer? Do the vaccine risks include brain damage?(of course they do). The point to my rant is that I find it ironic that you all cling to the many lame safety studies on vaccines and at the same time you once in a while agree that vaccines do indeed have risks. Yet you don't like to get into any detail on that.

I find it ironic that anyone who defends the "biomed movement" is complaining about the emphasis on side effects on vaccines when there is evidence that some of the treatments might cause cognitive damage and actually that they have killed the kids that the parents were trying to treat.

sciencemom: call me crazy but I do not think we are that far advanced with our knowledge of the brain to distinguish that the vaccines can cause JKL and M but certainly not XY and Z. Or, at least the vaccine people and the AAP don't want us to believe that.
You are splitting hairs. The inserts mention all manner of things and that probably includes autism, whether or not they want to use that specific label. Colour me unsurprised that you don't want to allow for that possibility when it is more than biologically plausible.

Adam Y:
"I find it ironic that anyone that defends the "biomed movement" is complaining about the emphasis on side effects on vaccines when there is evidence that some of the treatments might cause cognitive damage and actually that they have killed the kids that the parents were trying to treat."
Yeah, sort of like, those parents find it really ironic that they were supposedly trying to protect their kid from some dreaded disease like chicken pox, hep b or measles and they completely regressed into autism after one of those vaccines (or suffered some kind of cumulative effects after a few too many). Yeah, I'm sure those "very few percentages" of people whose kids have suffered vaccine damages find it very ironic.

I'm not sure which countries you're referring to, but all of the OECD countries use the same definition

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infant_mortality#Comparing_infant_mortalit…

Interesting development...Wakefield has apparently resigned from Thoughtful House.

RJ @ 68,,

I wasn't making a definitive judgement about living conditions, I was just pointing out that the CDC epidemiologist seemed to be doing that. And I realize she wasn't referring to sanitary conditions. By living conditions, I meant her reference to "packed households." I went to the CDC report that you linked to and found a more detailed explanation.

Like the mumps outbreaks that occurred in 2006 (2), much of the current outbreak is occurring in congregate settings, where prolonged, close contact among persons might be facilitating transmission. Within the affected religious community, cases have occurred predominantly among school-aged boys, who attend separate schools from girls. The higher rate among boys might be a result of the additional hours that boys in this community spend in school compared with girls, including long periods in large study halls, often face-to-face with a study partner.

In addition, transmission in the community overall might be facilitated by relatively large household sizes. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, the mean household size in one of the affected communities was 5.7, compared with a mean U.S. household size of 2.6. The limited transmission to persons outside the community might be a result of the relatively less interpersonal contact between persons inside and outside the community.

I just don't understand why they wanted to put something like this in the report. Anti-vaxxers are always pointing to things like this to diminish the role of vaccines in preventing horrible diseases like the mumps. They already say things like diseases were going down before vaccines because of things like household size decreasing. I don't know about the rest of you, but I know a bunch of these anti-vax loons and their big fetish is to do a risk/benefit calculation when deciding whether to vaccinate their poor kids and since they mostly live in small households (but big houses), they will no doubt invent the idea that their kids won't get much benefit from the mumps vaccine and will use that to further justify their decision not to vaccinate.

I would much rather have the CDC epidemiologists stick to the -all vaccines are always safe for all people all the time- position. If they don't and they leave any kind of opening, the anti-vax nutters will happily drive a truck through it.

Also, as to the three key points to be considered that you listed, shouldn't we know the answers to these questions and have a lot of information from the outbreaks that have been taking place for several years in the UK? The index case caught his mumps in the UK. Wouldn't they have already studied if there are changes in the antigenicity of the virus?

Also, I guess it's an encouraging thing to see from the CDC report that the number of complications seems to be low so far this time. Of the 1,518 patients:

Sixty-five reports of complications from mumps have been received: orchitis (55 cases), pancreatitis (five cases), aseptic meningitis (two cases), transient deafness (one case), Bell's palsy (one case), and oophoritis (one case). Nineteen hospitalizations from mumps have been reported; no deaths have occurred.

I believe only a portion of those 55 orchitis cases will result in infertility.

Johnny @ 74,
I'm sorry about what happened to you. If she left you because of your infertility, she was not a "good woman." I think you deserve better and I hope you found someone who loves and values you.

anytime you see blaming of "toxins" it's a red flag for pseudoscience.

jen & the AoA loonies have no proof, only feelings. They just know vaccines harmed their kids. Arguing otherwise hurts them. Too bad.

Jen,

You're not crazy...(at least there's no reason yet to think so)...you're just ill informed. Ignorant. Making decisions based on emotion rather than reason. That's all.

Jen... for instance, this:

The inserts mention all manner of things and that probably includes autism, whether or not they want to use that specific label.

This is brilliant. An assertion based on absolutely nothing but "feeling." That's just not how science works, Jen.

@jen

Asking for evidence to support our statement that vaccines are not perfectly harmless? Didn't I spoon-feed you that info before? Memory problems?

Three questions, jen:

What is your recommendation for short-term replacement of vaccines?
Where are the scientific studies showing the relative safety and efficacy of "biomed" treatments like chelation and Lupron?
Where are the scientific studies showing a definitive causal connection between vaccines (in any combination or any ingredient) and autism?

I've asked similar questions before, and still have not received an answer.

Bizarrely, the anti-vaxxers ignore such things as the fact that oxytocin might improve social skills in autistic people or that numerous genetic factors such as alterations in OXTR (I think that's the abbreviation for the gene) and age of parents factor into autism and that the vast majority of the vaccinated have turned out perfectly fine, thanks.

Jen, when you construct an actual argument based on things other than 'well, the safety inserts probably include brain damage as a risk!' despite lack of evidence or 'some dreaded disease such as chicken pox, hep b, or measles' despite the fact that you probably don't remember just how bad these diseases actually are because you probably didn't live during the period of time when they were rampant. Remember polio? Remember how it crippled FDR? We have a vaccine for that. Remember smallpox? Remember how it devastated whole countries? We eradicated it.

For my part, I am fully vaccinated on the traditional vaccine schedule, pretty much all of the vaccines I had were the pre-anti-vaxxer version, and I am healthy, non-autistic, and quite irate that you idiots don't look into autism research outside of your own jacking and jilling off about your hatred of vaccines. You know nothing about the condition, apparently.

Let me guess, your kid has autism and you blame it on vaccines. Perhaps you're not willing to consider that it's something you couldn't have controlled in the first place and that your kid was going to be autistic whether you vaccinated or not.

You're a flaming moron, Jen.

In fact, I read a comment in the thread at Not Exactly Rocket Science that the architecture for social cognition is intact, but the regulation is a problem. The architecture for social cognition must necessarily be intact because of the fact that oxytocin produces such profound changes within a matter of minutes.

Why? It's virtually impossible to die from the mumps

It's also virtually impossible to die from getting kicked in the nuts by a goat. Which I think you richly deserve, Sid.

Why? It's virtually impossible to die from the mumps

Of course, it's not uncommon at all to be left sterile. But apparently you don't think that matters at all. Nope, if you don't die, who cares?

People who say that should have their balls chopped off. After all, who cares if you are left sterile! At least you aren't dead...

Johnny @ 74,
I'm sorry about what happened to you. If she left you because of your infertility, she was not a "good woman." I think you deserve better and I hope you found someone who loves and values you.

Yes, typical of the anti-vax assholes. "Mumps-related infertility is no big deal, it's only a problem because your ex-fiancee was a bitch!"

Fuckers. Chop their nuts off, the lot of 'em.

I believe only a portion of those 55 orchitis cases will result in infertility.

Oh, I see how it works. "Well, it's only a few children who are needlessly left sterile for life. What's the big deal?"

James, you're in an entertaining mood today :)

@ James

You got a lot of balls talking to me that way

You got a lot of balls talking to me that way

Only because I never got the mumps. :p

Wow, James. Zing Bang, as my Grandpa would say.

Heh, sorry if my flames offended anybody (besides Sid and Unconvinced, of course). The "very few people die of these diseases today" line of argumentation really makes my blood boil, because it implies that the suffering of little children, and the risk of permanent scarring, sterility, and other lifelong health impacts, are of no consequence. Since becoming a father myself, I have found I can no longer tolerate that insinuation. It's despicable.

James...

Those were well deserved flames. I, for one, am not the slightest bit offended!

Cheers.

Not offended, just impressed ;). My mother went mostly deaf from the mumps, death is not the only adverse outcome.

Katharine: "the majority of vaccinated children have turned out perfectly fine." Umm, I don't think we would be having this conversation if that were true. Has there been a vaccinated VS non-vaccinated study done that I'm not aware of? (that is the gold standard of evidence-bassed medicine). Your statement is basically a joke now that approximately 1 in 100 children has some form of autism and the figure is even higher for boys. It cracks me up how you guys gloss over the fact that there are children who suffer side-effects or injuries after vaccination.
How can you argue that I "know nothing about the condition" then go on to say that I must "have a kid with autism?" That doesn't even make any sense! In fact, I do not have children with autism. I vaccinated selectively-especially for my son. In Canada we don't give hep b to babies (except maybe in one province). We give it to kids in grade 5 and interestingly there are quite a few of them that develop seizure disorders just after this period. This is anecdotally observed, of course. Name calling will get you nowhere. And BTW, I was born in 1960 so I've had it all- measles, mumps, chicken pox, etc.

@Jen

Answer Todd W's questions.

@jen

Three things:
1) Provide evidence that greater than 50% of children have ended up injured by vaccines.

you guys gloss over the fact that there are children who suffer side-effects or injuries after vaccination

2) Point out where we have glossed over or denied that vaccines can have negative side effects or cause injury.

3) Answer my questions. Here they are again, so you don't need to scroll as far:

a) What is your recommendation for short-term replacement of vaccines?
b) Where are the scientific studies showing the relative safety and efficacy of "biomed" treatments like chelation and Lupron?
c) Where are the scientific studies showing a definitive causal connection between vaccines (in any combination or any ingredient) and autism?

Also do not forget mumps used to be the leading cause of post-lingual deafness. Something they are finding out about in Japan these days:
An office-based prospective study of deafness in mumps.
and
Fukushima J Med Sci. 2009 Jun;55(1):32-8.
Cochlear implantation in a case of bilateral sensorineural hearing loss due to mumps.
Suzuki Y, Ogawa H, Baba Y, Suzuki T, Yamada N, Omori K.
and
Lancet. 2009 Nov 14;374(9702):1722.
Time to revisit mumps vaccination in Japan?
Sasaki T, Tsunoda K.
and
Pediatr Infect Dis J. 2009 Mar;28(3):176.
Commentary: Is Japan deaf to mumps vaccination?
Plotkin SA.
and
Acta Otolaryngol. 2008 Jun;128(6):644-7.
Mumps virus may damage the vestibular nerve as well as the inner ear.
Tsubota M, Shojaku H, Ishimaru H, Fujisaka M, Watanabe Y.

and (because Sid Troll doesn't care if the folk are darker than he is)... Update: Multistate Outbreak of Mumps --- United States, January 1--May 2, 2006:

However, complications have included 27 reports of orchitis, 11 meningitis, four encephalitis, four deafness, and one each of oophoritis, mastitis, pancreatitis, and unspecified complications.

I am not sure what I said that earned me the label of anti-vax asshole. I'd actually like someone to point it out to me. And I think mumps related infertility is a really big deal and I'm sorry if I left the impression that I didn't think so. I've got to go now, but I'll check back later.

@Jen

"Katharine: "the majority of vaccinated children have turned out perfectly fine."

Umm, I don't think we would be having this conversation if that were true."

If Katharine's statement isn't true - (as evidenced by your saying its not, which is really weird because your proof that it isn't true is that you say it isn't true because if it was true you wouldn't be saying it wasn't true) - are you suggesting that at least 51/100 vaccinated children have some sort of severe adverse reaction to vaccination? And no, a sore arm doesn't count.

I just discovered the autism prevalence data on Thoughtful House. It clearly shows that the autism epidemic didn't take off (at least in my state) until 2001, when it went from a gradual, linear increase of diagnosis to an exponential one. This leaves only one conclusion, Thimerosal was actually protecting our kids from the harm vaccinations do. We need to immediately reintroduce it and study the effects of complete mercury removal on brain development. Maybe we had it wrong all along, and the steady clean-up of our children's environment has deprived them of an essential trace element necessary for healthy development.

JohnV - 100% of the kids vaccinated ultimately die. Clearly, vaccination is bad.

@Pablo

False correlation. Too many confounders, considering 100% of kids who are not vaccinated also die. With that in mind, we can say with confidence that 100% of kids who are born die. So it's not vaccines that are bad, it's life.

JohnV: You are right. It would SEEM to be the minority of children who experience significant problems from vaccines. However, as someone who works in the school system, I see so many kids with learning disabilities, ADHD, aspergers, autism etc. Since there is no vaccinated VS unvaccinated study we simply do not know what the effects of all this mass vaccinating are.
Todd: a) I would recommend some vaccines simply be taken out of the schedule. No hep b for babies unless they are born to hep b mothers. No chicken pox. No rotavirus. Certainly none on the first day of life! More flexibility with live virus vaccines-separating if asked by parents. A different mode of delivery (nasal) may be less dangerous (this would have to be studied, though). I say we could take our chances with some of the diseases and it may be better than all this chronic disability we are seeing in the schools. Have any of you people been to some schools lately?! b) scientific studies showing the safety of bio-med treatments- I don't know but I am not surprised if there are none because that would be tantamount to saying that the children have been environmentally damaged (with vaccines being a possible culprit). I do know that so many of these parents feel that it is worth a try and that these will need to be studied by companies due to an actual consumer demand for these products. Thees approaches (bio-medical and chelation) are not going away, especially when the children are young enough to possibly try and reverse any environmental damages. c) Again, there is no vacc/unvacc study (the gold standard of evidence based medicine) that proves no link between vaccines and autism.

Todd - you think for a second that Jen gives a shit about "confounders"? For proof, see her post directly above.

Now, if Jen were rational as opposed to a rabid anti-vax fanatic with no clue about science or logic, she'd recognize the inherent inconsistency in her statement.

Do you call for a car vs. no car study?
Do you call for a phases of the moon at conception study?
Do you call for an Internet vs. no Internet study?
Do you call for a study on the impact of pirates (arr, matey!)?

There's just as much reason to do these as a vax vs. unvax. The position only makes sense if one has become firmly convinced that vaccines are to blame in the absence of evidence - completely irrational.

""Preventative medicine" is starting to be kind of a joke. Why does the U.S. have such a high infant mortality rate compared to so many other countries?

Because our preventative medicine approach pales in comparison to other countries.

So Jen, just to verify, your position is that at least 50% of kids are suffering serious adverse reactions to vaccination?

And your proof is that in your position of "working in a school system" you notice that many kids have been diagnosed with learning disabilities?

And since these kids get vaccines, it is obviously the vaccines that are causing this? As opposed to any of the other millions of things they all have in common.

There will be no vacc vs unvacc study because no professional with an ethical fiber in her or his body will take part in a study that purposefully leaves kids susceptible to vaccine-preventable illness.

Jen, you've made a good point. In the absence of the unethical vaccinated-versus-unvaccinated study, we don't have evidence of the total protective effect of vaccines. We only know how they help with the things they're labeled for. We know that the DPT vaccine is protective against tetanus, diphtheria, and whooping cough, but we don't know to what extent it protects against learning disabilities. We know that MMR protects against deafness, but we don't know how many more kids turn up with ADHD because they were deprived of the protective effects of that vaccine.

Seriously: go ahead and show me the evidence that vaccines do not protect against autism. Show me the evidence that the polio vaccine isn't helping me concentrate.

But the real confounder is diagnostic techniques and labels. I can tell you exactly how many of my mother's grade school classmates were diagnosed as dyslexic: zero. The concept wasn't available. That doesn't mean there weren't dyslexic kids, it means they were called stupid or lazy and got no help.

A friend of mine was diagnosed with ADHD and given appropriate medication about ten years ago. Utterly ordinary in the large, though quite significant for him, but relevant here: that friend turned 60 last month. So he went through school, and an assortment of jobs, with an undiagnosed problem. A kid with the same brain, but born in 2000 instead of 1950, is probably part of your "increased incidence" of that disease.

John V: did you read my last post? I can't say that at least 50% of kids are suffering serious adverse effects to vaccination. I can say that there are obviously a small percentage who do suffer the side effects listed as possible in the insert. AGAIN, we would need a vacc. VS unvacc. study to see what the effects are. More post- vaccine MRI's might be good, too.
Have you seen the new post at AoA? Makes Steve Novella and Yale look pretty stupid. That American Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry will accept anything!! Evidently, Novella/Yale doesn't even fact-check his research.

James, you're officially my hero today. Your flames were not offensive but they WERE hilarious and made my boring work day a little funnier. :)

"However, as someone who works in the school system, I see so many kids with learning disabilities, ADHD, aspergers, autism etc. Since there is no vaccinated VS unvaccinated study we simply do not know what the effects of all this mass vaccinating are."

We call this confirmation bias.

Anecdotes aren't data.

Now, I suspect that if at least 40% of people in the United States (because most people in the United States are vaccinated) were autistic, it would be pretty obvious. Since you assert that I am possibly wrong about my assertion that most people who are vaccinated are fine, I suggest you cough up some conflicting data on vaccination and autism rates.

This is the data table, from the CDC, of national vaccination rates for several vaccines:

http://www2a.cdc.gov/nip/coverage/nis/nis_iap2.asp?fmt=v&rpt=tab03_anti…

A significant majority of people in the United States have their required vaccinations.

The 1 in 91 diagnosis rate, which I suspect is too generous, is WAY below these statistics.

@jen

Don't swallow everything you read at Age of Autism. It isn't the whole story. They also have a tendency to twist things to fit their ideology.

Thank you for answering my questions. A few more followups:

1) Do you have some studies to support the safety of removing the vaccines you indicated from the recommended schedule?
2) Should "biomed" treatments like chelation and Lupron be used or offered without evidence supporting their safety and efficacy?
3) You admit that you have no evidence showing the vaccines cause autism and make the tired call for a vaxed vs. unvaxxed study (I'm assuming prospective, random, controlled trial?). Please review the Declaration of Helsinki, the Nuremburg Code, the Belmont Report and the ICH Guidelines on Human Research Protections. Please explain to me how such a study, in light of the documents just listed, would be designed to satisfy ethical requirements. Please also address the issue of subject enrollment (i.e., if randomized, how will you get people to agree to potentially not receiving a vaccine if they support vaccines or potentially receiving a vaccine if they think vaccines are dangerous).

Actually, those are the statistics for children up to 3 years of age.

This is the website with the rest of the data:

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/stats-surv/imz-coverage.htm

This is the data for adolescents:

http://www2a.cdc.gov/nip/coverage/nisteen/nis_iap.asp?fmt=v&rpt=tab02_i…

This is the data for adults:

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/stats-surv/nis/downloads/nis-adult-summer-2…

"Have you seen the new post at AoA? Makes Steve Novella and Yale look pretty stupid."

Oh, Yale, when will you ever stop being an institute of mediocrity? Read some blogs written by people who don't understand confounding factors and learn what you are doing wrong!!

Jen obviously has reading comprehension problems, and the memory of a gnat. How many times has it been pointed out to her that a vax vs unvax study is UNETHICAL? I know that it has been pointed out to her; I have done it, Todd W has done it, Chris has done it, and more.

Jen: Do you understand the meaning of UNETHICAL? Or are you just stupid (and I rarely call people that)? You'd rather see a study that would make the Tuskegee study look sane. Then, when it didn't give you the results you wanted, you would find something wrong with it, just like all antivax idiots. Fortunately, most of the researchers in the US have ethics (Unlike SOME British researchers I could name) and IRBs that won't permit such a sick notion.

As for ANY post on AOA: I won't bother to go there and read it. They write so much garbage that I refuse to give them the hits. I actually find it funny that AOA is blocked from my work address...guess my employer can do ONE thing right!

@triskelethecat

Actually, I would encourage people to slog through the muck at AoA and post comments...then cross-post the comments at Silenced by Age of Autism.

As to making excuses when the vax/unvax study turns up results they don't agree with, I've already ready comments at AoA that shift the goalposts, saying that it needs to be done using children of parents who have never been vaccinated, because, they claim, vaccines the parents received would have an effect on the child, even though the child never received a vaccine.

If that were done, they would most likely just move it to children whose parents and grandparents had never been vaccinated. And then further back.

@Todd W: I know. But really, I can't stomach AOA. I've gone there a few times and the lies and fallacies make me sick.

I could show them autistic family members who were only vaccinated for smallpox, back in the 30s, but I suppose they would blame the smallpox vaccine, and the fact that most family members as far back as it was available HAD that vaccine...

I like "Silenced..." Your comments on posts have led me to read the AOA posts occasionally, but, as I said, I have a low tolerance for stupidity and the echo chamber they live in.

Autism IS. It HAS been, as long as mankind has been around. Maybe not diagnosed that way, but it is NOT a new thing.

If that were done, they would most likely just move it to children whose parents and grandparents had never been vaccinated. And then further back.

Or, that the vaccinated have to stay completely isolated from the unvaccinated, since the "vaccine damage" is contagious somehow. I've seen exactly that claim several times...

"I believe only a portion of those 55 orchitis cases will result in infertility."

Oh, I see how it works. "Well, it's only a few children who are needlessly left sterile for life. What's the big deal?"

Was the orchitis/infertility statement the one that was interpreted as anti-vax? I want to say again that I did not mean to diminish the suffering of Johnny or anyone who has infertility from the mumps or anyone who has had any terrible complication from having the mumps. I especially hope what I said wasn't hurtful to Johnny because my intent was exactly the opposite.

I was genuinely relieved when I followed RJ's link to the CDC report and saw that the complications from the New York/New Jersey mumps outbreaks are low. I think it would be a terrible thing for a lot of the young men impacted by this mumps outbreak to suffer infertility as a result. It seems from the size of the families in the Orthodox Jewish communities that family is something that is very important to them, something they cherish. I imagine it would be a significant personal tragedy for many of these boys and young men to become infertile.

When I mentioned that orchitis only sometimes ends in infertility I wasn't trying to imply anything I was just trying to be factual. I was going by this that I had read.

Mumps orchitis is now rarely seen in children under 10. Orchitis is the most common complication of mumps in post-pubertal men, affecting about 20%-30% of cases:5 10%-30% are bilateral. Orchitis usually occurs 1-2 weeks after parotitis.
-snip-
Mumps orchitis rarely leads to sterility but it may contribute to subfertility. It can also can lead to oligospermia, azoospermia, and asthenospermia (defects in sperm movement). Unilateral disease can significantly, but only transiently, diminish the sperm count, mobility, and morphology. Impairment of fertility is estimated to occur in about 13% of patients, while 30%-87% of patients with bilateral mumps orchitis experience infertility.

Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine-Mumps Orchitis

I suppose this may not be a very good source. It was from 2006 and I wanted to read something published fairly recently.

@Unconvinced: A number of your comments have come across as a classic case of concern trolling -- but of course intentions are always hard to discern and it's certainly conceivable I got the wrong impression. Perhaps those comments are merely the result of misinformation.. and it is inappropriate, unfair, and, most importantly, ineffective to respond with flames and incivility to those who have simply been misled. I am "unconvinced" that this describes you, based on your commenting pattern, but who can tell?

If I said something that was truly unfair -- and only you will know that, and only if you are being honest with yourself -- then I apologize. As I mentioned, the "people mostly don't die from these diseases anymore, so who cares?" line of argumentation really gets me worked up. If you truly weren't trying make that insinuation, then I regret that you got caught up as a target of my (justifiable!) anger. I guess that's all I have to say about that...

Ach, I read a few more of your comments, and I'm totally in the wrong here. A few things you said came across as concern trolling, but in the context of the totality of your comments, I see that is almost certainly not the case. My sincere apologies to you. It looks like I screwed up... :/

I guess that'll teach me to skim a thread and think I've got the major players identified. I stand by my sack-related comments about Sid Offit though...

Geez, yeah, sorry Unconvinced... I strongly disagree with what you said at #37 (which is okay, reasonable people can disagree), and as a result I think I misinterpreted it as concern trolling rather than a sincere opinion. Then as I was scrolling down, I spotted a couple of your comments about mumps-related infertility, and in the context of my misreading of comment #37, I interpreted them as downplaying the side effects of mumps, whereas now I see you were merely trying to discuss it dispassionately. Whoops...

Major egg on my face here. I'm really, really sorry I said you should have your nuts cut off :/

I appreciate that James. I had to look up "concern trolling" but now I understand and your attack makes some sense now.

This is really personal for me, and I'm reminded in this thread with Johnny and triskelethecat and Kristen and her mom that it's personal for a lot of people. I get worked up too because my daughter has a dysfunctional immune system and it has degraded quite a bit over the last few years and some of her doctors are now suggesting she not get some of her vaccines and I'm not sure what to do. She's always been athymic but then she developed an autoimmune condition and now has progressed into a hyperIgM like condition where she has way too much IgM and not enough IgG and IgE. She is the classic case of a kid who needs to benefit from herd immunity.

Naturally I have a number of family members who feel entitled to weigh in on decisions like this and since I don't want to be too argumentative or rude with them, it felt kind of good to vent a little here. I try my best to be fact-based and science-based in coming to conclusions but am always looking for new information and questioning my assumptions and beliefs, hence the name "Unconvinced".

And as far as names go, it does sting that much more when someone with the surname of Sweet calls you an asshole. And don't worry about the nuts thing. I didn't react too strongly to that because I don't have any.

I have one more post to make addressing something Katharine said and I'm a little worried now that it will come off as "concern trolling." I used two sources and hopefully they're okay. One is a mainstream media newspaper article and I suppose those can always be a little iffy. The other is a source I'm not really familiar with but I hope that it's science-based. After that, I'll probably go back to mostly lurking...posting is very time-consuming.

Thank you for taking the time to explain where you were coming from, I do really appreciate it.

Hey is there anybody still here. I just had to listen to the Snydermaniac one more time and i picked up on one more bit of insanity. "Polio is still rampant in other countries!"

India: population 1,027,015,247

Polio cases YTD 2010: 12

Worldwide 25 cases

@Unconvinced: your explanation in #146 goes a LONG way to explain where you are coming from. It's tough when you have to depend on the herd immunity and know that you can't necessarily depend on it. I realized earlier than James that you seemed more confused than combative, so tried to explain rather than confront. If I've seemed combative, I apologize.

Stick around, this place, Science-Based Medicine, and (help...I've forgotten the site Todd W maintains!) are great places to find answers. It may be a little harsh at times, but if you are really interested you can learn a lot.

Stick around, this place, Science-Based Medicine, and (help...I've forgotten the site Todd W maintains!) are great places to find answers
---------------

Todd's site is "me like vaccines.com"

Bizarrely, the anti-vaxxers ignore such things as the fact that oxytocin might improve social skills in autistic people or that numerous genetic factors such as alterations in OXTR (I think that's the abbreviation for the gene) and age of parents factor into autism and that the vast majority of the vaccinated have turned out perfectly fine, thanks.

Katharine @ 103 & 104,
Since we're the good guys, I just want to make sure we have our information correct. Of course, I do agree with you that the vast majority of the vaccinated have turned out perfectly fine. However, I don't think it's quite accurate to say that the anti-vaxxers ignore the oxytocin/autism connection.

While cautioning that more research is needed on children and additional patients to make sure oxytocin is safe and effective, advocates for families with children with autism welcomed the findings. Oxytocin has been in use for several years as an "alternative" therapy for autism.

"Many families are using it with success and reporting improvement," said Wendy Fournier, president of the National Autism Association.
"Getting double-blind clinical studies like this one published helps to bring credibility to parental reports."

Hormone-infused nasal spray found to help people with autism

As far as OXTR, there was one or more cases where they found DNA changes to the OXTR gene, but the other finding was that there are epigenetic changes to the gene in people with autism. I don't think it's accurate to say the anti-vaxxers are ignoring this fact. This seems to fit right in with their twisted ideas.

Epigenetic events are permanent, but reversible.

âThus, even though epigenetic changes may be difficult to alter once established, it is possible to reverse them otherwise epigenetic therapy would not be effective in the treatment of some cancers,â Jirtle adds.

Duke Department of Medicine researcher Simon Gregory described the link between DNA methylation and autism in a paper published in October in the journal BMC Medicine.

Most genetic studies of autism focus on variations in the DNA sequence itself, especially on genes that are missing. Gregory and his colleagues looked at an oxytocin receptor gene, called OXTR, and found that about 70 percent of the 119 autistic people in his study had a methylated OXTR; in a control group of people without autism, the rate was about 40 percent. Oxytocin is a hormone that affects social interaction; difficulty relating to others is common for those with autism spectrum disorders.
-snip-
Toxicologists also have a big stake in epigenetics.

