5 ms·

"But I can't "realize it is supported by real data" when it clearly is not" But this is somewhat my point. When you say "clearly is not", have you really trie

by 13years 12y ago

"But I can't "realize it is supported by real data" when it clearly is not" But this is somewhat my point. When you say "clearly is not", have you really tried to find it? or assume it is not there. You acknowledge you have seen some data such as the toxic ingredients. So in this case you could have a discussion around the interpretation of the data etc. My point is that we shouldn't assume the other side are always ignorant, uneducated or just following Jenny McCarthy etc. You will find plenty of doctors, neurosurgeons etc that also have issues with vaccines. Dr. Wakefield became famous for the autism issue; however, you should be aware that since then there are many educated doctors that find some issue with vaccines. Of course being a doctor doesn’t make you automatically correct, it is just once again being aware that the person you are debating may have what appears to be credible information. It would be best to ask where the person is coming from in a non hostile way. Just ask, so what have you discovered and what led you to your decisions for example. That is friendly and opens up conversation. From then you can discern if this person made decisions based on credible sources ( but maybe not accurate ) or they have not actually educated themselves. When I say credible sources, I mean to say at least they are referencing other doctors, scientists, studies vs some blog. Credible in this instance doesn't necessarily mean correct or wrong, but acknowledging they did their research will allow conversation to continue. Then you can share counter research etc as conversation progresses. Just be aware, within the scientific community, these topic still are being researched and it is not as if they are completely closed. For example investigations still continue into mercury and autism. Being aware of such is always a plus when having such discussions as you will appear to at least know something about where they are coming from. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24995277 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24995277

Ygg2 12y ago
> For example investigations still continue into mercury and autism. So? There are further investigations into whether climate change is real and man made, when the overwhelming evidence point to - yes and yes. It's same with this thing. One douchebag claims Vaccines caused autism, twenty three works then disprove his claims.
- 13years 12y ago
  Actually if you had followed the link, there are over 165 other studies asserting issues with mercury in vaccines. If you go to sciencedaily you can find plenty of studies that raise many questions about the nature of climate change. An intellectual debate requires one to not simply dismiss the other side outright. If your goal is to piss people off and to have your base cheer on, then by all means go ahead. If you want someone to listen to you and your goal is to educate, then you will not get very far with your approach.
  - maxerickson 12y ago
    You linked a crap paper published in some open access journal. It was written by anti-vaxers with little or no research credentials. http://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/antivaccination-cults-idea-constitutes-peer-reviewed/ http://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/antiv... In addition to impugning the credibility of the authors (which maybe we can wave our hands in the air and say isn't fair), that blag says silly things like this: For example, for the Verstraeten study, the Geiers reference an article that is more of a summary, and complain that it shows no data. In fact, the real Verstraeten study, published in Pediatrics, included all of the data. The Geiers absolutely cherry-picked a short summary of the Verstraeten study rather than examining the fully published article.
    - 13years 12y ago
      Then great, this is the proper next step, I wasn't positioning it as a document of truth, but an example of what 'appears' to be credible. Invite discussion. I wouldn't reply that "you cited a crap paper". How about "that's interesting; however, I see there may be concerns with its validity as pointed out by..." It takes time to investigate everything, and one shouldn't just stop when they find the answer they like. You need to always dig deeper for the rebuttals of both sides of an argument.
      - maxerickson 12y ago
        "Concerns with validity" gives it too much credit. It's crap. It's dismissible.
mikeash 12y ago
Why do you assume that I'm assuming? I've looked into this a lot (I myself was an unvaccinated child and I've had plenty of exposure to this stuff) and these are the conclusions I've reached, not assumptions I've made. You think I haven't asked people where they're coming from in a non-hostile way? I've had tons of non-hostile conversations about this stuff. If you want to present some data for that side, then I'd be happy to see it. Otherwise, stop insisting that it must somehow be there, because as far as I can tell it's not, and I'm not just assuming this is the case.
- 13years 12y ago
  Yet I did. The link to pubmed. I mean I'm not here to try to convince you of their argument. However, the 1 pubmed article I referenced mentioned there are over 165 studies supporting issues with mercury in vaccines. Is this not interesting data? The researches behind the article seem to think so as their objective is to undercover why there are discrepancies with these results vs those that have said there are no issues. I mean it takes time to follow all this stuff. Certainly more than I have, yet with a little effort it seems easy enough to see the source of information is not all coming from some personal blogs as I just pointed out.
  - mikeash 12y ago
    I didn't look at that link because you presented it as "investigations still continue" which is meaningless, considering that investigations still continue into things like general relativity and electromagnetism. In any case, you might recall that I said I'd never seen any data for these arguments except for the supposed autism link, which is based on fake data. Considering the tone of the paper I think it might be in that category. Maybe not. I'll hold off on spending time investigating until some anti-vaxxer actually mentions one as support for their ideas, because "X argues Y" and "there's data to support Y" does not imply "X argues Y because of data supporting it."

