Incidentally, **** you, Jenny McCarthy. That is all.

[DaShi]

Lead? What problem? It's useful to make pipes and put in paint. No trouble there.
Asbestos? Very useful stuff. Let's insulate our buildings with it and use it in various household and clothing items.
Got a bug? A sniffle? Use this stuff that kills those bugs dead. It's like health candy! Everybody gets some! Only problem, now those drugs don't get all the bugs and there's some that will kill you despite whatever Guy and his cohort can think to do for you. Oops, sorry!

But, just trust us on this one. We know you have been taught to avoid heavy metals as if they carry the plague, but you can trust your children to it, and us. We have it right this time!

Yeah, right.

So what do you do?

In the case of vaccines, you have two choices: take the vaccine or don't. There is clearly an intelligent answer and an ignorant one. While I agree you should question things that don't make sense, you shouldn't whine like a baby because you don't understand. These kinds of things cause hysteria in America because of our poor education system which doesn't prepare people to think rationally and plain stupidity.

Here's an interesting article on the topic:

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/01/college-upperclassmen-still-fail-at-scientific-reasoning.ars

Most of us develop a sort of intuitive logic about how the natural world works. Unfortunately, a lot of that informal reasoning turns out to be wrong, which complicates scientific education. But as students make their way through the science education pipeline, they should gradually start moving beyond the informal reasoning of their earlier years. Or at least that's what we'd like to think; instead, a new survey of college students, some in advanced biology classes, indicates that most end up with a confused mix of formal and informal reasoning.

The clearest example of the chasm between a typical intuition and scientific reasoning comes from the world of physics. Imagine a marble rolling around a curved track that comes to a sudden end. Physics tells us that, as soon as the marble is off the track, it'll continue moving in a straight line until it runs into something else. But many people use informal reasoning and conclude that the marble will continue to follow a circular path even after it escapes the track. In other contexts, it involves an interventionist view of the world. As the people behind the survey put it, "When using informal reasoning, students look for 'actors' that drive 'events' and are aided by 'enablers.'"

Scientific education, then, needs to convince people to move past their intuitions (at least if they want a more accurate picture of how the world operates).

The new survey tested for informal reasoning in the biological sciences, using over 500 students at a variety of colleges, enrolled in classes ranging from introductory biology to advanced ecology. The results show that, even as the students are immersed in things like trophic pyramids and the Calvin cycle, they don't always come to grips with basic things like conservation of matter and energy.

For example, most students could describe how the process of photosynthesis involves removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and combining it with water to form carbohydrates, which then get used to build the cellulose that forms most of the plant's bulk. But, when asked to actually trace what's going on on the organismal scale, many students have problems recognizing that a substantial proportion of a tree's solid bulk originated from a gas, instead suggesting that most of it was brought up from the soil.

The problems work in the opposite direction, too. When respiration breaks down solid matter, most of it is released in gaseous form, as carbon dioxide and water vapor. But the students often had a problem with recognizing that a solid compound could be chemically converted into a gas.

In the same way, they seem to believe that every leaf contains a miniature Mr. Fusion, since they think that some of a plant's mass comes from the transformation of one atom into another. Nearly 70 percent "chose 'sunlight' as a possible source of atoms in chlorophyll molecules," according to the results. They had problems with other aspects of energy, too, not recognizing that moving up a trophic level in an ecosystem generally entailed the loss of energy to the environment—"only 44 percent of students thought the top of a food web would have 'less available energy than the trophic levels below it.'"

Other problems noted by the authors include the use of energy as a fudge factor to make things balance out, and a tendency to substitute a wall of scientific terminology for actual understanding.

In all, the majority of the students used a mix of scientific and informal reasoning on the surveys, with about 20 percent using informal reasoning alone. More depressing still, the authors designed a short course to help introduce formal scientific logic, but it didn't help much. The course shifted more people towards relying on scientific reasoning, but the percentage of students who relied on it exclusively rarely exceeded 30 percent, and was sometimes in the neighborhood of 20, depending on the topic (on average, it went from 12 to 27 percent).

What's the root of this problem? The authors ascribe a lot of it to language. It's quite common to hear people describe fat as just melting away or vanishing, which doesn't encourage anyone to try to balance the books on where all those atoms actually go to, much less get them thinking in terms of their release as carbon dioxide and water vapor. The same problem persists in the language commonly used by biologists. We frequently refer to energy as "lost" when it's no longer available to an organism, but that doesn't mean it's not still there, typically in the form of heat.

The end result, the authors conclude, is that "faculty are unknowingly speaking a different language from their students." They think that when they mention lost energy, the students know what they're talking about, or that their students' poor choice of wording doesn't represent a failure of logic. As a result, they see little reason to speak more carefully or devote instructional time to clearing up misconceptions. And, even if they wanted to, most biology textbooks consider principle-based reasoning beyond their scope.

