Attitude: What to do when others say “BS” to you.

[Truthseeker]

Fluoride is toxic, but so is almost everything if you over do it.

IMO the recommended dosage IS overdoing it. No dose is best.

[DesertBerean]

I understand Louis Pasteur was scorned by many of his colleagues regarding his theory about bacteria.

[Jedidiah]

I've worked with a guy whose son is pretty autistic and deals with epilepsy on top of it. He doesn't seem to understand how autism normally manifests itself, and he swears up and down that it was the vaccine's fault. The correlation may not exist on a large scale, but the timing is often close enough for there to be a correlation in an individual's mind.

I am confused. Autism does not start late in life. According to all I have read it is something that is inborn, or at least in place from birth. Many autistic children, particularly Aspergers, may not be evident until later on, but it is not caused by any event or vaccine. My number one grandson seemed more or less normal in his youth. It was not until he failed to adapt to society that his Aspergers was recognized.

[Jedidiah]

Prejudice is a major problem for all of us in every decision we make. But I don't think it's so that prejudice wins over science every time.

Hyperbole.

[Jedidiah]

But “nature cannot be fooled” and therefore science will tell you what the effects of prejudice are. For example, how an infection will spread if its victims do not understand how it is transmitted is a scientific question. So, I would say it is exactly opposite but human beings insist on learning by failure because they are naturally quick to jump to the wrong conclusions. In the bitter end, prejudice always fails.

Maybe in the extreme long run, but we still have plenty of prejudice of various sorts - vaccinations being only one - in the world today.

[phank]

Oh yes, I agree with that. Personal anecdote always wins out over boring statistics.

Still missing the point. There IS in fact a statistical correlation between vaccination and the diagnosis of autism, since these occur at about the same age. Yes, we all understand that correlation doesn't imply causality, and as you say, ample studies show that there is no causal relationship, only a temporal relationship.

But this relationship is important. You should understand this, right? You have a child. At some point (maybe around the age of 2), you become concerned that the child is not developing normally - it might be unusually late in learning to talk or other behaviors expected at that age. Before this, the child SEEMED normal. The natural question is, what might have caused this tardiness or other unexpected behavior? Generally in human experience, if you become ill or injured, you can identify what happened that caused this.

So did anything unusual happen before the unexpected behaviors became noticeable? Why, yes, in fact, something unusual DID happen - the child was vaccinated! You're a desperate parent, right? You want to know what you did wrong to cause this problem. You demand SOME explanation. Some specific, avoidable cause-and-effect chain. You're not a lizard but you are willing to grasp at anything that seems to make sense. And "well, gee, nobody really understands what autism IS, much less what have contributed" doesn't make much sense.

I think among informed people like you, the MMR vaccine has been eliminated as anything relevant. But autism IS on the increase. Either it's no more common than ever, but more frequently identified correctly, or something in the children's environment has been changing over the last few decades. We know it's not the MMR vaccine, but could it be -- who knows? Junk food diet for a couple of generations? Increased incidence of air pollution? Dyes and preservatives and hormones and antibiotics increasingly found in our food? Autism correlates statistically with ALL of these.

[pancreasman]

Still missing the point. There IS in fact a statistical correlation between vaccination and the diagnosis of autism, since these occur at about the same age. Yes, we all understand that correlation doesn't imply causality, and as you say, ample studies show that there is no causal relationship, only a temporal relationship.

But this relationship is important. You should understand this, right? You have a child. At some point (maybe around the age of 2), you become concerned that the child is not developing normally - it might be unusually late in learning to talk or other behaviors expected at that age. Before this, the child SEEMED normal. The natural question is, what might have caused this tardiness or other unexpected behavior? Generally in human experience, if you become ill or injured, you can identify what happened that caused this.

So did anything unusual happen before the unexpected behaviors became noticeable? Why, yes, in fact, something unusual DID happen - the child was vaccinated! You're a desperate parent, right? You want to know what you did wrong to cause this problem. You demand SOME explanation. Some specific, avoidable cause-and-effect chain. You're not a lizard but you are willing to grasp at anything that seems to make sense. And "well, gee, nobody really understands what autism IS, much less what have contributed" doesn't make much sense.

