Re: [Phys-L] just for fun

[Ze'ev Wurman <zeev@ieee.org>]

It was a perfectly nice thread until John "Know-It-All" Clement chose to 
climb on his beloved wooden pony yet again.

On 12/31/2013 9:05 AM, John Clement wrote:
> In the US both evolution and global warming are fields where politicians and
> religious leaders are not engaging in critical thinking.  (see the latest
> PEW survey)  They are ignoring the professionals in science and using common
> everyday thinking which is often not critical.

The proximity of "evolution" and "global warming" that so predictably 
and so uncritically roll off his tongue make me (critically?) wonder 
what will happen if/when global warming will be shown not to be 
man-caused, or even possibly non-existent. Will John the-pony-rider 
start separating evolution and global warming then, or will he stop 
believing in evolution too? Critical minds want to know.

> ...  Another example of not using
> critical thinking is how many parents have declined to have their children
> vaccinated, thereby exposing all of us to diseases which should have zero
> incidence in the US.  The falsified data on vaccines and autism was refuted,
> but these people do not bother to look up good sources of information and
> instead are relying on passed around urban legends.

Falsified data on autism vaccination has, indeed, been refuted. Many 
vaccinations are very safe and very effective. Others are not so 
effective (flu?) even though relatively safe, others not very safe even 
as they are effective (smallpox 
<http://www.fda.gov/downloads/BiologicsBloodVaccines/Vaccines/ApprovedProducts/UCM142576.pdf>?), 
and yet others may be neither very safe nor very effective (HPV 
<http://healthimpactnews.com/2013/fraud-exposed-in-cdcs-hpv-vaccine-effectiveness-study/>?). 
One might say that painting everyone who doesn't like to ride along on 
wooden horses with the same brush doesn't demonstrate critical thinking 
<http://www.cdc.gov/Vaccines/vpd-vac/should-not-vacc.htm>.

Crack that whip, John!