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kutulu · 12-03-2009, 08:02 AM

In general people (Republicans) are rejecting intellectualism. It's like the movie "Idiocracy" is coming to life.

As far as vaccinations go, when you talk to a friend who's daughter went into seizures after both rounds of vaccinations that freaks you out. There can be serious side effects of vaccines. Our solution for our kids is to take it more slowly. We are waiting till the kids are a little older to get their vaccinations.

Global warming is extremely complicated. Mitigation means real lifestyle changes and financial impacts. People don't like being told what to do. Making it worse, very few people are capable of understanding the basic principles of global warming. Let's face it, most people didn't take anything more than high school biology. It is easy for persuasive people to take data out of context, misrepresent data, or flat out lie about conclusions.

Cynthetiq, I think it is interesting that you chose something like car seats as an example. You have one guy, an economist, challenging decades of research done by actual scientists. After reading some of his articles, he isn't all that honest in his analysis. He likes to rely on the fact that many people use the equipment wrong, he likes to talk about how costly they are (always using the highest costs of course), and he bases his findings only on fatality rates. Injury rates can be reduced by car seats and the severity of the injuries can be less. They are designed specifically for those body types. Sure the auto makers might be able to make seat belts that adjust to a toddler's size but then you have even more ways for people to incorrectly use equipment (never mind forcing the auto makers to do that). Finally, even if they are only a percentage point or two better than seat belts, it doesn't help when your kid is the 1 in 100 and an extra $50 might have saved his life.

It's just like the recent discussion on mamograms in the media. They seem to have determined that a relatively small amount of lives are saved by early screening. Sure it sounds reasonable that people should start later but the end result would be that more people will die that could have been saved by a fairly inexpensive test.

You have a problem with packaging that shows what allergins may be present in a product? Really? How the fuck does a label affect your life? It doesn't cost any money to list allergins on packaging and it could save someone's life. Yes, when carried out to an extreme like banning peanuts at a school it is ridiculous.

12-03-2009, 08:02 AM	#13 (permalink)
kutulu Junkie	In general people (Republicans) are rejecting intellectualism. It's like the movie "Idiocracy" is coming to life. As far as vaccinations go, when you talk to a friend who's daughter went into seizures after both rounds of vaccinations that freaks you out. There can be serious side effects of vaccines. Our solution for our kids is to take it more slowly. We are waiting till the kids are a little older to get their vaccinations. Global warming is extremely complicated. Mitigation means real lifestyle changes and financial impacts. People don't like being told what to do. Making it worse, very few people are capable of understanding the basic principles of global warming. Let's face it, most people didn't take anything more than high school biology. It is easy for persuasive people to take data out of context, misrepresent data, or flat out lie about conclusions. Cynthetiq, I think it is interesting that you chose something like car seats as an example. You have one guy, an economist, challenging decades of research done by actual scientists. After reading some of his articles, he isn't all that honest in his analysis. He likes to rely on the fact that many people use the equipment wrong, he likes to talk about how costly they are (always using the highest costs of course), and he bases his findings only on fatality rates. Injury rates can be reduced by car seats and the severity of the injuries can be less. They are designed specifically for those body types. Sure the auto makers might be able to make seat belts that adjust to a toddler's size but then you have even more ways for people to incorrectly use equipment (never mind forcing the auto makers to do that). Finally, even if they are only a percentage point or two better than seat belts, it doesn't help when your kid is the 1 in 100 and an extra $50 might have saved his life. It's just like the recent discussion on mamograms in the media. They seem to have determined that a relatively small amount of lives are saved by early screening. Sure it sounds reasonable that people should start later but the end result would be that more people will die that could have been saved by a fairly inexpensive test. You have a problem with packaging that shows what allergins may be present in a product? Really? How the fuck does a label affect your life? It doesn't cost any money to list allergins on packaging and it could save someone's life. Yes, when carried out to an extreme like banning peanuts at a school it is ridiculous.