I'm not a molecular biologist. I'm not an immunologist. I'm not a doctor. I'm not a pathologist. I'm not a lot of things relevant to the study of virology and how diseases work.
What I am, though, is inquisitive. I am logical. I reason.
AND I PAID ATTENTION IN SCIENCE CLASS.
The anti-vax movement disapproves of the removal of religious and philosophical exemptions from vaccinations within the state. Some people are against it on the grounds of government overreach but nearly all of them don't really understand how vaccines work nor do they understand their importance.
I encounter these people a lot in my internet meanderings.
Here is a summary of a recent conversation with one of them; I have been told by several people who are fancy-pants biology people who have degrees I can never attain that the below is a reasonable summary of an entire semester of college immunology.
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First off, they claim they are not anti-vax and they launched their counter with the age-old "if vaccines work then why are you so worried about this if you are vaccinated?" (this question comes in many forms). I find this a tiring argument because it shows the level of science ignorance of the person and they are always smug about it, thinking it is the super "gotcha" argument that proves vaccines are worthless.
-----
Let's have a crash course in this.
Mutations are the root of evolution. They are transcription errors in genetic information being copied during the reproductive process.
Mutations occur generationally, meaning that the change does not happen within a cell, but when a cell is replicating. In single-celled entities (like microbes) each division is a generation of the species, whereas within multi-cellular beings each cellular generation is of no significance to the overall species mutation rate, only gametes matter for multi-cellular beings.
Mutations can be one of three things: inert, beneficial, or detrimental (from the perspective of the organism that possesses the mutation). Inert mutations don't matter, they are just a difference; beneficial mutations help the organism survive; detrimental mutations limit the success of the organism.
Beneficial mutations succeed in reproduction faster than the others in microbes because each subsequent division is a whole generation and a whole opportunity to spread faster and farther.
Each host for a microbe population varies slightly. Each one provides slightly different conditions that favor or hinder the growth of a microbe. This is why different people experience different levels of illness when exposed to the exact same strains of a microbe. This is why treatments work in some people and are completely ineffective in others.
If microbes have no home then they have no opportunity to grow and thrive and... mutate.
When a population is 95% immune it is 95% impossible for a microbe population to even enter the situation and 95% impossible for it to spread.
Which such a spread limitation treatments can be much more focussed and effective because the resources are available to spend on eradication.
This is called herd immunity.
NOW we get into the answer to your question.
Herd immunity minimizes the spread of a disease by minimizing the number of hosts in which it can gain a foothold. It minimizes the number of differing environments that can each exert naturally selective forces on the disease. It limited the number of mutations that can happen to the strain of the microbe, limiting the net volume of variation and mutation that it can acquire.
THAT is why we are so worried about it despite vaccinations.
Because, if we dip too far below the 95% threshold, even as low as 90%, we open a sliver of our population up to becoming incubators and mutation factories.
We open up that sliver of the population to transport the microbes wherever they go and to spread it to the sliver of the population in those locations that are also not vaccinated.
Those differing geographic regions compound the level of environmental diversity created by different individual hosts and create even more diverse naturally selective forces to act upon on microbe population.
Now... let's do some real quick math here based on a bacterium that is well known, even if it doesn't have a ready vaccination for it because we have lots of ways of preventing sickness from it:
An e. coli bacteria has a generation of about 20 minutes. This means that if a single e. coli bacterium finds its way into a human host it doubles in number every 20 minutes. Each individual division is an opportunity for a mutation to occur.
Since the division is exponential this balloons up VERY quickly.
At the end of ONE DAY the number of e. coli cells in the host is an unmanageable number to type (2^720).
If those replications develop a more virulent, faster reproducing, or more lethal strain that is more successful in the host and able to spread to others then we have an outbreak that kills lots of people.
This happens. This is why we have e. coli scares even though simple hand washing and proper cooking techniques prevent the issue.
This same thing happens with EVERY disease. Vaccines work but they only work for existing strains and those similar enough to them for our body to recognize it. If a mutation happens that changes it just enough for our bodies' immune systems to no longer recognize it then EVERYONE, vaccinated or not, gets sick. The more infected hosts the more opportunities for such a mutation to happen; the more opportunities for such an infection to spread. The more opportunities for us to have created a new iteration of measles that we cannot treat with our current medications or which is just lethal enough to make treatments irrelevant altogether.
This, too, is happening. We have cultivated antibiotic-resistant strains of Staphylococcus (known as MRSA) which are now found in about 2% of the population; when it gets into their (or anyone else's) blood it becomes a lethal situation for more than 20% of the people infected.
The easiest and best, way to prevent massive disease outbreaks due to beneficial (to the microbe) mutations is to eliminate their ability to grow and thrive and reproduce and the easiest way to do that is.... TO VACCINATE EVERYONE
It might "just be wikipedia(1)" but it is well documented with primary sources in the bibliography at the bottom.
1. wikipedia has been, repeatedly, tested for accuracy against "real" encyclopedias and found to be more accurate AND have more detailed information (2). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity
2. https://www.wired.com/story/wikipedia-online-encyclopedia-best-place-internet/
Showing posts with label Bad Science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bad Science. Show all posts
Monday, March 2, 2020
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Global Climate Change
I think we're missing a lot of aspects of contributing factors because it is easy to fight over the two big arguments:
1 - whether it is man-MADE or not
2 - whether CO2 is the cause or not.
Sound is, essentially, the same as heat but at a MUCH lower frequency. Humanity makes a lot of noise. That HAS to have an effect.
Car engines, light bulbs, computers, etc all generate HEAT. It is an undeniable side-effect to what they do. That has to have an effect on things.
Furnaces generate heat. That is their core purpose. That has to affect things tremendously.
Our process of making CO2 generates a lot of HEAT and then traps that heat. It's not just the CO2 but all the things we do (per capita) multiplied by the number of people.
Also - the earth's natural equilibrium is for the northern sore of Canada to be a tropical rain forest. So says the paleontological evidence..... so on top of what we are doing the planet is still recovering from the last ice age to bring itself back to its normal.
In short - unless we figure out how to make the earth's equilibrium match OUR needs or figure out how to move underground / under the ocean - we're screwed on this planet.
