Science is hard, complicated, sometimes slow, but is a sure way to achieve greatness, I MEAN DID YOU SAW THE LAUNCH OF THE SPACE X ASTRONAUTS LAST WEEK?!?!?! IT WAS CRAZY!!!! but like the light side and dark side of the force, science has an old enemy no!! one that we must learn to recognize and fight no please, don't let it be that ONE THAT THREATENS THE VERY FOUNDATIONS OF KNOWLEDGE!!! mom, I'm scared T.T IT IS PSEUDO-SCIENCE!!! EEEEK dies x.x
Source: GIPHY
NOT DEAD, JUST KIDDING
Ok, not all pseudo-sciences are that bad, most of them are just harmless perhaps annoying hobbies, but what are these Pseudo-Psciences the P is silent? what? WIKIPEDIA IS YOUR TURN!!!
Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that are claimed to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable claims; reliance on confirmation bias rather than rigorous attempts at refutation; lack of openness to evaluation by other experts; absence of systematic practices when developing hypotheses; and continued adherence long after the pseudoscientific hypotheses have been experimentally discredited.
Woah, I see we ran out of chill today Wikipal, sit down, go relax a bit, geez, that was hard even for me but some truths can be found these words, I mean, Wikipedia is usually right, is just boring AF these practices tend to be, yeah... bullshit... at least scientifically speaking, because they found themselves in odds with the scientific method really cool guide to doing shit right and when confronted with actual evidence they crumble down like my feelings watching the crowning of Aragorn in The Return of the King
Source: GIPHY
And that's ok, it's ok to cry watching The Lord of the Rings and it's ok to have an inoffensive hobby like, let's say, assigning yourself personality traits don't do it on other unless they like it, please based on the day of your birth or change the arrangement of your living room based on some old Chinese tradition, I too have that kind of hobbies, I love to watch Professional League of Legends tournament, but, yeah, I don't try to predict events or make personal choices based on the K/D/A of some Asian nerd who knows how to click really fast OWN YOUR DECISIONS KAREN!!!
And this is where things get wrong, there are a lot of people out there that don't do this for fun or as a conversation starter, they do it to scam people and take their hard-earned money, and they're everywhere, just turn on the T.V. and you will be bombarded with, mediums that claim to talk to the dead, assholes, making a deal out of people's grief fortune tellers that guarantee to know how to better live your life assholes, making a deal with people's insecurities and even Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop selling lifestyle choices and
quantum healing that allegedly can even cure cancer, Ms. Stark, you're a huge piece of shit!
Why everywhere?
Well, let's have this clear, these people are conmen con man? conman? consmens? hey, google what's plural for con man?... Oh I was right it was conmen, all right, moving on! and know really well how to exploit a critical subject, the generally poor understanding of how sciences work, with this they not only can fool most people just talking crap but they can sound like legitimate or so they say scientist to the point of quoting true scientific research and trying to validate their claims with that I'm looking at you anti-vaxxers, you know those researches are, to say the least, incompetent
Source: GIPHY
One of the main arguments anti-vaxxers flaunt is that vaccines are poisoning everyone with dangerous chemicals like mercury and I have to sigh so hard that can be heard in the whole block, it's a really violent sigh first of all everything is made out of chemicals, most people understand chemicals like some weird science substance but no, chemicals are everywhere, you're made of chemicals even the very air we breath contains Oxygen, Nitrogen, Argon, Carbon, etc, and yes Mercury can be dangerous, but when it is used in vaccines it is combined with other substances that neutralize those dangerous properties, is like combining your angry and hungry toxic girlfriend with a pizza, the pizza will immediately get rid of the toxic properties and you'll get back the lovely piece of heaven you fall in love with oh but of course, believing Karen from Moms Against Vaccines in Facebook is more legit
People that use pseudo-science love to use this kind of tricks to achieve their goal mostly the money in your wallet because they know the basic science you learn at high school is not enough to explain everything correctly and at the same time is full of loopholes, in the end, you cannot learn a thing you think you know and this is where pseudo-science stops being just a hobby to pass time with the guys to become a real threat, no only for the scientific community but to society as a whole, information is a powerful tool, but misinformation can affect the reality of every person if we allow it you make your decisions based on information too Karen, even if it's butched and stupid