The potential human implicationsâdo the chemicals we ingest today affect our great-grandchildren?âare tremendous. In addition to pesticides, toxicologists are studying chemicals in plastics, such as phthalates and bisphenol A, to see if they could enhance our risk of disease by altering the epigenome.

Epigenetics research takes aim at cancer, Alzheimerâs, autism and other illnesses

I'm sure there are a number of people here who know more about epigenetics than I'll ever know and maybe they could weigh in on this.

YTD 2010 isn't going to tell you much.

How about 2009 of reported, confirmed cases (just so you understand, this is a percentage of the real number of cases).

2009: 1595
http://www.polioeradication.org/casecount.asp

Again, I know, I know....it's not much of a big deal. 1500 kids a year, BFD! We could immunize less, and the numbers will stay the same. We could easily just stop immunizing and those numbers will stay the same. In no way does immunizing keep the number of cases down. They just stay low on its own. That's how parasites work...they just magically go away!

@ 148: Thanks cat

Most genetic studies of autism focus on variations in the DNA sequence itself, especially on genes that are missing. Gregory and his colleagues looked at an oxytocin receptor gene, called OXTR, and found that about 70 percent of the 119 autistic people in his study had a methylated OXTR; in a control group of people without autism, the rate was about 40 percent.

OK, it seems pretty obvious to me that methylation is not the cause of the autism then. However, it is very possible that the thing that leads to enhanced chance of methylation could be the source. It's a good lead, worth following.

What the vaccine / autism deniers fail to tells us is this:

What is causing the surge in autism if not these vaccines? Until the vaccine pushers/autism deniers answer this question and offer a solution, they should be ignored and excluded from the conversation.

How many thousands of perfectly normal children have gotten very sick with irreversible effects AFTER reveiving one of these vaccines that libtards keep pushing? Why is it that these kids are not utistic until AFTER the vaccination? Can the autism deniars answer this?

@154

...only "libtards" push vaccines?

Huffington Post anyone?

If she left you because of your infertility, she was not a "good woman."

I'll be the judge of that, if you don't mind.

We both wanted to have a coupla kids. She wanted to be a mother, and I wanted to be a dad. It was important to both of us, and important enough to me to pay for the fun of filling a paper cup. But with me shooting blanks, it just wasn't going to happen. If we had married, we both would have likely never had kids. I had heard she did wind up with a few children, and I wish her only the best. It was near 30 years ago, and I thought I'd buried it a little deeper than it seems I have. I apologize to the group for my profane outburst last night, but not for being disgusted at Sid for thinking mumps is no big deal.

As has been noted, on a case by case basis, infertility and death are rare outcomes of mumps. However, a rare outcome to a common event happens a lot.

Sid quotes a study in 66 that says

Death due to mumps is exceedingly rare, andâ¨is mostly caused by mumps encephalitis. In the USA,â¨over the period 1966â71 there were two deaths perâ¨10 000 mumps cases...

Fine â we'll use those numbers.

According to http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/784603-overview :

Frequency
United States
Prior to the vaccine about 50% of children contracted mumps. Approximately 200,000 cases were reported in 1964 before the introduction of the vaccine compared with 291 cases in 2005

2 deaths per 10000 cases times 200,000 cases gives us 40 deaths a year.

2 deaths per 10000 cases times 291 cases gives us one death in 17 years.

Both of these describe the same rare event, but one situation is a whole lot more rare that the other in terms of absolute numbers â 680 to 1. Add my two missing kids, and 4 grandkids I should have now, makes that 686 to 1.

But Sid is right â it's rare. Let's think about a much more typical outcome.

My sister came down with the mumps a week or two or three prior to me getting sick (hey, it was 40 years ago, my memory is a little fuzzy). My sister said she was feeling bad, mom felt her forehead, looked at her face, and made the diagnosis. Mumps was common, and mom had seen them (and had them). Mumps are easy to spot if you've seen 'em, and darn near everyone had seen the disease. See above... 50-50 you'd have had them your self.

So my sister goes off to bed, she gets sicker, her face swells up even more, it hurts, she cries, then she gets better. A week or so later, she goes back to school.

I've been looking for school attendance records, to see if absences have changed over the years, and my google-fu is weak. But if 40 lives a year aren't enough to make Sid see that mumps vaccines are a good idea, a few hundred thousand hours of classroom time won't either.

You got a lot of balls talking to me that way

Only because I never got the mumps. :p

That was funny. James Sweet wins one internet.

What is causing the surge in autism if not these vaccines? Until the vaccine pushers/autism deniers answer this question and offer a solution, they should be ignored and excluded from the conversation.

I think the adult autism deniers are harmful to the autistic community and should be excluded from the conversation.

Autism is not something that only children have, if that wasn't clear.

The Huffington post is just like MSLSD - a liberal meida outlet. I hear libs complain about FOX News all the time. The truth is we only have one television media outlet that we trust. Liberals have all others - PB.S. , MSLSD, NBC, CBS, CNN, ABC better known as:

MSNBC - Most Shitty National Barack Casting

PBS - Public Bull Shit

NBC - National Barack Channel

CNN - Cunning National Negativism

ABC - All Barack Channel

CBS - Certified Bull Shit

Medicine man/Dangerous Doctor/Libertarian Troll see: this old Orac piece. Also try to remember that there is no real scientific evidence that vaccines have anything to do with autism.

Is there real scientific evidence to say what causes autism? Is there real scientific evidence to say why vaccines have to have dangerous preservatives in them causing dementia, paralysis, and death? Remember the swine flu vaccines that were killing a paralyzing people hours after taking them? An you want me to take one? Hell no! Count me out. I'll take my chances with the disease. It's safer.

Yes, it is true, Medicine man... reality has a liberal bias.

Deal.

Medicine man is way off base if he thinks this has to do with left/right politics. Case in point: HuffPo and David Kirby.

How many thousands of perfectly normal children have gotten very sick with irreversible effects AFTER reveiving one of these vaccines that libtards keep pushing?

Good question, Medicine Man. Presumably, since you clearly believe that large numbers of children do, in fact, suffer irreversible negative effects from vaccines, you have some idea of the answer. Could you share it with us, rather than merely alleging that there is a vaccine-induced autism epidemic? (Heck, just demonstrating an autism "epidemic" would be helpful, since the evidence I've seen to date is equivocal at best.)

I do understand, however, your desire to exclude vaccine advocates and those skeptical of the vaccine-autism link from the conversation. After all, it must get very uncomfortable when awkward questions are answered.

The troll asked:

Remember the swine flu vaccines that were killing a paralyzing people hours after taking them?

No. Enlighten us with some evidence that this actually happened. I believe this was asked the last time you mentioned it, but you failed to provide the evidence (along with some other stuff).

Johnny @ 156,
I don't mind and I'm truly sorry for what you've been through and I'm sorry if I contributed to your pain.

"Remember the swine flu vaccines that were killing a paralyzing people hours after taking them? "

Can't say as I do, actually.

@triskelethecat (#148)

It's antiantivax.flurf.net.

Chris,

Every single day there was a new story about someone who has become seriously ill after taking the stupid swine flu shot. One of these people was Washington Redskins cheerleader. She was a perfectly healthy girl. She took this killer H1N1 vaccine and within 12 hours she was paralyzed. She remains so today. This is one example of multiple accounts. I hate to see what happened in China - they were the test subjects of the vaccine.

The troll said:

One of these people was Washington Redskins cheerleader. She was a perfectly healthy girl. She took this killer H1N1 vaccine and within 12 hours she was paralyzed. She remains so today.

BZZZZZZZZT! Wrong, wrong, wrongety WRONG!

1) She claimed it was the seasonal influenza vaccine she had in August/September before the H1N1 vaccine was available.

2) She was not paralyzed. She claimed to have a dystonia, at least until several who really have dystonia pointed out that what she had was nothing like real dystonia. She could move, and could actually run!

3) She is fine. The television program Inside Edition caught up with her where she was walking, playing with her dog and driving.

Do try to keep up. The latest information is here:
http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=1558

You can also see the comments on this blog by searching on "Jennings" using the search box on the upper left of this page.

By the way, troll, you should really stop reading whatever websites claimed she was paralyzed from the H1N1 vaccine. It is obvious that they are run by lying liars who like to lie, a lot. Of course, from now on we will assume anything you post under one of your several silly names is completely wrong.

To all the anti-vaxxers and especially Jen; I am horrified that you are a fellow Canadian. I have worked in the school system and I know your type, cynical and willing to blame anything for the kids' bad behavior. I posit that autism is none of your damned business - you may work with them, but you don't work with my daughter, thank glayven. She is in Grade 11 in Ontario and has an 82.5% average, with no class room help. No thanks to bitter unionized workers like yourself who like to gripe from the sidelines and offer no real help to those involved. Retire already and allow younger people to work who actually give a shit. By the way, why don't you stick with AOA and stop pissing those of us who know better off?

So... Medicine Man... we see you are a liar as well. Good to know for future reference!

Loser.

wow, what an overly complex bag of tricks...you can't have it both ways, when you add truth, it's as simple as 1+1=2 an equation that is no more complex if you have a logical & loving brain to understand is whether or not vaccination is of use to people...take a look at the FREAK quack who first came up with the idea, and then also research WHERE he got the idea from (tribal medicine men in africa, it just wasnt one of the better parts of their medicine like herbs). Once you know the origins, it's not a huge leap of logic to find out what the end will be.
PS: Darwin was a racist freak, and I will guarantee you that his wickedness crept into ALL of the ideas/concepts he expounded. I'm caucasian and I wouldn't put two cents of worth into all the so called research such a hateful man claims to of created. Yet who does science and society hold up as a veritable god of intelligence and integrity??? Please time to pull your heads out of such "I believe it cause they teach it" nonsense.

URnotAtard:

it's as simple as 1+1=2 an equation that is no more complex if you have a logical & loving brain to understand is whether or not vaccination is of use to people...take a look at the FREAK quack who first came up with the idea, and then also research WHERE he got the idea from (tribal medicine men in africa, it just wasnt one of the better parts of their medicine like herbs). Once you know the origins, it's not a huge leap of logic to find out what the end will be.

Wow.

Okay, first off, you are alleging that we should know vaccination is bad if we know where it came from -- tribal medicine men in Africa. That's interesting considering that you went on to describe Darwin as "a racist freak", which is particularly odd since it's completely irrelevant to the thread.

Secondly, vaccination did not come from tribal medicine men in Africa. The oldest known use of inoculation was in China over two thousand years ago. (Strangely, practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine tend to disparage vaccination. This is actually not so strange when you realize that many "TCM" practices are actually neither traditional nor even Chinese.) It was also widely practiced in India, and was even a part of Ayurvedic medicine. The practice was commonplace by the time of English colonialism, and in 1716, Lady Montagu, the wife of an English diplomat working in the Ottoman Empire (modern-day Turkey), observed vaccination, had her son vaccinated, and enthusiastically promoted the technique upon her return to England. This practice was widespread well before Jenner introduced his more systematic version in 1796.

"Building bridges" to the leaders of the anti-vaccine movement?

oracknows — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 08:00:00 +0000

"Building bridges" to the leaders of the anti-vaccine movement?

Thanks to Andrew Wakefield, it's been pretty much vaccine week for me. Well, mostly anyway, I did manage to have some fun with Mike Adams and the immune system, but otherwise it's been all vaccines all the time this week. As I mentioned yesterday, at the risk of dwelling on one topic so long that I start driving away readers, I've just decided to ride the wave and go with it until it's over. Unless something blows up over the weekend, I rather suspect that, for all intents and purposes, it'll be over as of today and I can move on to other topics starting Monday. At least I hope so.

But there's one more issue related to the Andrew Wakefield case that I feel I'd be remiss not to cover, as it's a very important issue. I was reminded of it by Chris Mooney in a post entitled Will the Vaccine-Autism Saga Finally End? He and I both know the answer to this question (no), but in discussing why neither the General Medical Council's finding Andrew Wakefield to have behaved dishonestly and unethically in doing the "research" that led to his 1998 Lancet paper that launched the MMR scare in the U.K. nor the decision of the Lancet's editors to retract said 1998 paper would end the vaccine autism manufactroversy, Mooney suggested a way out of this problem that is profoundly misguided, naive, and reveals a profound misunderstanding of the anti-vaccine movement.

Before I explain what it was he said and why I find it so problematic, let me just point out that I was actually surprised at his post, because Chris has done good work before. I like Chris, by and large. I've gone drinking with Chris before (in Washington, DC three years ago, when I was at a conference). Moreover, last year Chris published an excellent overview of the anti-vaccine movement and why it is a danger to public health for the June issue of Discover Magazine, entitled Why Does the Vaccine/Autism Controversy Live On? (In the interest of full disclosure, I'll point out that Chris interviewed me for the article, and I did my best to give him as much background as I could, but he also interviewed numerous other people.) In rereading it, saw the germ of a promising idea for how to try to restore public confidence in vaccines, but in reading Mooney's latest, I wonder if he's taken that idea too far. I'll explain.

First, though, let me point out that I completely agree with Chris when he writes:

Here's the thing, though. It seems obvious to all recent commentators--myself included--that the latest Wakefield news will have virtually no impact on Wakefield's passionate followers, the anti-vaccine ideologues in the UK and United States who have long cheered him on, and will continue to do so. If anything, it will probably only make them still stronger in their convictions.

Which is very similar to what I've said more than once this week. In the eyes of his supporters, Wakefield has become a martyr, struck down by The Man in the form of pharmaceutical companies, governments, and uncaring science that wants to poison children with toxic vaccines. It's all a fever dream, a fantasy, of course, but that's how they view Wakefield, despite his callous disregard for children, his incompetent science (and even possible outright fraud), and his lack of ethics. Truly, it is a cult of personality, and recognizing that Wakefield is likely to be even more lionized than ever by the anti-vaccine movement is what Chris gets right.

What Chris gets so very, very wrong is this:

...I believe we need some real attempts at bridge-building between medical institutions--which, let's admit it, can often seem remote and haughty--and the leaders of the anti-vaccination movement. We need to get people in a room and try to get them to agree about something--anything. We need to encourage moderation, and break down a polarized situation in which the anti-vaccine crowd essentially rejects modern medical research based on the equivalent of conspiracy theory thinking, even as mainstream doctors just shake their heads at these advocates' scientific cluelessness.

Chris's naÃ¯vetÃ© on this issue is astonishing in light of his excellent Discover piece last year. He appears utterly unaware that scientists have been trying to reach out and build bridges to leaders of the anti-vaccine movement for years, if not decades. It hasn't worked. It doesn't work. As Mike Stanton pointed out in a comment, public health bodies courted Barbara Loe Fisher of the National Vaccine Information Center (whom I've discussed recently here, here, and here). The only result is that it raised her profile. She hasn't budged an inch; she is still as anti-vaccine as ever. One recent example that stands out in my mind occurred in 2007, when Sallie Bernard of SafeMinds participated as a consultant in the design of a large study designed to ask whether there was a link between thimerosal containing vaccines and neurodevelopmental disorders other than autism. Unfortunately for her, the study failed to find a link. All investigators found were a handful of correlations, both positive and negative, that occurred at a frequency consistent with random chance. In a case of sour grapes, Bernard disowned the study before it was published and then, after it was published, launched attacks against it, even going so far as to write a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine criticizing it.

Another example came to mind. Almost two and a half years ago, Dr. Thomas Insel, Director of the National Institute of Mental Health, appointed prominent anti-vaccine activists to the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC), apparently in the name of "inclusiveness" and "building bridges" The anti-vaccinationists appointed to the committe were Lyn Redwood, Vice President of SafeMinds; Lee Grossman, President of the Autism Society of America; and Stephen Shore, who included in his book Understanding Autism for Dummies clearly showed anti-vaccine proclivities and supports the idea that chelation therapy can be used to treat autism. It's been a total disaster. Not only did anti-vaccine propagandist David Kirby crow over it as "proof" that the government considers the idea that vaccines cause autism to be a scientifically viable hypothesis "worth studying," but Redwood and her pal Mark Blaxill (another Vice President of SafeMinds and an editor at the anti-vaccine propaganda blog Age of Autism) have hijacked the process at every turn. Dr. Insel, again apparently in the name of being "inclusive" and "tolerant" won't rein them in. He basically lets them run wild, and other members of the committee are complaining. As Sullivan has pointed out, this mischief has a cost:

Hours and hours were spent in the IACC meetings wordsmithing the vaccine language. To groups like SafeMinds and people like Lyn Redwood, the Strategic Plan was a political document. It was a statement by the government, and it was critical to get as much "admission" of autism being caused by vaccines as was possible. So what if another generation of minorities gets mislabeled with Intellectual Disability or some other Special Education category when SafeMinds was able to get the IACC to admit that many parents think vaccines cause autism?

This is what happens when psuedo "Vaccine-injury" advocates pretend to be Autism advocates and take seats at the table. Lyn Redwood put her own interests and those of her organizations ahead of the well being of people with autism.

Which is what the anti-vaccine movement does, because at its heart it's not about autism to them, the names of their societies notwithstanding. It's all about the vaccines; specifically, it's all about opposing vaccines and promoting the idea that vaccines cause autism and all sorts of other "horrors."

Chris is profoundly misguided in his apparent belief that any amount of "bridge building" will bring anti-vaccine activists around. Their beliefs are as ingrained as those of any fundamentalist religion and just as resistant to bridge-building over the core belief around which they revolve. Indeed, trying to reach out to leaders of the anti-vaccine movement is pointless. It is, as AutismNewsBeat so pithily characterizes it, akin to "bridge-building efforts by evolutionary biologists toward creationists. Or by B'nai Brith to mend fences with the Nazis. I'm sure those meetings went well." I agree fully. Thinking that "building bridges" to the leaders of the anti-vaccine movement will achieve anything except giving them more opportunity to sabotage public health by giving them an unearned feeling of power and legitimacy is likely to be as productive as evolutionary biologists engaging with Ken Ham, Casey Luskin, or Dr. Michael Egnor or for Deborah Lipstadt to engage with David Irving. As they say, you can't use reason to lead someone away from views that they didn't reach using reason.

No, the leaders of the anti-vaccine movement, people such as J.B. Handley, Lyn Redwood, Mark Blaxill, Jenny McCarthy and her boyfriend Jim Carrey, Barbara Loe Fisher, and Lee Grossman, don't need bridges built to them. It's a pointless exercise, as has been shown time and time again. Every attempt to do so is viewed by them as a sign of weakness or vindication of their crank views, never as an opportunity for compromise. That is why they need to be cut off from the oxygen that fuels their movement: publicity. AutismNewsBeat is correct to point out that we need to change the public narrative from "vaccines might cause autism" to "vaccine rejectionists are barking loons who endanger us all" because the are barking loons who endanger children by destroying herd immunity and increasing the chances of vaccine preventable diseases returning. Indeed, we've already seen this in the U.K., where MMR vaccination uptake has plummeted, thanks to Wakefield, and measles has come roaring back. As Mike Stanton says:

Instead of building bridges we should be building a cordon sanitaire to keep these predators at bay. We have our own compelling stories to tell. What about the childhood cancer victims who cannot be vaccinated and cannot attend day care for fear of a lethal encounter with the unvaccinated offspring of the worried well? What about the excellent journalism of of people like Trine Tsouderos at the Chicago Tribune, exposing the money grubbing quacks who feast on parental fears offering false hopes at a premium price? Or the vaccine success story in Africa where Measles deaths fell by 91% between 2000 and 2006, from an estimated 396,000 to 36,000 thanks to a mass vaccination campaign?

We will never persuade the die-hards. Our best tactic is to act to prevent them from persuading anyone else.

Exactly. In a free society, that means countering their misinformation in uncompromising terms and holding editors and reporters to task when they allow the "tell both sides" ethic to give the false appearance of equivalence between real science and the pseudoscience of vaccine denialists. Remember that the anti-vaccine loons are out there in force doing exactly what commenter Kim on AoA is doing:

Here's an idea, call your local health reporters and introduce yourself. Tell them when anything comes up in the news about autism that you are their "go-to". Make sure they have all your contact numbers/email, etc and tell them if you don't know the answers, then you will find someone in the community who does. I've got 2 stations and the newspaper in town calling me everytime something happens anywhere remotely close to autism. It's great for awareness and if only ONE parent learns something, we all win! This week I even got my own 3.5 minute spot on the Fox station in town. I'll post when it's online...

Although, for instance, I've made myself available to the media, I haven't been proactive about it. Nor, I daresay, have most of us trying to defend science against pseudoscience. I have, however, written to the odd local reporter who has written a credulous story about autism "biomed" treatments and the anti-vaccine movement, in which an anti-vaccine group is portrayed as an autism advocacy group. I think it helped, but I won't know until these reporters write another story on the subject, which, for all I know, could be months. Still, blogs aren't enough. Twitter isn't enough. The "old media" is still very powerful and will likely always be powerful. Web 2.0 is great, but it's not (yet) enough to counter the power of mass media.

It is important to remember, however, that we are talking about the leaders of the anti-vaccine movement. We are talking about the J. B. Handleys of the world. We are talking about the Barbara Loe Fishers of the world. We are talking about the Lyn Redwoods of the world. We are not talking about parents who are afraid of vaccines because of what they hear on the Internet but are not committed to the cause of promoting the idea that vaccines cause autism. They may even be parents who have autistic children who think that vaccines were responsible. It is for these parents that Mooney's strategy might have a chance of working. Indeed, I would liken these parents to the moderate religious people whom Mooney advocates working with to promote good science evolution, including evolution, and to defend science education against the intrusions of creationism. In essence, this is two-pronged strategy in which the die-hards are marginalized as much as is possible in a democracy through cutting them off from the easy access to the media that they have enjoyed thus far while at the same time building bridges not to the leaders of the anti-vaccine movement but to the moderates who are not beyond recovery.

I'm under no illusion that it will be easy to distinguish one from the other or even to work with those who are not in so deep that they can't be persuaded. I do know, however, that scientists and the government have tried time and time again to "build bridges" to leaders of the anti-vaccine movement. It doesn't work, and it's time to try something different.

If Chris (or anyone else, for that matter) has any specific ideas for what that something different is, I'd be more than happy to listen. In fact, if Chris (or anyone else, for that matter) can show me that I'm dead wrong about the uselessness of trying to "build bridges" with the leaders of the anti-vaccine movement, I'd be more than happy to listen. Who knows? I might even change my mind if the arguments are compelling enough and backed by strong evidence.

oracknows Fri, 02/05/2010 - 03:00

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Antivaccine nonsense

autism

complementary and alternative medicine

complementary and alternative medicine

medicine

I'm only going by what I read on Pharyngula, but this sounds similar to Mooney's plea of "being nice" to the science-illiterate in Unscientific American. What's interesting is that apparently he can be aggressive with anti-science types when he wants: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/06/whose_side_are_you_on_flatow…

I really try to adopt a live-and-let-live philosophy, but I absolutely agree we need to be more aggressive with this stuff. People like Andrew Wakefield, Jenny McCarthy, Bill Maher, et. al., are dangerous people. They push ideas that kill people. Not cool.

But isn't this Chris Mooney's MO? Doesn't he want to tone down the evolution rhetoric, too? I, personally, am tired of this wishy-washy crap, especially when so much is at stake.

Everyone calm down I know what is causinc autism.

I completely agree that the leaders of this have to be written off as a lost cause. It is not worth the effort to reach them.

Seems to me we (defenders of science and evidence) need to get out where the mushy middle sits and convince them. I did a post on that after I attended a CDC flu vax meeting a few months back.

But what I could have used was backup. Unlike the crank network, the science network was _not_ activated for this. And I don't know how to do that. I reached out to a couple of people and places that I thought had megaphones, but it didn't have any impact. I had only accidentally found out about this meeting, and found out late, after the crank bat-signal was already aware.

@Oren:

Hopefully, this isn't trollbait, but what is causing it?

@Mattand:

I was thinking the same thing. I recall many of PZ's posts dealing with Chris Mooney's attitudes towards creationists. So it wasn't completely surprising to hear that Mooney's suggesting the same sort of approach to another band of pseudoscience advocates.

I think the antivax leaders need the same kind of bridges built to them as the one Buzz Aldrin famously built to Bart Sibrel, generally.

AutismNewsBeat is correct to point out that we need to change the public narrative from "vaccines might cause autism" to "vaccine rejectionists are barking loons who endanger us all"

The tide is already turning. The comments in the NY Times on the vaccine articles this week have been running heavily against the anti-vaxxers. People are starting to get the message, so it's just a matter of building on the momentum.

@Interrobang:

[Edna Krabapple] HA! [/Edna Krabapple]

Huh. I guess Chris Mooney is a broad-spectrum accommodationist. With religion, at least it kinda makes a little bit of sense (it's hard to go against so much entrenched history), but to try and accommodate the desires of some weird fringe group? Are we going to start accommodating the 9/11 troofers or the teabaggers or the Raelians next?

Seriously, there's a point at which you have to stop and say "look, you're wrong. Reality is on this side of the line, and you're all the way over there."

But isn't this Chris Mooney's MO? Doesn't he want to tone down the evolution rhetoric, too?

That's my recollection as well. OTOH, I also seem to recall a pretty big pissing match between Orac and PZ Myers over this, when Myers criticized Mooney for it and Orac came to his defense. Now, it seems, the shoe is on the other foot. Mooney doesn't seem so helpful when he is acting accomodationist on your own cause, it appears.

When the rate went to 1 in 110 I decided to look at the problem. Since the experts had looked at all the chemical compounds I looked for nonchemical enviromental causes of autism. These could be cosmic radiation, ultraviolet radiation,sound, light and touch. Taste and smell would have a chemical base.
I found that about 25% of children born blind become autistic. So could light or the lack of it be part of the cause? Is there a visual component to autism? Then I found a study by David Fitzpatrick and others at Duke using ferrets that was interesting. They raised 3 groups, normal, total darkness and with eye lids fastened shut so that the only light filtered through their eye lids. The ones raise in darkness showed normal but diminished brain development but the ones with closed eye lids had no normal development, so the conclusion was that abnormal light input was far worse than no light. Could this be why blind autistic children respond to training and treatment better than other autistic children? So how do autistic children get an abnormal light input? The only possibility is fluorescent lighting, which is actually strobe lighting. Fluorescent lighting turns completely off 120 times per second, that is the room goes completely dark 120 times per second. The infant brain is unencombered by speach, memory, planning ahead or a thousand other things that the adult brain is doing. Because of this I think the visual input of infants can be very rapid and they see this intermittant light and this disrupts the normal development of the mirror neuron system in the brain. The mirror neuron system allowes us to recognise emotions in others and to develope our emotional system. Dysfunction of the mirror neuron system has long been thought to be the core cause of autism.
Now let's compare histories, the first cases of autism were diagnosed in the early 1940s,fluorescent lighting started to be sold in 1938.the autism rate has gone up 1000% since 1996, screw in fluorescent lights came to the market in 1995, the 220,000 Amish use no electricity and have virtually no autism, The correlation between rain fall and autism in the pacific north west is caused by the additional light required for overcast conditions, the 1 in 58 rate in the U.K. is caused by their electricity which is 50 cycle so the visual input of their infants has to slow down much more than ours to avoid the strobe effect and finally the report of the California clusters. Educated couples of child bearing age living in affluent neighborhoods usually both work to get by so the children go to day care. The first cluster is centered around Culver City so I went to the yellow pages and found six day care centers and their address's. Then I went to google earth and looked at them, 5 of the 6 were in commercial buildings so any ambiant light if any had to come in through the front. Those children got fluorescent lighting at home at night and at day care during the day. Double the exposure double the rate. Case closed.

Mooney seems determined to demonstrate to all that he is completely clueless.Â If thatâs his plan, he is succeeding.

And I do think this is similar to his accommodationist views on the teaching of evolution.Â I have to disagree with you, Orac on this:

I would liken these parents to the moderate religious people whom Mooney advocates working with to promote good science evolution

Not really.Â Mooneyâs view, as I understand it, is that we shouldn't try to convince the moderate religious that they are wrong and that they should be atheists; heâs saying we should convince them that evolution and science are compatible with religion.Â Surely, we actually do want to convert the worried parents?Â

That would be very, very, weak suggestiveness even if there was any biological plausibility. Since the strobing of florescent lights is too fast to be perceived by the human eye, there is none.

Regarding dealing with reporters:

Orac probably already knows this, but if you're going to make yourself available as a "go-to" guy, you have to deliver with reasonable soundbites. Precise language about how studies fail to show any link between vaccines and autism is no match for "There is no reputable link between vaccines and autism." Be direct, be blunt, and save the scientifically defensible language for letters to medical journals.

