Keeping up the family tradition…
However, people tend to believe anecdotes over data.
For example, most people have at least heard of recent crimes committed against them or family members or friends. That tends to create the impression that crime is worse than in the “good old days”, so that, for example, current parents would never let their kids go to school on their own even though they (the current parents) did so when they were the same age. But the “good old days” when current parents were kids going to school on their own (1970s to 1990s) had crime rates much higher than they are now.
Unfortunately, it will probably take many anecdotes of people dying or suffering severe effects from vaccine preventable diseases to reduce vaccine skepticism.
You say this as if it were an obviously absurd argument. And yet, I don’t know how many times I’ve heard people actually use this to claim that it’s safer not to wear a seat belt, because the belt will keep you from being “thrown clear” of an accident. People are just willful contrarians–the tragedy is when their attitude hurts others, as with vaccines.
“There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the Twilight Zone.”
@Building, I JUST yesterday read an article that explains “gaslighting” and predicted we’d be hearing it a lot. And not an hour later you used it! (I feel very “with it”)
For those who are unfamiliar with the term - google CNN and ‘gaslighting’ for an explanation. I’d post the link but it’s a political opinion piece.
My mom uses “gaslight” all the time so I’ve been familiar with its meaning since I was a child.
I read the CNN article this morning on my tennis board. Nail:Head
“They think that their opinion ought to be worth as much as the average PhD in Imunology, since they are richer and more concerned about their precious snowflakes.”
This is true across society, we live in a time when Internet “factoids” are treated as fact, tweet something that is patently ridiculous and people believe the tweet, not the responses that show clearly what was tweeted was wrong. And yes, there is this huge mythos in some quarters that ‘real people’ to quote a certain political figure know more than ‘the egghead elites’. In a country where supposedly 60% of the people don’t believe evolution is settled science, that tells you the power of this kind of (non) thinking.
And yes, we have the power of anecdotes “my sister in law’s sister had her kids vaccinated, and they all have autism” and the like. You see this in political discourse all the time, I see posts where people talk about the burden small businesses have faced because of the current administration, and when you challenge them (especially if they claim to be a small business owner) to show me the stuff the current administration put in place that burdened them as a small business owner, they either don’t respond, or they respond with stuff that predated the current administration shrug.
As Charlie Brown told Lucy when she cited the litany of bad statistics about their ball team, “Lucy, tell your facts to shut up”.
My closing quote: “You are entitled to your own opinions, you are not entitled to your own facts”- Neil DeGrasse Tyson
Funny you mention it - I just read that piece this morning. I had mistakenly assumed that “gaslighting” was a modern term like “catfishing”. It was very interesting to read about the origin of the term.
@katliamom I want to rent the movie this weekend, assuming it can be streamed. I loved the movie and learned the term from my 18 year old 
I feel with it, too!
Are they also waiting for someone else to pay for it?
Gov. Brown said we might build a wall for other reasons. It seems the plan is to build a metaphorical wall out of lawyers.
I am a walking (or rolling) anecdote to more things than I can count. I still believe in DATA and science.
Gaslighting refers to a Hitchcock movie called “Gaslight,” with Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer, that takes place around the late 1890s I think. He is trying to make her think she is crazy by doing little things to make her doubt her memory and her sanity. At the same time, she keeps seeing the lights that are controlled by gas going up and down for no apparent reason. I won’t ruin the movie, but it’s a great movie and Ingrid is fabulous. Anyway people often use the term “gaslighting” to mean that someone is trying to confuse them or is trying to destabilize them in some way. Watch the movie if you can. You’ll get your mind off current reality for a while.
I first learned the meaning of “gaslighting” from a highly intellectual source: Soap Opera Digest, which explained it because the plot of one of the shows had someone trying to make the other person think they were crazy.
True story: I was once on the Disney World Version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire and I won, in part because of information gathered from Soap Opera Digest (who was the astronaut who went to the moon on Apollo 11 but didn’t actually walk on it? Answer Mike Collins the father of All My Children actress Kate Collins).
Hahahaha, apparently, Sylvester has been put in charge of the Department of Tweety Bird!
Is a modified vaccine schedule A reasonable thing to consider ?
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/robert-w-sears-why-partial-vaccinations-may-be-an-answer/
My trivia-obsessed nature compels me to note that “Gaslight” was directed by George Cukor.
Re: #56 and http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/robert-w-sears-why-partial-vaccinations-may-be-an-answer/
Seems like the reason the hepatitis B vaccine is given at birth is in case the mother has an undiagnosed hepatitis B infection that may be transmitted to the infant during birth.
Replying to the question “What’s your stance on the autism-vaccine connection?”:
Seems like he is discrediting himself here.
Dr sears continues discussing his “modified” vaccine schedule
Not in favor of a “modified” schedule because that signals that there may indeed be something “wrong” with vaccines. It plays into the anti-vaxxers’ hands.