Vaccines and autism: The incredible shrinking causation claim shrinks some more
March 28, 2008 9:00 AM,
scienceblogs.com/insolence by Orac
I have good news and bad news for you.
First, the good news. The devastating death crud that has kept me in its grip for nearly a week now appears to be receding. For the first time, "whining" or not, I start to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Whether it's due to PalMD's kind offer of Pranic Healing or not, I don't know, but things are on the mend.
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On the other hand, my current not-quite-recovered state puts me in the perfect frame of mind to apply some richly deserved not-so-Respectful Insolence™ to David Kirby's latest bit of antivaccination nonsense published the other day in that repository of antivaccination nonsense, The Huffington Post, entitled The Next Big Autism Bomb.
Suffice it to say that, as usual, the only "big bomb" here is the one that Kirby drops on science and logic. In fact, as per his usual M.O., Kirby carpet-bombs logic and science under a torrent of obfuscating verbiage designed to mask just how weak his arguments are. He probably thinks he's delivered a thermonuclear blast to scientists and skeptics who tell him he's full of crap, but in reality you'd be hard-pressed to hear a ladyfinger explosion there. In fact, I doubt it's the equivalent of a sparkler, even. A wet, sputtering sparkler just before it fizzles out. If anything, it's nothing more than part two of the incredibly shrinking causation claim and another desperate attempt to keep blaming autism on vaccines, despite all evidence failing to find a link.
--------- Moar! -----------Vox Day: Mindlessly parroting antivaccination myths again
I tell ya, I get sick for a few days, and the antivaccination cranks come out of the woodwork. This time around, it's über-crank Vox Day entering the fray (or, as I like to call him Vox "hey, it worked for Hitler" Day). We've seen him in action before. Be it using the example of Nazi Germany as a reason why we could, if we so desired, round up all the illegal immigrants in the country and eject them, labeling women as "fascists" who shouldn't have the right to vote, or falling hook, line, and sinker for an evidence-free antivaccination claim, when it comes to an inflated opinion of his own knowledge and understanding, coupled with the arrogant belief in his ability to apply them to the real world, no one turn the Crank-O-Meter up to 11 quite as easily as ol' Vox, so much so that he's even been too much of a crank for WorldNet Daily.
That's saying a lot.
This time around, he's unhappy at some recent articles pointing out that parents who refuse to have their children vaccinated are a danger to public health, and in attacking such sentiments he lays down some serious, neuron-apoptosing stupid bombs that reveal just how ignorant he is about vaccines. The proximal target of his wrath is Megan McCardle, who told it like it is about the antivaccination movement, and, consistent with his usual misogyny, Vox can't resist starting out with a sexist insult and then launching into a brain-fryingly dumb rant:
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