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“You're not allowed science any more”

nature.com

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Re: “You're not allowed science any more”

#61

Post by jbooth »

ISL wrote: post #54
suprgeek wrote: post #36

I think we should be making a financial/societal incentive to do the right thing if the science is settled enough. The trouble with the view presented here is that sure the children get the vaccine due to this hypothetical rule. what happens when later the children get a severe cold (say) and the mom who remembers the previous visit thinks - bloody doctors I will just keep my kid home and pray for him to get better?…

Do you want people to read up on the science, or to accept what's "settled"? As a professional scientist, there are few things more anathema than the idea that a scientific theory is "settled". Experiments can only falsify theories; they can never be proven to be correct. The best a theory can hope for is to remain consistent with observation. Once upon a time, it was well-settled in large communities that the univer…

Yeah, but we're talking about not vaccinating your kids, here. It might be that we're all living in a computer simulation and none of this matters but we should still act on what we observe.

Re: “You're not allowed science any more”

#62

Post by ISL »

micro_cam wrote: post #50

Things like this makes me ashamed to have my name on papers in Nature. First, lets set aside the hypocrisy of a non open access journal publishing this[1]. (What happens if Sacha wants to inform her self by reading a few old nature papers?) I am pro vaccine but far too many doctors have this fantasy that they should have unlimited control and articles like this just serve to validate that view point. Medicine is an i…

This is a Nature Future, the story printed at the back of the magazine as food for thought. Perhaps only twenty percent of them present a future in which we'd like to live.

If the Future has driven HN to active discussion of an ethical topic, then it has succeeded in its purpose.

Unlike most of Nature, the Futures are free to read (and ~10% of them are compelling enough to make reading them all worthwhile).

(just scroll down to see the complete archive) http://www.nature.com/nature/focus/arts/futures/

Re: “You're not allowed science any more”

#63

Post by api »

micro_cam wrote: post #50

Things like this makes me ashamed to have my name on papers in Nature. First, lets set aside the hypocrisy of a non open access journal publishing this[1]. (What happens if Sacha wants to inform her self by reading a few old nature papers?) I am pro vaccine but far too many doctors have this fantasy that they should have unlimited control and articles like this just serve to validate that view point. Medicine is an i…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polio_vaccine#Contamination_co...

I'm not at all anti-vaccination, but I am anti-authoritarian and anti-closed-science. People have a right to know what they're putting in their bodies. The SV40 contamination turned out to not be that serious, but it was a close call. Had SV40 been potently carcinogenic, we would have had a medieval plague of cancer.

In the end it reduces to the problem of freedom and open society: freedom means tolerating people being idiots. Freedom means it's okay for the Ku Klux Klan to mail me literature. It means it's okay for people to question vaccination because some stupid celebrity told them it caused their son's autism. It means it's okay for people to put pink plastic flamingos on their lawns. The alternative is a closed, authoritarian society.

Re: “You're not allowed science any more”

#64

Post by bane »

JonnieCache wrote: post #52
DanBC wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love it if schools and nurseries started to disallow children who were not vaccinated. Unfortunately there are enough parents to make "no vaccinated children allowed" (you are not allowed in if you've been vaccinated) schools viable. See "Measles parties" and the sending of items infected with chicken pox through the post for examples.

There are really measels parties? I've heard of chicken pox parties, which makes sense because there's no vaccine and the adult form is vastly worse than the infant form. But measels parties, that's just medieval. EDIT: apparently there is a chicken pox vaccine, but it isn't administered to the general population in the UK, only NHS workers. Interesting.

That's interesting, the MMR vaccine is a normal vaccine here in the U.S. as part of the normal shots infants get. There's usually a booster shot as a young adult and again in middle-late age.

edit apparently I forgot reading comprehension, I see now that you were talking about Chicken Pox vaccines.

I didn't know either, I just know the MMR. AFAIK people just have Chicken Pox parties for their kids and make sure they get exposed. I remember when I was about 4 or 5 my mother was so thrilled when the lady who owned a store down the way had two kids who got Chicken Pox. The next day she took me out of school and I "met" their kids for about 30 minutes. Got the Pox sure enough right after that.

My Uncle somehow missed it and ended up getting it in his 40s. I think he spent part of it in the hospital. The difference between adults and children's responses to it is quite remarkable.

Re: “You're not allowed science any more”

#65

Post by jeffbr13 »

spindritf wrote: post #3

I have spotted this totalitarian streak among some of my friends who went to med school. We should ban smoking, force everyone to do this or that. As bad as they can be, we're probably better off with lawyers in charge.

Doctors aren't really scientists, although some might think so -- they're taught the results of scientific research, and how to apply that to diagnose and treat patients. There's a reason that "evidence-based medicine" isn't just called "medicine". Most of it is pattern-matching on learned knowledge. The result is that some of this knowledge becomes outdated as the underlying body of scientific knowledge evolves, which may cause problems if the practitioner doesn't keep up with the latest changes in their field.

