The trouble is that there are many ways to influence the outcome of science and the scientific method. The majority of science is centrally controlled and there really is no way to understate the influence of money and big business. It is very easy to manipulate data. There is no way for anyone to validate the observations of scientists.....it is all based on trust. That trust is demonstrably being abused all the time. I think your point of view is genuine, but it doesn't offer any kind of solution to people searching for the truth in matters affecting them.
Take vaccinces...i loved your blob chart by the way. Vaccines kill and damage people all the time. Diseases kill and damage people all the time. People are generally pro health. So given that science is clearly manipulated with blatant conflicts of interest infecting the whole edifice, people are forced to make decisions the best way they can to find a way to be as healthy as possible. One has to try to evaluate the risk profile of taking vaccines against the possibility of being infected by a disease and what the outcome of that might be. Is it any wonder that people might come to the conclusion that possibly acquiring a natural infection with a high chance of a positive outcome might be better than injecting a concoction of chemicals, toxins and pathogens on the say so of corporate influenced 'science'? Especially when there is ZERO 'science' behind the effects of a vaccine schedule in the long term? When you say science isn't perfect, you know what that means? It means some child somewhere dies or is damaged from by a medical procedure that perhaps they needn't have been exposed to.
But you're coming from a place where you n ever experienced what the world was like before vaccines. You are ignoring the fact that millions of people die around the world and history has shown us results.
It's easy to forget:
It's all very well lamenting the death of a child whose immune system couldn't handle a vaccine - if that even happens more than, like, twice, but just look at the hundreds of millions that vaccines are preventing, and look at how these diseases are coming back with a vengeance since people have started questioning something they're not experts at.
It's true that it's overwhelming to most of us to actually try to understand everything - the science of vaccines - as well as any other science - is the result of thousands of people working over hundreds of years, standing on shoulders of giants and building from there.
It's hard to just sit down and 'get it'. But that's why faith in the scientific method is vital.
As I said in my last post this simply isn't true. They can sometimes get away with it for a while given enough money - like the whole cigarette scandal - but the very proess of reproducibility is the key.
The more we improve this process, the less people can get away with. Science in itself is perfect, and we would be crazy to think trusting somebody selling an alternative is better.
I've heard these arguments before, however you put a chart up that means absolutely nothing. There is a laundry list of ways that chart is misrepresenting the cause of disease, our susceptibility to it, the effect of vaccines on incidents of disease. I could go on and on and on. What you are espousing is religion, faith. It is not pseudo-science to reject flawed science, it is rational.
Let me ask you this. How do you know that the reason for disease increase isn't a result of the vaccines themselves? How do you know that it isn't the result of a complex relationship between environmental pollution and vaccines?
Look, a parent making decisions on the welfare of his or her child hasn't got a hundred years to wait for the bad bits of science to slowly reveal themselves. They have to make difficult decisions today. And what can they see? The centralised control of information, science, money....on and on....and a litany of corruption. We know science is not infallible, we know that conflicts of interest exist and produce egregious crimes, we know there are ongoing legal disputes resulting from corruption in science. Have faith in your chart if you like, there is simply way more going on than you seem to be prepared to acknowledge.
The chart is obviously just an easy representation of my point. At this point we do need evidence. I mean what you're saying is the world would be better without vaccines, right? Can you honestly say that without a smile?
Sanitation and other factors has obviously improved lives but if you leave the US, for example, vaccines have effects RIGHT NOW. Not hundreds of years. just last year or so people were dying from diseases that are viral and cannot be fixed by things like lifestyle.
Go to Africa and tell those people who were dying, and now are not dying, that their vaccines are not to be trusted and they should go the natural route.
You may look at America and say we don't need it because of our advanced lifestyle, but you can't put evidence to that, you can only assume.
Old people die in masses with the flu virus every year, UNTIL a new vaccine for the current strain is manufactured and lo and behold, lives are saved.
There is plenty of information publicly available and it's not all the government. You think independent individuals and organisations haven't looked into these things, and only the government has a hold of the simple technology required to check the components of a vaccine, replicate and test it?
Of course not. We can all, if we can be bothered, test for ourselves. It's all out there in public databases. If we can't trust that, who or what can we trust? The mother with motherly instinct but no formal educational background?
Why?
Because it's nice and it makes us feel safe?
What about that child with auto-immune disease in school that contracts a deadly virus because 5% of the students were denied vaccines as a kid. They contracted a disease that made them a little sick, meanwhile that auto-immune disease child is dead.
the difficult decision you speak of should only be 'how much time should I spend trying to understand the science?'
Sure, if there's a brand new vaccine that's been rushed and put out into the community you might wanna be skeptical, but that only happens during huge epidemic crises. Otherwise, years, decades go into the research and testing of vaccines before it hits the shelves.
I think it's a tragic life if we can't put some trust in the very things that are allowing us to propagate and live longer than ever before. And when I say trust, I don't mean blind trust. I mean 'if I had time in my busy day to check, I will, but otherwise, scientific consensus is enough'
Thank you for the stimulating conversation. The relationship between naturally acquired disease, recovery and future health is never discussed clearly. Instead of giving Africans vaccines, why don't we give them control of their resources and allow them to provide proper sanitation and nutrition to their people?
Can I check, you believe it is ethical to medically intervene in the life of a healthy child with a procedure that has potentially grave risks for the sake of another child?
What if the first child gets brain damaged by the vaccine and the second child catches a different pathogen and dies anyway? Is that moral?
At best, science presents working assumptions based on repeated observations. At worst it is use as propaganda in order to manipulate and control people.....often to very great harm. Trust is the only thing that matters. If you didn't trust the engineer who built a plane, you wouldn't fly in it, it's that simple.
If the idea of a vaccine is to improve health, lets look at what it means to be healthy, define that (and not just in the short term.) If we need to sensitise the immune system in some way for certain diseases, let's make better vaccines.....ones that aren't a russian roulette or chronic disabler for a proportion of the population. Let's not start with the position that it's ok to take risks with the life of a child for the sake of another.