But, even if instructors and textbooks were ready, the limited improvements that resulted in the targeted interventions used in this study show that overcoming the tendency towards informal reasoning can be a significant challenge. And the authors don't necessarily know what to suggest beyond starting the process

[Asher]

Lead? What problem? It's useful to make pipes and put in paint. No trouble there.
Asbestos? Very useful stuff. Let's insulate our buildings with it and use it in various household and clothing items.
Got a bug? A sniffle? Use this stuff that kills those bugs dead. It's like health candy! Everybody gets some! Only problem, now those drugs don't get all the bugs and there's some that will kill you despite whatever Guy and his cohort can think to do for you. Oops, sorry!

But, just trust us on this one. We know you have been taught to avoid heavy metals as if they carry the plague, but you can trust your children to it, and us. We have it right this time!

Yeah, right.

Spencer is dismissed because I know him to be crazy. I've been posting here for years with him.

He's also not said anything new, unique, interesting, or revelatory. All he's said is we don't have definitive proof that it doesn't cause problems, essentially. How very helpful.

But please, continue to latch onto that. It's something, right?

[MikeH]

This one works both ways. Hysteria from the WHO over last years flu has led to considerably lower vaccination rates this year.

Although it (thankfully) wasn't as bad as predicted we still had significantly increased numbers of people dying from seasonal flu last year. And a drop in vaccination rates this year has led to increase deaths this year too.

The problem is, people thing that a flu epidemic has been a "cry wolf" issue. Actually, the warnings were very valid, and we're lucky we haven't had anotehr severe flu pandemic yet. But it's a real danger, and potentially could be really, really devastating.

[Wezil]

Although it (thankfully) wasn't as bad as predicted we still had significantly increased numbers of people dying from seasonal flu last year.

Cite? I heard the opposite was true. We had fewer deaths than a typical flu season.

And a drop in vaccination rates this year has led to increase deaths this year too.

Yes, because the "cry wolf" you go on to dismiss.

The problem is, people thing that a flu epidemic has been a "cry wolf" issue. Actually, the warnings were very valid, and we're lucky we haven't had anotehr severe flu pandemic yet. But it's a real danger, and potentially could be really, really devastating.

The scare wasn't anywhere near proportional to the threat.

[MikeH]

We = the UK

You are misunderstanding - just because the threat wasn't realised doesn't mean it wasn't a real threat!

[Wezil]

Sorry Mike but WHO speaks for more than just the UK. Apparently you guys are having a bit of a resurgence of the swine flu. The rest of us seemed to be okay.

Give Allison McGeer credit for being frank about what’s behind this winter’s flu outbreak in Ontario: unnecessary panic over last year’s swine flu “pandemic.” Dr. McGeer, head of infection control at Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital, says flu cases are way up this season because vaccinations are way down; and vaccinations are way down, likely, because too much was made of the swine flu by media and officialdom last winter.

It is a medical case of the doctors who cried wolf, in other words.

In Ontario, Dr. McGeer estimates, just 30% to 35% of the population has been inoculated against this year’s most common strain of flu, H3N2 (The swine flu was H1N1). A typical year’s vaccination rate is 40% to 45%. That means that as many as two million fewer Ontarians than usual have been immunized against the flu, which also means hospital wards could be even more crammed with sufferers than in an average year. It also means many Ontarians may die unnecessarily this season because bureaucrats, politicians, health officials, reporters and the United Nations grossly overreacted to swine-flu risks last winter.

There is a fine line between erring on the side of caution and crying wolf. And last year, the UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) blew through that barrier with abandon.

Just as it had on SARS and bird flu and the Ebola virus, the WHO overreacted to swine flu, issuing cautions that were out of all proportion to the risk the disease posed to the public. (Remember in 2003 when the WHO recommended people from around the world stay away from Toronto because the city was host to a few hundred SARS infections?)

But unlike those earlier panics, the WHO pulled out every stop on swine flu. It was as if the UN agency had been surprised that its earlier scares had failed to grow into full-blown pandemics; and so they figured that, finally, swine flu was due to become a worldwide infection requiring a dramatic response from international health officials.

The WHO and Atlanta’s Centers for Disease Control — who worked closely together on the swine flu outbreak — estimated in the fall of 2009 that between 90,000 and 200,000 people would die in the United States alone. Globally, the death predictions ranged from two million to 10 million, or somewhere between eight and 40 times the annual death rate from the run-of-the-mill seasonal flu.

In the end, the number of deaths from swine flu in Canada, the United States and around the world was not only lower than projected, it was lower than for the typical winter’s flu. The WHO estimates that around 250,000 people die around the globe each flu season. In 2009-2010, the number of global deaths from the swine flu virus was one-third that total.

All this despite the hysterical debates in Parliament over the vaccine rollout, and weeks of panicked headlines and footage of weary Canadians standing in line for hours for vaccinations

And so it should come as no surprise that this season Canadians have less faith in expert exhortations to have themselves immunized.

Something similar is happening in Britain, where the swine flu itself has reappeared this winter. Fifty deaths have so far been attributed to H1N1, in part because vaccination rates are down there, too. Weary from last winter’s daily flu-scare bludgeoning, far fewer Britons have bothered to get their annual “flu jab,” and the effects are beginning to show.