I think among informed people like you, the MMR vaccine has been eliminated as anything relevant. But autism IS on the increase. Either it's no more common than ever, but more frequently identified correctly, or something in the children's environment has been changing over the last few decades. We know it's not the MMR vaccine, but could it be -- who knows? Junk food diet for a couple of generations? Increased incidence of air pollution? Dyes and preservatives and hormones and antibiotics increasingly found in our food? Autism correlates statistically with ALL of these.

I did get the point.

http://pediatrics.aappublications.or...14/3/793.short

[rwatts]

Still missing the point. There IS in fact a statistical correlation between vaccination and the diagnosis of autism, since these occur at about the same age. Yes, we all understand that correlation doesn't imply causality, and as you say, ample studies show that there is no causal relationship, only a temporal relationship.

But this relationship is important. You should understand this, right? You have a child. At some point (maybe around the age of 2), you become concerned that the child is not developing normally - it might be unusually late in learning to talk or other behaviors expected at that age. Before this, the child SEEMED normal. The natural question is, what might have caused this tardiness or other unexpected behavior? Generally in human experience, if you become ill or injured, you can identify what happened that caused this.

So did anything unusual happen before the unexpected behaviors became noticeable? Why, yes, in fact, something unusual DID happen - the child was vaccinated! You're a desperate parent, right? You want to know what you did wrong to cause this problem. You demand SOME explanation. Some specific, avoidable cause-and-effect chain. You're not a lizard but you are willing to grasp at anything that seems to make sense. And "well, gee, nobody really understands what autism IS, much less what have contributed" doesn't make much sense.

I think among informed people like you, the MMR vaccine has been eliminated as anything relevant. But autism IS on the increase. Either it's no more common than ever, but more frequently identified correctly, or something in the children's environment has been changing over the last few decades. We know it's not the MMR vaccine, but could it be -- who knows? Junk food diet for a couple of generations? Increased incidence of air pollution? Dyes and preservatives and hormones and antibiotics increasingly found in our food? Autism correlates statistically with ALL of these.

I think you raise a point that's at the heart of the article I posted.

One might look at the science and think it conclusive. But it's often the case that those who doubt the science have what are to them, good reasons for doing so. And these reasons may well be silly and unreasonable to the expert, but to the skeptic they are quiet sensible and quite reasonable.

So calling the doubter an "idiot" simply resolves nothing.

Being empathetic towards the doubter, and trying to argue to the evidence all the while maintaining that empathy is the best way to move forward. But even then, the experts still need to be prepared to lose.

Climate change is another argument like this. Climate change is all about predicting the future with respect to a ginormously complex machine which we call 'climate'. People have plenty of reasons for being skeptical, no matter how good the science is. And even when a compelling argument can be made, it's not necessarily so that folk will immediately cast off their old views and adopt the new.

Hence climate scientists need, again, to show empathy here. Sure, some of the deniers are so because of vested interests or simply because they are clueless and prefer to keep their heads in the sand.

But not everyone is like this.

I think it's what the article is about. No matter how good one thinks the science is, no matter how tight one thinks the argument is, and no matter how ignorant the public might be, experts do need to appreciate the reasonableness of the doubt and skepticism from the point of veiw of the opposition. They need to be prepared for a long argument, to sit at a table with the opposition, show understanding while presenting the argument, and demonstrate some flexibility.

[phank]

I did get the point.

http://pediatrics.aappublications.or...14/3/793.short

This is not the point I was trying to make. Desperate people clutch at straws. If we confect our "normal rational but desperate man", all you've done is taken one possible cause of his problems away. That's why I listed several others. This man NEEDS a cause. Vaccines are an easy target. Who was it who said "for every problem, there's an answer that's simple, obvious, and wrong"?

But clearly I don't know a fraction of what you do about autism. What DOES cause it? Anything?

[Carrikature]

I am confused. Autism does not start late in life. According to all I have read it is something that is inborn, or at least in place from birth. Many autistic children, particularly Aspergers, may not be evident until later on, but it is not caused by any event or vaccine. My number one grandson seemed more or less normal in his youth. It was not until he failed to adapt to society that his Aspergers was recognized.

