To Vaccinate or Not To Vaccinate - that is the question

[Road Guy]

Can't we do some type of velocity calculation and determine how long it should take in someone to get there..I think most of us took calculus based physics so we should be able to figure out that whole slingshot around the earth nonsense

 

[frazil]

^no kidding, it's not rocket science...

 

[Dleg]

 

[Road Guy]

^- most all the people that benefit from the military industrial complex started by that god damned Kennedy!

 

[Road Guy]

But seriously, this is a healthy problem solving exercise, 250K miles, that a long way to transmit a video isn't it? Even by todays standards?

Do you have a TV Marty?

Yeah of course, we have two of them.

Really! You must be Rich!

Don't be an idiot, no one has two TV's...

 

[The Wizard]

For sake of argument, some say that if we landed on the moon, then why didn't the Russians follow suit and go themselves? It's only been 46 years.... Is there something wrong with second place? And as Ptatohed pointed out, they were way more advanced and winning the space race by a long shot. Some argue we can't go back now because everyone would expect everything in high def 1080p, not the crappy snowvision videos we saw of the late 60's, and would be able to detect and point out the fraud even easier.

 

[Dleg]

The Russians were trying. Their main launch vehicle, the N-1, exploded on the launch pad during more than one test launch, a fact which was covered up for many years. By then, they saw what a colossal waste of resources the whole thing was, and since they had lost anyway, they stopped the fiscal bleeding and gave up on it.

http://www.wired.com/2010/10/russian-moon-mission/

 

[DVINNY]

I'm actually surprised that for a forum full of engineers, how many just easily "accept science".

I think the true scientific approach is to always question everything. To see if an event is a coincidence, if something is cause & effect, if pesticides are bad, vaccines, etc.

All I know is that in the last 25 years, Autism went from 1 in 250,000 to 1 in 68. Where are the SCIENTISTS we need now to figure this out?

I'm glad people are questioning vaccines, pesticides, older parents, and other theories as the cause, maybe we'll figure out the cause.

What I do not agree with is saying "oh science is great, that shit is safe, continue on, nothing to see here", while we continue to diagnose child after child with Autism.

 

[mudpuppy]

I'm actually surprised that for a forum full of engineers, how many just easily "accept science".

Same could be said for religion. I guess in a way science could be viewed as a form of religion because it all comes down to what you believe.

 

[ptatohed]

I'm actually surprised that for a forum full of engineers, how many just easily "accept science".

Same could be said for religion. I guess in a way science could be viewed as a form of religion because it all comes down to what you believe.

I really disagree with the avowal that science is a religion. Science is no more a religion than, say, mathematics is a religion. What is your definition of religion mp?

 

[matt267 PE]

Well, this thread is totally derailed.

 

[Dexman PE PMP]

I'm actually surprised that for a forum full of engineers, how many just easily "accept science".

I think the true scientific approach is to always question everything. To see if an event is a coincidence, if something is cause & effect, if pesticides are bad, vaccines, etc.

All I know is that in the last 25 years, Autism went from 1 in 250,000 to 1 in 68. Where are the SCIENTISTS we need now to figure this out?

I'm glad people are questioning vaccines, pesticides, older parents, and other theories as the cause, maybe we'll figure out the cause.

What I do not agree with is saying "oh science is great, that shit is safe, continue on, nothing to see here", while we continue to diagnose child after child with Autism.

This argument also holds that everything else is constant (diet, environment, genetics, etc). We also have a significantly higher rate of cancer and nut allergies than we did back in the 50's, but no one blames vaccines for those.

How has the American diet changed since the 1950's when vaccines became part of the US health program?

Americans at the beginning of the 21st century are consuming more food and several hundred more calories per person per day than did their counterparts in the late 1950s (when per capita calorie consumption was at the lowest level in the last century), or even in the 1970s.

According to the National Center for Health Statistics, an astounding 62 percent of adult Americans were overweight in 2000, up from 46 percent in 1980. Twenty-seven percent of adults were so far overweight that they were classified as obese (at least 30 pounds above their healthy weight)—twice the percentage classified as such in 1960. Alarmingly, an upward trend in obesity is also occurring for U.S. children.