by 13years 12y ago

Ygg2 12y ago

> For example investigations still continue into mercury and autism. So? There are further investigations into whether climate change is real and man made, when the overwhelming evidence point to - yes and yes. It's same with this thing. One douchebag claims Vaccines caused autism, twenty three works then disprove his claims.

13years 12y ago
Actually if you had followed the link, there are over 165 other studies asserting issues with mercury in vaccines. If you go to sciencedaily you can find plenty of studies that raise many questions about the nature of climate change. An intellectual debate requires one to not simply dismiss the other side outright. If your goal is to piss people off and to have your base cheer on, then by all means go ahead. If you want someone to listen to you and your goal is to educate, then you will not get very far with your approach.
- maxerickson 12y ago
  You linked a crap paper published in some open access journal. It was written by anti-vaxers with little or no research credentials. http://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/antivaccination-cults-idea-constitutes-peer-reviewed/ http://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/antiv... In addition to impugning the credibility of the authors (which maybe we can wave our hands in the air and say isn't fair), that blag says silly things like this: For example, for the Verstraeten study, the Geiers reference an article that is more of a summary, and complain that it shows no data. In fact, the real Verstraeten study, published in Pediatrics, included all of the data. The Geiers absolutely cherry-picked a short summary of the Verstraeten study rather than examining the fully published article.
  - 13years 12y ago
    Then great, this is the proper next step, I wasn't positioning it as a document of truth, but an example of what 'appears' to be credible. Invite discussion. I wouldn't reply that "you cited a crap paper". How about "that's interesting; however, I see there may be concerns with its validity as pointed out by..." It takes time to investigate everything, and one shouldn't just stop when they find the answer they like. You need to always dig deeper for the rebuttals of both sides of an argument.
    - maxerickson 12y ago
      "Concerns with validity" gives it too much credit. It's crap. It's dismissible.

mikeash 12y ago

Why do you assume that I'm assuming? I've looked into this a lot (I myself was an unvaccinated child and I've had plenty of exposure to this stuff) and these are the conclusions I've reached, not assumptions I've made. You think I haven't asked people where they're coming from in a non-hostile way? I've had tons of non-hostile conversations about this stuff. If you want to present some data for that side, then I'd be happy to see it. Otherwise, stop insisting that it must somehow be there, because as far as I can tell it's not, and I'm not just assuming this is the case.

13years 12y ago
Yet I did. The link to pubmed. I mean I'm not here to try to convince you of their argument. However, the 1 pubmed article I referenced mentioned there are over 165 studies supporting issues with mercury in vaccines. Is this not interesting data? The researches behind the article seem to think so as their objective is to undercover why there are discrepancies with these results vs those that have said there are no issues. I mean it takes time to follow all this stuff. Certainly more than I have, yet with a little effort it seems easy enough to see the source of information is not all coming from some personal blogs as I just pointed out.
- mikeash 12y ago
  I didn't look at that link because you presented it as "investigations still continue" which is meaningless, considering that investigations still continue into things like general relativity and electromagnetism. In any case, you might recall that I said I'd never seen any data for these arguments except for the supposed autism link, which is based on fake data. Considering the tone of the paper I think it might be in that category. Maybe not. I'll hold off on spending time investigating until some anti-vaxxer actually mentions one as support for their ideas, because "X argues Y" and "there's data to support Y" does not imply "X argues Y because of data supporting it."