200,000 years of human history is nothing next to the 80,000,000 that held the northern tropical rain forests and the 65,000,000 that held the tropical-temperatures around the globe before the impact prior to the Chicxulub impact... and all of the other epics prior to that one were also HUGELY larger than the time humanity has existed and all show the same thing - tropical temperature in the moderate and cold zones of this planet.
Is global climate change happening: yes, absolutely
Did we cause it? Nope.
Are we a contributing factor: certainly.
Are we a significant contributing factor: probably.
Do we ignore a lot of the ways we are contributing: this is as certain as the change itself.
Can we do anything about it: yes, but only if we, as a species, can accept the scientific truths about it and dedicate the resources to modeling ways to change the energy output of our industry and residences as well as figure out a way to properly sequester excess CO2 (secret: there are a lot of simple answers to the latter... some of them are even relatively easy to do).
For starters we need to accept that this is a very complex problem and stop outlining it as simple to the mass populace. We need to stop saying that we know, with certainty, that we CAUSED it. Many of the climate change naysayers are fighting back because they don;t believe humanity is so powerful that we could cause such a problem. Whether this view is ignorant of them or not we can stop their counter-arguments by eliminating the causation argument from the climate-change-is-happening camp.
From there we can focus our efforts on solar and wind technologies like several other "1st World" countries have done. Their usable lands for such energy sources are a fraction of the land available in the US for this and their capture rate is MUCH higher.
We could also engineer our buildings to support rooftop gardens and preserves to reduce the conversion rate of biological heat absorbers and carbon sinks into heat sinks that do not absorb carbon.
We could convert streets in cities into tunnels and cover the roofs of these tunnels with plant-supporting ground to do the same.
We could build buildings that allow for pockets of plants to grow on the sides of the buildings. This would provide additional insulation and further absorb carbon from the air.
These are just some things we could do to lessen our contributions to this problem.
1 - whether it is man-MADE or not
2 - whether CO2 is the cause or not.
Sound is, essentially, the same as heat but at a MUCH lower frequency. Humanity makes a lot of noise. That HAS to have an effect.
Car engines, light bulbs, computers, etc all generate HEAT. It is an undeniable side-effect to what they do. That has to have an effect on things.
Furnaces generate heat. That is their core purpose. That has to affect things tremendously.
Our process of making CO2 generates a lot of HEAT and then traps that heat. It's not just the CO2 but all the things we do (per capita) multiplied by the number of people.
Also - the earth's natural equilibrium is for the northern sore of Canada to be a tropical rain forest. So says the paleontological evidence..... so on top of what we are doing the planet is still recovering from the last ice age to bring itself back to its normal.
In short - unless we figure out how to make the earth's equilibrium match OUR needs or figure out how to move underground / under the ocean - we're screwed on this planet.
200,000 years of human history is nothing next to the 80,000,000 that held the northern tropical rain forests and the 65,000,000 that held the tropical-temperatures around the globe before the impact prior to the Chicxulub impact... and all of the other epics prior to that one were also HUGELY larger than the time humanity has existed and all show the same thing - tropical temperature in the moderate and cold zones of this planet.
Is global climate change happening: yes, absolutely
Did we cause it? Nope.
Are we a contributing factor: certainly.
Are we a significant contributing factor: probably.
Do we ignore a lot of the ways we are contributing: this is as certain as the change itself.
Can we do anything about it: yes, but only if we, as a species, can accept the scientific truths about it and dedicate the resources to modeling ways to change the energy output of our industry and residences as well as figure out a way to properly sequester excess CO2 (secret: there are a lot of simple answers to the latter... some of them are even relatively easy to do).
For starters we need to accept that this is a very complex problem and stop outlining it as simple to the mass populace. We need to stop saying that we know, with certainty, that we CAUSED it. Many of the climate change naysayers are fighting back because they don;t believe humanity is so powerful that we could cause such a problem. Whether this view is ignorant of them or not we can stop their counter-arguments by eliminating the causation argument from the climate-change-is-happening camp.
From there we can focus our efforts on solar and wind technologies like several other "1st World" countries have done. Their usable lands for such energy sources are a fraction of the land available in the US for this and their capture rate is MUCH higher.
We could also engineer our buildings to support rooftop gardens and preserves to reduce the conversion rate of biological heat absorbers and carbon sinks into heat sinks that do not absorb carbon.
We could convert streets in cities into tunnels and cover the roofs of these tunnels with plant-supporting ground to do the same.
We could build buildings that allow for pockets of plants to grow on the sides of the buildings. This would provide additional insulation and further absorb carbon from the air.
These are just some things we could do to lessen our contributions to this problem.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
In Contemplation of Absolutes
On the way to work this morning, like most mornings, I was listening to a podcast (for those that are interested it was "Dr. Kiki's Science Hour" which one can find through Justin.tv or the TWIT network or in the iTunes podcast directory). This particular episode broke with the show's normal format and touched on several science topics on several articles rather than focussing on one particular topic for the entire hour.
One of these articles is what prompts this post. It does so for two reasons.
The first of these directly relates to the article. The article that Dr. Kiki summarized discussed how people are far more willing to accept the credentials of scientists in who are proposing hypotheses and/or theories that support their cultural norm over those who do not. It also pointed out that they are more able to remember scientific evidence that is presented that supports the way they WANT things to turn out.
I'm sure this is not a surprise to ANYONE reading my blog. What is interesting is that they did a controlled study (I'm interested enough that if I had the time I would go read it for more details, but I do not have the time required to find and read it) to gather data on exactly how much people tend to do this. So now, according to this study, it's FACT that people do this and not just anecdotal speculation. That is a move forward (unless, of course, you don't believe people do this in which case this study MUST be flawed and based on a bad premise :-) )
The discussion of the article, as many regarding controversial science often do, led almost immediately to global climate change. This leads me to the second topic of this post: global climate change.
I, personally, do not care, even a little bit, about your opinion on this topic; ESPECIALLY if it disagrees with mine. The only exception to that rule is if you have rational and well-thought out points that I CANNOT shred in my own mind using facts, logic and reason. I, like nearly every other person in the developed world, have been barraged with this topic for DECADES and I am tired of arguing about it with people who have irrational opinions and flawed data that they combine with even more flawed logic.