This probably applies to engineers, too because we use scientific (or logical) results imply certain solutions, and we don't always realise that validity of the underlying assumptions changes over time.

Unless you're actually formulating hypotheses and running experiments, you're probably not a scientist.

" rel="nofollow">http://www.neatorama.com/2009/01/01/mad-scientists-are-actua...

Re: “You're not allowed science any more”

#66

Post by cbhl »

JonnieCache wrote: post #52
DanBC wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love it if schools and nurseries started to disallow children who were not vaccinated. Unfortunately there are enough parents to make "no vaccinated children allowed" (you are not allowed in if you've been vaccinated) schools viable. See "Measles parties" and the sending of items infected with chicken pox through the post for examples.

There are really measels parties? I've heard of chicken pox parties, which makes sense because there's no vaccine and the adult form is vastly worse than the infant form. But measels parties, that's just medieval. EDIT: apparently there is a chicken pox vaccine, but it isn't administered to the general population in the UK, only NHS workers. Interesting.

IIRC it's fairly common nowadays to administer the vaccine to children in Canada/US.

The main trade-off I've seen is that a small percentage of people who get the vaccine end up with pox at the age of 20-30 where the complications (pox on internal organs) can require hospitalization and/or cause death. The flip side being, of course, that a small percentage of people infected with chicken pox as kids also require hospitalization and/or die.

Re: “You're not allowed science any more”

#67

Post by gambiting »

lazyant wrote: post #17
spindritf wrote: post #3

I have spotted this totalitarian streak among some of my friends who went to med school. We should ban smoking, force everyone to do this or that. As bad as they can be, we're probably better off with lawyers in charge.

People die because some idiot parent didn't vaccinated their children, so I say yes, enforce it or don't live in society, go to some isolated island because you are causing harm, it's as totalitarian as allowing people to play Russian roulette with other people's children (actually you'd go to jail so I think we're too lenient with these parents).

On one hand - yes, absolutely, I agree. On the other hand, you remember the outbreak of the swine flu? And some countries wanted to force vaccinations on their citizens? Vaccinations that were later proven to not work at all, because they were prepared for the wrong virus, and some EU countries spent hundreds of millions of euros buying them? How about that - should the government have the power to force you to be vaccinated or not?

Re: “You're not allowed science any more”

#68

Post by cbhl »

bane wrote: post #64
JonnieCache wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are really measels parties? I've heard of chicken pox parties, which makes sense because there's no vaccine and the adult form is vastly worse than the infant form. But measels parties, that's just medieval. EDIT: apparently there is a chicken pox vaccine, but it isn't administered to the general population in the UK, only NHS workers. Interesting.

That's interesting, the MMR vaccine is a normal vaccine here in the U.S. as part of the normal shots infants get. There's usually a booster shot as a young adult and again in middle-late age. edit apparently I forgot reading comprehension, I see now that you were talking about Chicken Pox vaccines. I didn't know either, I just know the MMR. AFAIK people just have Chicken Pox parties for their kids and make sure they…

MMRV only became available in 2005. Source: http://www.webmd.com/children/vaccines/chickenpox-varicella-...

Re: “You're not allowed science any more”

#69

Post by autokad »

sliverstorm wrote: post #53
autokad wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

your child has more chance of dying by going to the morning bus stop than their child does of dying from not being vaccinated. in fact, i'd bet your child has a better chance of dying by catching the flu from a vaccinated child than some other child not vaccinated by MMR. i understand if someone doesn't want their child vaccinated and they can't go to public school, but forcing people is another thing, even if it is…

in fact, i'd bet your child has a better chance of dying by catching the flu from a vaccinated child than some other child not vaccinated by MMR. Oh good, argument based on conjecture.

Do you want a gold star because someone on the internet, who said something you didn't agree with on a post, did not publish citations? you failed human.

Re: “You're not allowed science any more”

#70

Post by aganders3 »

kstenerud wrote: post #38
aganders3 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, but consider that it's on Nature.com and the expected audience. This was an entertaining read for those who have felt such frustration, but it's ultimately unhelpful as a published article. I did appreciate the point about being proud to be bad at math. I think that attitude is damaging and probably deserves a (more reasoned) article of its own.

Except that those who are "proud to be bad at math" exude pride because they've given up, but don't want to feel like a failure. In other words, all attempts at math education have so far failed them, and they have succumbed to learned helplessness. When people are consistently frustrated using your website, you'd normally look into the UX so that you can make a smoother experience. You then test to make sure your ch…

> Except that those who are "proud to be bad at math" exude pride because they've given up, but don't want to feel like a failure.

I totally agree. What I'm saying is I'd love to read a more nuanced piece exploring this attitude including its causes and effects.

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