"There is no reputable link between vaccines and autism."

A-ha. So you admit there is a link, you just refuse to accept it because it goes against your religion.

Scotty, it's not that easy.

It doesn't work. As Mike Stanton pointed out in a comment, public health bodies courted Barbara Loe Fisher of the National Vaccine Information Center (whom I've discussed recently here, here, and here).

Well they damn well better. She was instrumental in passing the infamous 1986 legislation that has afforded the availability of vaccines without threat of litigation. Allowing a consumer advocate for this kind of protection doesn't seem like such a bad tradeoff from an industry point of view.

One recent example that stands out in my mind occurred in 2007, when Sallie Bernard of SafeMinds participated as a consultant in the design of a large study designed to ask whether there was a link between thimerosal containing vaccines and neurodevelopmental disorders other than autism.

Help me here: other than autism, no unvaccinated children, and 30% of those selected participated. Are these not valid criticisms?

It's all about the vaccines; specifically, it's all about opposing vaccines and promoting the idea that vaccines cause autism and all sorts of other "horrors."

Yes, that's what people like you see. And I agree, it is all about the vaccines and the policy that has evolved since the late 80's. I have YET to find any good safety data that has justified the increase in vaccines to children under the age of two and we won't even do an observational study of both populations to make sure we're not causing more harm than good. There has been a tendency to extrapolate data from older age groups, and this, is bad science. I'll concede that it has definitely aided in removing any possible control group, making the attempts for such a study extremely difficult. Don't bark about confounders people, it's still worthwhile to do. Those being honest know this is true.

Mike Stanton via Orac: What about the childhood cancer victims who cannot be vaccinated and cannot attend day care for fear of a lethal encounter with the unvaccinated offspring of the worried well?

Yes, let's discriminate. That is certainly helpful. Shall the parent of an unvaccinated child show up with their blood panels and titre levels and hopefully make a difference in your discriminatory behavior? Well no, because from one side of your mouth you'll tell me that they are no measure of immunity, and then out of the other you will show me efficacy data which specifically relates to seroconversion. Positive titres have not been demonstrated in challenge studies to indicate "immunity". A person's ability to produce antibodies to any given disease causing agent doesn't mean that they will resist disease. There's a lot to be said about being subclinical.

I'll agree with you on this point though, those most visible in this issue are doing the most harm.

Skeptico--

The strobing of a properly functioning fluorescent light is too fast to be consciously perceived by the human eye. That said, there are people for whom even slightly imperfect fluorescents are a migraine trigger. So clearly they can perceive it.

And then there are some of us who will be bothered for days or weeks as an old-style fluorescent light at the office or in the classroom slowly fails, and it isn't replaced because most people don't care. There's a built-in fluorescent light at my desk. It flickers. I can't get it replaced, so I work by the overhead lights and the light from my monitor (even when doing paperwork).

I don't know whether fluorescents are connected to autism, but I don't think we can dismiss the idea on the grounds that the human eye can't perceive the flickering. Some people's eyes can. And one thing we do know about autism is that it affects about 1 percent of the population; maybe they're some subset of those who are unusually sensitive to strobing and/or defective fluorescent lights. Or include such a subset: this may be a case where "yes, there are Amish children with autism" is relevant.

Mooney's mistake is in thinking that the antiscience lot ("The Republican War on Science," creationists, antivaxers) can be convinced to behave rationally if we just find a way to communicate with them. They can't.

These groups' opposition to science is just a symptom of their main goals: the advancement of conservative ideology, religion, etc. They view any compromise of these principles as failing to "Stand Up for What They Believe In." Since compromise is impossible, the only recourse is to show that their extension of those principles into science is wrong. Show it repeatedly, loudly, publicly, and rudely if that might work.

i am with Scott. i doesn't seem plausible that lighting has anything to do with it. also, i don't have the references, but i am sure i have seen posted here by Orac that the Amish/no-autism connection is completely false. the Amish *do* have autism at rates comparable to the general population.

You know Oren, I believe you're right. You have just proven the sole cause of autism in your 525 words-without-paragraphs. Case closed!

The Onion chimes in on the Lancet retraction:

http://www.theonion.com/content/amvo/lancet_retracts_autism_paper?utm_s…

The reaction of Wakefield's supporters to revelations of his disgraceful behavior should be ample evidence of the failure of reason and due process in dealing with diehard antivaxers. They're a lost cause.

The cause that's important is the children of parents who are wavering in the face of destructive antivax propaganda, and society at large which is at risk from the return of preventable infectious diseases. Our focus at this point should be to continue working with the news media to report responsibly on vaccination and autism, on organizations funding autism research which should be looking into real causes and treatment, and on Congress to prevent hijacking of the public health agenda by antivax activism.

You can't build bridges to people who are eager only to blow them up.

I agree. It would be a "bridge to nowhere": there are those who cannot be reached, cannot be taught,and cannot be influenced, who are highly invested emotionally and/or financially.I suspect that in many cases, using an external,controllable cause(i.e. vaccines, toxins)is protective of the "believer's" self-esteem("Nothing wrong with *my* genes or *my* parenting behavior!")- those whose *business* (or *raison d'etre*) is anti-vax, as well as general "contrarians".They are probably a small(but very vocal) minority.....Perhaps our job is something like that of a tennis player who tries to anticipate/"cover" the majority of most likely "shots" delivered by the opponent-we want to reach the greatest number of (most likely to be) *influencable* people, discounting the impossible ones .

@Vicki:

Your point is well taken - I was incorrect. The weakness of the evidence and complete lack of a biological mechanism still stand, though, even if there isn't specific evidence for the absence of such a mechanism.

You can't build bridges to people who are eager only to blow them up.

and

It would be a "bridge to nowhere"

While these statements are pithy, I think they fail to reflect the problem that is at hand with such efforts. My pithy comeback would be, "You don't want to build bridges to people who will use them carry out an assault on you."

As Orac describes, we already have situations where there have been bridges, and all that happens is that they mobilize to cross it into the enemy territory. Once there, they use filibusterish techniques to get their way and increase their presence. Why in the hell would they want to demolish that opportunity by blowing up the bridge?

THEY want the bridge, because THEY are the ones who benefit from it. It's not advancing science at all.

If you've got the Rhein separating you from the German army, you don't build a bridge to give them a means to attack.

screw the bridge building. we should go all emperor's-new-clothes on the antivaxxers.

point at them and exclaim they're naked.

point at them and exclaim they're naked

That makes my German army analogy a lot more interesting.

Denice is right, the accomodationist approach appears to be based on a flawed assumption that if you make some concessions to the other side you can win them over. It doesn't matter whether you're talking about anti-vaxers, creationists, animal rights activists or AGW "skeptics", this almost never happens.

What scientists should be concentrating on is convincing the far larger group of people who are not already committed to one side or the other, and that is where lending credibility to anti-science forces by making concessions to them can be very dangerous.

You're surprised this is coming from Chris Mooney? He of the "if religious wackjobs don't believe in evolution, it must be the fault of those nasty atheist scientists!" fame? Please. Whatever great work Mooney may have done in the past, nowadays he has this accomodationist bug so far up his ass that, if he were living in 1938 Germany, he'd say the Jews weren't doing a good job of "framing" their plight to the National Socialist Party.

FWIW, I do think many physicians/pediatricians can do more to build bridges to the marks of the anti-vaccine movement. The leaders? The advocates? They are already irrevocably gone over to the dark side. But the frightened first time mom who thinks, "Well, maybe there is something to this... maybe I should talk to my doctor about an alternative vaccination schedule?", these are the people who are still very much reachable. I have heard horror stories of pediatricians becoming angry and derisive when their patients' mothers inquire about anti-vax propaganda (in one case I am directly aware of, a doctor called a 20-year-old mom "stupid" for asking about a delayed schedule). I'm sure most pediatricians are more patient, but it never hurts to remind them that the marks are not the enemy; they have merely been conned, and patience and compassion, and maybe even a willingness to compromise (if a patient is really adamant, a delayed-but-complete schedule is still better than no shots or an incomplete schedule) are the appropriate responses.

Mooney's suggestion that the leaders of the anti-vax movement can be swayed with honey? Insane, inane, immature, and dare I say, self-serving, since Mooney's making a name for himself as Mr. Accomodationism.

Indeed, I would liken these parents to the moderate religious people whom Mooney advocates working with to promote good science evolution, including evolution, and to defend science education against the intrusions of creationism.

I just want to point out that many of those people whom Mooney has in the past criticized as not sufficiently accommodating towards religion do have a history of working with "moderate religious people" to "promote good science". Dawkins, for instance, has worked extensively with the Bishop of Something-or-other.

Where Mooney and the New Atheists part ways is whether it is okay to also say that, despite having moderate religious allies, you do not believe religion and science are ultimately consistent, for fear that your allies will be driven off. To which all I can say is, if someone is that touchy about their religion that they can't even tolerate an alliance with someone who disagrees with them on certain issues, maybe they weren't all that "moderate" to begin with....

James Sweet - you say this doctor calling the mom stupid something you are "directly" aware of. I am curious, were you actually in the room and heard it? Or did she tell you? Or did the doctor tell you?

As we know, patient's versions of what doctors say are not always accurate (like Suzanne Sommers?). I would especially be cautious about it coming from a 20 year old mom, who I know from a lot of experience (including now) are extremely sensitive about any comment that doesn't blow fluff up their pants. They can consider everything to be an insult (if the doctor even used the word stupid in the room, it can be misinterpreted, "Well, if the tonsils show signs of serious infection, we could do a tonsilectomy, but it would be stupid to do surgery if it is just a runny nose" "He said I was stupid!")

Whatever great work Mooney may have done in the past, nowadays he has this accomodationist bug so far up his ass that, if he were living in 1938 Germany, he'd say the Jews weren't doing a good job of "framing" their plight to the National Socialist Party.

That was totally uncalled for, and I invoke Godwin's law.

Re the suggestion to mobilize scientists/doctors as "go-to" folks on vaccine-related issues:

I think this may have a chance in a local media market. But nationally, the media loves nothing better than an argument, leading to the drafting of scientists and doctors for exactly the sort of "tell both sides" presentation that Orac decried a couple of posts ago.

As a late friend of mine used to say, "You got a better chance of seeing God" than of getting movement from the firmly cemented positions of the vaccine/autism folks, no matter how well "framed" and no matter how much more scientific evidence accumulates. What I think might work better to change public opinion are items orthogonal to autism, such as recent stories saying (1) 40% of cancers could be prevented with vaccines and a healthy lifestyle, and (2) higher vaccination compliance by seniors could help prevent 40-50,000 deaths and $10 billion in extra medical costs annually in the U.S. alone.

I don't want to "build bridges" with anti-vax loons. I want to nuke their silly little island back into the stone age where they obviously want to live.

Thank you Coryat. It's hard to dismiss the near perfect correlation of the history of autism and the history of fluorescent lighting as well as the other 4 correlations. I have UC Davis and childrens Hospital of Philidelphia interested in this theory. They may be willing to run EEG or brain scans on very young children to see if they can detect a change when going from incandescent to fluorescent lighting. If they can I think we have a solution.

40% of cancers could be prevented with vaccines and a healthy lifestyle

You know, I hate this statement. Not because it is wrong, but because it is so ripe for abuse. It feeds straight into the supplement manufacturer market.

"The FDA says that 40% of cancers can be prevented with a healthier lifestyle. Our snake oil^H^H^H^H fish oil supplement pills are clinically proven to be part of a healthier lifestyle."

Screw the "healthier lifestyle" crap. Get to the point: stop smoking. "20% of cancers could be prevented if people would STOP SMOKING."

We'll worry about the other stuff once that is taken care of.

James, #31. Thanks for that last paragraph. I agree with that and it is a point I do not see brought up very often. People really need to grow up and be a little bigger when it comes to dealing with those who disagree with them. If you look at Dawkins or PZ it seems they are more than willing to interact and discuss things with religious communities. I think I remember at least one occasion, though perhaps there are more, where PZ has gone and talked in churches about science. I think they would be more than willing to team up to promote good science as well.

It seems building bridges is often expected to be a one way endeavor.

Oren,
You have a point about lighting conditions contributing to autism. (Computer screens are also a significant issue.) But this is confusing the symptom with the disease. Autistics are very sensitive to their environment, and different individuals have different sensitivities. (I have used the phrase "kryptonite stimulus".) Dealing with these issues means either changing the environment, or teaching autistics how to react to stress without a "breakdown".

@Oren Evans,

As an automotive engineer who has become rather a specialist in PWM lighting technologies, I can assure you that an adult human takes, at it's fastest rate about 20 milliseconds to react to a change in light. (This does vary a bit between people and color vs. black and white vision, and the various frequencies of color.) That's about 50 Hz. (Frankly, if you can see a 50Hz flicker you are superhuman, most humans can't see better than about 20Hz and the frame rate of movies is between 24Hz and 30Hz.)

Even if a newborn's eyes can react twice as fast (and I have no reason to think that it does, I've never looked into the question), your hypothesis doesn't hold much water. Note, looking around I find a 1995 study by Bieber, et.al., suggests that infants and adults have similar reaction times, See Spectral efficiency measured by heterochromatic flicker photometry is similar in human infants and adults, Vision Res. 1995 May;35(10):1385-92.

Next, you are jumping to conclusions about the type of light used in day care facilities, a simple search of on google maps is not sufficient to show that these facilities only use fluorescent lighting. I wouldn't be surprised that they do, but you haven't shown that they do.

Third, there are well documented cases of autism among the Amish. Do a search on this blog to get some links.

Forth, I'm certain you are aware that differences in reported rates of autism between different countries can be more easily explained by the differences in reporting criteria than by difference in AC frequencies. Autism is a spectrum disorder, it's not like a broken bone where a simple test verifies the diagnosis. The rise in reported autism rates in the US are most likely due to increased awareness of the condition, diagnostic substitution [There were a couple children I went to school with who, on reflection, were probably autistic. We just called them retarded. I haven't seen that term used in a long time.], and the expansion of the diagnostic criteria in the mid-1990's. The higher rate that you claim for the UK (I hadn't heard that particular number before) is still very likely to be related to the differences in diagnostic criteria.

Checking this is simple, is the reported rate in all countries which use 60Hz the same? How about all countries which use a 50Hz system? If you claim that different reporting criteria explains those differences, why is it different because of power line frequency?

Fourth, repeat after me the mantra of statistical epidemiology, "Correlation is not Causation". Yes, in 1936 fluorescent lighting was introduced. Also in 1936 British television broadcasts started, and the first practical helicopter was invented. In 1937 Britain deploys radar stations. In 1938 the first ball-point pen was patented by Biro, and DuPont starts selling nylon. In 1939 Birds Eye started production of pre-cooked frozen foods. And in 1940 freeze-dried foods are introduced. I could go on, but I think you see my point.

What you have is an observational hypothesis, and not a particularly good one, that the introduction of fluorescent lighting into delivery rooms increased the rate of autism.

This is based on a few observations;
1. the rate of autism in the population has increased (not demonstrated).

2. 25% of children born blind are autistic (I'd not see this figure before, got a source.) Even if true, it's even more evidence for a genetic condition. Of course, since autism is a popular diagnosis these days, your claim about children born blind having a better response to teaching than non-blind born autistic children may simply be a case of a number of children born blind are mis-diagnosed with autism and thus they respond very well.

3. A study on ferrets. Please provide the cite, I've read the three papers Fitzpatrick has written using ferrets to model vision and none of them match the description of what you claim. The closest I could find was this one; White, L.E., D.M. Coppola, and D. Fitzpatrick (2001) The contribution of sensory experience to the maturation of orientation selectivity in ferret visual cortex. Nature 411: 1049-1052. And it compares directional sensitivity between light-reared and dark-reared ferrets, I can't find anything about ferrets reared with their eyelids fastened shut (and I suspect an ethics board might have some difficulty with that one too). If this is indeed the paper you are referring to, it doesn't claim what you think it does.

In short, the evidence you provide is flimsy (and in some cases false) and your hypothesis will need much stronger evidence than that to be considered a reasonable one. I'd start, if I were as convinced about it as you seem to be, by proving that the reported increase in autism rates is real and not an artifact of the changing diagnostic criteria. If you can do that, you are going to be much more likely to get the attention of someone who will study it.

But I do offer you one consolation. The new LED lights oscillate at about 1000 Hz, not 60 Hz, so the room goes dark (well, aside from the reflected light) 1000 times a second. (They are DC PWM controlled, not AC.) So, as the technology changes, and LED lighting is introduced into delivery rooms, if your hypothesis is true we will see a decrease in the rate of autism over the next 20 years or so.

Or by B'nai Brith to mend fences with the Nazis.

Oops, looks like not even plastic boxes with flashing lights are immune to the Hitler Zombie.

Actually, as you see, I was quoting someone else as an example of two unreconcilable parties, but point taken. Even so, remember that Sweet's example was, in essence, claiming that Mooney would have taken the side of the Nazis during the Holocaust. Not nice.

Bridge analogies aside, is there any indication that the people who believe that vaccines cause autism are interested in:

[1] Acknowledging (or even listening to) the scientific data that fail to show any connection between autism and vaccines?

[2] Changing or moderating their belief that vaccines (in some way) cause autism?

For that matter, is there any indication that the doctors and scientists who have done the research showing no apparent connection between autism and vaccines are interested in "moderating" their findings?

Wouldn't that be scientific fraud?

The idea of "reaching out" or "building bridges" only works if both sides are willing to compromise on their positions. The "vaccines-cause-autism" groups have shown no interest in moderating their position in response to the data and the scientific community would be committing fraud if they "compromised" and said, "Well, the data aren't everything - we can make 'adjustments' based on your 'narratives'."

Maybe I'm missing something, but there doesn't seem to be a viable compromise between people who say "These are the data." and those who say "I don't believe the data."

Any attempt to "build bridges" to the "vaccines-cause-autism" groups will be exploited by them to show the general public that they are being taken seriously by the scientific community - as detailed above. The only possible benefit to the scientific community would be to show the rest of the world "Well, we tried."

Sometimes an issue is polarizing because there is no middle ground.

Prometheus

It's hard to dismiss the near perfect correlation of the history of autism and the history of fluorescent lighting as well as the other 4 correlations.

If you consider that a "near perfect correlation", then you know absolutely nothing about science, statistics, or the history of autism.

LED lights don't oscillate. LEDs are Light Emitting Diodes. diodes conduct in only one direction. LEDs operate with a DC bias voltage across them--no AC. electron-hole pairs are created, then recombine and emit a photon. the photon emission is incoherent and continuous so there should be no flicker either.

Various gargantuan problems in Oren's argument:

1. Conflating the original characterization of autism with its appearance.

2. Unsubstantiated assertion that "25% of children born blind become autistic".

3. Completely ignoring potential confounders between blindness and autism to assume a causal relationship.

4. Reading far too much into a single study in ferrets showing that sensory experiences have impact on brain development - at best this is a demonstration of possibility, NOT evidence in favor.

5. Bald assertion that "the only possibility is fluorescent lighting" without any attempt whatsoever to justify why there is no other possibility.

6. Ignoring the difference between increased diagnosis and increased incidence.

7. Assumption that the rainfall/autism correlation is real as opposed to data mining AND that the correlation must obviously be due to lighting.

8. Extrapolation of the differing effects of different cycle rates without any foundation.

9. Completely ignoring confounders such as socioeconomic status impacting quality of medical care when assuming that California "clusters" are real.

And that's just on a superficial survey. It puts the argument that global warming is caused by a lack of pirates to shame, since THAT correlation actually exists while not a single shred of the 'evidence' cited here convincingly supports the existence of a correlation, much less causation.

Oren Evans wrote @36

They may be willing to run EEG or brain scans on very young children to see if they can detect a change when going from incandescent to fluorescent lighting. If they can I think we have a solution.

Just have them replace their fluorescent lighting with LED. There are replacements available now, and while it may cost a few thousands of dollars (at about $60/bulb, that's 1000 bulbs for $60,000. You have to disconnect the ballast, but that's not too hard.), they will get two benefits, lower electric bills and evidence to support/disprove your idea.

I do think this retraction might be a good idea after all. The general public knows what it means when a journal retracts something. They know it means that whatever it was sucked. This does not require a PhD to get.

Quoth Oren: "I have UC Davis and childrens Hospital of Philidelphia interested in this theory."

As a proud Aggie alumnus, I find this prospect disturbing. Which department head should I be contacting? (Or was that assertion just complete bollocks?)

I suspect complete bollocks.

Rob @45,

Yes, I should have been more clear. LED lighting runs at a DC level.

The DC voltage level is varies slightly between 1.8V and 2.4V, depending on the doping and current draw.

However, variable lighting level for LEDs, i.e. dimmable LED's, do not dim by lowering the DC voltage level. Instead they use a PWM generator to turn the LEDs on and off at a high frequency. I've seen them used as low as 85Hz, but most manufactures recommend 1-2 kHz. All the T8 replacement bulbs I've seen are fixed DC levels, but the few that are dimmable run at around 1kHz.

So, my point is that in the worst case the on/off cycle for LED lighting is going to be around 1000Hz, assuming you are using variable level LED lighting.

I was thinking about going into that, but my post was getting too long already.

Flex:
thanks!
i was trying to think of some reason why you would run a LED on AC and could think of none. the pulse width scheme you mention makes sense wrt dimmable lights. however, why not just vary the input bias level to vary the brightness? heating issues? probably easier to implement with existing dimmer light switches? hmm.

Oren,

Your argument starts with the assumption that the autism diagnoses are increasing at a alarming rate and therefore there must be a environmental cause not present in previous generations. That is a huge, platoesque assumption.

There is no evidence the prevalence of autism is even increasing. At this point, it appears far more likely that the broadening of the autism scope and better primary care at diagonalizing the signs of autism early in recent years are responsible for the increase rate of diagnoses.

The big fail in the science-based medicine community is in attempts at "countering their misinformation in uncompromising terms." It seems every time I see a news report on this subject, they turn to the rational clinical view and get "There is no conclusive evidence that vaccines cause autism." Of course, the corollaries are that evidence exists it is just not conclusive and/or there is no evidence that vaccines do not cause autism. Anyone who might lean somewaht toward the anti-vax viewpoinmt will not be swayed by this statement.

What is needed is to come up with short statements that will get the average listener angry about the anti-vaxxers. The appeal to risk of disease is not doing it because vaccines have made the diseases so rare and people think their vaccinated kids are safe.

How about an appeal to the pocketbook? Something like: We studied this possibility years ago and found no evidence of a link. But, because of the anti-vaxxers, we have had to revisit the question again at again, perform studies, create committees. And again and again, we find no link. Of course this all comes at taxpaayer expense and removes funds that could be used to find the true causes of autism or cancer or whatever.

Actually, as you see, I was quoting someone else as an example of two unreconcilable parties, but point taken. Even so, remember that Sweet's example was, in essence, claiming that Mooney would have taken the side of the Nazis during the Holocaust. Not nice.

I actually wrote my comment before I read comments #32 and on (i.e., I didn't refresh before writing). So it wasn't intended to be a comment on your invoking Godwin's Law. But I found it ironic that someone who is so attuned to Nazi comparison as to have invented the delightful Hitler Zombie would miss it in a quote that he "agree(s) fully" with. Really, I was just tweaking your nose.

As to Sweet's example, I disagree that it claims that Mooney would have sided with the Nazis. Unless you are accusing Mooney of siding with the anti-vaxxers?

However, since Godwin has already been invoked, I will say I honestly agree with Sweet's assessment of Mooney. Had he said 1943, I would have disagreed, but I don't think the events leading up to 1938 would have been sufficient for Mooney to abandon his basic premise. Again, just an honest assessment, made while trying to avoid consideration of later events of the Holocaust.

Rob:

LED are, as you mentioned above, semi-conductor diodes operating in a forward bias state. This means that based on the material, silicon is the common ones, and the doping, a very specific voltage drop occurs across the junction.

Adjusting the current can make minor changes in the voltage drop, but not a great deal. Forward conducting diodes are pretty well self-regulating. As an example, taking an LED from 2mA to 40mA may change the voltage drop from 1.8V to 2.1V. The light output of an LED depends directly on it's current, so a 20-times (2000%) increase in light only corresponds to a 300mV or 16% change in voltage. It's hard to control the light output of an LED by using voltage.

Further, most LEDs turn on at around 2mA of current, that is the light is perceptible. A certain amount of charge carriers have to pass the threshold level before light is emitted (kinda), so the dimmest and LED can get by controlling the voltage isn't particularly dim.

Beyond that, once you get into white LEDs they actually change color at different current levels. White LEDs are really blue LEDs with a phosphor lens to absorb the higher frequencies of the blue light and re-emit them in the red side of the spectrum. This requires a balancing act in manufacturing LEDs, too much phosphor and the light is orange, to little and the light is blue. The balance is tuned toward the nominal operating current, 20-40mA depending on manufacturer, and below 10mA of current most white LEDs look decidedly blusish.

So turning them on and off at high frequencies, which is fine because their slew rate is very high, is the best way to vary the light output on white LEDs.

BKsea - can we get that into a sound bite?

"We've already spent enough time and money searching for a link and keep coming up empty. It's time to stop wasting resources and move onto something productive."

That is even good scientist speak!

wrt fluorescent lightin

Fluorescent lighting has been increasing it's flicker rate. A modern CFL ranges from 10,000-24,000 Hz, a modern T8 w/ electronic ballast as high as 120,000 Hz. If it were the flicker rate, we should have seen a decrease in the autism rate since the mid-90s, not an (alleged) increase!

I'm sorry, I just can't let this go on.

If you don't count the massive amount of inductance and the response rate of the bulb itself, then you might be able to say it "goes dark". Of course, you would then be smacked around by any decent electrical engineer in sight. There is an incredible amount of energy storage supplying the voltages and currents to a standard fluorescent bulb.

The same thing about the LED's, though. The capacitance and inductance (some parasitic and some from the supporting circuitry) keep the LED from ever really going dark or light. A simple FFT of a real circuit (not the perfect environment that most analysis uses) will show that there are a lot of frequencies that will dim an LED, not just slower freq = dimmer or such.

You'd think this problem would be self-correcting.

James Sweet:
"But the frightened first time mom who thinks, 'Well, maybe there is something to this... maybe I should talk to my doctor about an alternative vaccination schedule?', these are the people who are still very much reachable."

I agree with this, having been one of those mothers. You don't have to seek out the anti-vaccination paranoia, it's already there, and it's gotten into your thinking without your realization. It rears its head when you are confronted with the nurse handing you CDC papers, and it muddles your decision-making process. I don't know how you get to that population of people, provide them with facts and evidence, and cut through the fear, but it's an important thing to consider, and something I am considering.

Jayk,

A simple FFT of a real circuit (not the perfect environment that most analysis uses) will show that there are a lot of frequencies that will dim an LED, not just slower freq = dimmer or such.

Um,

I'm not talking about changing frequencies to adjust light output of LEDs. I'm talking about PWM, pulse-width-modulation. By using a square-wave (on/off), at a specific frequency say 1kHz, and turning the LED on for 50% of the time, and off for 50% of the time, you get about 30% of the light output that an LED would have if it was on 100% of the time. (The relationship between PWM duty-cycle variation and LED light output is not linear.)

I'm not talking about a sine-wave. I have no experience on how sine-wave frequency shifts change light output on LEDs. I don't know of anyone who tries to dim LEDs that way, when PWM works so much better. Especially with the modern switching power supplies.

And, if you don't believe me that LED's do go entirely off during the off portion of the PWM cycle go ahead and take a high-speed film and slow it down and look at it. If your circuit allows that much current through an LED during the off portion of the cycle you have something else wrong with the circuit. I'm speaking from 15 year of automotive lighting design experience largely focused on using PWM to vary the light output of LEDs, not sitting at a bench doing FFT's. The slew rate, i.e. time it takes an LED to go from on to off, is measured in nanoseconds.

BTW, thanks W. Kevin Vicklund @58. I haven't paid attention to fluorescent lighting in the last decade or so. It's good to know that the modern ballasts are running at a much higher frequency. Back in the day I used the 60Hz output from our fluorescent fixtures as a strobe to align reel-to-reel data tape recorders. (Hey, they were ancient when I got to them!) But I haven't paid much attention to them recently.

I'm sure others have beaten me to it, and a Terminator too cliched anyway. Oh what the hell...

"...they cannot be reasoned with, cannot be bargained with. They feel no remorse, pity or mercy, and they absolutely will not stop their missions until they are done.
"

kittywampus: agreed completely.