In 2000, total meat consumption (red meat, poultry, and fish) reached 195 pounds (boneless, trimmed weight equivalent) per person, 57 pounds above average annual consumption inthe 1950s (table 2-1). Each American consumed an average of 7 pounds more red meat than in the 1950s, 46 pounds more poultry, and 4 pounds more fish and shellfish.

Americans in 2000 consumed, on average, three-and-three-fifths times more salad and cooking oil than they did annually in the 1950s, and more than twice as much shortening.

Americans have become conspicuous consumers of sugar and sweet-tasting foods and beverages. Per capita consumption of caloric sweeteners (dryweight basis)—mainly sucrose (table sugar made from cane and beets) and corn sweeteners (notably high-fructose corn syrup, or HFCS)—increased 43 pounds, or 39 percent, between 1950-59 and 2000.

http://www.usda.gov/factbook/chapter2.pdf

How about our living environment? In 1940 only 56.5% of the population lived in urban areas, and by 1990 it had jumped to 76%. (source)

One of the first things any respectable scientist does is evaluate correlation vs causation.

The most powerful weapon that debaters wield against the unwary is causation: marijuana use leads to heroin addiction, pornography to rape, video games to mass murder, high consumption of margarine to divorces in Maine.

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-see-correlation-is-not-causation-20140512-column.html

American eat more shitty food, and prefer to live in areas with higher pollution, but you're right. It must be the vaccines. SMH

 

[engineergurl]

The day I learned how to lie with statistics, was the day I became a non-believer.

 

[mudpuppy]

I'm actually surprised that for a forum full of engineers, how many just easily "accept science".

Same could be said for religion. I guess in a way science could be viewed as a form of religion because it all comes down to what you believe.

I really disagree with the avowal that science is a religion. Science is no more a religion than, say, mathematics is a religion. What is your definition of religion mp?

I'm thinking of this in the sense that in both religion and science at some point you have to take something on faith. People who believe in Jesus or Mohammed have faith in the stories they have been told that have been passed down since whenever. In science it is impossible for any one person to observe evidence of every single scientific theory or discovery, so at some point you have to take on faith that someone somewhere, at some time observed the evidence that proves the scientific fact in question--just like Christians may believe someone watched Jesus walk on water.

I do agree that science isn't really a religion, since in science you should be able to recreate whatever experiment proved a fact, while that's not possible in religion.

 

[matt267 PE]

Is Scientology a religion? Or is it based more on science.

 

[IlPadrino]

All I know is that in the last 25 years, Autism went from 1 in 250,000 to 1 in 68.

Or, rather, all you know is that diagnoses of Autism increased. How much of that is simply increased access to those who diagnose or change in diagnosis criteria?

 

[ptatohed]

I'm thinking of this in the sense that in both religion and science at some point you have to take something on faith. People who believe in Jesus or Mohammed have faith in the stories they have been told that have been passed down since whenever. In science it is impossible for any one person to observe evidence of every single scientific theory or discovery, so at some point you have to take on faith that someone somewhere, at some time observed the evidence that proves the scientific fact in question--just like Christians may believe someone watched Jesus walk on water.

I do agree that science isn't really a religion, since in science you should be able to recreate whatever experiment proved a fact, while that's not possible in religion.

Science is based on testable observable imperical evidence based in the natural world, it is not a faith. Faith is believing in the existence of something based on no evidence. Science does not need to assume anything supernatural to operate.

 

[Ship Wreck PE]

All I know is that in the last 25 years, Autism went from 1 in 250,000 to 1 in 68.

Or, rather, all you know is that diagnoses of Autism increased. How much of that is simply increased access to those who diagnose or change in diagnosis criteria?

Exactly, I am sure that the definition has gotten broader.

 

[engineergurl]

All I know is that in the last 25 years, Autism went from 1 in 250,000 to 1 in 68.

Or, rather, all you know is that diagnoses of Autism increased. How much of that is simply increased access to those who diagnose or change in diagnosis criteria?

...in the last ten years the mortality rate of children 5 and under was nearly cut in half... just saying there could be a slight connection, maybe?

 

[Dexman PE PMP]

The day I learned how to lie with statistics, was the day I became a non-believer.

lies, damn lies, & statistics