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Try this thought experiment. Suppose that vaccines cause autism in 0.1% of cases, among other causes of autism.
Would your “world” look any different?
Well, vaccines would still be a good idea overall, but there would be a bigger problem of people opting out and freeriding on herd immunity, leading to a prisoners’ dilemma.
So the CDC would likely choose to pretend there was no risk, at least if they were doing their job, which is public health.
The scientific journals would all pretend there was no risk, at least if they were socially responsible. And anyone who published a contrary article would be maligned and forced to retract.
So we as the public can really have no idea if we’re seeing real scientific concensus or socially responsible manufactured concensus.
popa_bar_abba: What is your opinion? Do you think the scenario you portrayed is likely the case, in fact?
Is this one of your perfect threads?
Also, it’s obvious that you’ve been reading Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality.
So let me get this straight – it is socially irresponsible to tell everyone that vaccines are a cause of autism, yet you started a thread to suggest to everyone that vaccines are a cause of autism?
We know that vaccines are highly effective in preventing diseases so much so that those that have been around a long time have been so effective that most people couldn’t imagine having someone in their community with polio or smallpox. The introduction of the vaccines has led to a major decline in the number of children dying before reaching adult, or of reaching adulthood in an impaired state – and the factgs suggest that the vaccines were a major cause.
Given the huge number of people throughout the world using vaccines, if there was a problem we would be seeing a hugh number of people with autism – and that simply isn’t the case. Many have noted that autism does correlate with some other things, such as lower infant mortality (sick kids survive but are impared), older parents, contraception, etc.
Some have suggested increase in diagnosis of “autism” is tied to government benefits given when such a benefit is made and that many kids who might otherwise be considered “normal” were reclassed as “special” to get the handouts. The increase in autism doesn’t appear to be a factor in underdeveloped countries where vaccines are used routinely.
Why? Why? Why Torah, why? Why would you mention HPMOR?!
Responding to Akuperman: I don’t think it’s entirely fair to refer to government services as ‘handouts’
Akuperma –
Isn’t the statistics of autism one in 100 ?
pab, you’re mean. But you know that.
It’s not one or the other. Vaccines good, vaccines bad. We just need to know the truth about the risks and make informed decisions. Everything has risks. If a person goes in for knee surgery the surgeon tells him that one possible outcome is death as that can happen with any surgery. So one weighs the risks on both sides and makes a decision.
This doesn’t happen with vaccines where we act as if there are no risks and have gone from a few injections to dozens and dozens as if we were doing mitzvos. It’s a childish mentality.
thats funny pba at my store we are trained not to call it food stamps but always ebt so as not to cause embarrassment.
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