I am somewhat faced with this right now. My wife and I are (as of a week ago Wed) expecting our second offspring. Obviously, we are very excited. I have been again hanging out in the pregnancy forums on-line (not sMothering.com), and so see a lot of discussions among moms. The topic of vaccines and autism has already come up, prompted by the Lancet retraction. Now, you have to be very careful in those places or get shunned, but fortunately, the response was generally very good, with just a few of the "H1N1 vaccine was too rushed" and crap like that.

There was only one real issue, with a mom (who I don't like anyway) spouting about the problems with THIMERASOL, and she heard that vaccines that are stored on the shelf are bad (her sister in law had a bad reaction) and those stored in the fridge.

Well, I just responded with statement that thimerasol is not in any pediatric vaccines except for multidose flu vaccines, and then provided a little more info about how actually, Wakefield's initial accusation was about the combined MMR, which never contained thimerasol, and that he stood to gain with his own, separated, vaccine.

So she gets all huffy (see my comment above about how moms are offended if you don't blow fluff up their pants), about how she never said anything about MMR (it was a thread about Wakefield, for pete's sake, it's all about MMR), how vaccines from the shelf are bad blah, blah, blah, with a link to something like www.vaccineinfo.edu. I don't know the link, but I don't trust it because edus are usually reserved for educational institutions, and someone grabbing a domain name like that has an agenda. I just came back with the link the FDA tables about thimerasol content in US vaccines (that I got from antiantivax - Thanks, Todd!) and described very clear with that data about how thimerasol is not present in pediatric vaccines except for multi-dose flu vials, as shown clearly here on the FDA website.

In the end, her steam diminishes, but she has to have the last word to say, "I'm still not taking any vaccine unless its from the fridge." I held my tongue, but it would have been real easy to retort, "I don't give a shit what you do, but don't blame thimerasol, that has nothing to do with it." The stupid thing is, in principle a thimerasol containing vaccine COULD be stored in the fridge, and she wouldn't have any problem with it. A case where a little knowledge is dangerous.

But the point is that I provided a very clear demonstration that thimerasol is not present in vaccines, and so was hopefully able to allay some fears (for the non dingbats) about it, without having to resort to telling them that their concerns were unfounded.

Flex,

good info. however, Si and Ge aren't used in LEDs because they are indirect bandgap materials. you need a direct bandgap semiconductor to have an efficient radiative transition probability. depending on the color of the LED, whether on the red or blue side of the spectrum, you will use different material systems. for red, AlGaAs and related alloys are used. for the blue side InGaN and related alloys used. by varying the semiconductor composition, for instance changing the Al %, you can vary the bandgap energy to get LED emission closer to the green portion of the spectrum. however, changing the semiconductor compostion too much introduces defects and strain which decrease the efficiency of the radiative transitions. that is why green LEDs are much lower efficiency than available red or blue LEDs. II-VI semiconductors show promise for making efficient green LEDs.

Congratulations, Pablo! All the best to you, your wife, and future child.

Hello friends -

Many of the 'famous' people described here may be unreachable. However, there may be some ways you could achieve some of your goals with people who might fall under the influence of the McCarthys and/or Wakefields. It will require some intellectual honesty, and that's the big problem; a lot of the core arguments in use don't stand up to simple logical tests, and indeed, many appear to be intentionally deceptive.

1) Stop pretending that studying thimerosal or the MMR can equate to "vaccines in general", whatever that means. Making this tired argument is absolutely a gift to the likes of JB Handley, and it is something that gets done all over the place, including this blog.

For a bunch of people that are supposedly scientists, this is disingenious to say the least; and this shell game ridiculousness is plainly visible to anyone who does any reading. Right or wrong, people raising children with autism do a lot of reading, and this argument is a surefire way to lose credibility. I am here to tell you, it does not matter how badly JB fucks up the details on his 14 studies site when the person arrives there after reading somewhere else that the vaccine question has been answered. The core argument he makes, that vaccination hasn't been studied regarding long term neurological changes, stands up. That's not good.

Shifting goalposts towards ethical concerns or explaining the complexities of performing such quality analysis are difficult tasks, but not nearly as insurmountable as convincing someone that you weren't lying to them when you tried to tell them that studying the MMR or thimerosal is equivalent to studying the vaccine schedule. These are arguments that have to be made up front, not only after it is implicitly acknowledged that vaccination hasn't really been studied. All the nuance and defendable science in the world is no good once someone is convinced you are a liar.

The medical community is in a tough position here, I believe the concerns over herd immunity are appropriate and I'd imagine there is a general belief that it might cause a lot more distrust to admit to this. But it doesn't matter, this is an acknowledgement that is going to have to be made sooner or later; in the meantime, the question is, do you allow folks like JB to have that yelling point or do you get in front of the situation?

2) Start acting like the observed increases in autism are a crisis so important that it doesn't matter if diagnostic changes have impacted rates as artifacts; in other words, acknowledge that the ramifications of an actual increase, no matter how small of a percentage of what is observed, is a big, big deal.

There aren't many people arguing that the entire observed increase is real; there are a few, but your goal needs to be reaching the moderates. But even the moderates realize that there are only two ways to interpret the history of our prevalance data:

a) The entire suite of prevalance studies available to us previously were bound by such monumental problems that they all missed huge swaths of the autism population, and all of our observations are the result of artifacts.

b) We are observing a true increase in prevelance of some unknown amount.

For example, Fombonne released a metadata study in 2008, just two years ago that found prevelance in the 60/70 - 10,000 range.

Great. But then a few months ago, the CDC comes out with 100 in 10,000K numbers, meaning that Fombonne must have been missing 30 - 40 per 10,000; or nearly half of his population.

It is possible that the studies Fombonne used were serial undercounting cases. While such a thing is possible, it is a difficult position to defend when your only defense is that all of our previous evaluations were wildly inaccurate, and also I have a quirky uncle that loves computers that would have been diagnosed today, but don't worry.

When this discrepancy is brought up, the only real answer that doesn't involve an actual increase is that, hey, our old studies didn't take into consideration "greater awareness" very well. Occassionally you'll see the argument made that any true increase must be minor. How do we know it is minor? By relying on artifacts that cannot be empiricized with any quality and seem capable of soaking up whatever prevelance numbers they come into contact with; like the Bounty of autism rates. Got a bigger spill? Get a bigger sponge!

It reminds me of when Bush kept on saying things like:

"The generals haven't told me they need more troops to secure Bagdad."

When the question back to him should have been,

"Did you ask the generals what it would take to secure Bagdad?"

Our real question should be, "What amount of a real increase in autism constitutes a health emergency?" Once you admit this is a meanignful question, however, the frailty of using the greater awareness crutch as an answer to our ever increasing observation rates becomes clear, and the credibility of those that use it is called into question when somehow everyone knows a friend of co-worker who is raising a child with autism.

Those are some of my ideas anyways.

- pD

Doh!

Of course! I tend to write far too much too quickly then edit down and missed the material change when I stopped discussing straightforward silicon and germanium diodes (a discussion about both normal and zener, subsequently edited out) and leaped into LEDs. My bad.

I'm trying hard not to be as loquacious as Orac himself.

@67:

1. There's never been any reason to believe that "vaccines in general" are a cause for concern, and they ARE as carefully safety tested as any other drug. If you insist on attempting to refute "vaccines in general" linked to autism, in the absence of any reason to suspect they are, you must also insist on refuting cough syrup as a cause of autism. And skateboards. And airplanes. It just doesn't make any sense at all.

MMR, thimerosal, etc. get specifically studied because that's what the claims are made about.

2. So we should ignore the question of whether or not there is a real increase and assume there is. With no grounds for doing so. Because yes, it's very, very, very easy to believe that earlier studies and later studies can get that level of difference without a real increase in incidence, if you understand the studies.

Ultimately, your entire post boils down to "we should completely ignore the facts and act like the concern du jour is necessarily true simply because some idiots have chosen to promote it."

@Pablo

Glad my site could help. And as an FYI to those who consider trying to get through to the AoA crowd, I've created a new site, Silenced By Age of Autism. It's a place where you can cross-post your comments from Age of Autism, in the event they decide to censor you.

Just posted a comment on an article by Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey.

It looks like it's easy for a skeptic to agree with Mooney, until Mooney stumbled into that skeptic's raison d'etre.

pD, did you really just accuse scientists of shifting the goalposts and playing a shell game? You have that 100% backwards. It's the antivaxxers who have historically moved the goalposts as their hypotheses get knocked over. "It's thimerosal!" "It's aluminum!" "It's antifreeze!" "It's this one vaccine!" "It's all vaccines!" "It's too many too soon!" Nice work twisting that around, though ... I'm sure you'll convince some people that there's merit to what you're saying.

I'm speaking from 15 year of automotive lighting design experience largely focused on using PWM to vary the light output of LEDs, not sitting at a bench doing FFT's. The slew rate, i.e. time it takes an LED to go from on to off, is measured in nanoseconds.

And precious few of them, at that. There are these things called "optocouplers," after all, made of an LED and a photoreceptor switch. I was making them switch in nanoseconds almost forty years ago, and they've gotten faster since.

I'm not sure what the incentive for building bridges with these crazies are.

If there are parents out there that are so completely clueless to trust a washed-up stripper with silly anecdote rather than medical professionals with real, significant scientific data- so be it. Intelligence has a large hereditary basis. I figure in a few generations, humanities' genetics might be better for just letting the stupid engage in a self-destructive activity (like anti-vaxxing and feeding kids industrial cleaners).

Stop pretending that studying thimerosal or the MMR can equate to "vaccines in general", whatever that means

I might agree, but I have to say, we aren't the ones doing that!

We aren't the ones who have moved from "MMR causes autism" to "all vaccines are bad."

Whenever the question of the flu vaccine comes up by the anti-vax nuts that show up here, I always ask the same question: MMR at least has an association with the onset of autism symptoms, and so at least has the possibility of creating a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. However, as far as I know, know one ever has ever suggested that the flu vaccine is associated with anything, much less autism! So why the big outrage, especially among the AoA-type community?

No one has ever answered that, and just whine about Desiree Jennings. We are the ones who keep pointing out that thimerasol is not present in pediatric vaccines, so what does that have to do with anything?

No, it is the anti-vaxxers that keep throwing up red-herrings. They rely on the autism scare to get everyone opposed to vaccines, despite the vaccines that only MMR has ever been associated with autism (incorrectly). Thimerasol is a red-herring, and moot, anyway, since it isn't used. DTaP (like prevnar) is given already at 2 months, long before autism symptoms, so all those who say, "My son was fine until he got the MMR shot" have vindicated DTaP. etc

We focus on MMR and thimerasol because those are the ones that are actually the issue. Constantly bringing in other vaccines is total obfuscation.

I'm sure others have beaten me to it, and a Terminator too cliched anyway. Oh what the hell...

"...they cannot be reasoned with, cannot be bargained with. They feel no remorse, pity or mercy, and they absolutely will not stop their missions until they are done."

Actually, in a rare bit of self-restraint I intentionally refrained from making just that Terminator reference. :-)

"We've already spent enough time and money searching for a link and keep coming up empty. It's time to stop wasting resources and move onto something productive."

This is exactly the message of the Autism Science Foundation, which I hope will eclipse the woo-susceptible Autism Speaks as the nation's preeminent autism organization. http://www.autismsciencefoundation.org/

If you don't count the massive amount of inductance and the response rate of the bulb itself, then you might be able to say it "goes dark". Of course, you would then be smacked around by any decent electrical engineer in sight. There is an incredible amount of energy storage supplying the voltages and currents to a standard fluorescent bulb.

Um, JayK, lighting is near unity power factor. There are a lot of harmonics injected by the ballasts, but the inductance seen by the bulb is negligible. The peak values of the harmonics are not sufficient to cause excitation. However, the response rate of the phosphors do extend the lit phase somewhat, and especially so at higher frequencies.

Just a comment from a "decent electrical engineer" (with lighting certification).

Just switch to electronic ballasts, they run at 10K-20K hz and the glow decay of the bulb is slow enough that the light never goes out.
As Lincoin said, I will stick to my line of reasoning until someone shows me a better one.

About this, that I related from recent news -

40% of cancers could be prevented with vaccines and a healthy lifestyle

- Pablo writes the following:

You know, I hate this statement. Not because it is wrong, but because it is so ripe for abuse. It feeds straight into the supplement manufacturer market.

Oh, I absolutely agree with you. But it is kinda fun thinking about the world being turned on its head to the point where supplement makers would advertise the effectiveness of their wares using headlines that praise vaccines.

Oh, I absolutely agree with you. But it is kinda fun thinking about the world being turned on its head to the point where supplement makers would advertise the effectiveness of their wares using headlines that praise vaccines.

Were that to happen, yes, but it won't. The vaccines part will be ignored. In fact, when I heard the comment the other day (from a doctor on Dr Radio), it didn't say vaccines. It was only about "lifestyle choices." That would include vaccination, true, but it also includes issues such as cancers that result from HIV and HPV.

What do you think is going to highlighted? Certainly not vaccination and smoking.

Hi Scott -

There's never been any reason to believe that "vaccines in general" are a cause for concern, and they ARE as carefully safety tested as any other drug. If you insist on attempting to refute "vaccines in general" linked to autism, in the absence of any reason to suspect they are, you must also insist on refuting cough syrup as a cause of autism. And skateboards. And airplanes. It just doesn't make any sense at all.

Please don't confuse 'safety testing' with the ability to detect subtle neurological changes that only become manifestly obvious months or years after an insult. In any case, a logical progression of what has been done, retrospective studies on thimerosal or the MMR refutes the idea that these safety studies analyzed outcomes like autism. Think about it; why perform a retrospective study at all if existing safety studies used autism as a measurement endpoint? The existing safety studies had no useful information for us regarding autism.

Unfortunately, there is a growing body of literature suggesting that abnormal immune function may play a part in the pathogenesis of autism.

For example, a study that just came out in the past week found that children with Fragile X that had autism had different immunological profiles than children with Fragiile X and without autism. There are many, many others that have found abnormalities in the immune function of children with autism. There are many, many more.

Furthermore, we have a growing body of evidence that immune disturbances during critical timeframes can have lifelong immune and behavioral effects. We are tinkering around with a system we barely understand. Most of this understanding has come about after our aggressive increase in the vaccination schedule; especially in the early months was introduced.

So we should ignore the question of whether or not there is a real increase and assume there is. With no grounds for doing so. Because yes, it's very, very, very easy to believe that earlier studies and later studies can get that level of difference without a real increase in incidence, if you understand the studies.

The presumption was that Fombonne understood when he was doing in 2008 when he came out with 60-70 / 100,000 right? Or Fombonne in 2003? Or any other prevelance study previous to that that came out with numbers less than what we see today. I am especially amused by the idea that we have "no grounds" to believe that some of the increase is real. By the same token, if our diagnostic tools are so poor, why grounds do we have to believe that the latest CDC numbers of 100 per 100,000 are real? Why not 200 per 100,000K? Why not 1000 per 100,000K? What has caused you to suddenly believe our current batch of studies are solid, when in order to do so, you must admit our previous studies are deeply flawed?

But in any case, your argument still hinges absolutely on all of the observed increase being imaginary, and you can make no good argument for how this might be except for invoking the superstrings of autism rates; responsible for everything we observe, but possessing qualities that render them impossible to measure accurately after twenty years of looking.

- pD

As Lincoin said, I will stick to my line of reasoning until someone shows me a better one.

Not a good argument. If I hold to a line of reasoning, which leads me to a particular conclusion, and someone demonstrates to me that it is correct, the proper new conclusion is "I don't know," not "the conclusion is still assumed correct until the correct one can be demonstrated." It's pure intellectual laziness.

terminator quotes!

gotta love 'em. especially when they fit!

Oren wrote:

As Lincoin said, I will stick to my line of reasoning until someone shows me a better one.

Please see posts 40, 46, and 53.

Um, yeah, that should read "demonstrates to me that it is INcorrect". I so wish we had an edit button here.

I have Asperger syndrome and am always deeply offended whenever I hear these nitwits. There should be an organization, if not already existing, of people with autism who are angry at the faux "pro-autism" pseudoscientists.

Back to Mike Adams and Natural News -

I've had some fun today responding to his MA's latest woo on Wakefield on Facebook, specifically here:

"The Lancet retraction of vaccine autism paper condemned as Big Pharma conspiracy to discredit Dr. Wakefield."

http://www.facebook.com/HealthRanger?v=feed&story_fbid=288566233924

I've challenged Adams to back up his claims, posted past news stories, links to the GMC ruling, and have watched NN censor's delete virtually all of them.

So I've kept them busy by reposting them. Finally, I got this "notification:"

NaturalNews.com commented on their link:

"@George: please leave this forum. How much does drug companies pay you to spread this pro-vaccine nonsense. ~ NN Support"

So, if you're bored tonight and want to post some reason, facts, and anti-woo, join the fun.

@ Cory Miller- Agreed.

When I was a kid, everyone just thought I was really shy. In my 20s, I was diagnosed as having various social anxiety disorders. A couple of years ago, at age 31, I was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome. The diagnostic criteria has certainly changed.

And, considering that I have two post-graduate degrees, a professional job in an office environment, a wife and a nine month old baby girl (who's had all her vaccinations to this point, and will continue to get them), I think I'm doing fairly well for myself. Which is why I continue to be offended by the "Their lives are ruined!" talk at AoA.

I think Scott (67) was simply trying to give advice on how to avoid the pitfalls of dialogue with the anti-vax crowd. The way I interpreted his comment was that they've moved the goalposts, but we haven't moved the argument, so they can triumphantly crow "More study is needed" because we're focused on what the science actually SAYS.

Another thing, why aren't we making more hay out of the fact that our multi-function vaccines are actually reducing the number of individual vaccines needed? And that these jab-reducing measures are all marketed by our Big Pharma overlords? And that Wakefield actually ADVOCATED the use of more individual vaccines rather than a combination, which would result in children getting jabbed more times?

I feel like there's a book to be written here: How to Talk to an Anti-Vaccinationist. If someone's already working on this, I apologize for scooping you.

While I find all this electrical engineer stuff interesting, I think you two (or three) are getting a little off-topic and have more that made your point to Oren--who is obviously not equipped to do battle with any of you. I am saying this with a smile as I have enjoyed reading (as best I can) your posts and I really liked Flex's (I think) smack down of Oren's "theory"!

Old-style florescent lights make me "agitated" (anxiety?) and the new curlycue ones bother my eyes after a few hours (but don't agitate me). I don't have enough direct experience with LED's so can't say. Anyway, all these posts have helped me to understand that a bit better (but only a bit). So now I'm the one who is off topic. Sorry.

I agree with Orac on all of this, and find these comments some of the best and most insightful I've ever seen on this blog. It's very important to keep trying to get to those who haven't started barking yet. I cannot tell you how many alt med devotees have told me that doctors have called or made them feel "stupid", so whether or not this actually happens the way it is perceived, docs need to be aware and do their best not to lose ground with those who are still open to reason. I speak as a mother who was young and susceptible to all sorts of things I would read about on a casual basis. Had I not gone to college (after babies) and taken some science courses, I'm not sure I'd be reading this blog today instead of AoA. I was in college when Mothering Magazine started up and they almost got to me with their early vax stuff.

The bridge that needs to be built is not from science to the leaders of the anti-vaxx movement, but from science to the general public. Increasing public education would probably go a long way towards this.

This is also true of the arguments for evolution and global warming as well.

Communication with people who are on the edge of this group is a really interesting and important problem that should be taken very seriously. As Orac pointed out, it does closely mimic the evolution-creation problem, with a large group of people on the fence over the issues. Obviously, it is pointless to try to convince the converted, but what should you do with those undecided?

There was a great article in Nature about communicating with people in a different social group: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v463/n7279/full/463296a.html (might be behind paywall, sorry!) It says that you are more likely to hold the same beliefs as other members of your social group, regardless of the evidence or science behind one position or the other. In other words, they accept whatever position "reinforces their connection to others with whom they share important commitments." It references primarily the divide between global warming acceptance vs. deniers and giving HPV vaccine to schoolgirls.

So it seems like the anti-vaxxers have a substantial advantage, not only because they use emotional arguments to convince parents, but also because they are most likely in the same social groups as these parents.

Some suggestions that the authors make are 1) presenting arguments and evidence in a way that "affirms rather than threatens peoples' values." 2) Make sure evidence is vouched for by several, diverse experts.

I think the suggestions are excellent, easy, and good to keep in mind when communicating facts surrounding intensely emotional issues.

Full citation: Kahn, D. Fixing the communications failure. Nature 463, 296-297 (21 January 2010).

Pablo:

Congrats on your second child!!! How exciting.

About those parenting boards... I started visiting them when I was pregnant, and met a nice group a women who all had babies the same month as my daughter was born. Mostly I go there to chat with them, but occasionally someone will link me to another forum where vaccines are being discussed. It's super frustrating to hear all the nonsense being said, and I try so hard to keep my cool when "talking" with these ladies.

Inevitably, what happens after I cite every piece of medical literature to refute their claims, it comes back to "To me, some people treat science as a religion. Whatever is generally accepted and pushed by the scientific community is taken as gold. When billions upon billions of dollars are circulating through the different facets of scientific findings, there are too many opportunities for corruption. The corruption that exists, and is known for a fact to exist, to me is bad enough. But then you have to worry about the shit that goes on that you don't know about! It's just not a trustworthy institution to me. They've messed up too many times and have too many conflicts of interest." You can't argue with conspiracy theorists. And more and more of them are turning to this as their ultimate explaination.

My mistake: the author's name is Kahan, D. NOT Kahn.

@ scott lamorte:you invoke some of my worries- there's *less* money for increases in public education; *less* money for newspapers and magazines to do research(Chris Matthews,MSNBC today, although in a different context);TV news has often become cavalier and histrionic; AND self-publishing and self-broadcasting via the internet is affordable and relatively easy.Still, I do believe that *most* people will eventually listen to reason- although it might have to be spoon-fed,presented in a catchy manner,shown to save money,appeal to their sense of vanity, frighten them into acceptance,use a tried-and-true advertising gimmick, or many repetitions to get through to them.Wakefield has been shown(to all but the wildest conspiracy mongers)to be a scoundrel:the general public will "get" that.

Mooney suggested a way out of this problem that is profoundly misguided, naive, and reveals a profound misunderstanding of the anti-vaccine movement.

This sort of mistake is getting to be a bad habit of his.

Actually, as you see, I was quoting someone else as an example of two unreconcilable parties, but point taken. Even so, remember that Sweet's example was, in essence, claiming that Mooney would have taken the side of the Nazis during the Holocaust. Not nice.

Not nice. But very plausible extrapolation given his aggressively invertebrate attitude towards other, more immediate forms of dangerous lunacy.

Chris Mooney seems to be either constitutionally incapable of understanding that some people are plainly and simply unreasonable, or a deeply dishonest shill.

Many of the comments by the vaccination defenders here sound just as strident as those of their most fundamentalist and "unreachable" opponents, promoting an unconditional belief in so-called science whithout assessing the credibility of their own priesthood.

What is an outsider to think of the great fanfare about the Lancet's retracting the Wakefield study when the medical literature remains riddled with flawed and bogus "studies" that falsely promote dangerous medications? See, for instance, the recent article by Martha Rosenbarg "Why are Pfizer's Ghostwritten Hormone Therapy Articles not Retracted?"

Similarly, see retinopathyofprematurity.org about the built-in lack of self-correction in medical "science", and the revolting examples of clinical research frauds to the detriment of premature babies documented on that entire site. For instance, the 1995 LIGHT-ROP study exposed preemies knowingly to overdoses of fluorescent light, including the allegedly "protected" group, to arrive at the predictable (and liability-deflecting) conclusion that this light had not changed the incidence of blinding among the study grooups and was therefore unrelated to the blinding.

These medical reserachers bluntly denied and then ignored the easily calculated fact that the still extremely vulnerable retinae of a preemie in a typical fluorescent-lit intensive care nursery are exposed during their first ten to fifteen minutes to more damage-weighted retinal irradiance than what the US Occupational Safety Guidelines consider as the danger limit for adult industrial workers over an eight-hour shift.

(Note to Oren Evans: This blinding overdose has nothing to do with the flickering rate but with the high intensity of the mercury emission line at 435.8 nanometers in the spectrum of virtually all fluorescent lamps. This wavelength is right in the most retina-damaging region of the entire visible spectrum, as established by Occupational Safety researchers.)

The New England Journal of Medicine published that intentionally misleading paper although its editors had been alerted to the rigging of the study and to many other ethics violations in its design. The epidemic of baby-blinding from retinopathy of prematurity continues therefore to generate large revenues for pediatric retinal surgery and diagnostic apparatus as well as drug trials.

This epidemic began in the US with the introduction of fluorescent lamps and repeated that parallel in other industrial countries after World War II when fluorescent lamps became available there. However, some eugenics- minded doctors preferred to blame the blinding on oxygen breathing help. They had openly stated that they wanted to eliminate the babies with the "defective germ plasm", and by rigging their study they succeeded in having unwitting neonatologists asphyxiate the most vulnerable preemies in large numbers to so reduce the number of babies having to grow up blind.

Any rational observer is inevitably led to conclude that as long as medical "science" continues to deny and cover up such blatant and patient-harming frauds the rest of its pronouncements is not to be trusted either. Those who demonize the vaccination opponents should therefore first ask themselves what they can do to restore credibility to their own guild before they can blame parents for not entrusting their children to the so far unproven medical assertions of vaccinations' long-term safety.

Respectfully submitted,
Peter Aleff

Many of the comments by the vaccination defenders here sound just as strident as those of their most fundamentalist and "unreachable" opponents

I have the weirdest feeling of deja vu with this particular bullshit claim...

(Though I'm still holding out for an epiphany on Orac's end.)

Mooney doesn't seem to realize that saying "Come, let us reason together" to an anti-vaxer is like saying "here, kick me in the stomach" to a kick-happy 8 year old.
Or, to steal from someone else: "there's no use telling the other side when the other side is complete bollocks!"

Mothers in Africa are prepared to walk for days, with their children on their backs, on their shoulders and in makeshift carts, only to get them vaccinated. Now why would this be? Could it perhaps be because every single day they have to witness the misery these illnesses can cause?

Surely many people in our western society don't know how extremely lucky they are and the really terrible thing is that with their narrowminded refusal to be educated they jeopardize the health of countless children.

Peter Aleff

That's a good conspiracy theory you've got there. It could do with a few more Freemasons though. And perhaps a connection to HAARP and the LHC.

To Azkyroth and hyperdeath: you are proving my point about medical "science" lacking any self-correction mechanism. All you can do is call my argument "bullshit" and "conspiracy theory" without having the guts to engage the facts. Anyone can resort to name-calling, particularly those who cannot refute basic and inconvenient arguments. This is not the way to gain any bystander's trust, or to start correcting any of the glaring frauds and other flaws in the medical doctrine.

Peter Aleff

Peter Aleff: A couple people on a blog thread mocking you for proposing giant conspiracies and generally failing to comprehend how things work hardly means medical science lacks self-correction mechanisms.

It just means that making random blog posts really isn't one of them, and that's a good thing.

Postscript to Azkyroth and hyperdeath: If your bubble of isolation from the real world can still be penetrated, you might benefit from an article by Simon Jenkins in this morning's Guardian, titled "Scientists, you are fallible. Get off the pedestal and join the common herd." His main subject is the sloppiness in the climatology debate where data were suppressed and criticism ignored but he also draws a parallel to the vaccination controversy:

"The wildly exaggerated flu scares promoted over the past decade by virologists and their friends in government have so undermined trust in epidemiology that people are refusing flu vaccination. In the case of the MMR scare, it took London's Royal Free Hospital a shocking 10 years to investigate the scientists responsible, and the General Medical Council to discipline them."

That article concludes: "Only when science comes off its pedestal and joins the common herd will it see the virtue in self-criticism. Until then, sceptics must do the job as best they can." I suggest you take this admonition to heart before spouting more of your "bullshit" and "conspiracy theories", and recognize the right and duty of skeptics to question your assertions. Thank you again for having so vividly demonstrated the need for my criticism.

You could also point out the unethical, high-risk treatments alternative practitioners foist on children.

Simply because a child has been diagnosed with autism does NOT provide medical justification to perform colonoscopies, lumbar punctures, or chelation on that child.

Chelation in particular is being performed by practitioners with no specialized training in that field, and people have died as a result.

Postscript to Azkyroth and hyperdeath: If your bubble of isolation from the real world can still be penetrated, you might benefit from an article by Simon Jenkins in this morning's Guardian UK, titled "Scientists, you are fallible. Get off the pedestal and join the common herd." His main subject is the sloppiness in the climatology debate where data were suppressed and criticism ignored but he also draws a parallel to the vaccination controversy:

Hi Pablo -

I might agree, but I have to say, we aren't the ones doing that!