Lucky for me, this is MY blog. :-) I can post whatever I want. If you don't like it you can read elsewhere. :-)
With my preliminary statement finished I now present my stance on global climate change:
1. This is something that is ocurring.
There are plenty of sources of evidence that date backward through the history of our species that all agree: the planet is gradually warming. They also all agree that it has been warming since mankind first starting scratching marks into cave walls.
2. We did NOT cause it.
If our evidence shows that this has been ongoing since mankind first began scratching on cave walls it CANNOT be CAUSED by mankind. It's that simple. At that point in our history we were no more a manipulator of nature than any other animal on the planet. If this process was in the works THEN it obviously could not have been STARTED by our species.
3. We MIGHT be contributing to it in a measurable fashion
Are we polluting our planet? Yes. Most certainly. Unequivocally. Without question. We are causing harm to the ecosphere that nurtured us as we grew from a partially-sentient animal into the fully sentient (at least some of us) beings that we are today. Is this a bad thing? Yes. Should we pursue better ways of managing our lives, resources, energy consumption? YES. Conservatism is NEVER a bad idea for those that want their resources to last. And we SHOULD all want out resources to last because we have no other home to go to when we wreck this one.
4. Carbon dioxide is not as scary as scientists make it out to be. Yes, it is a bad thing to have in the atmosphere but the thing that makes it so bad is that we are destroying the world's carbon sink. Something NONE of the media outlets will ever mention is that ALL of the carbon we dump into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels was already once in the biosphere. That's right ladies and gentlemen: we're just returning that carbon to the biosphere that put it into pre-oil form. If the earth sustained itself with that much carbon in the biosphere before it can do it again. Will species go extinct as part of the process? Probably. Will we? Maybe. Will it kill the earth? No. People who dislike this argument when I bring it up are fond of pointing out that volcanoes put HUGE volumes of carbon dioxide into the air each year and that the biosphere never had that carbon to deal with. I put out that those same volcanoes dump more carbon dioxide into the air than all of mankind's pollution combined. So, if volcanoes are that significant than there is NOTHING we can do about the carbon anyway: so why try? Of course, the counter to this counter is that the same forces that spew out carbon dioxide from the depths of the earth also draw produce large volumes of rock. The converse is that for every unit of mass that the earth disgorges through a volcano it draws back in at a subduction zone. If it did not the earth would empty and the surface of the planet would grow until it collapsed for lack of anything under it. Therefore, the summary of this point is that fossil fuel emissions are returning CO2 to the biosphere that was once there in the first place. Tectonic activity contribute to the problem AND the solution. The biosphere will survive the carbon problem. The BEST thing we can do to mitigate the CO2 in the atmosphere problem is to PLANT MORE PLANTS. Plants grow. As plants grow they take in CO2 and push out O2. That means they absorb the carbon. They use this carbon to grow. More plants means a greater volume of carbon sinkage in the biosphere.
5. Other greenhouse gasses: most people don't realize that water vapor is a MUCH more significant greenhouse gas than CO2. It has a significantly greater thermal retention property. The upside is that it has a MUCH shorter in-atmosphere time because it precipitates out as rain/snow/hail/etc. This is merely a fact that most people do not know.
6. Ancient evidence. MILLIONS of years ago, when the North American continent was FURTHER NORTH than it is now there was a thick and full forest along the NORTHERN shore. The fossilized remnants of this forest imply that the plant growth there was similar in nature to plants that live in the warmer regions of the planet now. The regions nearer the equator than where I live. This forest was sustained for MILLIONS of years. This means that for MILLIONS of consecutive years the entire planet was MUCH warmer than it is now; so much warmer that the NORTHERN SHORE of CANADA was a tropical forest. ALL of humanity has existed in less than a million years. ALL of recorded history has taken place since the great ice age. Take a few minutes to ponder that.
Now that you've pondered I'll tell you what that means. It means that that is the NORMAL level of heat for this planet. ALL of humankind's history has taken place in a period of abnormal coolness for this planet. The planet is NOT warming up: it's returning to it's natural state. There is NOTHING we can do to STOP that with our current technology levels.
7. The Sun. There are some people who have reams of evidence to correlate heating and cooling cycles with solar output. There is a study currently being conducted which has preliminary data showing that a larger and longer solar cycle of sunspots and magnetic activity (the "normal" cycle is 11 years, but there are longer cycles which make the magnitude of the 11-year cycle greater - our data on the sun is VERY limited in this respect) DIRECTLY correspond to long-term climate variations. Their current data even implies that the "Little Ice Age" of the 1300s - 1800s was caused by a variation in sunspot activity. As ALL energy on earth is derivative of the fusion furnace in the heart of the sun ANY changes in the solar output MUST have some sort of affect on the earth. Are there other forces at work that can magnify or dampen the solar influence? Yes. But at the core of the habitability of earth is the sun.
8. Heat pollution: All I ever hear about when scientists discuss how humanity is ruining the earth is our contribution to the CO2 in the atmosphere. I NEVER hear anyone talking about how we are doing to things that much more directly affect the temperatures of the planet. The first is direct heat pollution. EVERYTHING you use generates heat pollution. Light bulbs. Your fridge. Your car. The laptop I am using to write this. Your TV. Your body. Composting the waste products from your home. EVERYTHING. All of this thermal energy is being dumped into our atmosphere as raw heat. The second thing we are doing is we are removing all of the heat absorbers and converters that nature created and replacing them with heat sinks. Every tree, flower, weed, blade of grass, algae blob that we remove from nature is one less thing that can absorb the heat from the sun AND pull carbon out of the atmosphere. We are replacing those heat and carbon absorbers with asphalt and concrete. Both asphalt and concrete absorb heat ALL DAY LONG and then they release it back into the air at night. They are not absorbing either heat or carbon: they are just storing heat during the day and releasing it at night.
Summary:
This is the point where I am going to cut myself off rather than start ranting on each of the tangents that this post could generate if I allowed it to do so. The raw summary of it is that global climate change is happening. We didn't cause it, but we're helping it happen. If you want to do something plant a garden and grow more plants. Those of you who live in large, urban buildings: see if you can get roof access to grow a roof-top vegetable garden (or even clearance to put in 2 inches of dirt and lay down some sod). The plant life on the roof will help insulate the building from heat in the summer and from the cold in the winter. It will reduce the heat-sink affect of the building's roof. It will pull carbon out of the air. Plants also absorb other air pollution so it will help make your city a nicer, cleaner place.
