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rebis

Premium Member
I have about as much patience toward this as I do 9/11 truthers, flat earth theorists, and anti-vaccination nuts.

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I question certain aspects of the official 9/11 story as do many brothers that I know.
I also chose not to vaccinate...am I a "nut"?






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RyanC

Registered User
I question certain aspects of the official 9/11 story as do many brothers that I know.
I also chose not to vaccinate...am I a "nut"


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As someone who was down at ground zero I can't stand the 'truther' BS, go to youtub and watch truthers debunk, I also find it funny when a Doctor lies about a study he did on vaccines gets caught and than has his lic. taken from him and than people still believe him. So yes if you fit into that I think your nuts, but I mean that I the brotherly way.
 

dfreybur

Premium Member
I also chose not to vaccinate...am I a "nut"?

Not vaccinating is a definite departure from reason. Every commercial vaccination carries a lower risk than the existing exposure changes.

There are vaccinations I might chose to decline. Optional military ones where I'm not among those being deployed I have a history of accepting. Experimental ones I've never had the chance but I would be very likely to decline. But a scheduled commercial vaccination? I know the numbers and it's a slam dunk.
 

dfreybur

Premium Member
We have to be tolerant

Tolerant of insanity? Why do we need to be tolerant of insanity? We need to be kind in the face of illness. Do not confuse kindness with tolerance. Do not confuse accurate judgment of insanity with tolerance. Praying for the mental healing of the insanity does not equal tolerating insanity.
 

JohnnyFlotsam

Premium Member
I question certain aspects of the official 9/11 story as do many brothers that I know.
I also chose not to vaccinate...am I a "nut"?


"Nut"? No, not for asking questions. Foolish, yes, when it comes to your decision on vaccinations. The evidence overwhelmingly indicates that getting vaccinated is the better choice.
 

BryanMaloney

Premium Member
"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'... I believe that every human being with a physically normal brain can learn a great deal and can be surprisingly intellectual. I believe that what we badly need is social approval of learning and social rewards for learning. We can all be members of the intellectual elite...". --Isaac Asimov (Newsweek, January 21, 1980)
 

BryanMaloney

Premium Member
All what I wanted from this post is an answer from a scientific point of view about landing on the moon.. and I agree about liberty but I am asking for facts not fpr mistery stuff

Aberdeen is part of the industrialized world (although I know a few folks from south of there who might dispute that). There is plenty of scientific material available at these things called "libraries".
 

admarcus1

Registered User
I don't think one is a nut for questioning the official 9/11 story, I will just respectfully disagree. Vaccination is a different issue. The anti-vax movement, however, has deadly real life consequences. We have seen the resurgence of diseases that had been eradicated in this country, all because people persist in believing the work of a single researcher who's results have never been replicated and who's former collaborators have cut ties with after realizing that he falsified data. Sadly, we live in a time when people will listen to medical advice from celebrities but not the overwhelming medical and epidemiological consensus, based on actual empirical evidence, not anecdotes. As a result, children die of whooping cough and measles. When you do not vaccinate, you not only put your children at risk, but all the children they come in contact with, all because of the fear of a public health boon that is safer than almost every over the counter medication you can buy. It is not a pharmaceutical company conspiracy (and, as a medical researcher, I have my strong criticisms of them in other areas), it is science.

I know this was an off topic rant, but children are dying or becoming disabled because of the persistence of scientific illiteracy and conspiratorial thinking. It's not a matter of faith, politics, or opinion, but the logical interpretation of empirical evidence through a process of peer review.


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ej6267

Registered User
Seeing the way this thread is going restores my faith in humanity. I, too, have felt anxious about what I perceive as an anti-intellectual tendency in this country, but the level of critical thinking I am seeing here means that the progress made (and also exemplified by our gentle Craft) has not been laid low by the ruthless hand of ignorance.


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nfasson

Registered User
It's just disconcerting that this pseudoscience nonsense gets more press than the truth, or worse gets touted as the counterpoint to actual proven science.



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rebis

Premium Member
So when people of equal intellect are presented the same evidence will they all always arrive at the same consensus?
Take city counsel members or supreme court judges as an example...even though they all are presented the same evidence do they all conclude or judge the case in the same manner? Should the dissenting voices be labeled and categorized as foolish for perceiving or interpreting evidence differently?
 

BryanMaloney

Premium Member
I don't think one is a nut for questioning the official 9/11 story, I will just respectfully disagree. Vaccination is a different issue.

Funny thing, that. Anti-vaxxers tend to have a remarkably high level of truthers and birthers among them. Makes one wonder about the truther and birther mind...
 

dfreybur

Premium Member
So when people of equal intellect are presented the same evidence will they all always arrive at the same consensus?

That's the difference between science and politics. In science truth beats fiction. The process is rough and tumble and sees setbacks, but as the evidence accumulates truth dominates. Your example of city counsels and supreme courts either shows ignorance of how science works or is a deliberate strategy to oppose the forces of reason. Be cautious of who you emulate.

Should the dissenting voices be labeled and categorized as foolish for perceiving or interpreting evidence differently?