David Gorski writes:

Moreover, the claims of proponents of an increasingly untenable hypothesis to the contrary, there is no convincing evidence that thimerosal-containing vaccines, or vaccines in general, have anything to do with the etiology of autism.

Or Orac, here:

This happens all the time with vaccines and autism, where numerous epidemiological studies have failed to find an association between either mercury in thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism, between MMR and autism, and between vaccines in general and autism.

[crossposted on SBM the same day]

Or Stephen Novella, at SBM

In reality, the weight of the evidence is overwhelmingly against a link between thimerosal (or vaccines in general) and autism or any other neurodegenerative disorder.

These are people that know full well that there simply haven't been any studies one way or the other on the vaccination schedule, but the spin is to consistently imply that there has been research. This isn't being lazy or not knowing better, Orac and Mr. Novella are obviously very smart and capable of generating a lot of content. This is intentionally trying to cover up an inconvenient fact; our studies are incomplete.

The media coverage of the retraction is the same, "The question has beeen answered."

As the thread was about reaching out to people, my thoughts were that you can't be seen as deceiving them. It doesn't matter if people find both JB Handley and mainstream medicine as deceptive, that's still a parent you lose.

Thimerasol is a red-herring, and moot, anyway, since it isn't used. DTaP (like prevnar) is given already at 2 months, long before autism symptoms, so all those who say, "My son was fine until he got the MMR shot" have vindicated DTaP. etc

Hehe. While I'm in full agreement that the thimerosal issue was way overblown, but your statement reveals a lot about the problems with how this is being approached. With autism being a disorder that outwardly manifests itself behaviorally, I'd love to hear your description of how we could tell, behaviorally that a child was affected by their two month shots? Did the child stop talking? Did they start spinning in circles? What does an autistic two month old look like?

The implicit arguement is that because we cannot observe acute, immediate changes in an infact, there must not be any effect. It would be one thing if this wasn't just a matter of conveniently skipping past the point that we haven't done any evaluations of the early shot schedule; but the reality is, we have a growing body of evidence that disturbances to the immune system early in development can have lifelong effects on immune function and behavior. The paper I linked to above, Early-Life Programming of Later-Life Brain and Behavior: A Critical Role for the Immune System is a review of a series of studies by several groups regarding subtle but real effects of immune disturbances during early life. Another paper, Postnatal Inflammation Increases Seizure Susceptibility in Adult Rats decribes cytokine mediated alterations in seizure succeptibility into adulthood, if the animal was challenged during specific developmental timeframes. There are many, many more.

The reason studies like this are salient is that our population of interest, autism, has been shown again and again to not only have disturbances in immune function, but indeed, to have exaggerated innate immune responses, for example, Enstrom, Jyonouchi, or Ashwood.

So, we have increasing evidence that immune disturbances during early development can have lifelong influences and a population with curious immunological profiles indeed, a straightforward pathway towards a dose relationship regarding innate immune response.

The Bigfoot defense gets thrown out a lot regarding vaccines and autism, but the facts on the ground are that we have a growing body evidence that abnormal immune function is playing a part in autism. Consider the Fragile X study I posted above; just by evaluating blood samples for cytokines, I can beat Vegas odds at determining which child with Fragile X also has a diagnosis of autism.

At the same time we seem to be observing unprecedented increases in the rates of autism, we have dramatically increased the frequency and strenght of the immune reactions we create during the first months of a childs life. If this makes you curious, you are out of luck because one thing you aren't going to find is anything other than evaluations of a vaccine given between one year and eighteen months; long after the majority of our schedule has already been implemented. If it doesn't make you curious, it should.

When someone wonders aloud about the fact that the history of our historical prevelance studies are by necessity worthless if our current evaluations have meaning, the fact that the people at AOA are idiots is used as an arguing point. It doesn't matter if the people who want to use Desiree Jenkins as a takling point are morons. The fact that the campers at AOA or Natural News or whatever have problems getting their facts straight does absolutely nothing to make our existing suite of research any more robust; instead of arguing against them, why isn't anyone worried that what we do know is woefully inadequate, but is nonetheless used to paint a picture of scientific certainty?

- pD

Peter Aleff, someone might reply to your points. If I was not about to leave I might. However you should be aware that you are hardly the first person to come here and say the exact same things. These topics have been addressed over and over again. People get a little tired of hearing about the same old things from people who think they are saying someting new. Take some time and read the archives. The search box is your friend.

The problem isn't with what Mooney advocates or what people like Orac want to do.

The problem is when people set these two approaches up as a needless false dilemma and pretend that theirs is the silver bullet. As that link shows, it's been happening with religion and climate skepticism, and now anti-vax. I think we'll have to move past our own willful ignorance about how to approach communication if we're going to ever make progress at killing off all forms of anti-science silliness.

"I think we'll have to move past our own willful ignorance about how to approach communication if we're going to ever make progress at killing off all forms of anti-science silliness."

I hate chimming in on these arguments but something has been nagging at me for the longest time now and I need someone to set my mind to rest.

Shouldn't the deciding factor among people be what the science says and not our rhetoric? If we do make it about the rhetoric (which is what Mooney seems to be advocating) what then? If the public bases its decisions on who makes their message mot appealing aren't we back at square one? Where's the progress?

Judging from the average intelligence and thoughtfulness of Orac's readers I'm sure someone here has an answer.

I believe that we should build bridges, not with hardened ideologues, but with those who can be reached. I like Chris Mooney a lot because he is dedicated to diplomacy and building bridges, and while I don't agree with everything he says, I do think that what he is saying is very important. I also think it would be cool to see Orac interviewed on a major news outlet such as CNN at some point.

Peter Aleff, if you would like to get down from your own pedestal for a moment, you will see that most skeptics are extremely critical of the medical establishment. For example, in his book Bad Science, arch-skeptic Ben Goldacre absolutely crucifies the pharmaceutical industry. Similarly, Orac has run many stories criticising medical errors and dodgy medical science.

As for Simon Jenkins, he has hopelessly gotten the wrong end of the stick, and is "debunking" claims that no medical researcher has actually made. In his mind, warnings of the possibility of a pandemic are somehow equal to claims that a pandemic is imminent. He thinks that he has been vindicated by past warnings coming to little, but in reality his logic is similar to that of a man who has just survived a round of Russian Roulette thinking that what he did was safe all along. In reality, the epidemiologists are being cautiously uncertain, whilst Jenkins is being uncautiously certain; in Jenkins's mind, they are arrogant and he is modest.

Scientists should accept criticism, but that doesn't mean that all criticism is valid. Science has been wrong before, but that doesn't mean that it is wrong about everything. Science has had its fair share of scandals, but that doesn't mean that all science is scandalous. As the old joke goes, "they laughed at Galileo; they also laughed at Bozo the Clown".

Now, do you have any actual evidence for your claims?

@ young skeptic needing help:(about the "deciding factor" you describe)-if only!!!!Jenny & Company have an audience precisely *because* people *don't* look at the science.However,I'm emphatically *not* saying to mimic the woo-meisters' methods:but we should be aware of *why* parents may fall into the emotion-laden lures (and advertising techniques)of the anti-vaxers.Quackwatch & Autismwatch discuss this.Also some commenters here-kwombles,Prometheus,Todd W.- have sites to consider.(Those who combat HIV/AIDS denialism are in the same boat).And why *not* chime in?

That is amusing, especially because you cite Fombonne who writes in the abstract of the 60-70/10,000 review article you mention:

"There is evidence that the broadening of the concept, the expansion of diagnostic criteria, the development of services, and improved awareness of the condition have played a major role in explaining this increase, although it cannot be ruled out that other factors might have also contributed to that trend."

By the same token, if our diagnostic tools are so poor, why grounds do we have to believe that the latest CDC numbers of 100 per 100,000 are real?

Who says the 100 per 100,000 is some concrete or "real" number? Not the CDC. Here's what they said:

In 2006, on average, approximately 1% or one child in every 110 in the 11 ADDM sites was classified as having an ASD (approximate range: 1:80--1:240 children [males: 1:70; females: 1:315]).

That's a range of about 40 in 10,000 - 120 in 10,000 (which encompass the number you attribute to Fombonne).

Additionally, the CDC ADDM data for ASD's contains variability in ascertainment methodology, and they noted some of the impact of this:

"ASD prevalence varied by type of ascertainment source, with higher average prevalence in sites with access to health and education records (10.0) compared with sites with health records only (7.5)."

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss5810a1.htm

Do you really believe you've presented an apples to apples comparison with respect to methodology pD?

Travis, if the topics I document about clinical research frauds had been addressed over and over again, as you claim, then why did none of the scientists "tired of hearing about the same old things" do the ethical thing and stop the routine medical abuses of preemies resulting from those frauds? Instead, you arrogantly dismiss out of hand arguments which you did not even examine. Can you refute any of the evidence of scientific misconduct that I present? If you cannot, then why are you not helping to expose those frauds as any ethical people would do?

To hyperdeath: your logic seems to be that not all criticism of medical science is valid, and that therefore none of it is valid. This is not how science is supposed to work. Also, you ask me whether I have any actual evidence for my claims, but you omitted to check the link where I provide a full and so far never refuted documentation of what I say. By summarily ignoring the evidence provided to then question its existence you don't act as a scientist. But to judge from your posts, your wagon-circling denial mentality appears to have exempted you from this basic requirement.

Mooney's claims contain a small kernel of truth, in that many anti-vaxxers are just worried parents, and that gentle persuasion is probably the best approach.

Unfortunately, he has overlooked the fact that much of the movement is essentially a cult, and is fuelled by narcissism, egotism and messianic fantasies. Andrew Wakefield probably imagines himself as the next Louis Pasteur. Melanie Phillips probably imagines herself as the next Emile Zola. People like this have the choice of living in two worlds: In the first, they are brave and unyielding crusaders for truth and justice. In the second, they are paranoid idiots who have wasted their lives in support of a dangerous and pathetic delusion. It takes a lot of effort to drag someone from the first of these worlds into the real world. Indulging their fantasies by treating them as partners in some great debate will only make things worse.

Peter Aleff:

"Thank you again for having so vividly demonstrated the need for my criticism."

Funny, your post seems to mostly be Simon Jenkins' criticism.

The article you're referring to is here. Was it so very hard to link?

As to the portion of the (thoroughly mendacious) article that you quoted above: blaming scientists and government health organizations for the fearmongering perpetrated by the media is unfair. Then again, the situation is essentially no-win for said health organizations: if they warn the public that a new strain of flu is dangerous and mass deaths don't occur, they're blamed for exaggerating the threat, even if it's the vaccines they promote that headed off the threat in the first place, and even if it's loudmouthed media figures who exaggerated their warning into SHUT DOWN EVERYTHING. If they don't warn the public and more people than usual die, they're blamed for not taking the virus seriously.

More generally, it's hilarious, in a sad sort of way, that the one discipline of human thought that has a formal process of self-review and self-criticism is being criticized for thinking itself infallible. Yes, occasionally peer review fails. No, this does not mean that peer-reviewed literature, in general, is no more reliable than somebody's forum post about florescent lights causing autism (no offense, Owen). I don't even want to get started on Jenkins' misinterpretations (to be charitable) of 'Climategate', etc., but in general, he seems to be a fine example of the typical modern 'skeptic', insisting that claims made by scientists about science are no more reliable than claims made by anyone else about science, and, moreover, that this is all the fault of scientists for not being perfect. Sheesh.

I'm not going to waste time respond to Peter Aleff because I see nothing but a strawman in the first place.

Scientists get things wrong, and know that. However, in those cases it is because of work by other scientists (or even themselves!), not some rantings of looney conspiracy theorists.

Off topic, but Novella's Neurologica is suspended. Would anyone have any idea what's going on?

Oh, wow, Peter Aleff is a climate change denialist, too! Who would have thought?

And this sentence is hilarious: "Only when science comes off its pedestal and joins the common herd will it see the virtue in self-criticism." Self-criticism and self-correcting mechanisms are built into the very definition and process of science. This writer really just means, "Only when scientists start accepting the particular criticisms that *I* think are valid..."

I'm beginning to think Dunning and Kruger might have discovered the key to explaining most of human society and history. Their observations seem constantly applicable, everywhere I look.

Peter Aleff @ 115:

No, my claim is that some criticism is valid, and some isn't valid. Nothing more. The point I was making is the existence of the former doesn't add any weight to the latter.

As for evidence, do you have anything besides websites that assert the same thing as you do? I can find websites which "prove" that Barack Obama is a reptilian alien. It doesn't make it true.

(Incidentally, the impressive looking numbers in brackets count for little. For a reference to count for anything, it actually has to be relevant to the conclusions being drawn.)

Hi DoC -

Do you really believe you've presented an apples to apples comparison with respect to methodology pD?

Hehe.

If one of the most quoted epidemiologists and recent numbmers from the CDC miss by 40 out of 100,000, it isn't my fault. To illustrate how absurd this argument is, flip it on its head; imagine the CDC came out with values of 20 - 30 per 100,000; 40 less than Fombonne. Does anyone really think we'd see calls that the CDC must have missed a huge number of kids with autism, maybe because of undercounting because we have trust in Fombonne's values? Anyone?

You are still relying on the God of the Gaps to fill in all of the values with non real changes in between Fombonne 2008, everything before him, and evertyhing since him. That ought to be ringing a lot of alarm bells for anyone who really considers themselves a sketpic.

What I love about this argument is that is fundamentally proves my point; all of our epidemiology is poorly constructed; and yet, people seem to be very willing to jump the gun to assume that one hundred percent of our observed increases are artifacts. Why? It is because once you admit that some of the increase might be real,it quickly becomes apparent that actually trying to empricize the amount of true increase with the artifact with any certainty is impossible. Once you admit this, the questions get even more uncomfortable.

Our existing prevelance studies are so discordant over time that the only commonality is a decreasing number of children with a diagnosis as we move into the past.

What level of a true increase do you think would qualify as a true health emergency, DoC? 1%? 5%? 25%?

- pD

@ Young Skeptic

Judging from the average intelligence and thoughtfulness of Orac's readers I'm sure someone here has an answer.

Thank you. And now to your question.

The goal is to vaccinate by any means necessary. Everything else is immaterial. Beside people are too stupid to understand science.

Off topic, but Novella's Neurologica is suspended. Would anyone have any idea what's going on?

Probably just an ISP overload. Not only did was he on television recently about the Desiree Jennings case but he was also linked to by a newspaper recompensing his blog.

"Shouldn't the deciding factor among people be what the science says and not our rhetoric?"

Good science and ineffective persuasion can be trumped by bad science and appealing rhetoric (accompanied by a heavy dose of scare-mongering).

Good science needs to be communicated effectively. We're at a point where this is increasingly realized, and the hardcore antivaxers are starting to be pushed back on both fronts.

Understandably they're not happy about it.

The goal is to vaccinate by any means necessary. Everything else is immaterial. Beside people are too stupid to understand science.

Jenny McCarthy does the same thing though. There is a video of her on Youtube calling parts of the body Iran, Iraq, Kings, and Rambo. I couldn't even begin to tell you what she was talking about though because she dumbed it down so much. It had something to do with allergies though I know it that much.

What a reality check I got this week when I talked with my health provider's travel clinic about prescriptions and immunizations for an upcoming trip to India. Because I'm stopping over in the UK, I am being advised to get another MMR because measles is now considered to be endemic there. Great work anti-vaxxers!

@Mr. Aleff: very interesting website with no verifiable data. Medical Veritas is NOT a peer-reviewed medical journal. And this has nothing to do with the topic Orac has written about.

Ok, what's with the anti-light-bulb conspiracies?

Aleff, my clueless chum, surely even a climate change denialist, anti-medicine and anti-health nut like you MUST be able to spot the glaring ignorance required to simultaneously claim that the medical establishment is actively rejecting and silencing criticisms... and then using as an example the fact that the medical establishment took ten years to punish Wakefield for fraud-based criticisms (your post 107, the MMR scare reference).

Don't kid yourself, the MMR scare was an attack on the medical community's consensus that vaccines are recommended. If outright fabircation of evidence leading to fraudulent criticism leading to dead children takes a decade for the scientific establishment to get off its butt to defend itself against, if a decade goes by while fake data against vaccines is allowed to stand in the medical records, then this has to be the most inept, slow-moving conspiracy ever. What, is the Illuminati run by sloths? Were secret orders given out, but they were so secret that the agents responsible for action were never allowed to know what those orders were? Or do we just have the one black helicopter, and are now a decade backlogged in our operations? Circling the wagons doesn't take a decade to accomplish.

If one of the most quoted epidemiologists and recent numbmers from the CDC miss by 40 out of 100,000, it isn't my fault. To illustrate how absurd this argument is, flip it on its head; imagine the CDC came out with values of 20 - 30 per 100,000; 40 less than Fombonne. Does anyone really think we'd see calls that the CDC must have missed a huge number of kids with autism, maybe because of undercounting because we have trust in Fombonne's values? Anyone?

Did you miss the part where Fombonne's review number is encompassed within the CDC range? The argument is only absurd to a straw man who assumes that the CDC's estimate of an average 90 in 10,000 (1 in 110) is a methodological apples to apples comparison to the papers Fombonne reviewed. It probably isn't, and that's what I asked you about.

Do you really believe you've presented an apples to apples comparison with respect to methodology pD?

Your response in no way supports the notion that your comparison has any scientific validity.

You are still relying on the God of the Gaps to fill in all of the values with non real changes in between Fombonne 2008, everything before him, and evertyhing since him. That ought to be ringing a lot of alarm bells for anyone who really considers themselves a sketpic.

Filling in gaps between invalid comparisons, and attempting to draw meaning where it probably can't be determined is pointless. As a skeptic, I have not ascribed any comparable (to the past) relevance of the current CDC estimates, as they likely employ differing methodology, as I noted. Apparently, you are willing to inflate the actual CDC estimate of the average, and call it a reality reference for past studies that used different ascertainment methods to make your argument.

What I love about this argument is that is fundamentally proves my point; all of our epidemiology is poorly constructed; and yet, people seem to be very willing to jump the gun to assume that one hundred percent of our observed increases are artifacts. Why?

pD, you're slipping. I've not known you to jump straight to a straw man in the past. But, we are in fundamental agreement about the state of the epidemiology. Knowing this, why are you so willing to jump the gun and assume that current CDC estimates have real comparative meaning in the context of the mixed epidemiological landscape?

It is because once you admit that some of the increase might be real,it quickly becomes apparent that actually trying to empricize the amount of true increase with the artifact with any certainty is impossible. Once you admit this, the questions get even more uncomfortable.

Most skeptics have long acknowledged the possibility of some sort of real increase. Empricizing it, if it's there, would be difficult, if not impossible. I don't think that necessarily leads to uncomfortable questions as you imply. If you wanted to claim that it's possible that some vaccine etiology for some small number of cases of autism exists, I would say that is absolutely possible. If you want to claim beyond possibility, and for actual existence, bring good evidence.

Our existing prevelance studies are so discordant over time that the only commonality is a decreasing number of children with a diagnosis as we move into the past.

Autism diagnoses, yes. Education data for all disabilities paints a different picture though. Yeah, it's problematic data too, but I'm curious, if there is stability over the last 10 years of special education data (approximately 9.2% of the school-aged population, and flat, for all disabilities), and if there is a real increase in autism prevalence, is whatever is responsible for that increase caused a reduction in the prevalence of other disabilities?

What level of a true increase do you think would qualify as a true health emergency, DoC? 1%? 5%? 25%?

You started out with inflated CDC average numbers that essentially include anything on a behaviorally described spectrum. Can you be more specific and clearly define "health emergency"?

Shorter science to Aleff: "Evidence first, then we'll talk."

As for Jenkins... ehh. He speaks with the absolute certainty of 20:20 hindsight and the authority of zero responsibilities. Perhaps his opinions should be weighted with that in mind?

Re: Mr. Aleff's startling (if irrelevant to the topic) claims.

Reading Mr. Aleff's website and the references he uses to make his indictment of fluorescent lighting, it appears that he has - at least in part - conflated "fluorescent lighting" with "phototherapy lights". Besides the obvious differences in intensity (children undergoing phototherapy have their eyes covered or bandaged to protect them), the two light sources have very different spectra.

While the "cool white" fluorescent lights have the "retina destroying" blue wavelength, their intensity (and the intensity of the blue light "spike") is much lower than in phototherapy lights.

While I have sympathy for Mr. Aleff's plight, it needs to be noted that even the albino rat studies used exposures in the range of 2000 to 5000 lux (~200 - 500 foot-candles) continuously over several days. Nursery lighting is in the range of 400 - 500 lux, assuming that it is not dimmed at night. [For reference - the average house lighting is 50 lux, full daylight is 10,000 - 25,000 lux and direct sunlight is 30,000 - 130,000 lux.]

Studies more recent [see below] than those on Mr. Aleff's website indicate that light - even in combination with oxygen - does not significantly increase the risk or severity of proliferative retinopathy or retinal injury.

Kremer et al. The effect of light on oxygen-induced vasoproliferative retinopathy in newborn kittens. Inv Ophth Vis Sci. 1992 Apr;33(5):1595-8.

Wesolowski et al. Effect of light on oxygen-induced retinopathy in the mouse. Inv Ophth Vis Sci. 1994 Jan;35(1):112-9.

In fact, the ophthalmological research into proliferative retinopathy/retinopathy of prematurity has moved away from light as a cause or exacerbating factor because studies showed no effect in the best animal models. There was no "conspiracy" by "mainstream medicine" or "Big Lighting" to "cover-up" the real cause of retinopathy of prematurity - rather, the best data showed that light (of the intensity found in nurseries and other workplaces) was not a factor.

[Note: light exposure continues to be researched as a contributing cause for age-related retinal dysfunctions and disorders.]

In many ways, Mr. Aleff's "Crusade" is a good model of what we can expect from the "vaccines-cause-autism" core believers. No matter how much research is done, they will always insist that "the right study" will show that they are right and everyone else is wrong.

There is no point in "building bridges" to the core believers. If were are to "build bridges", it should be to the larger group of people who are still open-minded and receptive to new information.

Prometheus

To Azkyroth and hyperdeath: you are proving my point about medical "science" lacking any self-correction mechanism. All you can do is call my argument "bullshit" and "conspiracy theory" without having the guts to engage the facts. Anyone can resort to name-calling, particularly those who cannot refute basic and inconvenient arguments. This is not the way to gain any bystander's trust, or to start correcting any of the glaring frauds and other flaws in the medical doctrine.

The facts have been engaged. Repeatedly. I'm not going to do your homework on this for you.

The nonexistence of a link between vaccination and the increasing rate of autism diagnoses in the general population cannot be proven beyond an unreasonable doubt. You will not find any scientist who denies this, since nothing can be proven beyond an unreasonable doubt.

The entire suite of prevalance studies available to us previously were bound by such monumental problems that they all missed huge swaths of the autism population, and all of our observations are the result of artifacts.

@pD: I believe you completely misinterpret how this probably works in reality. It's not that the studies were crap. It's that they used different case-finding methods, screening tools, diagnostic criteria, and diagnostic tools. Additionally, the way researchers think of the autism construct has likely changed over time as well, and this matters.

Heck, a lot of the studies didn't use diagnostic tools at all.

I've read some pretty old studies. In Lotter (1966), for example, they completely made up their screening methods. There weren't any standard methods available, of course. At each screening step (and there were several) they assumed they didn't miss any autistic kids. Vic Lotter was also extremely strict as to who he thought should be called autistic - according to Lorna Wing, who was around at the time.

Now, consider a study like KadesjÃ¶ et al (1999), where the first author personally evaluated 50% of the children who were attending school. That was a form of extreme screening/case-finding, and the result was that 1.2% of all children were found to be autistic. (The children would be 25 now, as I've pointed out.) The case-find methodology clearly matters - a lot.

BTW, pD, do you see that the CDC's methods are largely passive (i.e. they don't exhaustively look for autistic children who might be undiagnosed) and therefore it's not surprising that their counts would increase over time? This seems straightforward to me.

Lindsay: There's an awful lot of social psychology research that advocates of rationality need to be reading. For example, the idea that people tend to adopt the attitudes and beliefs of those around is a very old one, but it still surprises people. There was a recent study that found that when people look to others for advice about a decision, the more emotionally important the decision is to them, the more they value the perceived likeability of the advice giver and the less they value his/her expertise. That would explain why a mother anxious about whether or not to vaccinate her child would be inclined to give more weight to a former Playboy model who starred in teen gross-out comedies than a researcher who's done a great deal of vaccine development work for a non-profit children's hospital. It also explains why when terrorists send airplanes into skyscrapers, people want the sort of President they can imagine having a beer or two with (yes, I did say "imagine"; with Bush, it would have been more like "a beer or twenty" in real life).

That latter finding was published in a journal devoted to marketing research (sorry, I don't have the citation; it's been about a year since I read about it). Unfortunately, that means that a lot of pro-rationality activists, along with progressive political activists, will immediately dismiss it as a tool of the Dark Side. The fact is, persuasive techniques are morally neutral; they can be used for both bad purposes and good ones. They key is whether you'
re selling a lie or selling the truth, and expecting the truth to sell itself is wishful thinking.

Fluorescent lights: My understanding is that the retina can respond to the flicker frequency of magnetic-ballast lights (120hz) but that the brain normally filters it out so that it isn't consciously perceptible. However, in some autistics that filtering process doesn't work and the flicker comes to conscious attention and it requires perceptible effort to filter it out, effort that can be exhausting if one has to do it for a long time. Electronic-ballast lights, like most CFLs available at retail, have a much higher flicker frequency (around 19 Khz) which is faster than the retina can detect.

With the 19K hz there is no flicker because the glow decay is slow enough so that the light is never dark.
I see a lot of banter at this site but not many new ideas or other helpful suggestions.
I'm not saying that my theory of fluorescent lighting as the cause of autism is correct but it wouldn't harm any young children to keep them away from it as much as possible. If we did this and there is no reduction in the rate then at least we have eliminated another possibility no matter how remote. How terrible is that!

"I see a lot of banter at this site but not many new ideas or other helpful suggestions.
I'm not saying that my theory of fluorescent lighting as the cause of autism is correct..."

Yes, you are. You came here and triumphantly declared that you "know" what causes autism. Then you presented your hypothesis and said, "case closed."

You have received some criticism from Orac's readers, and that's as it should be. You should welcome it, even if sometimes that criticism seems harsh. A legitimate hypothesis will stand up to scrutiny. Your ideas will either strengthen or weaken as you present evidence supporting your claims. That's how science works. :D

I'm not saying that my theory of Oren Evans as the cause of autism is correct but it wouldn't harm any young children to keep them away from it as much as possible. If we did this and there is no reduction in the rate then at least we have eliminated another possibility no matter how remote. How terrible is that!

Young Skeptic:

"Shouldn't the deciding factor among people be what the science says and not our rhetoric? If we do make it about the rhetoric (which is what Mooney seems to be advocating) what then? If the public bases its decisions on who makes their message mot appealing aren't we back at square one? Where's the progress?

Believe it or not, I actually agree...although you did seem to make this statement as a counter to mine. The deciding factor SHOULD very much be science. Always. But there's a difference between simply being right and how you let others know that you are (see Sean Carroll's post about "being polite and being right" from a few weeks back as a good discussion of this).

The problem is when people with the science on their side use the truth of their claims as the justification for shunning ethics and manners - as if "I strongly disagree with you" and "you're a disgraceful fuckwit. now go fuck yourself and die" are equivalent statements. They might be equivalent in terms of veracity (the person making both might be right about their argument), but the impressions they leave on those they're directed at are far from the same.

It's this latter case that matters when we're trying to communicate science. The "fuckwit" references might be fun when we're dealing with someone like a Ken Ham (because no amount of rationed discussion is going to do the trick), but a more moderate approach might work with other more "mushy middle" people.

I believe the key to this (and it's why I posted the link to Smith's post in my original comment) is that we need to recognize that not all people in a movement like anti-vax are like Ken Ham. There are some like him, but they differ, and we should recognize that different approaches can work in different sitauations. Everyone on both sides - including Orac and Chris Mooney - could do well to see that, IMHO.

I see a lot of banter at this site but not many new ideas or other helpful suggestions.
I'm not saying that my theory of fluorescent lighting as the cause of autism is correct but it wouldn't harm any young children to keep them away from it as much as possible. If we did this and there is no reduction in the rate then at least we have eliminated another possibility no matter how remote. How terrible is that!

Depends on how much the dramatically increased bills (either for electricity to run dozens of small space heaters that generate light as a byproduct, AKA "incandescent bulbs," or for buying terrifyingly expensive LED lights) cut into providing for the children's demonstrated needs. Your irresponsible promotion of a poorly supported and theoretically implausible hypothesis potentially harms children in ways not (probably) related to autism by convincing gullible parents that keeping them away from fluorescent lighting is important enough to be worth sacrificing, say, fresh fruits and vegetables or an adequate supply of books in the household, in order to pay the higher bills that result.