The root causes of autism are genetic, so they are in place from birth. That doesn't mean it manifests at birth. Often, children with autism develop more or less normally until around the age of two and then start to regress. It happens that the same time autism is noticed is about the same time that certain vaccines are administered. However, these days we recognize that autism manifests itself in varying degrees of severity. Some of these degrees, such as Asperger's, may be subtle enough that they go undiagnosed until later in life.

[Truthseeker]

The root causes of autism are genetic, so they are in place from birth.

I don't think so. Please provide references to the medical literature.

[KingsGambit]

The root causes of autism are genetic, so they are in place from birth. That doesn't mean it manifests at birth. Often, children with autism develop more or less normally until around the age of two and then start to regress. It happens that the same time autism is noticed is about the same time that certain vaccines are administered. However, these days we recognize that autism manifests itself in varying degrees of severity. Some of these degrees, such as Asperger's, may be subtle enough that they go undiagnosed until later in life.

As far as we know, is there any difference between what might cause lower functioning forms of autism and, say, Aspergers?

[Carrikature]

As far as we know, is there any difference between what might cause lower functioning forms of autism and, say, Aspergers?

Unfortunately, it's not that simple. There are a lot of different ways it can manifest. As far as I can tell, the particular symptoms and associated severity is a matter of which things are going wrong and how badly they've gone wrong. We've identified some common areas where things can go wrong, but we're a long way from figuring it all out. Here's some more information for you:

Source: http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/autism/detail_autism.htm

What causes autism?

Scientists aren’t certain about what causes ASD, but it’s likely that both genetics and environment play a role. Researchers have identified a number of genes associated with the disorder. Studies of people with ASD have found irregularities in several regions of the brain. Other studies suggest that people with ASD have abnormal levels of serotonin or other neurotransmitters in the brain. These abnormalities suggest that ASD could result from the disruption of normal brain development early in fetal development caused by defects in genes that control brain growth and that regulate how brain cells communicate with each other, possibly due to the influence of environmental factors on gene function. While these findings are intriguing, they are preliminary and require further study. The theory that parental practices are responsible for ASD has long been disproved.

© Copyright Original Source

Source: http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/facts.html

Causes and Risk Factors

We do not know all of the causes of ASD. However, we have learned that there are likely many causes for multiple types of ASD. There may be many different factors that make a child more likely to have an ASD, including environmental, biologic and genetic factors.

Most scientists agree that genes are one of the risk factors that can make a person more likely to develop ASD.4
Children who have a sibling with ASD are at a higher risk of also having ASD. 5-10
ASD tends to occur more often in people who have certain genetic or chromosomal conditions, such as fragile X syndrome or tuberous sclerosis.11-14
When taken during pregnancy, the prescription drugs valproic acid and thalidomide have been linked with a higher risk of ASD.15-16
There is some evidence that the critical period for developing ASD occurs before, during, and immediately after birth. 17
Children born to older parents are at greater risk for having ASD.18

ASD continues to be an important public health concern. Like the many families living with ASD, CDC wants to find out what causes the disorder. Understanding the factors that make a person more likely to develop ASD will help us learn more about the causes. We are currently working on one of the largest U.S. studies to date, called Study to Explore Early Development (SEED). SEED is looking at many possible risk factors for ASD, including genetic, environmental, pregnancy, and behavioral factors.

© Copyright Original Source

[firstfloor]

Maybe in the extreme long run, but we still have plenty of prejudice of various sorts - vaccinations being only one - in the world today.

True, but do you not feel that you are getting better with age at spotting fallacies? The old teach the young their experience and progress quickens. Let’s not be unnecessarily pessimistic.

[Carrikature]

I don't think so. Please provide references to the medical literature.

My links/cites for KG are all I intend to provide at this time. If someone else has questions, they can do their own research or ask. I don't particularly care what you think on the matter. You don't believe any of the other references that are provided on any number of scientific topics, and I don't expect this one would be any different.