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Meanwhile, anti-vax is huge in liberal soccer-mom only-shops-at-whole-foods cities. The left has its fair share of science-denying morons as well.

skj 10y ago
Plenty of anti-vaxers on the right, and the left makes plenty of fun of the ones on the left. Not really the same as climate deniers.
mtberatwork 10y ago
> Meanwhile, anti-vax is huge in liberal soccer-mom only-shops-at-whole-foods cities. Is it really "huge"? Some links to polling data might help here otherwise I would also be reticent to proclaim that it's comparable to climate denial-ism. After all, we have a president that has publicly proclaimed climate change to be a hoax and sitting members of congress that eagerly attack climate scientists on their research [1]. [1] http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/03/lamar-smith-unbound-lays-out-political-strategy-climate-doubters-conference http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/03/lamar-smith-unbound-l...
- MagnumOpus 10y ago
  That same president has of course also publicly proclaimed vaccines to cause autism. He and his tens of millions of followers are the antithesis of the liberal soccer mum, of course. [1] http://uk.businessinsider.com/trump-vaccines-autism-wrong-2017-1 http://uk.businessinsider.com/trump-vaccines-autism-wrong-20...
viggity 10y ago
The difference between vaccines and climate change is that we have hard evidence on vaccines. You can create a hypothesis and do a randomized double blind experiment. The results are conclusive. Climate Science is a bunch of computer models are not testable. When they're run and compared to what actually happened they're always off. e.g. Name a single climate science model that predicted "the pause" starting in '98? Climate Scientists don't release their model's code. They don't release the exact data that went into their model. Shit, isn't that one of the complaints about Wansink? That he isn't sharing his data? I'm not saying climate change isn't real, I'm saying that the level of certainty that climate scientists proclaim is problematic. I'm saying that labeling dissenters as deniers (reminiscent of holocaust deniers) is beyond the pale. I'm saying that fossil fuels have done more to advance the human condition than anything else in history of mankind.
- nonbel 10y ago
  >"The difference between vaccines and climate change is that we have hard evidence on vaccines. You can create a hypothesis and do a randomized double blind experiment. The results are conclusive." I tried to find this a few years ago in the case of measles and it turned out to seem no such studies existed. Have you seen one?
  - viggity 10y ago
    it took a little searching, but I found one for an alternative manufacturing process of the measles vaccine. https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01536405?term=AMP&rank=12 https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01536405?term=AMP&ran...
    - nonbel 10y ago
      Thanks, it looks like this one was done after I was searching. This study doesn't really have the outcomes we need to measure though. There is no placebo group, they didn't check for measles diagnoses (by doctors who didn't know whether they were vaccinated), and they only measured antibody levels for 1.5 months after 1 vaccine dose in children 12-23 months old (ie before going to school when exposure usually occurs). Unfortunately, I really don't think this study offers us anything about whether "vaccines work". You can see that the main concern is whether doctors are much more likely to diagnose measles when they do not believe a vaccination occurred, and whether introduction of the lab tests made the diagnostic definition more stringent: “This was not a blind study, since the investigators knew which children had received measles vaccine. It seems probable that the occurrence of so much ‘measles-like’ illness in the vaccinated children was a reflexion of the difficulty in making a firm diagnosis of measles in the African child at one visit.” http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2134550/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2134550/ “A likely reason for this is that the case may have been misdiagnosed as a non-specific viral illness. Measles has become relatively uncommon in Singapore with two decades of widespread measles vaccination, and especially after the second dose policy was implemented in 1998. Many primary care doctors may not even see a single case of measles in a year. This makes diagnosis more difficult. [...] As only approximately 7% of the clinically-diagnosed cases of measles reported locally turned out to be measles by laboratory testing, there is a need for laboratory confirmation of measles to avoid misidentification of cases and improve disease surveillance.(2)” http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17609829 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17609829
throwaway729 10y ago
> The left has its fair share of science-denying morons as well. Sure. Stupid knows no political affiliation, other than strong and unsubstantiated belief. Meanwhile, the right (in America) also has its fair share of unscientific beliefs about vaccination: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2016/12/trump_s_endorsement_of_slow_vaxxing_explains_his_appeal.html http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_exa... FWIW the only two anti-vaxxers I know in person are a retired west-coast life long democrat, and a super neo-conservative soccer mom. It seems to be more of an "anti-establishment" thing than a "left/right" thing.
TheCoelacanth 10y ago
The closest the left has to mainstream anti-vax politicians are the Green Party. They got a couple percent of the vote in the last election. On the right, virtually all mainstream politicians deny climate change.