I wish I had a place I could do this, but our backyard is already filled with plant life and our roof has a significant slope to it.
One of these articles is what prompts this post. It does so for two reasons.
The first of these directly relates to the article. The article that Dr. Kiki summarized discussed how people are far more willing to accept the credentials of scientists in who are proposing hypotheses and/or theories that support their cultural norm over those who do not. It also pointed out that they are more able to remember scientific evidence that is presented that supports the way they WANT things to turn out.
I'm sure this is not a surprise to ANYONE reading my blog. What is interesting is that they did a controlled study (I'm interested enough that if I had the time I would go read it for more details, but I do not have the time required to find and read it) to gather data on exactly how much people tend to do this. So now, according to this study, it's FACT that people do this and not just anecdotal speculation. That is a move forward (unless, of course, you don't believe people do this in which case this study MUST be flawed and based on a bad premise :-) )
The discussion of the article, as many regarding controversial science often do, led almost immediately to global climate change. This leads me to the second topic of this post: global climate change.
I, personally, do not care, even a little bit, about your opinion on this topic; ESPECIALLY if it disagrees with mine. The only exception to that rule is if you have rational and well-thought out points that I CANNOT shred in my own mind using facts, logic and reason. I, like nearly every other person in the developed world, have been barraged with this topic for DECADES and I am tired of arguing about it with people who have irrational opinions and flawed data that they combine with even more flawed logic.
Lucky for me, this is MY blog. :-) I can post whatever I want. If you don't like it you can read elsewhere. :-)
With my preliminary statement finished I now present my stance on global climate change:
1. This is something that is ocurring.
There are plenty of sources of evidence that date backward through the history of our species that all agree: the planet is gradually warming. They also all agree that it has been warming since mankind first starting scratching marks into cave walls.
2. We did NOT cause it.
If our evidence shows that this has been ongoing since mankind first began scratching on cave walls it CANNOT be CAUSED by mankind. It's that simple. At that point in our history we were no more a manipulator of nature than any other animal on the planet. If this process was in the works THEN it obviously could not have been STARTED by our species.
3. We MIGHT be contributing to it in a measurable fashion
Are we polluting our planet? Yes. Most certainly. Unequivocally. Without question. We are causing harm to the ecosphere that nurtured us as we grew from a partially-sentient animal into the fully sentient (at least some of us) beings that we are today. Is this a bad thing? Yes. Should we pursue better ways of managing our lives, resources, energy consumption? YES. Conservatism is NEVER a bad idea for those that want their resources to last. And we SHOULD all want out resources to last because we have no other home to go to when we wreck this one.
4. Carbon dioxide is not as scary as scientists make it out to be. Yes, it is a bad thing to have in the atmosphere but the thing that makes it so bad is that we are destroying the world's carbon sink. Something NONE of the media outlets will ever mention is that ALL of the carbon we dump into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels was already once in the biosphere. That's right ladies and gentlemen: we're just returning that carbon to the biosphere that put it into pre-oil form. If the earth sustained itself with that much carbon in the biosphere before it can do it again. Will species go extinct as part of the process? Probably. Will we? Maybe. Will it kill the earth? No. People who dislike this argument when I bring it up are fond of pointing out that volcanoes put HUGE volumes of carbon dioxide into the air each year and that the biosphere never had that carbon to deal with. I put out that those same volcanoes dump more carbon dioxide into the air than all of mankind's pollution combined. So, if volcanoes are that significant than there is NOTHING we can do about the carbon anyway: so why try? Of course, the counter to this counter is that the same forces that spew out carbon dioxide from the depths of the earth also draw produce large volumes of rock. The converse is that for every unit of mass that the earth disgorges through a volcano it draws back in at a subduction zone. If it did not the earth would empty and the surface of the planet would grow until it collapsed for lack of anything under it. Therefore, the summary of this point is that fossil fuel emissions are returning CO2 to the biosphere that was once there in the first place. Tectonic activity contribute to the problem AND the solution. The biosphere will survive the carbon problem. The BEST thing we can do to mitigate the CO2 in the atmosphere problem is to PLANT MORE PLANTS. Plants grow. As plants grow they take in CO2 and push out O2. That means they absorb the carbon. They use this carbon to grow. More plants means a greater volume of carbon sinkage in the biosphere.
5. Other greenhouse gasses: most people don't realize that water vapor is a MUCH more significant greenhouse gas than CO2. It has a significantly greater thermal retention property. The upside is that it has a MUCH shorter in-atmosphere time because it precipitates out as rain/snow/hail/etc. This is merely a fact that most people do not know.
6. Ancient evidence. MILLIONS of years ago, when the North American continent was FURTHER NORTH than it is now there was a thick and full forest along the NORTHERN shore. The fossilized remnants of this forest imply that the plant growth there was similar in nature to plants that live in the warmer regions of the planet now. The regions nearer the equator than where I live. This forest was sustained for MILLIONS of years. This means that for MILLIONS of consecutive years the entire planet was MUCH warmer than it is now; so much warmer that the NORTHERN SHORE of CANADA was a tropical forest. ALL of humanity has existed in less than a million years. ALL of recorded history has taken place since the great ice age. Take a few minutes to ponder that.
Now that you've pondered I'll tell you what that means. It means that that is the NORMAL level of heat for this planet. ALL of humankind's history has taken place in a period of abnormal coolness for this planet. The planet is NOT warming up: it's returning to it's natural state. There is NOTHING we can do to STOP that with our current technology levels.
7. The Sun. There are some people who have reams of evidence to correlate heating and cooling cycles with solar output. There is a study currently being conducted which has preliminary data showing that a larger and longer solar cycle of sunspots and magnetic activity (the "normal" cycle is 11 years, but there are longer cycles which make the magnitude of the 11-year cycle greater - our data on the sun is VERY limited in this respect) DIRECTLY correspond to long-term climate variations. Their current data even implies that the "Little Ice Age" of the 1300s - 1800s was caused by a variation in sunspot activity. As ALL energy on earth is derivative of the fusion furnace in the heart of the sun ANY changes in the solar output MUST have some sort of affect on the earth. Are there other forces at work that can magnify or dampen the solar influence? Yes. But at the core of the habitability of earth is the sun.