When experts last season were accused of crying wolf, they deflected criticism by insisting that even if they were overreacting, it was better to be too cautious than not cautious enough. But that’s simply not true. If the hysteria generated by over-the-top flu warnings last year is causing increased hospitalizations and deaths this year, then last year’s pandemic panic arguably did more harm than good.

Read more: http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/...#ixzz1AkUSFcD5

[Boris Godunov]

People are acting as if the CDC isn't aware of or is hiding the reported adverse effects of vaccines that sometimes do occur. These aren't secrets. But that doesn't mean the vaccines aren't safe and effective for the overwhelming majority of the population. All medications can potentially have unintended effects on the human body. It would be virtually impossible to design them otherwise, given the variations of human physiology across a global population.

[notyoueither]

The scare wasn't anywhere near proportional to the threat.

Really? The last realy big one killed more people than died in the first world war.

675,000 Americans died. That was more than 1 in 200.

A flu that was killing young, healthy people was concerning to me. It was the same course the flu of less than 100 years ago took.

[MikeH]

Sorry Mike but WHO speaks for more than just the UK. Apparently you guys are having a bit of a resurgence of the swine flu. The rest of us seemed to be okay.

That commenter has it wrong too. Just because the world weren't that badly affected, doesn't mean we couldn't have been. You still don't seem to be understanding that.

[MikeH]

One form of animal flu will mutate and cause a mass pandemic which could kill millions, if we don't put proper precautions in place fast enough and vaccinate.

It wasn't bird flu, it doesn't look like it will be H1N1... we don't know what it will be.

Swine flu probably killed 10-13,000 people in the US, it's wasn't insignificant. If it was a terrorist event the coverage would have been even more amazing. And without the precautions that were taken it would have been more.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic#United_States

I would say that the media were much more to blame than the WHO, misguided, misleading and scary reporting came from cherry picking scary numbers from WHO reports.

Let's not forget, flu kills half a million people in a normal year, without a mutant animal strain and the potential for a pandemic. And previous pandemics happened when travel between countries was much slower and more difficult.

[notyoueither]

NYE: Your problem here is one of selection bias. You're ignoring how fantastically good the scientific community's track record has actually been (in the long run) and focusing on the few highly public mistakes.

You see, in terms of medicine and health, science has been right about the germ theory of disease, the placebo effect, vaccines, anesthetics, blood types, vitamins, the circulatory system, the endocrine system, the nervous system, the digestive system, the immune system, differential diagnosis, genetics, radiology, magnetic resonance imaging, defibrillators, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, ultrasound technology, contraceptives, stethoscopes, band-aids, crutches, ice packs, cotton, steel, paper, glass, concrete, resin, fiberglass, treated wood, bricks, chicken soup, and the kitchen sink.

While science gets things wrong - all the time - its track record for eventually getting things right is extraordinarily good, and better than the track record of any other method of going about your life. Even those highly public mistakes you pointed out are actually examples of science getting it right - eventually - because it's the scientific method that allows us to try again and figure out what went wrong.

While you shouldn't trust authority blindly, if you're going to put your trust in anything, it should be the one institution that has a vested interest in correcting its own mistakes - science. Trusting anything else - anecdotal evidence, emotional pleas, or blind paranoia - is likely to have you falling prey to the myriad cognitive biases that affect your ability to reason properly.

No. I'm not.

I'm presenting perfectly reasonable doubts about a contradiction between what scientists tell parents about heavy metal exposure, especially to substances like mercury, and being urged to shoot the child up with the very same substance.

Not every parent is a biochemist. Authorities freak out if a child is given a toy with the wrong paint, but parents are luddites if they resist having their children injected with mercury? I'm thinking not.

[MikeH]

If they were being injected with mercury, no, if they are resisting having their child injected with a life saving vaccine, which is as safe, or safer than most over the counter medications then yes.

[MikeH]

These diseases are incredibly dangerous, and kill. Not getting vaccinated is extremely dangerous for your child. That's why they are luddites, they are putting their child in a very real and well understood danger purely because they fear a danger which as far as all the evidence so far tells us, doesn't exist.

[Lorizael]

No. I'm not.

I'm presenting perfectly reasonable doubts about a contradiction between what scientists tell parents about heavy metal exposure, especially to substances like mercury, and being urged to shoot the child up with the very same substance.

I'm sorry, but you're not getting the point. This is only a contradiction to you because you fail to understand that the real world is a subtle one that can't be understood with blanket statements. That is to say, you're falling prey to one of the cognitive biases I talked about in my post.

Did you know that scientists say radiation is bad, but bananas are okay?

Did you know that scientists say cyanide is bad, but almonds are okay?

Did you know that scientists say chlorine is bad, but pools are okay?

Did you know that scientists say antimatter is bad, but thunderstorms are okay?

All of these would appear to be contradictions, unless you actually understand that the world is a complex place that can only really be understood through the careful application of the scientific method.

Not every parent is a biochemist.

Yes. Exactly. Which is why, if parents have doubts and are not experts about a subject, their best bet is to rely on those that are experts - in this case biochemists. While biochemists may get things wrong, they are more likely to be right about biochemistry than anyone else is. The track records of angry blog posts, spam emails, and office coworkers are all much, much worse than the track record of science.

[MikeH]