dagblog - Comments for "Typhoid Mary and the Anti-Vaxxers"

From a comment you made on

A Guy Called LULU — Fri, 06 Feb 2015 16:12:53 +0000

Yes, and the whole post is to convince how unsupportable that position is. From a comment you made on another blog where the danger is pointed out to be to children too young to be vaccinated:
"Which is why all the other children in the day care who are old enough to be vaccinated need to be vaccinated."

I agree, that is a compelling reason to require almost everybody to get this particular vaccine. I want to point out that I said in my initial comment that I agreed with where your argument meant to go, I just picked at the ways you made that argument. I'll add now that I would bet that I have more vaccinations than most people at this site because of the foreign countries that I have traveled to and also that I have benefited greatly in other ways from modern medicine which by extension is one of the many ways I and everyone else in this country have benefited from science. I certainly recognize that and also appreciate it.
So, all that said, you made a distinction between believing in ideas that have been disproved by science and other types of 'belief' such as religious ones which also cannot be proven but deserve some deference. Now I have seen on the news that a California lawmaker is pushing for mandatory vaccination with the only exceptions being for medical reasons which are considered to be scientifically valid or else based on [I assume some but not just any] religious beliefs. It seems to me that a religious exemption is the weakest possible reason to allow an exemption to a mandate that is justified by scientific proof, to be necessary for the greater common good. Religious beliefs, like you say, are completely unprovable and therefore cannot refute science any more than they can prove a science they happen to agree with. The fundamental faith based dogma that different religions are based on is of a nature that if any of a particular religion could be shown to be correct, then much of the faith based dogma of others must be wrong. So, by the same standards that we use to justify coercive vaccinations, is there any valid justification for religious exemption? Should we be just as adamant in our demands that faith based objections should be over-ruled and should we even resort to ridiculing the faith based beliefs on which which a person based their decision in order to sway public opinion and that of the lawmakers?
I am not saying that you think there is a justification for faith based exemptions, it is unclear to me whether your deference to religious belief extends to this question, but I would like to hear your views on this point.

But Lulu, the post starts

Doctor Cleveland — Thu, 05 Feb 2015 05:53:38 +0000

In reply to I'll try to put my idea in

But Lulu, the post starts with anti-vaxxers getting an exemption from California law for their "personal belief."

That's what the whole post is about.

I'll try to put my idea in

A Guy Called LULU — Wed, 04 Feb 2015 19:57:53 +0000

In reply to Sigh.

I'll try to put my idea in different words so that I don't need to use the word "believe" as part of its definition. I see belief as when the mind is asked a question about some thing or some conception or some circumstance, for instance, and the answer the mind gives, if it thinks it knows the answer, is the mind holder's belief. For them to express that answer out loud is to say what they believe to be true. I believe that that idea of what is correctly called 'belief' belief holds true in application regardless the import or triviality of the belief or of the result of acting on that belief. Yes, speech inflections can turn "I believe so" into 'maybe' or 'probably', but then the inflection reveals that different usage. But, when a belief is honestly expressed as a belief, as what the person thinks to be true, I think that that expression is of something of the same nature as any other kind of belief regardless whether it is about a question either big or small and regardless how they came to believe as they do and regardless the result of holding that belief.

You talk of the right to believe anything as a ridiculous position. I said a person is entitled to his beliefs in context with some other thoughts and I admit that out of the context I placed it in, and without some expansion, it sounds a bit facile, But, quoting myself, here is the relevant statement in context. Quoting myself:

"I would say that a person has every right to believe what they do and also that they cannot help but believe what they believe, although their beliefs can be mistaken and can change. What people should not be free to do and are not free to do, in some cases, is act on their beliefs."

What is the alternative? If a person is not entitled to his thoughts, then doesn't that mean that there could be legitimate "thought crime" laws intended to prevent a person having some thought? It would mean that we could make a value judgment that a persons thoughts were of a nature that, based on our way of thinking, he must cease having. And how would we even know what that person's thoughts were short of him acting on them, water board him maybe? Just in case he had some bad ones? Then is there anything reasonable we could do to make him stop having them? How? And why? Any place, any time, that government can legitimately jump into action with any kind of compulsory edict directed at that person is after that person has acted on his thoughts. But that reasoning was included in the context of the singular statement you argued against. I said that actions, as opposed to thoughts, may justify reactions.
The second part of that context is one I am more happy to defend after noting that the context of the first remark also contained my statement, " What people should not be free to do and are not free to do, in some cases, is act on their beliefs.". Again, quoting myself:

"... and also that they cannot help but believe what they believe, although their beliefs can be mistaken and can change."

I think that the nature of a mind is formed by many factors including our experiences. Some we choose, some are chosen for us, some are random happenstance etc, etc, ...
I will use things I can guess about your life as an example. Your life, your pursuit of knowledge, both as a vocation and avocation, and your choice to specialize as a Shakespeare scholar, layered over your own inbred mental tendencies and other inputs, some of them random and not consciously intended by anyone but just part of the flow of life, have brought you to a point where you have some very clear beliefs about what can be known for sure about Shakespeare as well as some unproven ideas about him that you would bet on, ideas that make most sense, to you. There are things that you believe about the man. The thing is, you didn't go for your education for the purpose of gaining the the particular beliefs in the things you ultimately came to believe, you didn't delve deeply into your career subject for the purpose of coming to those beliefs that you did come to, it was just your life experiences that formed them. That life has created your particular beliefs. The beliefs you hold as beliefs came to you as the only beliefs that those combinations of factors could produce in your mind. Your particular self, and then your particular life, given the path it took, could not believe that anyone but Shakespeare wrote the works of Shakespeare. In that sense, you didn't have any choice, I believe, except to believe what the totality of your experience has brought you to believe and only powerful and conflicting experiences might make you change your mind and believe differently. Other people have had different lives with different inputs that created different beliefs in some cases.
I believe that people do in fact merit some deference for their ideas about what is best for their own children even if it is also true that their wishes must sometimes be overridden, just like the deference to religious beliefs must sometimes be overridden. And, I think that equating the case of Typhoid Mary which which had an obvious and obviously justifiable remedy with that of the anti-vaccine crowd is weak.