8. Heat pollution: All I ever hear about when scientists discuss how humanity is ruining the earth is our contribution to the CO2 in the atmosphere. I NEVER hear anyone talking about how we are doing to things that much more directly affect the temperatures of the planet. The first is direct heat pollution. EVERYTHING you use generates heat pollution. Light bulbs. Your fridge. Your car. The laptop I am using to write this. Your TV. Your body. Composting the waste products from your home. EVERYTHING. All of this thermal energy is being dumped into our atmosphere as raw heat. The second thing we are doing is we are removing all of the heat absorbers and converters that nature created and replacing them with heat sinks. Every tree, flower, weed, blade of grass, algae blob that we remove from nature is one less thing that can absorb the heat from the sun AND pull carbon out of the atmosphere. We are replacing those heat and carbon absorbers with asphalt and concrete. Both asphalt and concrete absorb heat ALL DAY LONG and then they release it back into the air at night. They are not absorbing either heat or carbon: they are just storing heat during the day and releasing it at night.
Summary:
This is the point where I am going to cut myself off rather than start ranting on each of the tangents that this post could generate if I allowed it to do so. The raw summary of it is that global climate change is happening. We didn't cause it, but we're helping it happen. If you want to do something plant a garden and grow more plants. Those of you who live in large, urban buildings: see if you can get roof access to grow a roof-top vegetable garden (or even clearance to put in 2 inches of dirt and lay down some sod). The plant life on the roof will help insulate the building from heat in the summer and from the cold in the winter. It will reduce the heat-sink affect of the building's roof. It will pull carbon out of the air. Plants also absorb other air pollution so it will help make your city a nicer, cleaner place.
I wish I had a place I could do this, but our backyard is already filled with plant life and our roof has a significant slope to it.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Vaccinations and the Bad Science of the Anti-Vaccination Activists
Earlier today a friend of mine posted this link to an article about the current outbreak of whooping cough in California. Along with the link she posted the following quotes:
"We need to remember that vaccines are probably the biggest reason that
Most of the resulting conversation was on par with what I expect from people whom my friends choose to socialize with. It was in agreement with the idea of vaccinations and carried some slight jest at some of the medical ideas that go against all known science.
But then, on the tenth response, began the anti-vaccination opinions. The first one (response #10) was inquiring about why they have to be so toxic and draining on the young immune system. Why are they so dangerous? It was geared in an acceptable and inquiring mind. It was phrased such that the person obviously has been exposed to the controversy started by the bad science of the anti-vaccination activists but someone who seemed to really want answer, rather than someone who had already made up their mind.
I, and a couple of other people, provided them with some (admittedly, opinion laced) answers to the inquiries.
Why is there mercury in vaccines? Because it was used as a preservative in a stable and non-toxic compound: just like in your fillings.
Why give 3-4 vaccines in a single injection instead of spreading them out? Because spreading them out would have the average person receiving the last of their vaccinations when they are 20 years old. Most of the diseases we are protecting against affect people before they reach that age. There is no point in vaccinating someone against Measles after they have died from it.
Why are the vaccines now so toxic that they induce a fever? Because they always have been: it's how they work. The vaccination generates an immune response to the pathogens that generate the disease so that your body knows what to do when it next encounters those pathogens. That means it generates a MUCH milder version of the same immune response. That means a mild fever. The response burns energy which makes you tired. People are super concerned about this type of response now because of the anti-vaccination-activists but the reality is this type of response by the body has always existed. Your muscles ache after a tetanus shot. That's been a reality for a LONG time. It's not new. It's the body generating an immune response to the pathogens that cause tetanus. (Yes a tetanus shot is a vaccine).
I will come out and plainly say it. Willful ignorance of science fact is stupid. If you CHOOSE to disbelieve the evidence presented by science I will find your opinions stupid. If you want to convince me otherwise: use reason and logic. The next anti-vaccine poster was much more hostile. She, who had not participated in the conversation to that point, felt that those who were answering the challenges of the science were calling her (and those who believe as she does) stupid even though care had been given to state things in an educational way (with the exception of flatly stating that those who push the mercury in vaccines scare do not understand chemistry: which is true). Her response was angry at those who support vaccines and angrier at those who wish to discredit the anti-vaccine movement. She has anecdotal evidence on her side regarding her niece who is now exhibiting autism signs after having been given the hepatitis B vaccine before going home from being birthed. It is obvious to me that she blames the vaccine for the autism.
This is the point where I point out the cold, hard logic.
1. Are there more autism diagnosis than 50 years ago? Yes.
2. Are there more people than 50 years ago? Yes.
3. Is there a higher percentage of people who obtain health care than 50 years ago? Yes.
4. Does modern health care have a greater means of communicating data on various anomalies in behavior and symptoms? Yes.
5. Does modern health care have better tools to diagnose and treat conditions? Yes.
If you follow these questions the logic train is easy to follow AND it can be followed with ANY disease that has an increase in the NUMBER of diagnoses (e.g. autism, asthma, ADHD, depression, etc):
5. Better equipment means more people with less severe symptoms can be diagnosed.
4. Better communication means that more doctors can be made aware of the symptoms of any condition and perform a more accurate diagnosis.
3. A higher percentage of people acquiring health care means that the percentage who were afflicted, but not treated, are now being treated. This alone will boost the number of cases even if the population did not grow.
2. More people means a greater number of diagnoses. The only way to prevent that is to find a way to make the condition being examined rarer.
ANY of the above logical points would lead to an increase in the raw number of cases of a condition over time. ALL of the them certainly will do so.
Connecting a rise in autism to a rise in vaccine usage is foolish. One might as well do a correlative study that shows that increased TV viewing in the average American home leads to higher autism rates or that the increase in the number of homes with internet connectivity leads to an increase in autism. People grab at the vaccines because it is an easy target that can be easily connected to autism because autism manifests (often suddenly) around age 3-4 which is after all of the vaccination batteries have (at least) begun (often mostly finished).
