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Perhaps. I used to view things like that too. Over time it seems like the gap between the cranks and experts keeps closing. How cranky are these cranks, really

Perhaps. I used to view things like that too. Over time it seems like the gap between the cranks and experts keeps closing. How cranky are these cranks, really? You mention vaccination. Anti-vaxxer has pretty much become a byword for dangerous quack science denier. It conjures up stereotypes of soccer moms who are certain their special snowflake child can't take the "risk". But vaccines are perfectly safe; doesn't everyone know that? A few weeks ago I got a reply to a comment of mine here on Hacker News that mentioned Pandemrix, a treatment I'd never heard of: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22922864 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22922864 DanBC, who I often end up debating with on these forums as we are somewhat different in political outlook, remarked "Pandemrix causes narcolepsy in 1 in 60,000 people who take it. (so, for the entire US that's about 5000 with a life long debilitating illness that requires constant care.)" At the time I replied that I'd not heard of this and without doing more research couldn't really comment. I took his claim at face value and didn't think much more of it, filing it away to look at later. Well, turns out this claim is both completely true and much more importantly, to my surprise Pandemrix is a vaccine developed for the swine flu: "In August 2010, The Swedish Medical Products Agency (MPA) and The Finnish National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) launched investigations regarding the development of narcolepsy as a possible side effect to Pandemrix flu vaccination in children,[5] and found a 6.6-fold increased risk among children and youths, resulting in 3.6 additional cases of narcolepsy per 100,000 vaccinated subjects" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandemrix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandemrix So, erm, yeah. About those anti-vaxxers. Who think vaccines might sometimes be dangerous for their children. And who get laughed at and shat on constantly. And shut down. And censored. And told they don't understand the science. About them. Damn.

0xddd 6y ago
This is a coarse mis-characterization of both sides of that "debate" if we can even call it that. Are anti-vaxxers mostly worried about proven risks, like narcolepsy in this case, or is a much larger part of their movement concerned with making paranoid claims like that the MMR vaccine causes autism? Are the experts guilty of denying the narcolepsy-Pandermix link, or are they spending more time trying to refute bogus statements because they'd like to see herd immunity maintained for certain diseases?
- thu2111 6y ago
  I don't know what they think. How would I? Do you think the anti-vaxxer viewpoint is covered by the media, do we ever discuss it here on HN, is it something that's a part of mainstream debate? No, it isn't. These people never really get taken seriously regardless of what claims they're making. The moment a position starts being labelled quack/crank/dangerous misinformation, you're already at the point of "coarse" characterisations, or mis-characterisations. So now look what's happened. Apparently there are two kinds of anti-vaxxer, the ones worried about "proven risks" and then the real cranks making "paranoid claims". But the sort of anti-vaxxers who would have been refusing to give their child Pandemrix before it was understood to be linked with higher narcolepsy rates would have come across as paranoid, wouldn't they? They'd have had to say something like: "I don't know. It's a new vaccine. It might be dangerous. I'm not sure swine flu is dangerous, I'd rather not vaccinate my child." and they'd have got an answer from us HN-reading types of the form: "Swine flu is very serious, the WHO has declared a global pandemic and clinics are being overwhelmed with infected people. Vaccines are well understood and very safe. Experts say the MMR scare was just debunked crank science. If you don't vaccinate your child you're an ignoramus who is putting both your child and other people at risk, you shouldn't even really have a choice. I will report your tweets to Twitter for misinformation." And we'd have been wrong and they'd have been right. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_swine_flu_pandemic#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_swine_flu_pandemic#Histor... "The Mexican government closed most of Mexico City's public and private facilities in an attempt to contain the spread of the virus; however, it continued to spread globally, and clinics in some areas were overwhelmed by infected people ... In late April, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared its first ever "public health emergency of international concern," or PHEIC,[38] and in June, the WHO and the U.S. CDC stopped counting cases and declared the outbreak a pandemic"
  - 0xddd 6y ago
    So you're relying entirely on conjecture of this possible conflation and not weighing how much more dangerous one side is compared to the other? I'd find it much more useful to discuss if there examples of this being an actual widespread problem, where people with rational concerns were getting put down and lumped in with the antivaxxers. Until then, anyone promoting the MMR/autism link which stems from a downright fraudulent study by a corrupt author deserves every bit of pushback that they get.

0xddd 6y ago

This is a coarse mis-characterization of both sides of that "debate" if we can even call it that. Are anti-vaxxers mostly worried about proven risks, like narcolepsy in this case, or is a much larger part of their movement concerned with making paranoid claims like that the MMR vaccine causes autism? Are the experts guilty of denying the narcolepsy-Pandermix link, or are they spending more time trying to refute bogus statements because they'd like to see herd immunity maintained for certain diseases?

thu2111 6y ago
I don't know what they think. How would I? Do you think the anti-vaxxer viewpoint is covered by the media, do we ever discuss it here on HN, is it something that's a part of mainstream debate? No, it isn't. These people never really get taken seriously regardless of what claims they're making. The moment a position starts being labelled quack/crank/dangerous misinformation, you're already at the point of "coarse" characterisations, or mis-characterisations. So now look what's happened. Apparently there are two kinds of anti-vaxxer, the ones worried about "proven risks" and then the real cranks making "paranoid claims". But the sort of anti-vaxxers who would have been refusing to give their child Pandemrix before it was understood to be linked with higher narcolepsy rates would have come across as paranoid, wouldn't they? They'd have had to say something like: "I don't know. It's a new vaccine. It might be dangerous. I'm not sure swine flu is dangerous, I'd rather not vaccinate my child." and they'd have got an answer from us HN-reading types of the form: "Swine flu is very serious, the WHO has declared a global pandemic and clinics are being overwhelmed with infected people. Vaccines are well understood and very safe. Experts say the MMR scare was just debunked crank science. If you don't vaccinate your child you're an ignoramus who is putting both your child and other people at risk, you shouldn't even really have a choice. I will report your tweets to Twitter for misinformation." And we'd have been wrong and they'd have been right. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_swine_flu_pandemic#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_swine_flu_pandemic#Histor... "The Mexican government closed most of Mexico City's public and private facilities in an attempt to contain the spread of the virus; however, it continued to spread globally, and clinics in some areas were overwhelmed by infected people ... In late April, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared its first ever "public health emergency of international concern," or PHEIC,[38] and in June, the WHO and the U.S. CDC stopped counting cases and declared the outbreak a pandemic"
- 0xddd 6y ago
  So you're relying entirely on conjecture of this possible conflation and not weighing how much more dangerous one side is compared to the other? I'd find it much more useful to discuss if there examples of this being an actual widespread problem, where people with rational concerns were getting put down and lumped in with the antivaxxers. Until then, anyone promoting the MMR/autism link which stems from a downright fraudulent study by a corrupt author deserves every bit of pushback that they get.