Again all I see is venom. Give me a better theory or any new theory. Or tell me what is the maximum price you would pay to potentially keep your child from becoming autistic and I'll see if I can come up with something cheap enough for you.

This is me face-planting my head into my keyboard. My fundamental problem with your hypotheses, Oren, is that you presume that autism wasn't around before the use of fluorescent lights. However, I submit that autism and Asperger's have been around a hell of a lot longer than fluorescent lights. Look at Isaac Newton. Lots of evidence he had Asperger's. Except back then there wasn't Asperger or Kanner who took the time, effort, and/or energy to describe the condition.

And really? If the Amish have autism (which they do), your whole theory is shot to heck. Deal. And I say that with compassion and understanding.

Again all I see is venom. Give me a better theory or any new theory. Or tell me what is the maximum price you would pay to potentially keep your child from becoming autistic and I'll see if I can come up with something cheap enough for you.

Re-read Jen in Tx's post at 138. Third post in you said you know what causes autism, and several people since have pointed out flaws in your hypothesis. It might be time to head back to the drawing board.

Again all I see is venom. Give me a better theory or any new theory.

Primarily genetics.

Or tell me what is the maximum price you would pay to potentially keep your child from becoming autistic and I'll see if I can come up with something cheap enough for you.

She, like myself to a lesser degree, is. Having understood and accepted that her condition is a difference, not a disease (think of a computer running a different operating system than the Windows everyone is accustomed to), and that it is primarily genetic in origin, I am concerned with helping her learn how to function in the world in a way her differently-wired brain can understand, and take a dim view of unproductive "just-so story" speculation about the possible cause of what is naively and dehumanizingly characterized as "damage."

Explain this;

http://commons.ucalgary.ca/showcase/curtains.php?src=http://apollo.ucal…

Hi DoC -

The argument is only absurd to a straw man who assumes that the CDC's estimate of an average 90 in 10,000 (1 in 110) is a methodological apples to apples comparison to the papers Fombonne reviewed.

Fombonne reviewed 43 different papers. I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that there were a variety of methodologies in use in these 43 papers. Given the veritable fruit buffet of procedures used here, I'd be interested in knowing what you think we could learn, at all from such a mishmash? If there isn't something that can be gleaned from looking at studies with different methodologies, why did Fomobonne bother at all? Fombonne used to get cited a lot when it was useful to discredit the MMR, but suddenly he's dumb enough to perform an apples to oranges to bananas to strawberries comparison of over forty studies without realizing the futility of of such comparisons?

As a skeptic, I have not ascribed any comparable (to the past) relevance of the current CDC estimates, as they likely employ differing methodology, as I noted. Apparently, you are willing to inflate the actual CDC estimate of the average, and call it a reality reference for past studies that used different ascertainment methods to make your argument.

What about previous CDC estimates, which used similar, passive techniques then? None of them were within a lightyear of 100 per 100,000K. My argument is that all of our studies show a consistent trend upwards, regardless of methdological processes in use, and that I consider it wildly irresponsible to assume that all of this increase is due to artifact considering the amount of reckless environmental engineering we, as a species, have been embarking on. [My concerns happen to extend far beyond vaccines, but there rarely seems a forum where anything else gets discussed.] Throw out the latest CDC studies if you want and you still see the same pattern.

pD, you're slipping.

I guess I should be happy that someone thought I had a way to go backwards!

Knowing this, why are you so willing to jump the gun and assume that current CDC estimates have real comparative meaning in the context of the mixed epidemiological landscape?

I was alarmed long before the latest batch of CDC numbers came out. The numbers the CDC came out with previously were scary. Fombonne's numbers were scary in 2008, and 2003. If we can't trust any study due to mixed methodologies, why does everyone keep on trying these kinds of studies?

Most skeptics have long acknowledged the possibility of some sort of real increase. Empricizing it, if it's there, would be difficult, if not impossible. I don't think that necessarily leads to uncomfortable questions as you imply.

My thoughts are to assume some of it is real, maybe a lot, which means we should be applying a lot more resources towards environmental changes. I'm not making the charge that genetic studies are useless, or that some resources aren't being applied there, but rather, this should be being treated as more of an emergency.

The comforting part of the usual argument, is that 'hey, we don't have to worry about these numbers, after all, we shouldn't assume any of it is real, if you know how to read the studies." [see Scott @69 for an example of this].

But we have evidence that less controversial things, like increasing parental age are associated with autism. No one is going to deny that our parents are getting older. So now the argument is, 'well, some of our increase is real, but it can't be much.'.

Considering the ramifications of being wrong in this assumption, I find the followup questions, like, 'how can we be confident 'most' of our increase is artifact' to be very uncomfortable, because we can't get any decent answers. Maybe we just differ on what constitutes uncomfortable.

If you wanted to claim that it's possible that some vaccine etiology for some small number of cases of autism exists, I would say that is absolutely possible. If you want to claim beyond possibility, and for actual existence, bring good evidence.

I wrote a large post on a dozen or more studies involving emerging research on immune challenges in early life and subsequent immune and behavioral changes in the treatment group that I touched on above, aa well as on a post for this thread that is sitting in moderation. The evidence seems to point to the idea that the immune system is highly maleable during critical developmental timeframes; there are lots of studies on this involving more classical immune disorders such as asthma.
As we seem to have established, as we have zero studies actually studing vaccination up and above the MMR, I have no real studies to post one way or the other.

As I stated above, however, my concerns are far greater than simply vaccines. For example, there is a lot of evidence that common environmental pollutants such as PDBEs can interferre with thyroid hormones, and hypothyroidism is associated with a ton of developmental problems, including autism. [avoiding linking due to spam filtering]

You started out with inflated CDC average numbers that essentially include anything on a behaviorally described spectrum. Can you be more specific and clearly define "health emergency"?

Great question that requires more attention than I can allocate right now. Let me put some thought towards this.

- pD

Autism Oddism:

Explain this;

Well it is a little movie on the internet at the University of Calgary (which is in Alberta, one of the western provinces of Canada). First they filmed it, and edited it. Then they converted to a format that could be played on a computer, and uploaded it to a webpage.

Now I see the subject is mercury. First off, mercury caused brain damage if it is a certain form (the movie is about mercury vapor which is more dangerous than methylmercury, which is more dangerous than ethylmercury), and at a certain dosage. They tested mercury ions. Something like using sodium or chlorine ions on cells, which would also be just as destructive. But you could not live having sodium chloride in your diet (you might have also heard of being called "table salt").

The movie had absolutely nothing to do with vaccines.

Also almost a decade ago pediatric vaccines started to be given in single dose vials with no thimerosal. Even the influenza vaccine (that only a few children actually get) is available with thimerosal. Also, the MMR vaccine has never contained thimerosal.

So you bringing it up just shows that building a bridge is pointless on those like you who bring up idiotic strawmen. For a further explanation of the fallacy of the mercury argument look here: The âEPA Mercury Limitâ Canard.

Given the veritable fruit buffet of procedures used here, I'd be interested in knowing what you think we could learn, at all from such a mishmash?

@pD: You can learn all sorts of things from such an effort. For example, you can model ascertained prevalence as a function of case-finding method, location, criteria, and perhaps, year of survey. I recall something like that was done in Williams et al.

If we can't trust any study due to mixed methodologies, why does everyone keep on trying these kinds of studies?

Who says you can't trust them? For example, I completely trust that Lotter (1966) found that only 4.5 in 10,000 children were autistic, within the limits of the criteria and methods used.

But we have evidence that less controversial things, like increasing parental age are associated with autism.

Yes, but that's not the argument. In fact, I will grant that a true increase of a few points per 10,000 - since 1980 - is possible if not likely. (I actually modeled this recently based on the rates of the Israeli study and maternal age data from US Census.)

If you want to be convincing, here's what you need to do. Show us data on, say, housing for developmentally disabled individuals as a whole. Are rates of institutionalization increasing, when you consider all developmentally disabled persons? If not, what is the basis of any alarm?

Despite fabricated claims to the effect that autism will overwhelm social services and so on, trends in the data simply don't support them.

Thanks ebohlman, I'll look for those.

Ironically, it seems like even scientists who are right on science of an issue forget to look at the science of convincing groups of people or of why people believe what they do. It is unfortunately always more complicated than 'I'm right because the data support my position,' even if it shouldn't be with issues like vaccination and global warming.

And it would be very good for all of us to learn a little able what social science has to say about this problem before coming to strong conclusions about what should be done or said. I mean that's just as unscientific to ignore it, right?

@Azkyroth

Having understood and accepted that her condition is a difference, not a disease (think of a computer running a different operating system than the Windows everyone is accustomed to),

This is exactly how I feel about my son. It is refreshing to hear another mother speak these thoughts.

I am concerned with helping her learn how to function in the world in a way her differently-wired brain can understand, and take a dim view of unproductive "just-so story" speculation about the possible cause of what is naively and dehumanizingly characterized as "damage."

Once again you hit the nail right on the head. The world will not conform to our children, they need to find a way to 'fit' the best they can. It is our responsibility as parents to help them find a place where they can be happy and productive, and to equip them to handle the challenges that come.

I don't tolerate anyone calling my son 'damaged', he is not! He is different, and in my opinion his different makes him who he is. I would not make him 'normal' if I could.

However, in some autistics that filtering process doesn't work and the flicker comes to conscious attention and it requires perceptible effort to filter it out, effort that can be exhausting if one has to do it for a long time.

I'm on the spectrum. For me the cut-off seems to be somewhere between 60 and 75 Hz. I'm not sure I could tell the difference between a CRT monitor at 75 Hz and one at 100 Hz, but one at 60 Hz is intolerable. Television flicker I don't notice, I suspect the difference is that TV takes up less of my visual field. I've never noticed flicker in movie theaters either, I'm not sure what the difference is there. My guess is that the amplitude of the flicker is less with film projectors than with CRTs. (Also, the flicker rate for theater film projectors is not 24 Hz - they display each frame more than once. On rare occasion I'll notice a stutter from the 24 fps frame rate, but that's not the same as flicker.) Fluorescent lights have never bothered me unless they they were flickering at perceptible frequencies (well under 120 Hz), or they were buzzing.

Regarding Chris Mooney's article, I find it interesting that the comment sector contains comments from a representative (billy bob) of the very sort of people that Mooney think we should try to build bridges to.

The commenter in question calls modern science "fraud", and claims that is is discredited. How can one build bridges to someone so delusional?

@Pablo #32: Okay, fine, not directly aware, but I don't find the tale completely implausible. In any case, even if the mother's story was inaccurate, something this doctor was doing wasn't working, because the mother in question is now seeing our family doctor, and getting her son vaccinated.

@Orac in regards to Godwin's law: Fair 'nuff. I appreciate that another commenter pointed out that you failed to call Godwin's law on what was essentially an identical dig from AutismNewsBeat which you quoted, but as they say, two wrongs don't make a right. My comment was probably indeed un-called for.

I'm just getting really sick of Mooney's empty "let's all be friends!" rhetoric, while he routinely fails to give any concrete details of exactly how that is supposed to actually be accomplished. But that doesn't justify going all Hitler Zombie on him. Point taken, my apologies.

Kristjan -

I don't know, but for everyone else who might be reasonable but on the fence, responding to them is really important. billy bob and you aren't the only people who read those comments! I believe that making a sane, respectable and reasonable response to that sort of thing goes a long way for the *other* people that read the comment string. Or you could ignore him, which seems to happen more often than not to my comments. :)

Of course, it is much more fun to call him a delusional idiot, which he might be, but it doesn't really benefit the argument.

Lindsay and ebohlman: Thanks for the interesting comments. It definitely gives something to think about.

I would add that, even according to this "social group" model, derision and ridicule can sometimes be a useful response as well. For instance, when my wife started to get fed some anti-vax paranoia and I first started to look into it, one thing that helped motivate me to really learn about the topic rather than just going along with it was the fact that the types of people who I typically respect (i.e. skeptics, etc.) were particularly vocal and -- yes -- vitriolic about anti-vaxers. Essentially, I was saying to myself, "These people who share my values are REALLY pissed about this one... I guess I'd better find out why!"

Of course, I may be biased to think about this way, as I wrote all the way back in July about how it is useful to have both "accomodationist"-esque folks and hardliners. (Although if I were writing that post today, I would have used Eugenie Scott and Michael Schermer as my token accomodationists, rather than Mooney and Kirshenbaum... in the meantime, the latter pair have just gone way too far, I no longer think they are offering a particularly useful viewpoint).

Joseph--

Are institutionalization rates actually a good proxy for the rates of the conditions you're interested in? Those rates are driven at least in part by changes in policy and attitudes. People used to routinely institutionalize children who couldn't walk, for example, from some combination of inability to deal with physical issues (in a world where almost no public place was wheelchair accessible) and embarrassment, shame, or fear of being shunned as different or potentially contagious. I see more people in wheelchairs now than I do twenty years ago: that doesn't mean there are more people who need them, it may mean that people who use wheelchairs are spending more time in public places like buses and stores.

Autistic people may be living in ways much like neurotypicals, alone or with a roommate, or with a spouse or their own parents. I know one person with Asperger's who is living with his husband, and has shared custody of his children with his ex; another is sharing a home with her mother, sister, and nieces. Neither of them is going to show up if you work with institutionalization rates, because they aren't institutionalized. Other people with autism may be in group homes of some sort, which may or may not count in the same way that a larger and more medicalized institution would. Shifts in how many autistic people can cope with the ordinary world (are not presented with expectations they can't handle) will affect institutionalization rates, but maybe not diagnosis rates.

Similarly, there are trends in whether to institutionalize people with certain mental disorders. (The rate of mental disorders did not change drastically when community-based mental health was introduced.) That many places are de facto using the prison system to handle some of these problems means that it's hard even to figure out how many people are institutionalized for schizophrenia, since instead of a diagnosis they may have a felony conviction and sentence.

Are institutionalization rates actually a good proxy for the rates of the conditions you're interested in?

Yes and no. They are to the extent that people have claimed states will be overwhelmed economically trying to care for autistic people. If there's no increase in the numbers of institutionalized developmentally disabled persons (relative to general population growth) then that particular argument falls apart. I believe in 5 or 10 years we'll be able to make a definite argument that this didn't come to pass.

Of course, institutionalization numbers also depend on cultural factors, as you note, in particular the movement to close institutions (although a lot of those who would otherwise live in institutions might still live in group homes and such.)

pD,

As we seem to have established, as we have zero studies actually studing vaccination up and above the MMR, I have no real studies to post one way or the other.

I haven't gone through the previous 100-some-odd posts, so I don't know if this point has been made.

Eery childhood vaccine that is licensed in this country basically constitutes a test of said vaccine schedule. Why? Because when they test vaccines, the subjects are given the freakin' current vaccine schedule plus the new vaccine.

Why is this so hard to understand? This "vaccines haven't been tested" argument is such utter, complete bull and is little more than the anti-vaxers going to the end game: a nearly impossible hypothesis to test that will keep their disease promotion business in place for generations to come.

Lindsay,

I don't know, but for everyone else who might be reasonable but on the fence, responding to them is really important. billy bob and you aren't the only people who read those comments! I believe that making a sane, respectable and reasonable response to that sort of thing goes a long way for the *other* people that read the comment string.

I am of the school of thought which believes that it's not possible to make reasonable responses to someone making delusional claims, and any attempt to do so will just lend some credibility to the person making those claims, as it looks like the responder is actually seriously considering the points made by the first person.

When someone uses the internet to claim that modern science is discredited, they should be ridiculed for it.

When they make claims that would require a worldwide conspiracy on not only governmental level, but also among doctors, nurses, and scientists around the world, the correct response is not to try to reason with them, but instead point to the blatant idiocy of such an idea.

Tiptoeing around, trying to not offend, will only make those on the fence believe that there is something to it, not convince them that it's nonsense of the worst sort.

If the people on the fence starts asking questions etc., then it's time for reasonable responses, but not when dealing with the lunatics.

a-non:

You have nothing to compare this to... you cannot say that the schedule has been tested in its entirety and there are no more [insert condition / adverse event here] in this population than its counterpart because you have no background data. You have no control group. An observational study of both groups on a long term level (like the Italian study used to exonerate thimerosal) would be helpful in defense of your argument. Just like raw data on the schedule in its entirety with a bona-fide control (animals only, I realize the ethics involved for humans) would also defend your argument.

But saying that the actual implementation of the program is its own evidence fails.

Hi A-non -

Why is this so hard to understand?

Did the studies you mention involve neurological disorders, such as autism, as a measurement endpoint? If they did, maybe you could explain to me why so many retrospective studies of thimerosal and the MMR were performed? After all, why waste researcher time and dollars to perform retrospective studies when our existing safety studies took autism diagnosis into consideration?

I made this same point in post #81, when the same poorly thought out canard was trotted out by Scott.

The safety studies you mention simply didn't use autism as a measurement.

Why is this so hard to understand?

Indeed.

- pD

Hi Josesph -

If you want to be convincing, here's what you need to do. Show us data on, say, housing for developmentally disabled individuals as a whole. Are rates of institutionalization increasing, when you consider all developmentally disabled persons? If not, what is the basis of any alarm?

and

Yes and no. They are to the extent that people have claimed states will be overwhelmed economically trying to care for autistic people. If there's no increase in the numbers of institutionalized developmentally disabled persons (relative to general population growth) then that particular argument falls apart. I believe in 5 or 10 years we'll be able to make a definite argument that this didn't come to pass.

Fascinating idea, although one seemingly fraught with so many confounds it makes teasing out "greater awareness" seem tame in comparison. By way of example, I've spent near 50K over the past three years on traditional therapies for my son; i.e., ABA / Speech. In order to do so, I've sacrificed a lot of other opportunities. If I keep doing this for another twelve years, and my son becomes self sufficient (in my dreams), does this mean there hasn't been a societal cost?

Our other potential measurements are just as problematic to measure efficiently, IMO. For example, in the state I live in (Florida), about 2/3 of the people on the wait list for services from the State are under the age of 18. The state has been providing services for a long time; there are complaints about how good it is, but there are some things available for (some) people. [On a side note, the list is sort of a joke, it is a rolling list, and people are only moved up to get services as someone else 'moves off'. My son is around 8,000 in line, and last year, about 300 people became qualified.]

What do you think we could learn by analyzing things like age comparisons of people looking for respite or other services? There are adults on these lists, but as a percentage, they are in the minority, at least in my state. Does anyone have information about other states?

A lot of the people actually getting services are still living with their parents, who receive things like respite care. A common refrain I've heard, and how I tend to feel, is that it will take a hell of a lot before a parent willingly consents to have their child put in a group home; but this doesn't mean there isn't a problem.

I agree with you that in five to ten years, we will have a better idea of how things pan out. I hope you're right, but fear I am.

- pD

I made this same point in post #81, when the same poorly thought out canard was trotted out by Scott.

The discerning, however, will note that your entire response was effectively an argument from ignorance and did not address the point in any meaningful way.

There is some truth to the argument that vaccine testing - while it does use what I would call "incremental controls" (i.e. it compares the "current standard" vaccine regimen to the "current standard" plus one) - does not use completely unvaccinated subjects as controls. The reasons for that are many - ethical considerations, shortage of completely unvaccinated controls, differences between completely unvaccinated subjects and the general population, etc.

It is also true that vaccine safety studies do not use neurological disorders, autism, asthma, etc. as specific "end points". However, vaccine safety studies look at any change in health, so autism occuring months after vaccination (or, as some parents and practitioners have claimed, days after vaccination) would be detected.

The retrospective studies looking at thimerosal and the MMR vaccine were triggered by anecdotal reports of association between thimerosal, MMR and autism. They were, in fact, done in response to parental concerns which have been shown to be unfounded.

The irony of using these studies - which, it must be noted, found no association between either thimerosal or the MMR vaccine and autism - as an indicator that vaccines have not been adequately studied is apparently lost on some people.

Let me be blunt: parents (and "Brave Maverick Doctors") said that thimerosal and/or the MMR vaccine were "the" cause - or the major cause - of autism based on flimsy (or no) data. Then, when studies were done that confirmed thimerosal and the MMR vaccine were not associated with autism, these studies - studies done at the insistence of the "vaccines-cause-autism" movement - are used as "proof" that vaccine safety studies are inadequate.

I'd laugh if it weren't so sad.

What next? If a study shows that the prevalence of autism is no higher among fully vaccinated children than it is in unvaccinated children, will the goalposts be moved again? Will it change from "Too many, too soon!" to "Random acts of vaccination"?

Why do we keep wasting time, money and resources chasing a hypothesis that is so obviously not productive?

Prometheus

What do you think we could learn by analyzing things like age comparisons of people looking for respite or other services? There are adults on these lists, but as a percentage, they are in the minority, at least in my state. Does anyone have information about other states?

Not a whole lot. Many of those children might not seek services when they are adults, for various reasons. There could also be a trend where people are seeking more services now than they would have in the past.

Something like institutionalization is less subjective. And you can say what you will about autism counts in passive databases, but at the very least you'd expect an agency like CalDDS to be able to keep track of the number of developmentally disabled individuals who are either institutionalized or under the care of the state.

Scott -- The truely discerning stopped reading pD's tripe quite a few posts back.

Prometheus -- "Let me be blunt" You mean you havent been blunt till now, Mr. "at this point they can fucking swim?"

What next? If a study shows that the prevalence of autism is no higher among fully vaccinated children than it is in unvaccinated children, will the goalposts be moved again?

"That doesn't prove that some of the vaccinated children with autism didn't get the autism because of the vaccine"

and then they will try to break it down into small subgroups and base conclusions on them, saying that while there was no effect overall, see that if we break it into these twenty groups, this one did show an effect (which is not all that uncommon because the groups are so small that there will be a distribution - they similarly ignore that subgroup where vaccination apparently prevents autism). My old adviser used to call it "going all squinty eyed" to try to find an effect.

That was helpful Dave... please continue to backwardly contribute.

pD and tripe don't quite go together in my mind... feel free to be more specific next time you hurl insults so I might actually be able to agree about something.

And yet after all the wooly thinking demonstrated by the subject of this post, it is Chris Mooney, of all people, who gets to hash out the science-based position on vaccines with Nancy Freaking Snyderman. I mean, I'm glad it's being discussed so unequivocally in the MSM (even if it is on Dr. S's own show and not, e.g., 'Today' of Lauer *hearts* Wakefield fame), but by Mooney? Really? Were all the actual pediatricians/scientists busy that day?

Mooney did a good job. In fact, he did a better job than Nancy Snyderman as my upcoming post will explain. I give props where props are due and throw brickbats when indicated. This time, Mooney deserves kudos.

Mrs. Johnson and pig
A man was sued by a woman for defamation of character. She charged that he had called her a pig. The man was found guilty and fined.
After the trial he asked the judge, "Does this mean
that I cannot call Mrs. Johnson a pig?"
The judge said that was true.
"Does this also mean I cannot call a pig, 'Mrs. Johnson'?" the man asked.
The judge replied that he could indeed call a pig 'Mrs. Johnson' with no fear of legal action.
The man looked directly at Mrs. Johnson and said, "Good afternoon, Mrs. Johnson."

Cut the tail off
Bert took his Saint Bernard to the vet.
"Doctor," he said sadly, "I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to cut off my dog's tail."
The vet stepped back, "Bert, why should I do such a terrible thing?"
"Because my mother-in-law's arriving tomorrow, and I don't want anything to make her think she's welcome."

@MPW:

"I'm beginning to think Dunning and Kruger might have discovered the key to explaining most of human society and history. Their observations seem constantly applicable, everywhere I look."

This is why I'm really thinking that it should be seen as something of a syndrome relevant to education: a psychopathology of learning (or, maybe, meta-learning). Because the phenomenon is more ubiquitous than a 'mere' effect... it is one of those things that really can put up obstacles to learning.

Chris Mooney with a New Year's resolution for practicing scientists: engage more with the public and the media

terrasig — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 22:02:32 +0000

Chris Mooney with a New Year's resolution for practicing scientists: engage more with the public and the media

Steve Silberman and Rebecca Skloot just pointed out to me an editorial from science writer Chris Mooney that has appeared online and will be in the Sunday, January 3rd edition of The Washington Post.

In the essay, "On issues like global warming and evolution, scientists need to speak up," Mooney continues his longstanding call to scientists to take ownership in combating scientific misinformation, invoking the very weak response of the scientific community to the aftermath of e-mails and documents hacked from the Climatic Research Institute at the University of East Anglia.

The central lesson of Climategate is not that climate science is corrupt. The leaked e-mails do nothing to disprove the scientific consensus on global warming. Instead, the controversy highlights that in a world of blogs, cable news and talk radio, scientists are poorly equipped to communicate their knowledge and, especially, to respond when science comes under attack.

A few scientists answered the Climategate charges almost instantly. Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University, whose e-mails were among those made public, made a number of television and radio appearances. A blog to which Mann contributes, RealClimate.org, also launched a quick response showing that the e-mails had been taken out of context. But they were largely alone. "I haven't had all that many other scientists helping in that effort," Mann told me recently.

Could we have done anything differently?
I agree to some extent but, in this particular case, I don't think that any concerted effort by scientific communicators could have overcome the bleating by Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck that took one or two statements out of context from among 1,073 e-mails and a million words, claiming proof of a massive global scientific conspiracy to manufacture climate change warnings.

The problem is that when one's statements are not bound by facts, you can pretty much say whatever you want; that will be the first thing uncritical sycophants hear and remember.

It took several weeks for the AP to release its own investigative findings of the stolen documents to show that while there were petty and heated disagreements about specific data, nothing was faked. But by that time, science had lost a lot of ground to climate skeptics as detailed in an article Mooney cites:

Scientists themselves also come in for more negative assessments in the poll, with four in 10 Americans now saying that they place little or no trust in what scientists have to say about the environment. That's up significantly in recent years. About 58 percent of Republicans now put little or no faith in scientists on the subject, double the number saying so in April 2007. Over this time frame, distrust among independents bumped up from 24 to 40 percent, while Democrats changed only marginally. Among seniors, the number of skeptics more than doubled, to 51 percent.

When a large segment of the public puts their faith in right wing miscreants that somehow have huge audiences, I have trouble seeing how scientists can respond no matter how many facts they have in their pockets or how effectively they communicate. I don't mean to sound defeatist but I think that responding to so-called Climategate was incredibly difficult no matter how well-prepared the scientific community could have been. This single crystallizing event was far more understandable to people than decades of climate research, starting primarily with the fact that the average person seems to associate the daily weather with climatological trends. Add to this mix a media empire with people who manufacture apparent facts by repeating untruths (i.e., Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11) and feeding the American love for a good conspiracy theory.

I'm just not sure how good Climategate is as an example of a failure by scientists to communicate with the public.

"Many refuse to try; others go to the opposite extreme of advocating vociferous and confrontational atheism."
After discussing his expert area of devastating hurricanes, Mooney then raises some excellent points about countering the denial of evolution by acknowledging that for many, evolution is an issue not of science but of faith.

"Many Christians, including fundamentalists, can accept evolution as long as it is not attached to the view that life has no purpose," Karl Giberson, a Christian physicist and the author of "Saving Darwin: How to Be a Christian and Believe in Evolution," told me recently. "Human life has value, and any scientific theory that even appears to deny this central religious affirmation will alienate people of faith and create opportunity for those who would rally believers against evolution."

This quarter of the essay will likely be the part that will create froth and lather in the blogosphere so I will mostly leave it for other commentators. Most of my day-to-day colleagues are moderately to strongly religious and many use their faith as motivators for their careers in the biomedical sciences. Many religious people in my community are huge fans of science. I contend that some degree of spirituality can co-exist with science. We're not going to talk people out of their faith; there is far more common ground here for us in science with a large swath of the US population who are religious and open to and often embrace scientific discourse.

Practical issues in engaging the public
I certainly agree that we can do a much better job of communicating with the public. Mooney cites the summer course run by Jeremy Jackson at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography at UC-San Diego in training young scientists in communication skills and media interactions. Mooney closes the editorial with reference to books I really need to read:

And in another sign that the times may be changing, a syllabus for such classes is already here. A spate of recent books, from Randy Olson's "Don't Be Such a Scientist: Talking Substance in an Age of Style" to Cornelia Dean's "Am I Making Myself Clear?: A Scientist's Guide to Talking to the Public," seem like perfect assigned reading.

I've long held that scientists have a duty to interact with the public in a substantive way, particularly as beneficiaries of federal grant dollars provided, in part, by taxpayer dollars. I first heard this philosophy uttered by Harvard epidemiologist and nutritionist, Dr. Walter Willett, when he visited a few years back.

