mindcrankismycommander:

quixotess:

smallapplegoat:

cupcakeinatorellie:

denyselfandfollowchrist:

cupcakeinatorellie:

Hey

Psstt

The guy who invented the theory that vaccines cause autism had his medical license revoked for it

thats ridiculous

they took it away because he came up with a seemingly plausible theory?

They took it away because other scientists have been unable to reproduce his results, his results were made up, he didn’t even get approved by an ethics committee, and now he’s risking the health and lives of a whole bunch of people

It’s not just that he came to incorrect conclusions, he falsified data on purpose, apparently because he had patented a related medical test and stood to make a lot of money off people using his test instead of vaccinating.

It’s crazy how this one person, in a study of only twelve children, gained so much traction in the world. He put this lie out there—and it was a lie, not just interpreting data incorrectly—and now it doesn’t even matter that he’s been proven totally false. Years of effort to reestablish the truth can’t undo the lie once it’s out there in the world. Hundreds of thousands of people believe that lie, and actual children are getting sick and dying because of it.

This is a really troubling aspect of how human minds work, and it’s something conservative politicians take advantage of on a regular basis. If you just say that “well over 90% of what Planned Parenthood does“ is provide abortions, it doesn’t matter how often people recite the objective truth that abortions are a tiny fraction of Planned Parenthood services. You can say the truth 1000 times for every one time the lie is repeated, and thousands of people will still trust the lie.

I’d never heard this before, and it’s actually really helpful information to have, so thanks. Here is a scientific article by the American Academy of Pediatrics explaining the flaws in Wakefield’s research and briefly summarizing four studies that refuted the fraudulent claims. Here is an article by the editor-in-chief of the British Medical Journal calling him a fraud in no uncertain terms. Here is the first part of a nine-part investigative journalistic series, published in the BMJ, uncovering his fraud.  And the General Medical Council conclusions that stripped Wakefield of his clinical credentials can be found here.

I’m honestly so mad right now reading about this guy. People are dying of measles right now because vaccinations fell off so sharply, and those deaths can be laid at the door of this man.

When the apocalypse comes, pestilence will ride wearing Wakefield’s face

5sosphanandshortbread:

fun-n-fashion:

conductoroftardislight:

baileyarber:

the-malady-mill:

You are not stupid.

You are not ugly.

You are not worthless.

You are not weak.

You are not a burden.

Your mental illness is lying to you.

Fuck.

Also:

No you’re not bothering me. (Yes I’m serious.)

You’re not dumb.

You have great ideas.

Your smile isn’t ugly.

Neither is your laugh.

Yes people love you. No they’re not lying. Yes really.

YOU ARE NOT BOTHERING ME.

You don’t need to apologize, I actually AM very interested in our conversation.

YOU DON”T NEED TO APOLOGIZE FOR EXISTING.

in addition: yes i love you and your existence

failtastic-fallen-angel:

anightvaleintern:

stvolga:

why do all children know the floor is lava game do we all just learn it from older children and inadvertently share it with each other like some natural inevitable cycle why do children discover the floor and the concept of gravity and up and down and suddenly pretend to be afraid of it why do we play with the physical limitations of our world 

This has been explored.  Apparently there is a thing called Children Culture.  Some of the skipping songs and jump rope songs we learned as kids have no known origin as ever having been written or performed by adults.  Some games have no known origins as well.  Essentially, kids like to tell each other things and pass them around and sometimes if something particularly cool or interesting gets made, the entire school learns it.  And then those kids teach their siblings or cousins or friends from other schools and they teach their whole school until it becomes a whole mass knowledge thing by all kids and continues to be for years and years.

It’s conceivable that the lava game is another aspect of kid culture.

I know my kids don’t seem to know it and they were pretty separated from other kids growing up.

Confirmed: all children are part of a telepathic cult.