Science vs Pseudo-science
Yeah baby, Science comes as usual to the rescue like the Riders of Rohan in The Return of the King have a problem with my love for Tolkien? FIGHT ME! remember Karl Popper? The Falsifiability guy? Well, this guy had a real beef with pseudo-sciences no shit, right? and he wanted to know why research like the one Einstein did felt more grounded than others, he came to the conclusion that a fundamental part of real science was the ability to predict accurately meanwhile pseudo-sciences were just explicative in nature
Source: GIPHY
He observed that scientists and researchers of the good old sciences often look to predict events based on observations, often those predictions could not be verifiable with current techniques or technology, but when the opportunity showed the predictions where on point, Einstein's case is the perfect example, he predicted the existence of gravitational waves 100 years prior to their discovery using his theory of general relativity which was based on Newton's work on celestial mechanics which predicted how the planets moved around the sun I mean come ooooooooooooon how is this not cool, these guys predicted shit in space, clairvoyants can't predict a slap in the face
In the other hand, we have pseudo-sciences which generally make observations and from those observations make conclusions, that may sound really logical and scientific but when you do this you are open to compromise your findings, fell for biases or just say and do whatever may be more convenient for real, scammers are on just for this, they have the sweetest of words but at the very moment they attempt to make a prediction they fall royally to their asses, most of their predictions are under 50% let me tell you that you can get more than 50% of accuracy just by guessing
Another aspect pseudo-science avoid to... well avoid is the fetishization of the crucial experiment, like most clickbaity Youtubers they love to OWN and BUST and ANNIHILATE their rivals with their truth, cringe with me, my brothers! without really understanding that science doesn't work like that, science is the collective construction of knowledge, Einstein couldn't get his theories right without Newton's work, modern medicine wouldn't be the same without Pasteur or Flemming, the slow but sure advancement of science is something to be protected from pseudo-science and culty behavior, this is another beast to be slain in another time, don't worry behavior that allowed things like almost extinct diseases to come back even stronger, so please trust your scientific communities, ask questions, or even better, learn how to be a scientist and search for the truth with slow but rewarding steps! you won't regret it, for real!
Source: GIPHY
Other Sources
Pseudoscience | Wikipedia
Science and Pseudo-Science | Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
What is Pseudoscience | Scientific American
How FAKE SCIENCE Can Fool You | Wisecrack
Karl Popper, Science, & Pseudoscience: Crash Course Philosophy #8 | CrashCourse
How To Spot Pseudoscience | Seeker
Homeopathy, quackery and fraud | James Randi | TED
THANKS FOR READING!
When it comes to the vaccine hesitant, they don't exactly make money from warning about vaccines, so it begs the question of whether this is actually their motive, because they actually get a lot of flack for discussing their fears and some people get pretty nasty with them. The fact is that many of those who vehemently warn about vaccines have had children who reacted badly to them. Sadly, we don't have much research going into figuring out why some people react so badly and what ingredients are likely to cause the reaction, so they can only latch onto what might have caused it. Calling them names or stupid, doesn't exactly help to convince them otherwise, especially if their child, themselves or someone they know have had a bad reaction. It doesn't matter how rare these reactions are, they are still very real and for the person they've happened to it's not going to feel very rare.
If we want to convince people of the benefit of vaccines then those vaccine injuries and deaths can't be just brushed aside, people need to see that they are being looked into and doctors need to be asking medical history questions of the family to guage their likelihood of reaction before vaccinating, because it does seem to be certain conditions that bring a higher risk.