Because I'm in a research area where scientists seem to be tapped for press interviews more often than in other areas, I've added plans to some career development grant applications to provide media training for myself and my trainees. But as a scientist who has spent a lot of time interacting with the public and reporters, I can also say it is a thankless effort which one undertakes because of personal commitment and pride.

That is to say: some of my colleagues and superiors still think that interacting with the public and press is a self-serving, self-aggrandizing waste of time that detracts from hunting down research dollars.

I disagree strongly, of course. I'd say that my public talks and press interactions have complemented the expansion of my research program into other areas, giving me name recognition that has assisted me in networking with other researchers and grant program officials. About 90% of my interactions with television and newspaper reporters have been very fruitful and have gotten me into audiences with politicians and decision makers who normally wouldn't have had the time of day for yet another cancer researcher.

The best way to get scientists to interact with the public and the media is to give them actual credit for it - in academic currency, it will simply never count as much as peer-reviewed research publications or research grant dollars. Even teaching awards rarely matter in academia so I think there will have to be a huge shift in academia-think before one gets credit for teaching the public.

To me, this is the major barrier to scientists engaging with the public.

terrasig Fri, 01/01/2010 - 17:02

Tags

public understanding of science

I have only one comment for you-
read the emails so you have the slightest idea what you are talking about.
Why in the world would anybody want to hear you regurgitate what's been regurgitated through several generations already? Sure, it's green; sure it's recycling waste - but come back to earth, man. Wherefore springs the vapid notion that your opinion of someone's opinion of some other nitwit's opinion is anything but polished turd?
Get the facts, man.
Do you have any idea how foolish you'll feel in the morning when you wake the heck up?
The AP shame has been exposed long ago. You keep losing the plot. Are your feet wet? Can you see the pyramids?

This was a comment below this article in the Washington Post
His views cover everything I have to say!

Tom Fuller has just returned to his home town of San Francisco following 10 years in Europe. He has written technology commentary for The International Herald Tribune's Italy Daily, and consulted on green technology for the UK government. About half of what he writes here will be a liberal skeptic's view of environmental issues.

thomaswfuller wrote:
As a 'lukewarmer'I can only say that Chris Mooney has not oriented the direction of this piece in a way that would advance the discussion. It's obvious why Michael Mann wants to reduce attacks like those brought on by Climategate--he behaved abominably and does not like the very justified criticism he is now receiving.

And it's not what scientists are saying that is getting the climate change movement in such trouble--it's specifically those charged with communicating their message that is letting their side down--including Chris Mooney's work elsewhere. Anybody reading the shrill panic messages of Joe Romm at Climate Progress or the arrogant screeds at Real Climate can tell you that they're not getting the job done. Nor are the pronouncements of politicians, who mostly hector the electorate and make promises of emission reductions that will take effect after they leave office.

The real street fight that took place is revealed in the Climategate emails and documents, and shows gutter fighting by Mann and his tribe of colleagues to illegally evade Freedom of Information requests, punish journal editors that dared publish papers by articles, distort data used in publications specifically oriented at policy-makers, and hide the disorganised chaos that their efforts have produced in climate databases.

As for Mann himself, this isn't the first time he's been called on the carpet for sloppy science. The original Hockey Stick chart was exposed by a Congressional committee investigation led by a prestigious statistician who pointed out in his report that letting such a small group of scientists serve as referees, co-authors and promoters of each other's work was bound to lead to the situation that has now been revealed in the leaked emails.

I believe that global warming is a real problem that needs to be addressed now. I think that Candidate Obama's energy program of investment in R&D, a smart grid, weatherising homes and offices and higher mileage standards are exactly what we should do in the short term. Sadly, his agenda got hijacked by exactly the people who have produced this public relations and communications disaster, and he ended up introducing omnibus legislation for Cap and Trade, and got suckered into letting EPA proceed with an endangerment finding which will allow Republicans to tie the administration up indefinitely in litigation.

At every opportunity, the people who have been charged with communicating the science to the public have failed miserably--this includes you, Mr. Mooney. And obviously, giving a couple of 'Strategic Communications for Dummies' lessons to Michael Mann didn't work out so well.

Until you realise that your communications strategy has failed utterly, you will be stuck with more Copenhagens, Climategates and ongoing sagas about the business affairs of the head of the IPCC.

You are the problem. Shutting up, getting off the stage and letting saner heads back into the decision-making process is the solution.

Shouldn't someone be afforded the opportunity to apprehend climate science in a venue beyond an eighth grade comprehension level? Shouldn't someone be afforded the opportunity to use all of their intellectual ability?

In a science as economically and politically sensitive as climate science, shouldn't some (a lot?) of looking over the shoulder be welcome? It does not seem to be. What I saw in the climategate letters wasn't particularly unusual for academia - infighting, backbiting, stroking, obfuscation, inflation, etc. - but is that the standard of practice that we want for a science whose conclusions are already having great consequences?

I just don't understand a great need for secrecy with lab notes and data sets and all the rest when the impact is so large.

A lot of folks think climate scientists are trying to sell them a pig in a poke. It will take more than more of the same eighth grade pablum to sell them it's not.

Chris Mooney should not be listened to on this subject. He is hardly a casual observer. He dared to accuse the Bush Administration of censoring science, but looks the other way when those who support anthropogenic global warming are caught red handed doing the type of thing that supposedly so offends him. The fact that he's still talking about the "consensus" is proof that he's very far behind the curve on this one. Earth to Chris, THERE IS NO CONSENSUS. Even if there were, that's not how science is settled.

Chris, I challenge you to put the words "hide the decline" into a context that doesn't mean climate science is being fudged.

By the way Chris, are you willing to engage in a public debate on this subject? I'm available if you are.

In the meantime, here are some online documentaries you might want to watch. They'll help you learn the truth about global warming erh uh I mean climate change.

http://www.hootervillegazette.com/climatetheater.html

Mark Gillar

Ha! You thought the militant atheism movement would be rankled? fella, you just hooked yourself some AGW denialists: blog-length comments, NO CONSENSUS CAPS, and Hooterville Gillar.

Have a nice day.

@Dave McK: I have read a number of the e-mails. "Hide the decline" refers to a data technique that takes into account a phenomenon reported in 1998 (by Briffa and colleagues, PDF) that shows tree ring data has, for some reason, become less responsive to temperature changes than the actual measured temperatures. Tree ring data is used over hundreds of years as a surrogate measure of temperatures. Taken out of context, the phrase sounds rather damning.

Moreover, scientists use terms within their fields (such as "trick" or "scheme") that have different meanings than when used colloquially. When the scientific term is used in the lay context, I can see how it can be interpreted as diabolical.

John Cook at Skeptical Science has a nice explanation of the most contentious excerpts of the Mann e-mails.

@DanWV: I appreciate your enthusiasm but cutting and pasting large swaths of someone else's comments is not what we do here. If you don't have original thoughts to contribute, simply leave a URL for the rest of the readers to refer to in this discourse.

@Mr. Gillar - It is very difficult to take your statements seriously given your website that exploits the the lives lost in the Air France crash and the Minneapolis bridge collapse for the sake of joking about global warming.

I'm always blown away by the trend of "ur sciez sux and my opinion rox!!!" It's emblematic of the anti-scientific attitude in our country. Science is amoral---what we do with knowledge is not. You can deny scientific findings if they don't agree with your ideology, but that doesn't change them.

I think part of the problem is the fact that so many Americans are complete morons.

Think about it.

Science selects for we who have got brains, generally. It takes a certain amount of ability to think analytically and dispassionately.

The rest of the population is largely in professions where there is less or none of this vital selection.

Not that EVERYBODY in other professions is totally dumb; many of the commenters on this blog who are in other professions obviously show the ability to comprehend a certain amount of it.

But this is not about them; this is about the majority.

I like Mooney, but it really is troubling that he has such a tin ear for how his polemics--right or wrong--sound to actual scientists. He is telling scientists what their New Year's resolution should be? For realz?

This Carbon Tax has nothing to do with the environment.

At the bottom of this page

www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/about/history/

From the Climate Research Units own web site you will find a partial list of companies that fund the CRU.
It includes:

British Petroleum, 'Oil, LNG'
Broom's Barn Sugar Beet Research Centre, 'Food to Ethanol'
The United States Department of Energy, 'Nuclear'
Irish Electricity Supply Board. 'LNG, Nuclear'
UK Nirex Ltd. 'Nuclear'
Sultanate of Oman, 'LNG'
Shell Oil, 'Oil, LNG'
Tate and Lyle. 'Food to Ethanol'
Nuclear Installations Inspectorate, 'Nuclear'
KFA Germany, 'Nuclear'

You might what to check out what these and the other funding companies actually do.

This is all about making Nuclear Power, Liquefied Natural Gas and Food to Ethanol more cost competitive.

They have been paying for the research and getting the results that they have paid for, the results that you accept, and drive you to demand low CO2 products. They have the products you now want so desperately, and they are ready to deliver.

The raw data, the computer models and the methods used by the CRU have not been released, only the results. The CRU does not do science; they are in the anti-CO2 business.

I do not see a difference between this and Merck, their 'researchers' and Vioxx, the government and 'thousands and thousands' of doctors believed them, as did a lot of people.

It is business, it is capitalism.

Science Fiction from the Climate Research Unit.

The CRU is has not been practicing the scientific method for almost two decades. The scientific method requires that the researcher publish the original data, models and procedures needed for a skeptical analysis of any of their work. Since they are not using the scientific method then they simply are not doing science, they are writing fiction.

Ponds and Fleishman may have been wrong about cold fusion, but they were at least real scientists. They did their experiments, published the results and their data, procedures and description of the apparatus and the methods. They where shown to be in error, fine, but they were still scientific in their work. The outputs from the CRU are in comparison junk, so I ask, why are these fictional 'research' papers allowed to remain in the realm of scientific publications? Why do people continue to quote the CRU as if they were the work of Albert Einstein rather than the work of Mark Twain?

For a satirical look at the climategate programming (hiding the decline):
Anthropogenic Global Warming Virus Alert

www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s5i64103

What is the definition of global temperature? If one postulates global warming one needs to know what global temperature is. I remember a couple years back when I became quite suspicious of Global warming when Al Gore wouldnât shut his yap about it that I tried to ask this question on a different site and was referred to as a mass murderer for trying to define terms. I had hoped for a discussion of different temperature data sets, the understanding that these data sets are only a small sample of the Earthâs temperature at any one time, the limitations, precision and accuracy of the data, how the methodology for sampling temperature may have altered over years, decades, centuries.

Never got that far of course, but even saying one knows global temperature with any degree of accuracy needs to be demonstrated. From there can one determine with any confidence, given changes in methodology, past trends in temperature? From there can one make predictive models of temperature change (and have they been confirmed!!) especially on the scale of decades and centuries, as this seems to be the idea underlying much of âthe sky is falling, the sky is falling â¦ give us your moneyâ political discourse of late. If one ever confirmed that future temperature trends were accurately being predicted, would one have any confidence that they understood the underlying causes and from there the necessary changes (ie the âgive us your moneyâ part). Funny that the solution proffered to a postulated future trend in global temperature is an attempt at man-made global cooling.

Finally, one should recognize when surrogates are being used in place of actual temperature readings, i.e. tree ring data might reflect not just temperature but for instance CO2 concentration, coral reefs, local predator populations, ice cover, ocean salinity and ice particulate content etc, etc.

I would think given the complexity of the climate the last thing anyone would want is some global treaty to attempt anthropogenic climate change.

http://healthjournalclub.blogspot.com/

I'm a doctoral level biological scientist and as Darwinian as you will find. I find it hard to believe that you, as a scientist and apparently a teacher of science and the scientific method, aren't the least bit suspicious of the character and published work of the CRU crew or their apologists in the press. I'm wondering just who is in denial here. I don't think it's me. I used to accept AGW dogma, but after looking closely at the science and politics over the past two and a half years, I am unconvinced that the modest amount of warming that occurred in the 20th century is distinguishable from natural background. Certainly, current climate models are unable to make accurate predictions. Kevin Trenberth's answer is that the data must be wrong. Not a very scientific assumption except where the surface temperature data has fudged to give the desired warming.
Sorry, but it's no longer about Rush Limbaugh and right wing nuts, or statements taken out of context, it's about (very likely) biased science. I think there's a good reason that there haven't been "all that many other scientists helping in that [defending Mann, et. al.] effort." A large number of real scientists in other fields don't like the smell and think they may have been had along with the uncritical press.

*sigh* Abel, you are too nice.

Chris Mooney is a poseur.

He says one thing in 2006, then the opposite in 2008, then the opposite in 2010. I mean, this is basic consistency of thought. If you go to your physician for a checkup in 2006, and she says "You need to increase fish in your diet for your heath." In 2008 she says "Dont eat fish, the mercury will kill you." In 2010 she says "You need to increase fish in your diet for your health."-- What would you think?

Youd quit listening to her until she provided for evidence for her changes in opinion.

And then she throws a bitch-fit when you ask for said evidence and accuses you of being sexist and a Nazi and anti-Christian for not listening to her advice.

Furthermore, Mooney has *zero* ethos on this topic. *ZERO* Mooneys pet-project is global warming, right? Dude came to Oklahoma last year, home of crazy-ass anti-global warming nuts. Mooney did not advertise to anyone (including me) that he was coming to OK, despite the fact I am friends with all the scientists down at OU through our evolution education activities. Mooney spoke to a class of journalism students, got right back on his plane, and ran home. Mooney had a golden opportunity to show one of his most vocal opponents (me) exactly How It Should Be Done(TM), how to present science to unbelievers, and dude ran away.

I repeat, you are very kind, Abel, but Mooney is just not worth the time/effort/praise you put in this commentary.

The scientists involved in 'Climategate' actually did a comprehensively excellent job of communicating with the public. In fact, they communicated so well that they motivated governments around the world to invest billions in climate change strategies, prompted citizens to riot in in the streets, got professionals to wager their reputations, scared countless children into fearing the future, and that's only a short list.

On a related note: those who call Climategate 'no big deal' persistently rely on the leaked emails, and on how they might be construed. The real story is to be found in the computer code and the data which came along for the ride. The code and data are starkly unambiguous in this case, and so, too, are the conclusions which may reasonably be drawn from them.

@CPP - No, it wasn't Mooney saying this should be our New Year's resolution; I came up with that title myself based on the timing of his op-ed and my post. Sorry to mislead you into thinking it was his opinion.

@David44 - My statement was based more on the fact that the most vitriolic and dismissive statements came from Limbaugh and Beck. I don't disagree that some scientists have questions about AGW. Actually, I feel that as someone who teaches the scientific methods, the fact that some scientists disagree gives us a great learning opportunity for how difficult it is to interpret results from experimental designs that are not prospective.

@ERV - I don't think I'm being unusually kind to Mooney - in fact, I disagree with him that anything could've been done post-CRU hacking. I read your post as well as your comment but my feeling is that Mooney, or anyone, has the right to change his opinion over two or three years as they gather more data or experience. In fact, it's done often in medicine and in contrast to your example, I'm glad we change our minds in medicine based upon constant reevaluation of data.

For example, the guidelines for estrogen hormone replacement therapy in post-menopausal women is a perfect example of how changing one's opinion, or that of an entire medical discipline, is a Good Thing. Modifying one's stance or opinion, is a show of reason, not always a weakness. Most certainly, I don't view Mooney, or anyone like him, as a poseur for changing his opinion. I especially give a lot of latitude to folks younger than I because they may not have yet accumulated life experiences that challenge their thinking or have lived through the shattering of dogma by the revelations of new data.

I can't speak for Mooney not making time for you in Oklahoma. Having interacted with him and other writers with his level of popularity, it is quite common for these folks to simply not have time in their schedule for me or overlook me when coming to my area - I may simply not be their most important concern on this particular visit. Since you note he came for a journalism class visit, I might consider that his schedule just didn't permit time to also have a scientific engagement with you or anyone else at OU, particularly since he had to blow out of town immediately thereafter. Life is busy and I tend not to take these things personally or read too much into them.

Abel,

I read ERV as saying that Mooney in OK reached out to only journalism students, not the scientists for which his message is allegedly framed. I don't think ERV is taking a lack of a meeting with Mooney personally, just that not delivering or at least advertising his "scientists should have way with words" message to actual scientists seems inconsistent.

Mr. Mooney phrase "do nothing to disprove the scientific consensus...." is strange.

Isn't consensus a non scientific term, usually political. In any event even if there was a consensus on global warming, how do you disprove a general agreement on something.

What the emails did show was that man made global warming hasn't been scientifically proven. The bad grammar of Mr. Mooney's piece is shameful.

For the most part the alarmists refer to the consensus, which probably never really existed, as some kind of proof. It isn't, it's merely an assertion that there is agreement, not warming.

They seem to be more interested in characterizing skeptical enquirers as stupid or moral rejects than discussing science.

How about explaining how the raw data got dumped. Or countering the allegations that the coolest Russian temperature data was ignored. or that the last few decades of temperature data for Australia and New Zealand were edited to show a warming trend where none existed.

Tell us why NASA hasn't answered a simple FOI request from skeptic author Chris Horner within the prescribed 20 days after two years.

Now there are reports that atmospheric carbon dioxide has not risen in the last 150 years because the Oceans have absorbed the excess carbon dioxide humans pumped out. How about commenting on that.

I read some of the email threads from CRU. My reading of them was that there was fraud and coverup.

Discover magazine and the Washington Post should do some honest reporting rather than jacking up a political hack like Chris Mooney.

Daryl @ "Now there are reports that atmospheric carbon dioxide has not risen in the last 150 years because the Oceans have absorbed the excess carbon dioxide humans pumped out. How about commenting on that."

That is a misinterpretation of "Is the airborne fraction of anthropogenic CO emissions increasing? W. Knorr. Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, 21, doi:10.1029/2009GL040613, 2009" Which essentially says that while the atmospheric carbon dioxide has indeed risen, just as reported by the consensus, the fraction of the (increased) CO2 which remains in the atmosphere has remained unchanged around 40%. IOW, the fact that 40% of our emissions accumulate in the atmosphere remains unchanged.

Chris Mooney finds out that Marohasy does not tell the truth

tlambert — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 23:53:01 +0000

Chris Mooney finds out that Marohasy does not tell the truth

Chris Mooney seems somewhat bemused by Jennifer Marohasy's response to his interview on Lateline. Marohasy claimed:

according to an interview Mr Mooney gave last night on Australian television if you don't believe in AGW you aren't even a scientist.

Compare with what Mooney actually said:

If you're talking about the basic question of: is global warming happening, due to human greenhouse gas emissions? Then the scientists who dispute that, seriously, are very small. And if you look through the scientific literature you will not find that argument being prominently made.

And if you think there is any chance of Marohasy correcting her misrepresentation, you are unfamiliar with her previous conduct.

Mooney is right, by the way: results of Doran and Zimmerman's survey:

Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?

tlambert Sun, 09/20/2009 - 19:53

Tags

The scientists who dispute that are very small? Teasing people for being short?

I had thought better of Mooney!

Not content with misquoting and misconstruing what Mooney actually said, Marohasy adds insult to injury by calling the thread on Mooney's ABC interview "More Smearing of Scientific Scepticism (Part 2)â. In the ABC interview AGW sceptics are mentioned once by Sales, and even then I'd hardly call stating that 'sceptics' are not convinced that the science is settled "smearing".

Marohasy then attempts to back up her general hypothesis that the ABC is run by left-wing eco-fruit-loops hell bent on silencing any dissent by quoting an entire letter to the ABC on the subject from "a friend and colleague", one Andrew McIntyre...

Yet another typical, disingenuous Marohasy-style beat-up then. And we wonder why denialobots seem to spring up like weeds in a paddock after a good dousing with biosolids...

"a friend and colleague" and HIV Denialist!

THE YIN AND YANG OF HIV. Valendar Turner & Andrew McIntyre

His name appears on the "HIV rethinker" list.

THE AIDS INDUSTRY AND MEDIA WANT YOU TO THINK THERE ARE ONLY A HANDFUL OF SCIENTISTS WHO DOUBT THE HIVâAIDS THEORY.HEREâS THE REALITY.

Multiple Denial Syndrome.

Same rhetoric different denial.

I liked the quote from Doran-Zimmerman which suggests a program for improving things:

âIt seems that the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes. The challenge, rather, appears to be how to effectively communicate this fact to policy makers and to a public that continues to mistakenly perceive debate among scientistsâ. (my bold).

I'm sure if Mooney is just nicer to Marohasy, she'll change her mind ....

Well it is obvious that Mooney meant all scientists that oppose AGW are about 1ft tall.

Everyone knows that. I assume when Plimer appears on TV they use some special effects originally used in the Lord of the Rings movies.

Instead of picking out a clear statement about short people, Marohasy thought it was better to make something up.

I blame atheists!

[Latest Global Warming news](http://www.theonion.com/content/news/melting_ice_caps_expose_hundreds?u…)

OT, but anyone have any idea how I received an email congratulating me on my win in the Australian lottery? Deleted it without opening, of course.

Tim,

Interesting graph from Doran and Zimmerman.

You neglected to mention, however, as you did when you first posted it in January, that 96% of respondents came from North America (US, 90%: Canada, 6%) leaving only 4% from the Rest of the World!

Moreover, of the respondents only "approximately 5% were climate scientists"

I think this has been here mentioned before, [the Pew Research Center conducted a survey in collaboration with the AAAS](http://people-press.org/report/528/) on the views of the public and scientists on a range of issues. This includes a [section on global warming](http://people-press.org/report/?pageid=1550)

Public Agrees Earth is Warming,
but differs with Scientists over the Cause

Public Scientists
View on climate change % %
- Warming is due to
human activity 49 84
- Warming is due to
natural changes 36 10
- No solid evidence
Earth is warming 11 4

Global Warming is ...
- very serious problem 47 70
- somewhat serious 26 22
- not too serious 11 4
- not a problem 13 2

Dave Andrews @ 10, what's your point? Do you not understand the idea of statistical sampling? Or do you have evidence that the beliefs of North American scientists (not the general public) are so different from those of scientists in the rest of the world as to skew the results?

Here is a strong recommendation. It is slightly related to this thread, but in any case, it applauds Tim's work chasing Benny Peiser, so here it is:

James Hoggan, Climate Cover-Up - The Crusade to Deny Global Warming.

I'm a member of an internet based advocacy group called GetUp. Over the last few years GetUp has taken up a number of campaigns and been successful in pushing for better decisions from our politicians.

Now we've launched campaign - ReEnergize Australia - in which we are door knocking in a number of key electorates around Australia. It's designed to push our politicians toward more robust action on climate change. (I'm targeting Melbourne - the electorate of the Federal Finace Minister - Lindsay Tanner). The campaign is being undertaken with advice from people who were involved in designing Obama's campaign strategies.

We are going around the electorates knocking on doors, and conducting a brief survey, plus asking people to sign a petition asking our politicians to champion clean energy technologies and to lead rather than drag the chain at Copenhagen. The survey has been designed so that it will allow us to get an accurate estimate of opinion across the electorate, including an estimate of the percentage of the electorate for whom this is likely to sway their vote.

We are being amazed by the response. Of the people we talk to, something like 70 to 80% are eager to sign the petition and most of those are very concerned about global warming and want Australia to take a more realistic and robust position on action. And this seems to be the case regardless of who they voted for in the last election. They express a deep frustration with the inadequate action being taken by the government.

On the internet you get the impression that there is a big contingent of skeptics, but in reality they're in the minority.

James Haughton,

As I understand it the Doran and Zimmerman survey relied on self responders. It was also largely biased to people in North America.

Both these facts could easily skew the results.

James Haughton,

You also ignore the fact that 95% of respondents were not climate scientists. Now, I am not saying that these scientists might not have very pertinent views and understanding of the problem. But I am cognizant of the fact that whenever a scientist who is not a climate scientist stands up and critices AGW almost the first response of AGW believers is "but he/she is not a climate scientist!"

Dave Andrews @ 12: That would be why the survey results clearly separate climatologists and authors of published articles on climate change from other general scientists, then.

re: Pew Survey

1) Many AAAS members are natural scientists, of which a small fraction are climate scientists.

2) On the other hand, anyone can join AAAS, and even if you aren't very technical, it's well worth doing this for a year, and at least trying to read the first half of each issue of Science. (The second half is for specialists, and some of those papers,especially the biology ones, I can't even read the abstracts. :-)) But if you can read Scientific American, you have a fighting chance with the first half of an issue.

3) Hence on the K-Scale I use, most AAAS members would fit B3 (natural scientists, not climate scientists), some would be B4, and some would be B2 (other technical folks, like me). After all, this was a survey of AAAS on many topics, not just climate.

4) The survey results mean that most of the responses are by non-climatologists, but scientists who either:

a) Have studied the problem enough to worry. Science often publishes climate research.

b) Have not, but know the opinions of the AAAS, the NAS, APS,ACS, etc ... and follow sane normal thinking, which is to assume that experts who've dedicated decades of their lives studying some area of science, have the most accurate idea of what's going on, especially when repeatedly confirmed by every serious science society.

Generally, real scientists figure they know more about their own turf than non-experts do, i.e., they tend to know what they know and what they don't and are only occasionally afflicted by Dunning-Kruger equivalents.

Of course, some are so intense on their own research that they haven't really followed the issues.

John,
another obvious objection you are likely to run into is that the average scientist is more liberal than the general public, which is true but fails to explain the results. There's enough data in the report ([pages 34 and 39](http://people-press.org/reports/pdf/528.pdf)) for the following findings:
a) Scientists are on average more concerned about climate change than ___any___ political faction in the general US public.
b) Another way to view this: If the correlation of political leaning and views on climate change were the same for the general public and scientists, one would expect just about 60-65% of the scientists to attribute the warming to human activity, whereas the actual number is 84%.

At the same time only 56% of the population think that scientists generally agree that it's warming and that humans are causing it. Depressing.

Off topic.

A memorable quote from Jennifer Marohasy.

The Murray Mouth Controversy, Counterpoint, ABC Radio National, 26 March, 2012:

Over time, it's become popular in South Australia to blame upstream irrigators, and many environmental activists support this idea of a fresh water lake because they can use the idea, that the lower Murray needs more water, to take water from rice and cotton growers, and it's currently fashionable to rally against rice and cotton growers.
Once-upon-a-time, do-gooders took babies from unmarried mothers.
Now they take water from irrigators.

Partial transcript available at

Environmental Flows Unnecessary in the Murray-Darling Basin

PZ Myers, Chris Mooney, Asa Gray, and the religion-science divide

ddobbs — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 07:21:04 +0000

PZ Myers, Chris Mooney, Asa Gray, and the religion-science divide

Greg Laden, trying to toss a line between the "New Atheists" and 'Accommodationists" who are currently squabbling about a dust-up featuring PZ Myers v Chris Mooney & Sheril Kirshenbaum (who apparently rough Myers up a bit in their book Unscientific America), writes:

Now, I just want to make this point: I learned early on (when I was still an altar boy) that where religion and life conflict -- where the religion was not doing a good job at explaining the bits and pieces of life that were not making sense -- it was OK to drop the details of the religion part and chalk it up to mystery.

I've never understood why so many people reject this approach. And I think a bit of historical background helps here. You could ask yourself, for instance, What Would Asa Gray Do?

If you name the important figures in the acceptance of Darwin's theory of evolution through natural selection in the U.S. in the 1860s, near or at the top of your list should be Asa Gray*, pictured above. Gray was a Harvard botanist who took the fight for Darwin's theory straight at its greatest obstacle in the U.S.: his Harvard colleague and one-time friend Louis Agassiz. Agassiz was a staunch and eloquent advocate of intelligent design. Gray was a devout Protestant who figured that when he was doing botany, he was tracing God's work. "The unity we perceive in nature," he wrote, is one to which "sound science has ever delighted to point, as the proof that all is the direct handiwork of a single omniscient Creator." As yet, Gray wrote, those arguing that species arise any other way "are bound to show that natural agencies are competent to produce such results .... The burden of proof rests upon them." This could easily have been Louis talking.

In the 1850s, Darwin, through a long and remarkable series of letters to Gray (some of which are here), led him down a breadcrumb trail to slowly embrace the theory of evolution by natural selection. The breadcrumbs were the botany samples on Gray's own lab tables. I tell this story in Reef Madness: Charles Darwin, Alexander Agassiz, and the Meaning of Coral. Darwin's seduction of Gray was a key event in the spread of his ideas. Here's a much-elided version:

As early as the 1840s, Gray had noted that eastern North America and eastern Asia, especially Japan, both hosted many plants found nowhere else. Identical or closely similar species were growing a world apart. Forty plant genera existed only in these two areas. He noted this oddity in print several times but lacked time to examine it closely.

