Antivaccine bullies...
Amy Wallace has written an article about the antivaccine movement, "An Epidemic of Fear: How Panicked Parents Skipping Shots Endangers Us All," and by listening to the NPR interview with her, one of the most popular stories run on NPR yesterday, she has received a torrent of hate mail, aiming low and demeaning her, furthering research into the actual causes of childhood diseases not at all, and saving not a single child. Way to go, antivaxxers! If all you have is emotion, you are not going to be able to contribute to the solution.
HJ
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2 comments:
What's sad is that I've known some of these folks, and they're otherwise intelligent, sane individuals.
Reminds me of an article I read in Analog about humans lacking the ability to react to probability in a rational fashion, and becoming more irrational the longer the odds get.
This makes sense. What if, for instance, we have two settings: "I'm cool with that" and "Run away!" No matter how long the odds against get, perhaps the "Run away!" impulse takes over. Then, by definition, the longer the odds, the more irrational our decision is, but that's only because we have one fear setting. Of course, this is probalby not completely true, as there seems to be a gradient of fear, and I think that a part of the lunacy of the antivaxxers has to do with the fact that conviction (or being convinced) is in itself convincing. I hate to say it, but we simply need to be louder.
HJ
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