[ SECRET POST #2718 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2718 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[Mayim Bialik]


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[Pacific Rim]











Notes:

Might be another 12 am day. Response time will be slow, sorry.

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 016 secrets from Secret Submission Post #388.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 2 - this is getting spammy now ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[siofrabunnies]

I know I'm completely late today, but whatever.

Being a PhD in Neuroscience and being anti-vaccine is like being an astronomer and disagreeing with heliocentrism. It's flat out wrong. Most opinions are valid (or at least understandable), but facts are not opinions or beliefs. You cannot disagree with facts; that's what makes them facts. How do you disagree with something that has been proven so thoroughly to be true, unless you're doubting the nature of reality itself? There is so much evidence supporting vaccine use and denying that vaccines are harmful to most people (excepting allergies, contra-indicative conditions, etc), and no actual (non-faked, non-paid-for-by-lobbyists) evidence against vaccine use. I do think you are at bad science if you are anti-vaccine. It's absolutely wonderful to go "are you sure?" at the results of a study, but only if you're trying to catch mistakes or anomolous results, but there is so much evidence that I think it's disingenuous to be skeptical at it. It's kind of like saying "Are you sure water is made of hydrogen and oxygen?"

If you're a doctor and tell me there are 218 bones in the human body, I'm not letting you operate on me. If you're a mathematician who thinks 2x6=26, then I'm not letting you become a math teacher. If you're a geographer, and tell me Thailand is in Africa, I'm not following your maps. If you're an electrician, and tell me a household circuit is 300V, you don't get to wire my house - you don't even get to plug in my toaster. If you "disagree" with a proven fact (and you're not doing a thought experiment), then I think you're a right idiot, and you really deserve having your credentials reviewed.

I'm not saying Mayim Balik is completely stupid (I actually don't know much about her at all), but smart people can be wrong. I do understand that neuroscience is different from neurology, but she's still smart enough to do research, and there's no possible way for her to earnestly be anti-vaccine. If I can speculate, she's probably trying to make research (the falsified vaccines -> autism study, personal anecdotes, fearmongering) fit her pre-existing opinions, instead of reforming her opinions to fit the evidence. Not all scientists are good at being scientists, just like there are occasionaly lawyers who don't law well, or judges with bad judgement.

/end rant that got way longer than I planned on

[(Anonymous)]

+1

Your rant may have been long, but it was completely necessary. A neuroscientist who is anti-vaccine is frankly just never going to get a job in neuroscience. The two things are fundamentally incompatible.

[(Anonymous)]

Which is why she's a cunt actress instead of a cunt scientist.

[(Anonymous)]

This is an excellent comment and it's a damn shame that most people participating in this thread might not check back to see it, but I wanted you to know I gave it the double thumbs up. :)

[(Anonymous)]

I have no idea how many bones are in the human body...

[siofrabunnies]

206, apparently. I thought it was 204. Good thing I'm not a doctor!

[(Anonymous)]

Doesn't it technically vary by how old you are? And then they fuse throughout your lifetime. And the number of vertebrae can vary a little too.

[(Anonymous)]

She's actually stated in her blog that she's not vaccinating her kids because a relative had a severe adverse vaccine reaction, so it's nothing to do with the "but the autisms!" bullshit.

It's still kind of foolish, given the absolute scarcity of adverse reactions in cases where there is no allergy or other condition that would contraindicate vaccination, but it's a lot more understandable. Her kids probably aren't going to have any sort of vaccine reaction, because almost no one does, but general doctrine states that you're at a greater risk for health problems if you've got a blood relative who has them, and while that is far from universally true, she's a neuroscientist, not a geneticist or a biochemist.

[siofrabunnies]

That's much more reasonable, and I think I remember reading something to that effect before. As long as she's not actually saying that vaccination is wrong or telling everyone not to vaccinate, I'm not too terribly against her decision. I disagree with it (like you said, it's really rare to be allergic) and I'd prefer she try it to see if her kids are actually allergic, or avoid only that one vaccine/ingredient, but hers is a much more tolerable position overall, and I can't truly say I wouldn't be hesitant in her position. I mean, my grandmother had melanoma, so I take every protection against the sun I can. The difference there being, of course, that me using sunscreen doesn't risk anyone else. Her children still might carry something to infect other kids. Even people avoiding vaccines for legitimate reasons are lessening herd immunity. We've just decided that it's an acceptable level of risk, as long as everyone who can vaccinate does so.