This correlation is based on fear and feelings, not statistical data. There have been repeated studies that have examined the data and NONE of them have found a reliable DIRECT correlation. The only one that found such a correlation was published by a doctor in the UK who performed the study in an unethical and unscientific way and whose supporting university has since redacted the entire article and (essentially) disavowed the doctor himself. The ONE study that shows a causal link was falsified. The ONE study that shows a correlation was performed by a doctor on a vaccine that was a direct competitor to HIS work that could be produced MUCH cheaper and faster than his work. The one study that shows a causal link was written to boost the cash flow to the author's bank account.
Another logical point, and one which has a recent study to support it, is that modern health care is happy to over-diagnose people. The recent study showed that among children diagnosed with ADHD in grades K-2 (whose were prescribed Ritalin to treat it) MOST of them (by a significant margin) were among the youngest in their class. They were diagnosed based on their fidgetiness and their inability to pay attention in class as observed by their teachers. The study implies that, perhaps, they do not have an abornmal behavior pattern but are, instead, acting normally for someone who is 15% - 20% younger than the remainder of their class. To someone who is 20 a 15% age difference is 3 years. As we age differences in age decrease in importance yet there is still a HUGE difference in the lifestyle of the average 17 year old and the average 20 year old. Often that lifestyle change has an equally large gap in maturity. If the change is that significant at that age imagine how much more significant it must be to a 6 year old. This does not prove anything other than over-diagnoses occur. If they occur in other areas they may also occur in autism.
Lastly I want to point out the basic numbers. As there is no correlation between vaccines and autism (or any other health care risk EXCEPT an allergic reaction) the probability of having vaccine-induced autism is 0%. But, for the sake of comparison, I feel like being generous. I'm going to say it is 1 in a million. That's .0001%. At this rate, for every 100 children vaccinated .01 would develop autism. Let's compare this to the mortality rate of measles: 15%. For every 100 children who contract measles 15 will DIE. Let's compare this to the mortality rate of Hepatitis B: 50%. For every 100 children who contract this 50 will DIE.
It seems to me that .01 out of a hundred is a MUCH less risky endeavor than HALF.
The natural reaction, of course, is to say "Well, who gets measles or hepatitis b anymore?" This is a perfectly sound question with a equally sound answer: almost no one because we're vaccinated against them.
For vaccinations to prevent epidemics 80% - 90% of the population must be vaccinated. If the vaccination pool drops much below that then the pathogens have enough population to move through that they can stay alive and spread and evolve. If you eliminate the viable hosts then you eliminate the habitat that the pathogens require. The disease gets wiped out (almost).
Sometimes, like in California, after a disease is assumed to be gone we'll stop vaccinating against it by default (another example is polio). When the general population is no longer protected and the disease comes back it will spread through the population as if there had never been a vaccine. If the anti-vaccinationists get their way and vaccines are stopped (or drop below 80% penetration rate) then, within 2 generations, we will see EVERY child-killing disease making a HUGE comeback.
This will kill MILLIONS of children.
This will flood the health provision system with sick, preventing others from getting the care they need.
This will dramatically increase the number of illness-related days of work lost which will hurt the economy.
Stopping vaccines is a bad idea.
That said: I think we should ALL have the right to CHOOSE for our children whether or not we vaccinate them. But do it based on DATA and KNOWLEDGE not FEAR and SUPERSTITION.
If you base your decision on data and knowledge you will choose vaccination as the less risky option unless new studies change the current belief.
"We need to remember that vaccines are probably the biggest reason that
so few of us lose our children when they are young," said Dr. Patricia
Samuelson, speaking on behalf of the California Academy of Family
Physicians. "They used to say in this country, 'Don't count your
children until after they've had measles' because so many would die."
And this statement of her own opinion
GET YOUR KIDS VACCINATED.
Most of the resulting conversation was on par with what I expect from people whom my friends choose to socialize with. It was in agreement with the idea of vaccinations and carried some slight jest at some of the medical ideas that go against all known science.
But then, on the tenth response, began the anti-vaccination opinions. The first one (response #10) was inquiring about why they have to be so toxic and draining on the young immune system. Why are they so dangerous? It was geared in an acceptable and inquiring mind. It was phrased such that the person obviously has been exposed to the controversy started by the bad science of the anti-vaccination activists but someone who seemed to really want answer, rather than someone who had already made up their mind.
I, and a couple of other people, provided them with some (admittedly, opinion laced) answers to the inquiries.
Why is there mercury in vaccines? Because it was used as a preservative in a stable and non-toxic compound: just like in your fillings.
Why give 3-4 vaccines in a single injection instead of spreading them out? Because spreading them out would have the average person receiving the last of their vaccinations when they are 20 years old. Most of the diseases we are protecting against affect people before they reach that age. There is no point in vaccinating someone against Measles after they have died from it.
Why are the vaccines now so toxic that they induce a fever? Because they always have been: it's how they work. The vaccination generates an immune response to the pathogens that generate the disease so that your body knows what to do when it next encounters those pathogens. That means it generates a MUCH milder version of the same immune response. That means a mild fever. The response burns energy which makes you tired. People are super concerned about this type of response now because of the anti-vaccination-activists but the reality is this type of response by the body has always existed. Your muscles ache after a tetanus shot. That's been a reality for a LONG time. It's not new. It's the body generating an immune response to the pathogens that cause tetanus. (Yes a tetanus shot is a vaccine).
I will come out and plainly say it. Willful ignorance of science fact is stupid. If you CHOOSE to disbelieve the evidence presented by science I will find your opinions stupid. If you want to convince me otherwise: use reason and logic. The next anti-vaccine poster was much more hostile. She, who had not participated in the conversation to that point, felt that those who were answering the challenges of the science were calling her (and those who believe as she does) stupid even though care had been given to state things in an educational way (with the exception of flatly stating that those who push the mercury in vaccines scare do not understand chemistry: which is true). Her response was angry at those who support vaccines and angrier at those who wish to discredit the anti-vaccine movement. She has anecdotal evidence on her side regarding her niece who is now exhibiting autism signs after having been given the hepatitis B vaccine before going home from being birthed. It is obvious to me that she blames the vaccine for the autism.
This is the point where I point out the cold, hard logic.