skj 10y ago

Plenty of anti-vaxers on the right, and the left makes plenty of fun of the ones on the left. Not really the same as climate deniers.

mtberatwork 10y ago

> Meanwhile, anti-vax is huge in liberal soccer-mom only-shops-at-whole-foods cities. Is it really "huge"? Some links to polling data might help here otherwise I would also be reticent to proclaim that it's comparable to climate denial-ism. After all, we have a president that has publicly proclaimed climate change to be a hoax and sitting members of congress that eagerly attack climate scientists on their research [1]. [1] http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/03/lamar-smith-unbound-lays-out-political-strategy-climate-doubters-conference http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/03/lamar-smith-unbound-l...

MagnumOpus 10y ago
That same president has of course also publicly proclaimed vaccines to cause autism. He and his tens of millions of followers are the antithesis of the liberal soccer mum, of course. [1] http://uk.businessinsider.com/trump-vaccines-autism-wrong-2017-1 http://uk.businessinsider.com/trump-vaccines-autism-wrong-20...

viggity 10y ago

The difference between vaccines and climate change is that we have hard evidence on vaccines. You can create a hypothesis and do a randomized double blind experiment. The results are conclusive. Climate Science is a bunch of computer models are not testable. When they're run and compared to what actually happened they're always off. e.g. Name a single climate science model that predicted "the pause" starting in '98? Climate Scientists don't release their model's code. They don't release the exact data that went into their model. Shit, isn't that one of the complaints about Wansink? That he isn't sharing his data? I'm not saying climate change isn't real, I'm saying that the level of certainty that climate scientists proclaim is problematic. I'm saying that labeling dissenters as deniers (reminiscent of holocaust deniers) is beyond the pale. I'm saying that fossil fuels have done more to advance the human condition than anything else in history of mankind.

nonbel 10y ago
>"The difference between vaccines and climate change is that we have hard evidence on vaccines. You can create a hypothesis and do a randomized double blind experiment. The results are conclusive." I tried to find this a few years ago in the case of measles and it turned out to seem no such studies existed. Have you seen one?
- viggity 10y ago
  it took a little searching, but I found one for an alternative manufacturing process of the measles vaccine. https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01536405?term=AMP&rank=12 https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01536405?term=AMP&ran...
  - nonbel 10y ago
    Thanks, it looks like this one was done after I was searching. This study doesn't really have the outcomes we need to measure though. There is no placebo group, they didn't check for measles diagnoses (by doctors who didn't know whether they were vaccinated), and they only measured antibody levels for 1.5 months after 1 vaccine dose in children 12-23 months old (ie before going to school when exposure usually occurs). Unfortunately, I really don't think this study offers us anything about whether "vaccines work". You can see that the main concern is whether doctors are much more likely to diagnose measles when they do not believe a vaccination occurred, and whether introduction of the lab tests made the diagnostic definition more stringent: “This was not a blind study, since the investigators knew which children had received measles vaccine. It seems probable that the occurrence of so much ‘measles-like’ illness in the vaccinated children was a reflexion of the difficulty in making a firm diagnosis of measles in the African child at one visit.” http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2134550/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2134550/ “A likely reason for this is that the case may have been misdiagnosed as a non-specific viral illness. Measles has become relatively uncommon in Singapore with two decades of widespread measles vaccination, and especially after the second dose policy was implemented in 1998. Many primary care doctors may not even see a single case of measles in a year. This makes diagnosis more difficult. [...] As only approximately 7% of the clinically-diagnosed cases of measles reported locally turned out to be measles by laboratory testing, there is a need for laboratory confirmation of measles to avoid misidentification of cases and improve disease surveillance.(2)” http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17609829 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17609829

throwaway729 10y ago

> The left has its fair share of science-denying morons as well. Sure. Stupid knows no political affiliation, other than strong and unsubstantiated belief. Meanwhile, the right (in America) also has its fair share of unscientific beliefs about vaccination: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2016/12/trump_s_endorsement_of_slow_vaxxing_explains_his_appeal.html http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_exa... FWIW the only two anti-vaxxers I know in person are a retired west-coast life long democrat, and a super neo-conservative soccer mom. It seems to be more of an "anti-establishment" thing than a "left/right" thing.

TheCoelacanth 10y ago

The closest the left has to mainstream anti-vax politicians are the Green Party. They got a couple percent of the vote in the last election. On the right, virtually all mainstream politicians deny climate change.