The evidence of science comes with error bars that are different for different fields. If someone denies the atomic theory of chemistry then they are foolish. The error bars on the atomic theory of chemistry are so small I have never touched a lab instrument capable of filling in another digit is its accuracy. If someone denies this decade's cosmological theory of the big bang then they have been reading the science and watching it morph constantly. The error bars on cosmology are enormous.

The evidence about vaccination is far closer to to that of chemistry than of cosmology. So yes, they should be categorized as foolish. The anti-vaccine movement is already costing lives so it is literally killing people.
 

admarcus1

Registered User
So when people of equal intellect are presented the same evidence will they all always arrive at the same consensus?
Take city counsel members or supreme court judges as an example...even though they all are presented the same evidence do they all conclude or judge the case in the same manner? Should the dissenting voices be labeled and categorized as foolish for perceiving or interpreting evidence differently?

This is why the courts are notoriously terrible at deciding questions of science, and they should not be decided there. That is why cigarette companies were successfully for many years denying the link between cigarettes and cancer, heart disease, etc. Courts are adversarial - each side puts an "expert" on the stand. All you need to do is find one person with academic credential who is willing to say what you want said, and that is considered evidence. Science is not adversarial, but collaborative. A study comes out suggesting a link between smoking and cancer, epidemiologists look at the incidence rates between exposed and unexposed population, physicians look at it from a clinical standpoint, biologists look for the plausible biological process, and through peer review, the wheat is separated from the chaff. The cigarette companies kept winning in court, but everyone knew the truth.

The same process was gone through for the link between vaccines and autism. This time, no correlation between exposure and disease were found, no biological process by which it could happen has been identified. Even without the evidence of fraud, its a scientific slam dunk.

The scientific method is a wonderful thing. It admits uncertainty, and therefore demands repeatability, and evaluation by those who understand the science and the mathematical rules of probability. Mistakes are made, and then corrected. Unfortunately, too many people fail to understand how science works. This is further exacerbated by the media which wrongly believes that their job is to be stenographers, repeating every claim with equal credulity.

If I say the Earth is flat, I can easily argue that I've see supports that. Wherever I've been, it has looked flat to me. People have claimed otherwise, and shown photographs that depict the Earth as a sphere, but those could be faked. They claim that the way radio waves works proves it, but I don't believe that. What I have experienced, and what most people have experienced firsthand is a flat Earth. I have seen the evidence, and that is my opinion after reviewing it. That is an opinion. And it is wrong. Opinions, if not supported by the facts, can be wrong. That doesn't mean you don't have a right to them. You have an absolute right to be wrong, and if it makes you happy to be wrong, that's fine too. I wish you well. When your wrongness results in the resurgence of deadly diseases with major consequences for the public health, then we have a problem. Then I have a moral obligation to broadcast as loudly as I can how dangerously wrong you are.
 

rebis

Premium Member
Alright brothers, fair enough. Let us approach one aspect of this matter in a more deductive manner. After all it is only through the faculties of deductive and inductive reasoning that one uncovers truths...per my good friend Rene Descartes.

Fact 1: Viruses, attach themselves to cells, consuming them and spreading to other cells once the original host cells are consumed.
Fact 2: The innovative idea behind vaccines is that if a small dose of the live virus is introduced into the organism, the T4 and red blood cells will successfully
overcome it and next time a real exposure occurs they will in turn remember how they fought the first battle and win.
Fact3: The vaccine flacon contains the live virus. If you look at the original date of manufacture and the expiration date on the flacon you will see that the
difference is of months and even years.

Question: Keeping fact 1 mentioned above in mind, how is the virus kept alive for that lengthy period of time? What kind of cells would be required to keep feeding the virus for such elongated periods of time without exhaustion?
 

BryanMaloney

Premium Member
Fact 1: Viruses, attach themselves to cells, consuming them and spreading to other cells once the original host cells are consumed.
Fact 2: The innovative idea behind vaccines is that if a small dose of the live virus is introduced into the organism, the T4 and red blood cells will successfully
overcome it and next time a real exposure occurs they will in turn remember how they fought the first battle and win.
Fact3: The vaccine flacon contains the live virus. If you look at the original date of manufacture and the expiration date on the flacon you will see that the
difference is of months and even years.


Question: Keeping fact 1 mentioned above in mind, how is the virus kept alive for that lengthy period of time? What kind of cells would be required to keep feeding the virus for such elongated periods of time without exhaustion?

You've never studied any biology at all in your entire life, I take it.

1: Vaccines also exist for bacterial diseases, NOT JUST VIRAL.
2: The VAST MAJORITY of vaccines are not live vaccines. They are either subunit or "inactive" (dead) vaccines. The "live" pathogen is usually not necessary for successful vaccination. THIS HAS BEEN KNOWN FOR MANY DECADES AND CAN VERY EASILY BE FOUND IN ANY NON-CRACKPOT SOURCE OF INFORMATION ON VACCINES.
3: MOST VACCINES DO NOT CONTAIN LIVE ANYTHING, and some viruses and bacteria can be dormant for YEARS. THEY DO NOT HAVE TO BE FED!

Do not make decisions about medicine if you are so fundamentally ignorant of such basic medical concepts.

Deduction is garbage in, garbage out. You start with pure garbage as your premises. You get pure garbage as your conclusions.
 
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