In 1855, however, .... Charles Darwin ... wrote Gray asking for help in solving some plant-species distribution problems he was struggling with. As always, Darwin was humble, solicitous -- and subversively Socratic, even while fishing for information he genuinely needed.

As I am no Botanist, it will seem so absurd to you my asking botanical questions, that I may premise that I have for several years been collecting facts on "variation," and when I find that any general remark seems to hold amongst animals, I try to test it in Plants.

Though Darwin in this particular letter asked about differences among North American alpine plants, his confession to testing ideas on "variation" against Gray's plant data sums up the course of their ensuing correspondence. Their exchanges would greatly strengthen Darwin's theories even as he sold them to Gray. ...

For two years, then, Darwin plied Gray with questions about plant distribution problems in North America, and particularly about the eastern U.S.-East Asia puzzle, that led Gray to consider more deeply the possible links between species distribution and "variation," or species change. It was a brilliant strategy, convincing Gray not by rhetoric but by enticing him to reconsider the evidence on his own lab tables....

Finally, in July 1857, Darwin fessed up. With a short letter followed by an abstract, he made Gray the third confidante to know of his theory of evolution, including his ideas on natural selection.... Gray was at first cautiously receptive about Darwin's theory, then increasingly convinced. The logic seemed sound. Even if Darwin himself worried aloud to Gray that this theory was "grievously hypothetical," it nevertheless made an empirical argument based on a natural process rather than a supernatural one. It thus appealed to Gray's empiricism. But what truly sold Gray, in those months between Darwin's private confession of the theory and his publication of it more fully in the Linnean Society papers and then Origin, was the light the theory shed on the Japan-North America pattern Gray had long been pondering.

This exchange led to a monograph by Gray, On the Botany of Japan
and its Relations to that of North America and of other Parts of the
Northern Temperate Zone, (described nicely here, beginning at pages 9-10) that was one of the first scientific papers to apply Darwin's theory in the way it would so often be used later -- to explain anomalies of species distribution. The experience turned him with finality against the use of creationist arguments in science -- and made him an advocate for applying Darwin's views instead. He soon became the most effective advocate of Darwin's theory, defeating Louis Agassiz in a prominent series of debates and defending The Origin of Species in The Atlantic, which until then had run one Louis Agassiz essay after another.

But accepting Darwin's theory, including its mechanistic process of natural selection, didn't make Gray an atheist. He still believed that God played a role somewhere, somehow -- but that he had created life, and perhaps the rules by which it worked, in some manner "lost in the mists of time," and that his hand worked in an arena beyond the knowable. That was faith. Science was what could be seen. And it was no fair -- it wasn't science -- to assert as fact something that you could not observe.

It was a perfectly workable separation for Gray, and has been for many scientists since then. I suppose you can argue that believing in God somehow corrupts you as a scientist. But though I'm an atheist, I haven't heard that argument phrased in a way that's convincing -- and it flies in the face (ahem) of an awful lot of evidence, in the form of good scientists who've done great work while believing in God.

The turf between science and religion is -- well, it's a gray area. And it seems perfectly fine to me to treat it the way Gray did: as a region not to tread in your day job. Science was empirical, and if it wasn't empirical, it wasn't science. Religion was belief -- a domain beyond proof. That's why they call it faith.

â¢Gray's Wikipedia entry desperately needs some revision to reflect all this.

UPDATE: Jonah Lehrer's short review of Richard Dawkins' upcoming book raises an issue that Greg addressed and that runs either under or right atop the surface of these discussions: Does a harsh insistence on atheism really do much to advance the cause of belief in empircal science?

ddobbs Mon, 07/13/2009 - 03:21

Tags

culture of science

evolution

History/philosophy of science

Categories

Two points:
1. Well, I think that times have rather changed since then. The scientific evidence available to us today ensures that most everybody who gets even a relatively basic understanding of a wide variety of disciplines from geology to astronomy to biology, and who is even moderately is accepting of the evidence, quickly becomes a non-creationist if they were one in the first place. Back in Darwin's day, by contrast, you had many well-educated men who just didn't know any better, because nobody had put the pieces together yet. It's not really any surprise that such people were convinced very quickly through evidence. And yes, this is precisely how we should operate today: a completely religion-neutral teaching of the science in schools should do away with nearly all creationism. I don't think this means that we shouldn't use other tools at our disposal outside of the classroom.

2. As far as religion and being a scientist is concerned, well, believing in a religion requires that one set aside a portion of ones' beliefs about the nature of reality as being inaccessible to logic or evidence. This isn't the only way of thinking that requires it, not by a long shot, but it is perhaps the most pervasive. And when a person accepts that it is okay to do this, they lose the ability to discern when they are being irrational about other things and when they are not. That is, they never know when something that is very accessible to science falls 'behind the veil,' so to speak, where they won't listen to evidence or reason (or at least are less likely to). Yes, it is very true that holding such beliefs may never impact their practice of science. But it is by no means clear that this will always occur.

Now, merely failing to hold a belief that is inaccessible to logic or evidence does not guarantee that one will hold nothing but reasonable beliefs. But at least it doesn't protect any unreasonable beliefs around an extra layer of emotional baggage.

If the scientific question you are trying to answer is: 'how a universe with a god would differ from one without one' you should see there is a clear conflict of interest there for some people. You could tell that that is not a scientific question, but I haven't heard a convincing argument for it.
Cheers.

Excellent append, and I appreciate the relevant additional information about Gray, which goes beyond what I knew previously.

A related observation would be that the ongoing hassles accomplish little other than to waste sizable amounts of the time and intellectual energy of quite a number of accomplished individuals, many of them working scientists.

The way things are going, I expect a growing number of both scientists and lay people to be rejected both by the "extreme religionists" because they're not doctrinally pure enough and by the "extreme atheists" because they're not doctrinally pure enough.

However, I don't think either side recognizes how big the "excluded middle" is in this debate - scientists who carry on happily without being interested in debating their religious beliefs; and religious lay people who are quite content to ignore the debate as long as the practice of science or science education isn't tromped on.

And that last point should be the key, but it's all too often getting lost in the pointless sound and fury.

As Jerry Coyne so recently noted

First of all, nobody doubts that science and religion are compatible in the trivial sense that someone can be a scientist and be religious at the same time. That only shows oneâs ability to hold two dissimilar approaches to the world simultaneously in oneâs own mind. As Iâve said umpteen times before, you could say that being a Christian is compatible with being a murderer because a lot of murderers are Christians.
...
This is not what we mean when we say science and faith are incompatible. Got it, folks?? Letâs not hear the âthere-are-religious-scientistsâ argument any more

I think that applies equally well to the "there-was-this-specific-nineteenth-century-religious-scientist" argument.

My problem with religious thinking is when 'unknown' becomes 'unknowable', when people jump from 'don't understand' to 'can't understand'. It's where a scientist gives up, and asserts that 'no one will ever understand such-and-so'. Neil Degrasse Tyson has an eloquent essay on this, "The Perimeter of Ignorance.

From what I've been able to see, religious scientists who aren't studying a field where they think their faith gives answers do just fine. But very few people, so far as I can see, are able to do good science when studying a subject they approach with faith.

So it's not that "believing in God" necessarily "corrupts you as a scientist" - and I haven't seen anyone but strawmen actually advancing that claim - it's just a risk factor.

...it was OK to drop the details of the religion part and chalk it up to mystery.

I've never understood why so many people reject this approach.

Because this way, you can give religion credit for all the hits, while having to accept no responsibility for the misses. Religion can never be wrong, just "mysterious". This is intellectually dishonest. People wouldn't accept this in any other area in life (especially not in science), but here it is, being advocated for religion anyway.

Also, it is an implicit admission that religion can't really teach you anything about life. Only life itself will tell you which teachings work, and which don't are mysterious. Yet many people still want to consider religion as a powerful tool to understand life.

I really don't want to drag this out; a look at other sites show this one goes interminably. But a couple points:

I read Coyne's essay and find it and similar ones unconvincing. He wants to insist on examining the question with the assumption that religious people will demand that religion explain, in the public sphere, many mysteries. Here's the relevant passage, which CW quotes above

First of all, nobody doubts that science and religion are compatible in the trivial sense that someone can be a scientist and be religious at the same time. That only shows oneâs ability to hold two dissimilar approaches to the world simultaneously in oneâs own mind. As Iâve said umpteen times before, you could say that being a Christian is compatible with being a murderer because a lot of murderers are Christians. ...

It isnât. This is not what we mean when we say science and faith are incompatible. Got it, folks?? Letâs not hear the âthere-are-religious-scientistsâ argument any more. Itâs trivial, and insulting to anyone who can think. (See here for Clay Shirkeyâs refutation of what he calls âThe Doctrine of Joint Belief.â)

Scott says, âI donât have to address this as a philosophical question; I can address it as an empirical question.â Well, it is both an empirical and philosophical question.

Here is the philosophical part: is a way of finding out things based on reason and evidence compatible with a way of finding out things based on revelation and dogma?

Here is the empirical part: are the assertions of faith in conflict, or potential conflict, with the assertions of science?

If the answer to the empirical part was âno, no conflictâ then the philosophical part would show compatibility: faith and science would be equally good â and reliableâ ways to find out stuff.

But in fact the answer to the empirical part is âyesâ â virtually every faith, with the possible exception of Buddhism and deism, makes fact claims about the universe. And there is no evidence for any of these assertions. Indeed, many of them have proven to be false.

Coyne's key question is "are the assertions of faith in conflict, or potential conflict, with the assertions of science?" And he concludes they are in conflict, simply because every faith makes fact claims about the universe. Well -- yes and no. The religious doctrines may make faith claims. But many individual believers limit those claims and scale them back in a way that makes them perfectly compatible with a rigorously empirical approach to science and communal explanations of cause and effect. This is precisely what Gray did -- and precisely what many people do today. The examples are not irrelevant. They show that religious scientists can (I say can, not inevitably will) pursue science in a way indistinguishable from atheistic scientists. If you believe otherwise, then develop a Turing test for religious scientists: What scientific questions can you ask an unidentified scientist that will reveal whether the scientist is an atheist or religious? I find it hard to imagine one.

I also can't buy that being religious would tempt an otherwise good scientist to ease up on a quest for answers. (As to the idea expressed by Jason Dick that atheism somehow protects one from irrational behavior -- oh please. That rather ignores much of the best neuroeconomic work done lately -- and suggests a startling willingness to believe in miracles.) Both that worry about easing up on empirical questions and Coyne's argument assume â virtually insist â that a religious person, even a religious scientist, will wield religion as a way to "find out stuff," as Coyne puts it. Say what? Obviously some do. But many harbor religious belief as a way not to answer things, but to accept or be reconciled with certain things that cannot be found out. Coyne or others might say "Aha! That's the problem! They'll give up on answering mysteries because they'll say they're unknowable! So they'll stop asking scientific questions!"

Well, no. For I suspect many religious scientists are -- like Gray -- often willing to move that line when empirical evidence begins to offer a scientific explanation, and to make ever smaller the realm of the unknowable -- while happily trying to pursue answers in an empirical way, knowing there will always be a realm beyond the reach of proof. In short, they don't even try to use religion to "find out stuff" -- so it needn't interfere with science's realm of doing just that.

In those cases, religion is a private matter -- which is how many people keep it. There's obviously a huge problem when people wield their religions otherwise. But the threat to science and to empirical understanding and evidence-based public policies comes not from private religious belief, but from the insistence to use it publicly and as a guide for public policy and an explanation of How Things Work. It's those actions, not belief, that create problems. Not all belief is incompatible with science. It's perfectly possible to believe and do and'or appreciate good science. Insisting otherwise likely does the empirical cause more harm than good, by insulting and alienating many who do believe.

David, you still focus on the question whether people can both be religious and a scientist at the same time. This is not disputed. Clearly, people are capable to compartmentalize their science and religion well enough, so that their religious views don't interfere with their scientific work. But does that prove that science and religion are compatible, or that people are just really good at compartmentalizing two opposite ideas?

Nobody refutes that there are religions whose fact claims are compatible with the fact claims of science either.

However, as a methodology, science and religion could hardly be more different. For instance, in science, it's considered proper to withhold belief until you have evidence. In religion, on the other hand, believing despite the absence of evidence is considered a virtue.

If a religious scientist would apply the first principle to their religious beliefs, they would have to withhold a belief in what their faith teaches, and thus not be religious. If they would apply the second belief to their scientific beliefs, they wouldn't be a scientist. So the only way to continue to be a religious scientist is to keep both their beliefs and these principles meticulously separated, and only apply the principles to the appropriate beliefs.

I have no reason to assume that this makes Christians bad scientists. In fact, I suspect that many people are quite good at keeping up this separation. I just don't think it's a very consistent position to have.

Typo:

If they would apply the second belief principle to their scientific beliefs, they wouldn't be a scientist.

David, it's true that some - quite possibly "many" - religious scientists will be "willing to move that line when empirical evidence begins to offer a scientific explanation". But Tyson's essay above lists many examples of religious scientists who didn't.

I can add another one. Consider this quote from a prominent physician, J. S. Haldane (father of J.B.S. Haldane), close to a century ago, discussing the "mechanistic theory of heredity" ("Mechanism, Life, And Personality", 1913):

On the mechanistic theory this [cell] nucleus must carry within its substance a mechanism which by reaction with the environment not only produces the millions of complex and delicately balanced mechanisms which constitute the adult organism, but provides for their orderly arrangement into tissues and organs, and for their orderly development in a certain perfectly specific manner.

The mind recoils from such a stupendous conception; but let us follow the argument further... This nuclear structure or mechanism must, according to the mechanistic theory, have been formed within a very short period by the union of two others - a male and a female one. How two such mechanisms could combine to form one is entirely unintelligible, and the observed details of the process tend only to make it, if possible, more unintelligible. When we trace each nuclear mechanism backwards we find ourselves obliged to admit that it has been formed by division from a pre-existing nuclear mechanism, and this from pre-existing nuclear mechanisms through millions of cell-generations. We are thus forced to the admission that the germ-plasm is not only a structure or mechanism of inconceivable complexity, but that this structure is capable of dividing itself to an absolutely indefinite extent and yet retaining its original structure...

There is no need to push the analysis further. The mechanistic theory of heredity is not merely unproven, it is impossible. It involves such absurdities that no intelligent person who has thoroughly realised its meaning and implications can continue to hold it.

Reading this passage, it's striking how clearly he recognized the functional requirements that a mechanism for inheritance would have to meet. But he could imagine no physical arrangement that could satisfy those conditions... and concluded that therefore such a mechanism was impossible. Indeed, he insisted that a spiritual explanation was the only remaining option. Laborious work by Watson and Crick (and Wilkins and Franklin) has since discovered DNA, however. What if Haldane had "push[ed] the analysis further"? Would we have discovered DNA earlier?

As I said before, religion isn't a determinant for this sort of thing, but a risk factor. Of course, smoking isn't a determinant of lung cancer, just a risk factor, as well.

Well, no. For I suspect many religious scientists are -- like Gray -- often willing to move that line when empirical evidence begins to offer a scientific explanation, and to make ever smaller the realm of the unknowable -- while happily trying to pursue answers in an empirical way, knowing there will always be a realm beyond the reach of proof. In short, they don't even try to use religion to "find out stuff" -- so it needn't interfere with science's realm of doing just that.

It is possible. But the emotional baggage that religion brings along makes it that much more difficult. And it's not so much that they try to use religion to "find out stuff", but that they (often unknowingly) already have beliefs that make very specific statements about the natural world.

I fail to see how the Carollian approach ("I have sometimes thought six impossible things before breakfast") of Gray and/or others illuminates just how it is that Mooney and Kirshenbaum (M&K) wish to remold the general public vis a vis science or religion. Do M&K want more public understanding of science? Of religion? Of both? More knowledge? more tolerance? more funding? less of any of these? â a better balance? a different balance?

And I think that without a clear statement of the desiderata â a description of how our everyday life would be different were M&K to accomplish their goals â then we who choose to engage in discussion or argument (or worse) about the book, will be nothing more than red or white pawns, always talking past each other in a looking-glass story where neither science nor religion guides the plot, the characters, or the dialog.

Do M&K fondly wish "a return to yesteryear?" A return to the decades upon decades in which atheists STFU on pain of death? A return to generations upon generations of religious history during which atheism was a wild belief "that dare not speak its name"? A return to a century or so ago when the atheists' most radical and threatening idea was an orbiting teapot?

To coin a phrase, "Toto, we're still in Kansas."

Kansas is where they vote religion into law. Is that what M&K want all across the country, all across the world? Do they want all bodies politic, all publics here, there, and everywhere, to vote their various religions into law, willy-nilly?

Faced with the very real prospect, the worldwide threat, and (in places) the actuality of such establishmentarianism, do M&K suggest that dominionism and establishmentarianism should not be opposed, unless the opposition be thoroughly genteel?

Or do M&K merely wish to ensure that opposition to dominionism, to establishmentarianism, to religionists of of any stripe never comes from scientists, and never comes from atheists?

To what end do M&K assert that opposition must be mild and meek at all times, and, no matter what, must always and ever be inoffensive to any religionist?

As for the "new" atheists, Do M&K have something else for them to do besides hide behind a curtain until Toto finds them?

Just a few quotes from your response in no particular order:

many individual believers limit those claims

For I suspect many religious scientists

so it needn't interfere with science's realm of doing just that

In those cases, religion is a private matter

But many harbor religious belief as a way not to answer things, but to accept or be reconciled with certain things that cannot be found out.

The religious doctrines may make faith claims.

Now, I agree with your assessment as far as it goes. But there is an elephant in the room. And it is basically that, the complement (the A' to your A) is that, many individual believers DON'T limit those claims, many religious scientists don't compartmentalize responsibly, many religious people DON'T treat their religion as private, many dogmas DO make falsified fact claims etc.

Coyne is most assuredly NOT saying that religion leads deterministically to corrupted science in every individual who has it. You know this. But the hemming and hawing you do is pretty much only good for rejecting that extreme version.

What is true, and indisputable, is that religion in practice is very frequently incompatible (in the empirical sense) with science and that when that incompatibility is manifested (as it often is, just see Arkansas, Kansas, Pennsylvania, Texas, just to name examples in education) it is very often to the detriment of science. This is undeniable. Jerry has a very low hurdle to clear, which is why his position shouldn't be controversial. To show incompatibility, he needs only show that compromised science is more likely under the influence of religion than without it (all else being equal). Your position is much more demanding and requires religion to have a negligible influence.

But for some reason, people resist criticizing religion, even while criticizing the politicization of science, for example (see Mooney's other much better book, the Republican War on Science). And even when religion ISN'T in the business of shaping science to its own ends, it doesn't provide anything of value in the practice of science. In other words, even "moderate" religion is bait for Occam's Razor.

And we haven't even treated the incompatibility in the philosophical sense. For those religions that are more than merely personal reflection with a metaphorical interlocutor named God (ie most religion, though maybe not most university theology), there is most certainly a hard and fast incompatibility vis-a-vis the standards of evidence for making conclusions and what constitutes reliable observations. To put it crudely, the "data" of most religion as practiced in the U.S. and its "method" of making conclusions is entirely arbitrary and is entirely contingent on accepting dogma and premises that can only be supported by fiat. And, if like sports and art, such methodology were applied only to its own magisterium, then this would be a non-issue (it is true that the Cowboys are the best team eva; and Eliot Porter is an artistic lightweight because he used color, unlike Ansel Adams; compared to Jesus died for our sins and arose from the dead; God created light first, man from clay and woman from an extraneous rib; God flooded the world for a year with a month long+ flood; Moses performed magic tricks using super-human aid). But as you know, religion can't help but overlap.

I also can't buy that being religious would tempt an otherwise good scientist to ease up on a quest for answers.

Why can't you buy this? It has been observed numerous times. See Kurt Wise for an extreme version of this. For a more nuanced example much more sympathetic to your perspective (though still problematic from mine), see James Tours. And in between those two extremes, I have found it common to encounter extremely insistent and rude creationists who are also trained as research science PhDs, some of which have continued as practicing scientists. Of course, my anecdotes do not a trend make, but I think your assertion in this regard is a dubious null hypothesis. (Interestingly, it seems as if chemists are most likely in my personal experience to be competent researchers and creationists simultaneously, which is why Kurt Wise is so exceptional.)

Ultimately, this is simply to say that all people can hold different ways of thinking in their own heads, and they can be widely different, even incompatible in the sense that one methodology is WRONG in other arenas. But only one way of thinking provides reliable frameworks that enable us to predict and manipulate the natural world: the scientific method. If art or sports aspired to make assertions about that realm, they'd be incompatible as well. But they don't. Unfortunately for most popular religions (certainly for the monotheisms), they are inextricably historically tied to explaining how the world came about and why reality is as we see it. In other words, religions as practiced by the majority of believers in the U.S. are linked to making empirical statements about natural phenomena amenable to scientific inquiry. As such, religion constantly violates the NOMA principle in ways that literature, art, and sports don't, despite the best efforts of clever theologians to sever that historical tie to explaining how the world came about.

JJE @13: ... many religious scientists don't compartmentalize responsibly ...

Who are you referring to here? More than just a couple would be nice here since you mentioned "many".

Just a repost of something I posted on Greg Laden's blog (with a few edits):

The problem here is that the argument is not simply about atheism, it is about accomodationism.

You have the scientific purists, who hold that science compromised in the name of not offending popular opinion isn't science so much as propaganda - which is the group I fall under (fair disclosure).

This side is generally written off as being "New atheists" but it is hardly restricted to atheists. One of the criticisms of science I have come across when arguing with creationists, is that they don't trust scientists who are more about telling them what they want to hear than the truth.

The second group you get are the scientific accomodationists. These are not the same as the people who think there is no conflict, it must be stated, they are instead those who think whether there is a conflict or not is secondary to "promoting science."

Hence in order to "popularise" science they argue that scientists should not hold controversial positions or use scientific evidence to maintain these positions, hence so far as I can see, what they are arguing for amounts to sacrificing scientific accuracy in the name of political expediency.

Here is why I disagree with them:

In arguing how to communicate science, one should take into account how other concepts have been successfully argued, or held back. Politics demonstrates that people are actually comfortable with controversy, and will rally to it.

This is how woo operates - homeopaths make their money by claiming "big pharma" is evil, the "Secret" operates on the idea that it includes something "they" don't want you to know about.

And back to politics, in South Africa, the ANC is the ruling party of our country yet still makes effective use of rhetoric involving third forces and "counter-revolutionaries."

Why? Because controversy, even manufactured controversy sells.

And trying to hush it up doesn't. There is no more effective way to convince people there is something to see than to adopt a bored tone of voice and say "Nothing to see here."

By glossing over any given controversy, any given argument within the scientific community the accomodationists effectively sacrifice scientific accuracy and ethics, in the name of zero real gain.

By putting across an argument that essentially says "shut up, that's why" they undermine the very cause they claim to champion, leaving science to the position of the Democratic party - where ultimately support for it wains until the forces of anti-science stuff up so royally that the said stuff-up is too big to simply ignore.

GW Bush was a bad president by 2004, he was president until the end of 2008 - because Kerry, was milquetoast and the Democrats had a name for rolling over, a name they maintain and which will go back to hurting them once Bush is long past enough to be forgotten.

I am not saying scientists should copy Rovian politics, as popularity is not the end goal of science, but rather that if you want to popularise science, you shouldn't copy the Democratic Party either - you shouldn't compromise in the name of political expedience because compromise is not actually politically expedient.

And note, the recent example of Mooney and Kirschenbaum (Hope I spelt that right):

They bring up the cracker-gate saga, and ask "what is this doing for science?" Like the only thing a scientist can ever be is a scientist.

In context Myers was actually admirable. (Context being: Student takes Euchrist, gets assaulted, the Catholic League starts trying to get the kid expelled, kid gets death threats, then Myers gets wind of it, threatens to desecrate a cracker, gets threatened HIMSELF, so he goes through with it.)

Had he not desecrated the cracker, frankly he would have been acting in the same cowardly manner as all of those silent liberal voices did when Salmon Rushdie had a fatwa put on his head. The accomadationists do one better and proclaim the Ayotollah right.

But that aside, the whole series of events had nothing to do with science or science advocacy, it was Myers advocating the idea that religious symbols shouldn't mean more than actual living people do. This was not a blow against science, if anything the knock on effect was positive (See my previous post) but it was not supposed to be a blow for science either.

In short, it didn't belong in that book - at least not without evidence for the position that it hurt science. If scientific literacy had gone down, or acceptance of evolution, or if there was anything to indicate that the so-called "new atheist" cracker desecration had ANY effect, then it would have belonged in that book.

But it didn't, because the chapters dealing with Myers, are not there to talk about a stumbling block to scientific literacy.

It is part of a personal vendetta against Myers (Mainly because he is a more controversial figure than Coyne), and against the "new atheists" who so completely annihilated Mooney and Nisbet in the "framing" debates, that using them to generate false controversy served a double purpose - sell the book and "get some payback."

TomJoe, you're just testing me right? You already know the answer but want to make sure I do too?

Well, for starters, I gave you two examples above. And I have run into many personal anecdotes where scientists have straight out told me they reject evolution, that it violates their understanding of Christianity, etc. I was even given a "I'll pray for you" promise. Anyway, my sample size is big because I'm a professional scientist who has spent the last 13 years in academia. I met a guy who dropped out of grad school because of evangelical Christianity when I was in undergrad. I got told by a professional chemist that my field of study (evolution) was wrong because it denied god in my first year of grad school. Even now, I occasionally get scientists who give me the same song and dance because they are religious. I have yet to receive that treatment from a secular scientist.

But I suspect that my personal anecdotes aren't enough for you, so how about some real data.

For starters, here are more than 400 scientists (including Tour above) who question the consensus on evolution:

http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=do…

The rate of religiosity in that group is much higher than for the larger scientific community, so I'd lay money on religion increasing their skepticism disproportionately to their skepticism about any other topic.

For a more general survey of scientists:

http://people-press.org/report/528/

which shows that 13% of scientists reject evolution. While most of those scientists are probably not in Biology (and have more room for ignorance of the evidence) the number is still quite impressive. And even if only 1/4 of that 13% (round down to 3% just to be conservative) reject science because of religion, then that's a HUGE number of scientists who allow religion to interfere with their judgment in science. Of course, if the number is only 3%, I wonder why the other 10% reject it if not religion. My guess is that my random low-ball figure of 3% is a large underestimate.

Anyway, there is a lot of evidence for how religion interferes with science in the lives of even scientists.

And even if only 1/4 of that 13% (round down to 3% just to be conservative) reject science because of religion, then that's a HUGE number of scientists who allow religion to interfere with their judgment in science. Of course, if the number is only 3%, I wonder why the other 10% reject it if not religion. My guess is that my random low-ball figure of 3% is a large underestimate

Wow, this is really amazing. I read this and felt great. I see a hugely valid point. What is sad is that because my education was not research oriented and because I live in a rural area, but maintain a huge interest in science, I take a lot of heat about how I should reject science and live by faith. I'm frequently admonished because I like to read the latest research oriented books and use "Scientific American," as a source of information regarding the basis of many current issues. My point is, I'm faced with bigotry and ignorance from some fundamentalists who aren't inherently stupid, but feel comforted by being part of the herd. I come here and I find intelligent science types who *believe* that simple *faith*(belief) in God either requires compartmentalization of a personality or disqualifies a person from science. I can only say this: Our concept of spacetime can only be expressed beginning with the instant of the Big Bang. My knowledge of the world and how it works can only be what is known to occur after that instant. Those things that I've learned and I know and I am aware of, become more beautiful, more intricate, more complex the deeper I go and the further I proceed in understanding. That gives me a greater faith in God. I attribute everything to God, but that doesn't mean I'm looking for magic, non-physical answers or wishful thinking. I don't set God aside in my understanding, I certainly don't believe God intervenes in human events(with one notable exception)(free will would be impossible, thus the concept of judgement and being sent heaven and hell becomes ridiculous) but I am grateful to be here. I am willing to believe in that notable exception and it effects nothing regarding my understanding of physics, genetics, biology or chemistry. These things are largely mechanistic, but do you really believe they are so mechanistic that if you were able to concieve of the path of an electron in Alpha Centauri with enough accuracy you could predict the course of your grandchild's life? Look, my apologies I'm not trying to write a thesis on either Christianity or science. I just see the whole division as being created by a few cranky, vitriolic folks on either side of the issue.

Wow, this is really amazing. I read this and felt great. I see a hugely valid point. What is sad is that because my education was not research oriented and because

of physics, genetics, biology or chemistry. These things are largely mechanistic, but do you really believe they are so mechanistic that if you were able to concieve of the path of an