Bad Astronomy

The March of Antireality Continues

antireality
Antivax, global warming denial, and the flat Earth: are they really any different? [Hint: no.]

Image credit: Teach the Controversy t-shirts

“Against unreason, the gods themselves contend in vain.” —with apologies to Friedrich Schiller

Lately I’ve been trying to write more about science, rather than write about those who attack it. I love science, and I love promoting it. It gives us wonder, knowledge, advances in technology and medicine, increases our lifespan and the joy that fills it. It also reveals the world as it truly is, and while that may not always be comforting (or joyous), it’s the way things are. We need to acknowledge that.

But the forces of antireality keep plodding forward, shouting and frothing and making a mess of things. At some point I can no longer ignore it, and have to say something.

This is me, saying something. I tried to keep it brief—despite the urge to get shouty and long-winded-speechy myself—but wound up having to break this down into the different sectors of nonsense. Mix and match, or collect ‘em all.

A Jab at Antivaxxers

No vax, no kiss!
You heard the baby.

Image credit: Every Child By Two

Vaccines save lives. Not just for the people who take them, but also for people who have weakened or no immune system—for example, undergoing some cancer treatments or with autoimmune issues, and, say, babies. Some people are allergic to the ingredients of some vaccines, but that’s a minority. Even they are protected if enough people get their vaccinations.

Vaccines don’t contain toxins in the way antivaxxers want you to believe. The amount is what’s critical. A pear has more formaldehyde in it than a vaccine. A can of tuna has about the same amount of mercury as a vaccine (at least, the small minority of vaccines that contain mercury at all), and the tuna has it in a form that makes it easy to get into your system, whereas in the vaccine it’s in a form that goes right through you. Heck, drinking a glass of water is good for you, but drinking too much will kill you. I’ll say it again, to be clear: The amount is what’s critical.

And, of course, vaccines don’t cause autism.

Oh, that last bit. The antivax crowd still crows about an imagined link between the two, but study after study shows autism rates are completely unrelated to vaccinations. A new study just came out in the Journal of Pediatrics once again and ad infinitum showing no connection exists… so of course the antivaxxers have attacked it. And of course, their attacks have little or no resemblance to reality. It’s tiresome to have to repeat the same things over and again, but that’s where we are.

I understand the fear a parent has over their child’s health; I’m a parent and along with my wife I had to make a lot of health decisions for my daughter, when she was a baby and even still today. Guess what? We did a lot of research, and decided to get her the full course of vaccinations, because that’s what was best for her health and the health of those around her. She’s also had a full course of Gardasil, as well as booster shots and flu shots as needed.

Read up on vaccines. Talk to your (board-certified) doctor. And if they recommend it, get your shots. Otherwise, we get outbreaks of preventable diseases.

Also: My pal Tara Smith wrote an open letter to her father about his antivax leanings. Her post is a must-read. Besides being a fantastic compendium of evidence and links, it’s a great example of how to talk to your friends and family on this topic.

[Update (14:00 UTC Apr. 5, 2013): In case you think this isn’t really a problem, there is currently a measles outbreak in Swansea, Wales. I also received word recently that several students at my own daughter’s high school tested positive for pertussis (whooping cough), an ongoing problem in my home town due at least in part to antivax leanings.]

Global Warming? In my planet?

The Earth is warming up, just as inevitably as there are ideologues who will deny it. They never rest, but neither will reality.

Recently, a big study was released which showed that the warming we are seeing over the past century is unprecedented for at least the past 11,000 years, and while there were warmer periods in the past, the rate of current warming is what’s so scary.

This study was well-done, carefully referenced, and clearly worded. So of course it’s under vicious attack by the usual suspects. Happily, there are people like Tamino who show these attacks are nothing but—to coin a phrase—hot air. He has a fantastic post about the Marcott et al. study, showing how robust it is. He also has a followup post about it that’s important as well. This quotation stood out for me:

“My opinion: the Marcott et al. reconstruction is powerful evidence that the warming we’ve witnessed in the last 100 years is unlike anything that happened in the previous 11,300 years.”

