Anyone see this documentary on cancer?

That's the most Malthusian thing I've read and on par stupid with mdgee's views.
"Oh yes lets cull the lower classes by limiting the income subsidies of the most improverished"

Do you have any stats to back this up? And if so maybe better control quality control of a stupid media would be better?

 

Competing rates of mortality - if you survive everything else, you WILL die of cancer or heart disease. No man is immortal.

 

I learnt a new word today. Thanks!

 

Unless you're vegan. Then you are immortal, and immune to all ailments and disease.

 

I would however refuse entry to state schools for children that are unvaccinated.
Keep the little disease vectors at home where they are less risk to other kids.

 

That's not a bad idea.

Or let them start their own disease academies.

 

I like vegans. Couldn't eat a whole one though.

 

I'll spin you another one - Boserupian theory is in opposition to Malthusian theory with the idea that "necessity is the mother of all invention" in terms of population growth and survival (vaccines are evidence of this) but I personally am on the fence.

I don't agree with classic Malthusian theory like that followed by Darwin which believes in the inferiority of lower classes and in Malthus' own writing the sterilisation of the lower classes. Interestingly the views of Malthusuan theory are pretty much the basis for the Conservative party as well as very infludntial think tanks like the Club of Rome.

At one point in time my family was cobsidered lower than lower class by a majority of thinkers simply for being a different shade. but I have yet to see any evidence of innate inferiority but rather being socially conditioned into believing people are inferior.

My suggestion is to make vaccinations compulsory with fining and follow ups at schools. Doctors currently have the power the override parental decision in the treatment and safety of a child in the UK (see Asha King case) and the same can be done for compulsory vaccinations when they have such strong evidence.

 

I'm not looking to cull, I'm looking to incentivise. The majority of people who don't get their kids immunised are fence sitters. They don't necessarily believe that MMR causes Autism, but they know that there is a discussion there and they think "why take the risk? Measles, mumps and rubella are really rare anyway. My kids will be fine." Those parents can easily be nudged the other way and financial incentives work better than anything else - would you be happier with the idea of rewarding parents for vaccinating their kids rather than punishing parents for failing to vaccinate? Would that be less Malthusian to you?

There might be studies out there, but I'm too busy to hunt them down at the moment. There seems a very likely link between levels of education and failure to come to reasonable conclusions re: vaccinations. There is also a clear link between education and economic status. I'm just drawing intuitive lines here - they might be wrong, but I doubt it.

 

Actually fair enough, incentivisation is probably much better than penalisation I suggested but it lacks inclusivity. I think we should just take away any choice people have in the matter under the banner of child protection.

 

1) Rigorous instruction in the scientific method, its use and its philosophical underpinnings starting in grade school and continuing through high school. Fundamental overhaul of how we teach science. Students should be reading Kuhn and learning about hypothesis testing rather than just memorizing the steps of meiosis. I don't even remember the steps of meiosis at this point of my career, but I can tell you why falsifiability is necessary.

2) Eliminate this bull crud about giving equal time to a-scientific mouth breathers. The vaccine crisis and the global warming denial industry are the direct responsibility of the media saying 'Well, there's two sides to every story and its our job to remain impartial!' That may be perfectly true with benevolent actors, but these are not benevolent people. Folks like Burzynski or Inhofe are out to make a buck. I'd talk about how having a debate is more entertaining and generates higher ratings than a program just telling us how we know what we know, but yeah. Obvious is obvious. I'm hoping that the popularity of certain blogs like I [redacted] Love Science! is foreshadowing a resurgence in scientific literacy and interest.

3) Subsidize science and research as much as you subsidize the military industrial complex. Instead of putting prisoners to work for for profit corporations, make them do PCRs.

4) Mandate the public release of all scientific literature one year after publication.

5) People like Andy Wakefield or Burzynski should be dragged out into the street and shot right in the dick.

 

Damn fine answer, sir!

 

YES!

 

Scientific literature isn't public friendly information. Allowing open access to papers (a good thing in my opinion) will do nothing to fix this particular problem.

 

Ready for the biggest public health crisis that isn't talked about? Hope you're listening MDGee. It ain't vaccines. It's endocrine disruptors. These are chemicals that disrupt human reproduction, development and biological function. They're lipophilic, which means that they persist in the environment. Ever wonder what the rise of intersex children, testicular cancer, feminized fish and obesity have in common? It's not a meat based diet, it's analogues to the natural hormones that circulate through our bodies.

Various corporations have engaged in the most unethical means of preserving their right to use these chemicals; they've bribed researchers to turn their attention elsewhere, they've threatened them with physical harm and have conducted numerous lawsuits, etc., etc. This stuff is still going on and is still being pumped into our environment by the kilotons. And like I said, it's not going anywhere. It effects every single level of the ecosystem to boot.

Anyone feel like taking up a crusade, let's go after the endocrine disruptors.

That's where the public education comes in. Senior undergraduate courses should not be the first time you see a scientific manuscript, some are entirely suitable to 13 year olds.

 

But 99+% of them are not suitable. Most of them require significant specialist education to properly interpret - encouraging reading by people who aren't suitably intellectually equipped to understand the contents will only make the situation worse, not better.

We need better science education, but what we also need is better science communicators - the people who sit between the public and the publications and lay out the results and the consequences of the science, not the science itself.

 

See I don't think that. Most of the scientific prose I read is pretty… prosaic. Science should not be the purview of an intellectual, but should be made available to all students. Everyone studies calculus and The Great Gatsby. Both of those are more dense and difficult to read than the average science paper. No reason not to force people to read all of the above.

Totally agree with you about the science communicators though. If my career as a researcher doesn't pan out II'm planning to go into science journalism

Kinda part of my critique of the media, should have gone more into it though. Offer a federal subsidy for media centers that keep a staff science journalist on board.

 

I'm a TA on a Computational Biology Course taught to senior computer science undergrads and graduate students - these are extremely bright students. The course requires them to read a couple of (key) biology papers a week. They really struggle to make heads or tails of the biology in those papers. I don't think the average joe on the street would make it out of the first couple of sentences in the abstract before they were well and truly lost.

 

Not sure the lobbyists who own the politicians would like that. It could prove problematic for them

Also, how do you stop, say... Fox News from getting some liar in a lab coat to say that ebola comes from Mexico?

Anyway, federal subsidy... that's communism (unless it goes to the military-industrial complex, then it's freedom)

 

But judging whether a research study was done properly doesn't involve understanding the content of the paper as much as the methods used. Anyone who's familiar with basic statistics and the scientific method would be able to notice if the researchers made mistakes in e.g. selecting the samples, or even purposedly tried to alter the outcomes of the study.