1. Are there more autism diagnosis than 50 years ago? Yes.
2. Are there more people than 50 years ago? Yes.
3. Is there a higher percentage of people who obtain health care than 50 years ago? Yes.
4. Does modern health care have a greater means of communicating data on various anomalies in behavior and symptoms? Yes.
5. Does modern health care have better tools to diagnose and treat conditions? Yes.
If you follow these questions the logic train is easy to follow AND it can be followed with ANY disease that has an increase in the NUMBER of diagnoses (e.g. autism, asthma, ADHD, depression, etc):
5. Better equipment means more people with less severe symptoms can be diagnosed.
4. Better communication means that more doctors can be made aware of the symptoms of any condition and perform a more accurate diagnosis.
3. A higher percentage of people acquiring health care means that the percentage who were afflicted, but not treated, are now being treated. This alone will boost the number of cases even if the population did not grow.
2. More people means a greater number of diagnoses. The only way to prevent that is to find a way to make the condition being examined rarer.
ANY of the above logical points would lead to an increase in the raw number of cases of a condition over time. ALL of the them certainly will do so.
Connecting a rise in autism to a rise in vaccine usage is foolish. One might as well do a correlative study that shows that increased TV viewing in the average American home leads to higher autism rates or that the increase in the number of homes with internet connectivity leads to an increase in autism. People grab at the vaccines because it is an easy target that can be easily connected to autism because autism manifests (often suddenly) around age 3-4 which is after all of the vaccination batteries have (at least) begun (often mostly finished).
This correlation is based on fear and feelings, not statistical data. There have been repeated studies that have examined the data and NONE of them have found a reliable DIRECT correlation. The only one that found such a correlation was published by a doctor in the UK who performed the study in an unethical and unscientific way and whose supporting university has since redacted the entire article and (essentially) disavowed the doctor himself. The ONE study that shows a causal link was falsified. The ONE study that shows a correlation was performed by a doctor on a vaccine that was a direct competitor to HIS work that could be produced MUCH cheaper and faster than his work. The one study that shows a causal link was written to boost the cash flow to the author's bank account.
Another logical point, and one which has a recent study to support it, is that modern health care is happy to over-diagnose people. The recent study showed that among children diagnosed with ADHD in grades K-2 (whose were prescribed Ritalin to treat it) MOST of them (by a significant margin) were among the youngest in their class. They were diagnosed based on their fidgetiness and their inability to pay attention in class as observed by their teachers. The study implies that, perhaps, they do not have an abornmal behavior pattern but are, instead, acting normally for someone who is 15% - 20% younger than the remainder of their class. To someone who is 20 a 15% age difference is 3 years. As we age differences in age decrease in importance yet there is still a HUGE difference in the lifestyle of the average 17 year old and the average 20 year old. Often that lifestyle change has an equally large gap in maturity. If the change is that significant at that age imagine how much more significant it must be to a 6 year old. This does not prove anything other than over-diagnoses occur. If they occur in other areas they may also occur in autism.
Lastly I want to point out the basic numbers. As there is no correlation between vaccines and autism (or any other health care risk EXCEPT an allergic reaction) the probability of having vaccine-induced autism is 0%. But, for the sake of comparison, I feel like being generous. I'm going to say it is 1 in a million. That's .0001%. At this rate, for every 100 children vaccinated .01 would develop autism. Let's compare this to the mortality rate of measles: 15%. For every 100 children who contract measles 15 will DIE. Let's compare this to the mortality rate of Hepatitis B: 50%. For every 100 children who contract this 50 will DIE.
It seems to me that .01 out of a hundred is a MUCH less risky endeavor than HALF.
The natural reaction, of course, is to say "Well, who gets measles or hepatitis b anymore?" This is a perfectly sound question with a equally sound answer: almost no one because we're vaccinated against them.
For vaccinations to prevent epidemics 80% - 90% of the population must be vaccinated. If the vaccination pool drops much below that then the pathogens have enough population to move through that they can stay alive and spread and evolve. If you eliminate the viable hosts then you eliminate the habitat that the pathogens require. The disease gets wiped out (almost).
Sometimes, like in California, after a disease is assumed to be gone we'll stop vaccinating against it by default (another example is polio). When the general population is no longer protected and the disease comes back it will spread through the population as if there had never been a vaccine. If the anti-vaccinationists get their way and vaccines are stopped (or drop below 80% penetration rate) then, within 2 generations, we will see EVERY child-killing disease making a HUGE comeback.
This will kill MILLIONS of children.
This will flood the health provision system with sick, preventing others from getting the care they need.
This will dramatically increase the number of illness-related days of work lost which will hurt the economy.
Stopping vaccines is a bad idea.
That said: I think we should ALL have the right to CHOOSE for our children whether or not we vaccinate them. But do it based on DATA and KNOWLEDGE not FEAR and SUPERSTITION.
If you base your decision on data and knowledge you will choose vaccination as the less risky option unless new studies change the current belief.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Bad Science in Movies Bothers Me
Like most people of a geeky persuasion I enjoy science fiction.
Like many people who have an adrenal system I enjoy movies with some good action and/or adventure in them.
The other night I watched Terminator: Salvation for the first time.
I had heard that it was a bad film. I had heard that Christian Bale's performance was flat and boring.
What I had not heard was how badly they sacrificed science for the overall movie.
WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW
This is a problem with Hollywood. They often decide to "enhance" certain parts of the film to make it more intense. I can tolerate "enhancement" of certain things for the sake of storytelling and making a more entertaining product.
One example of this is the misrepresentation of ballistic physics in the movies. Every action has an opposite and equal reaction. If I shoot a gun at a robot that weighs 500+ pounds and the impact of the bullet is able to knock that robot through the air for a few feet than the recoil from that shot would hurl me twice as far in the opposite direction.
What bothers me is when they decide to through science completely out the window when it applies to critical plot points.
This movie has two examples of this. The first (chronological order) is something that I have seen in movies before and each time it hurts my rational brain. Conventional (e.g. chemical) explosives work alike. They ALL burn. They burn VERY fast. When they burn (VERY fast) they produce hot off-gassing as the reaction process. This hot off-gassing happens ALL AT ONCE and creates a pressure wave as all of that gas tries to make room for all of the other gas all at once. The result is that all of the gas moves away from the center of the reaction at a high rate of speed. This is how gun powder works. This is how gasoline works. It is, essentially, the same exact reaction as a conventional fire, or rusting (yes, rusting), or aging but VERY VERY fast.