There’s a great post up at RealClimate as well, with a rebuttal to the attacks by Marcott and his team. I’ll note that some people are claiming there has been no warming over the past few years. Those people are wrong.

By the way, last year the Arctic ice cap shrank to its lowest extent measured. And this winter its maximum was the fifth lowest on record. Nine of the ten smallest maximum extents have been in the past decade. Not coincidentally, nine of the ten hottest years on record were in the last decade too. The current state of affairs if summed up pretty well in a post by Peter Gleick in three very depressing graphs.

I’ll add I’m in the middle of reading climate scientist Michael Mann’s book, “The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars”. It’s a fascinating read, and very, very upsetting. The vicious attacks on him—not just his data, but him—were and still are disgusting.

These global-warming-denying jokers are fiddling while the world burns.

If At First You Don’t Secede

Despite some tiresome claims I hear, I am not antireligious. I think people have the right to believe what they want, as long as they keep it to themselves, or at the very least keep it out of government.

North Carolina
Seriously, North Carolina? Seriously?

Image credit: Shutterstock/iQoncept (modified by Phil Plait)

The Founding Fathers agree, which is why they wrote the very First Amendment to the Constitution. But some legislators in North Carolina don’t agree. They have—and I do hope you’re sitting down for this—proposed a bill to allow North Carolina to establish a state religion.

This is not a joke. Well, yes, actually, it is, but what I mean is this is real. On the surface their logic seems marginally non-crazy; the Constitution says that the U. S. Congress will make no laws respecting religion, so it’s OK for states to go ahead and establish one. I’ll note the bill doesn’t actually specify a religion, so we can assume they mean Islam.

That loud sound you may have heard was my forehead smacking into my desk at near sonic speeds.

Now, I am not a lawyer, but apparently this argument is just so much nonsense; it’s been established many times that states must respect federal law in these matters. The legislators in question—Carl Ford (R-China Grove) and Harry Warren (R-Salisbury), for any BABloggees who happen to live in their districts—must know this. They must. This bill cannot possibly withstand any sort of scrutiny, so they must only be proposing it for political purposes. Which is interesting, given that the far right is all about fiscal conservancy and not wasting tax payer dollars, and this bill will no doubt cost millions of those dollars to defend, a fight it will ultimately lose.

Honestly, this kind of anti-federal move is second only to secession. That worked out great last time, didn’t it?

[Update (14:45 UTC Apr. 5, 2013): Reverend Barry Lynn, Executive Officer of the wonderful Americans United for Separation of Church and State, has a great editorial about this at the Washington Post.]

[Update 2 (15:00 UTC Apr. 5, 2013): And just like that, this bill is dead. According to WRAL Channel 5 in North Carolina, the State House Speaker Thom Tillis said the bill won’t come to a vote, though no reason is given. I’ll add that according to the Tenth Amendment Center, this bill was simply a resolution and would not have had the force of law—this was not obvious to me (and, of course, most people writing about it) upon reading it. I’m glad to hear that, though it was still a ridiculous bill and a colossal waste of time. And don’t forget that it does represent the mindset of many people, something about which we need to be ever vigilant.]

Ad nauseum

OK, I’m done. And I didn’t even get to the witch-hunting global-warming-denying Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli who is defending anti-sodomy laws (though, honestly, this video skewers him better than I ever could), or—and I can hardly believe I’m typing this—the high school in Georgia that has racially segregated proms and homecoming. Yes, seriously, they have a whites-only prom.

Hey, remember when we changed our calendars to the freakin’ 21st century?

I guess a lot of people still don’t. There’s plenty of nonsense, hate, and bigotry out there to last us a long time. The best cure against the forces of darkness is light. We need to speak up, and we need to be heard.

This is me, saying something. You should, too.