Of course, their reason is totally understandable, fear for their children's health is their main motivation, nobody could argue that is not a good reason to be afraid, but falling for conmen who don't have any interest in their children's or anyone's health is not the answer either
The adverse reaction some people suffer from vaccines are really bad and at the same time really rare, that's why they are so hard to study and find out what is happening, I'm sure no researcher or doctor wants to hurt anybody
The problem is that most anti-vaccination supporters and promoters aren't even inside the small group who suffer from ad reactions from vaccines, they just jumped on the bandwagon, out of fear, yes, but is not even smart to risk not only just your health and your child but the whole society out of fear that a really rare reaction could or not happen to you, researchers have shown this time and time again is most probable to contract polio or some really shitty disease than have an adverse reaction
I'm totally onto finding what the hell is causing some people to react so badly, vaccines should be a risk-free cure, but I can't go against something that has prevented the death of millions of people so easily
btw I'm not mad I just can't find a good gif, and thanks for this comment, these are why I keep going with my posts <3
I believe the conversations need to be had. We are trying to prevent discrimination of minorities and those who react are minorities, so to not be seen to be trying to do something is not helping the case of the pro vaxxers. Then with the attitude at the moment that when families did have a child react to it instead of sympathy and discussion they get brushed aside and told they must continue, just get it done at the hospital in case they go into anaphylaxis, that's not helping those minorities gain more confidence in vaccines.
Yes, most reactions are mild, but when your baby ends up in a rash from head to toe, while its not life threatening it's not something you're going to want to be seeing every couple of months and it's hard to envision an invisible benefit when your seeing such visible distress. There's also no arguing that some have died or had permanent brain damage from them. Anyone who has experienced these things is going to want to share and warn others that this risk is real, just as anyone who had lost a child to one of the diseases would and they both should be allowed that. Seeing as we no longer get the diseases so much, then the vaccine injury stories and photos are going to be seen a lot more, so it makes sense why people would be jumping on that bandwagon more.
What the pro vaccine group needs to be showing is sympathy towards those who have experienced injuries, but also more openness and literature which compares the risks levels for both the diseases and the vaccines. Openness is the better approach rather than the approach currently being taken, which often seems to be to attack and deny any adverse reactions.
The idea of herd immunity was supposed to be to protect those who do react or are at high risk of reacting so they don't need to be risked again with further vaccines, but those people are finding that they are being bullied and coerced into continuing to vaccine despite reactions and their children being hospitalised.
I totally agree, education is the way to make things better, the literature is out there, but I have to argue that sometimes is really hard to get, that's one of the reasons I do my best to make these posts this is my best, sorry if I disappoint lol of course not everyone is a health professional to go headfirst into the papers (even some pros don't get that stuff) the best thing to do is keep educating, sometimes is hard, confronting fear with logic is proven to be not very effective and it's worst when you face some culty behaviors, but yeah, I think perseverance is the key
Hmm, the end of my comment went missing...odd.
I know what you mean about the literature. It's not easy to work through. That's why I think simplified comparisons might be a better way to go. The percentage chances the different types of reactions to the vaccines and the diseases, for example.
Interestingly, those who have vaccine injured or lost a child to vaccine have often done more research on them and the history than the rest of us, so you don't want to go up against them without being fully versed.
Yeah, it's really curious but I guess it has to do with the fact that something happened with the vaccine, I mean, if nothing happens at all that issue will not draw your attention, but if it do, is normal to look into it to know what is going on.
I always say everyone should be versed on things we do every day or happens to anyone, of course, well-researched studies and literature is what I recommend, I wouldn't point someone directly to some conman, I hate when those guys win and trick innocent people
They're not conmen. They certainly don't lie in order to trick people and what they've researched is correct, maybe just one sided. Their motives aren't sinister, they just don't want anyone else to go through what they've been through and they'd be just as horrified if they convinced someone not to vaccinate and they lost their child to the disease.
I believe sometimes we can read too much into someone's motives, yet when it boils down to it they are really much simpler than we think.
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