Nuclear bombs do not work this way. They do not release chemical energy. They work by breaking the bonds of the nucleus (hence the name) and, in doing so, converting a very small amount of matter directly into energy along the famous E=MC^2 equation. A teensy tiny bit of matter turns into a GIGANTIC wave of raw energy. Raw energy is, essentially, movement of particles. Movement of particles is, essentially, heat. It takes special apparatus that is configured exactly right with the proper catalyst and proper fuel (e.g. dense material that is easily split-able OR very not dense material that is easily smashed together) to create a nuclear reaction. Haphazardly placed chemical explosives do NOT make for the means to cause a nuclear reaction. If John Connor had done what he did then the resulting explosion would NOT have triggered all of the T800 nuclear power cells to explode in a nuclear fireball. What would happen is that the cells themselves would have been destroyed and the fuel spread out by the explosion's pressure wave. If the cells were fusion cells then the fuel would have burned (conventionally, not in a nuclear fireball) because that fuel would have been hydrogen. If the cells were fission cells then the material would have been excellent shrapnel that was probably radioactive. The entire facility would not have exploded. Skynet would not have been destroyed.
The second incident was just before the end of the movie. It was stated repeatedly during the movie that Marcus' heart was human. One cannot simply transplant any person's heart into another. There are tests. For starters the blood types have to be compatible. If the blood types are compatible (along with the other tests) then the transplant can occur BUT the recipient will be on anti-rejection drugs for the rest of their life. Somehow I don't think that they were able to perform the battery of tests to confirm compatibility between the two people nor would they have been able to replace the blood loss during the operation nor were they likely to find any anti-rejection drugs at all, let along the quantity that John would have needed to survive. The last scene was not needed. It did not make the movie better and it completely disregards the majority of the medical science that goes into the idea of organ transplants.
People often wonder why Americans are so ignorant and misinformed about science. It's because we spend money on movies that completely misrepresent how science concepts work and then strip-mine our educational system so that our kids don't even know that the movies are wrong let alone HOW wrong. Of course, the broken education system is a completely different topic for many posts over many days.
If you want to check out this bad movie you can order it here:
And you can locate the third movie in the series (also bad) here:
The related TV show (that erased the 3rd movie from the timeline in the pilot episode):
There's good news here:
The first two movies were great. You can get them here:
Like many people who have an adrenal system I enjoy movies with some good action and/or adventure in them.
The other night I watched Terminator: Salvation for the first time.
I had heard that it was a bad film. I had heard that Christian Bale's performance was flat and boring.
What I had not heard was how badly they sacrificed science for the overall movie.
WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW
This is a problem with Hollywood. They often decide to "enhance" certain parts of the film to make it more intense. I can tolerate "enhancement" of certain things for the sake of storytelling and making a more entertaining product.
One example of this is the misrepresentation of ballistic physics in the movies. Every action has an opposite and equal reaction. If I shoot a gun at a robot that weighs 500+ pounds and the impact of the bullet is able to knock that robot through the air for a few feet than the recoil from that shot would hurl me twice as far in the opposite direction.
What bothers me is when they decide to through science completely out the window when it applies to critical plot points.
This movie has two examples of this. The first (chronological order) is something that I have seen in movies before and each time it hurts my rational brain. Conventional (e.g. chemical) explosives work alike. They ALL burn. They burn VERY fast. When they burn (VERY fast) they produce hot off-gassing as the reaction process. This hot off-gassing happens ALL AT ONCE and creates a pressure wave as all of that gas tries to make room for all of the other gas all at once. The result is that all of the gas moves away from the center of the reaction at a high rate of speed. This is how gun powder works. This is how gasoline works. It is, essentially, the same exact reaction as a conventional fire, or rusting (yes, rusting), or aging but VERY VERY fast.
Nuclear bombs do not work this way. They do not release chemical energy. They work by breaking the bonds of the nucleus (hence the name) and, in doing so, converting a very small amount of matter directly into energy along the famous E=MC^2 equation. A teensy tiny bit of matter turns into a GIGANTIC wave of raw energy. Raw energy is, essentially, movement of particles. Movement of particles is, essentially, heat. It takes special apparatus that is configured exactly right with the proper catalyst and proper fuel (e.g. dense material that is easily split-able OR very not dense material that is easily smashed together) to create a nuclear reaction. Haphazardly placed chemical explosives do NOT make for the means to cause a nuclear reaction. If John Connor had done what he did then the resulting explosion would NOT have triggered all of the T800 nuclear power cells to explode in a nuclear fireball. What would happen is that the cells themselves would have been destroyed and the fuel spread out by the explosion's pressure wave. If the cells were fusion cells then the fuel would have burned (conventionally, not in a nuclear fireball) because that fuel would have been hydrogen. If the cells were fission cells then the material would have been excellent shrapnel that was probably radioactive. The entire facility would not have exploded. Skynet would not have been destroyed.
The second incident was just before the end of the movie. It was stated repeatedly during the movie that Marcus' heart was human. One cannot simply transplant any person's heart into another. There are tests. For starters the blood types have to be compatible. If the blood types are compatible (along with the other tests) then the transplant can occur BUT the recipient will be on anti-rejection drugs for the rest of their life. Somehow I don't think that they were able to perform the battery of tests to confirm compatibility between the two people nor would they have been able to replace the blood loss during the operation nor were they likely to find any anti-rejection drugs at all, let along the quantity that John would have needed to survive. The last scene was not needed. It did not make the movie better and it completely disregards the majority of the medical science that goes into the idea of organ transplants.
People often wonder why Americans are so ignorant and misinformed about science. It's because we spend money on movies that completely misrepresent how science concepts work and then strip-mine our educational system so that our kids don't even know that the movies are wrong let alone HOW wrong. Of course, the broken education system is a completely different topic for many posts over many days.
If you want to check out this bad movie you can order it here:
And you can locate the third movie in the series (also bad) here:
The related TV show (that erased the 3rd movie from the timeline in the pilot episode):
There's good news here:
The first two movies were great. You can get them here:
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