I believe that I've heard

Doctor Cleveland — Wed, 04 Feb 2015 05:32:09 +0000

In reply to As a kid, if anyone were to

I believe that I've heard that.

As a kid, if anyone were to

Michael Wolraich — Wed, 04 Feb 2015 02:52:35 +0000

In reply to Sigh.

As a kid, if anyone were to say something like, “I love this cinnamon roll,” someone else would inevitably and hilariously rejoin, “Well, why don’t you marry it then?”

Sigh.

Doctor Cleveland — Tue, 03 Feb 2015 22:00:43 +0000

In reply to I do not see why my comment

Sigh.

Common meanings of words: the general "you." For example, "your average anti-vaxxer," or "your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man."

Secondly, again about the common meanings of words: lots of common words cover several meanings, sometimes in slippery ways that aren't easily disentangled. (One of the reasons philosophy has turned into a huge pain in the ass to read is that it has to avoid all of those slippery common words which have many definitions, and so has to use lots of dry jargon instead.) See, for example, the way we use the pronoun you both as a second person, about the person being addressed, and colloquially as an indefinite third-person (like "one" or sometimes "they.")

For example, we use "love" to cover many things. I hear there are people, for example, who love soup. Just taking the common meaning of that word, soup-lovers are obviously weird sexual fetishists. Love soup? That's sick! And don't say I'm getting it wrong. That's the common meaning of the word!

Or we can say that "love" just means "enjoy eating." Which means people who love their wives should be arrested and put in jail. Marital cannibals! Disgusting!

Yes, we use "belief" to cover a wide range of things, from simple misimpressions ("I believed he had already left the building") to acts of religious or political faith ("I believe in America"), with a lot of things in between. But treating all the uses of that word as the same quickly becomes unworkable. ("I believed that John had already left the building, and I have a right to that belief! You can say this is John here in the room with us, but I believe what I believe!") Using a one-size-fits-all definition of belief leads us to absurdities.

But if "I am entitled to my beliefs" goes for every possible gut feeling, mistake, factual error, or misimpression, in exactly the same way it goes for protected political religious beliefs, then we got into nonsense country quickly. You might believe you left your wallet in your other pants, but you can't say that you need an exemption from a law based on that belief.

In related news, here's a doctor writing a letter to the editor about this issue today:

As a family physician, I daily observe faulty reasoning underlying vaccine refusals. As in the article’s examples, my patients offer nonsense like “I’ve never had the flu before” (like rolling double sixes, past event patterns do not predict future events); “I’m generally pretty healthy” (right, and the goal is to keep you that way); and my favorite, “I don’t believe in vaccines” (it’s not a religion).

The letter-writer's point here is that declaring your belief in some non-fact shouldn't give it the default deference we extend to religious beliefs. Couldn't agree more.

Thanks, you might be right.

Anonymous — Tue, 03 Feb 2015 09:02:34 +0000

In reply to It might be some confusion

Thanks, you might be right. Didn't intend to be anonymous beyond the normal. I am traveling and this computer doesn't remember my password and neither do I. Once I have signed on as anonymous LULU it usually remembers that and identifies me. I sometimes fail to notice when it only shows anonymous like this time and a few times in the past. I will be more careful in the future.

It might be some confusion

PeraclesPlease — Tue, 03 Feb 2015 08:35:55 +0000

In reply to I do not see why my comment

It might be some confusion between "Anonymous" and "Anonymous PP", which are 2 different people - who knows.

I had possible links between Tylenol and ADHD & ASD called "silly" despite reputable studies supporting this. Sooner or later everything becomes a flame war.

[and yeah, I assumed you were trying to interject some humor]

I do not see why my comment

Anonymous — Tue, 03 Feb 2015 07:00:41 +0000

In reply to Well, let's stick to the

I do not see why my comment has apparently angered you unless it is that I pointed out a silly mistake and you want to talk around it rather than acknowledge it. I did say in affect that the mistake was one which was inconsequential to the validity of the point you were trying to make and that it was a point that I largely agreed with.

If we are going to stick to the common meaning of words as you suggest then lets start with the common meaning of the word that you denied the meaning of. That word is "belief". You said in so many words that if a person claimed to believe something which commonly accepted authority believed to be obviously wrong then what that person believes is actually not even a belief. I will stick to my assertion, one which I believe was clearly expressed. I said n that a belief is a belief whether correct or wrong or even obviously and provably wrong, and a belief is a belief even if a person reveals them self to be a bonehead by revealing what it is that they believe. I believe that assertion is correct by the word's definition, by its connotation, and is in complete agreement with the common usage of the word "belief". I will add that I don't think that you could point to any intelligent person that ever reached adulthood without changing at least one of their beliefs to some other belief which contradicts the first in a way such that neither one could not be correct unless the other is wrong. Has every belief you ever had stayed a belief until now? Your assertion which I objected to, would, in order to be correct, require that what that person originally thought to be correct before experience or education or some other influence changed their mind, was not actually a belief when it was held as such. I am beginning to feel silly to even go to the effort to re-argue something so obvious.

If you want to say that your idiotic ideas about fluoridation, crystals, blackstrap molasses, or four-leafed clovers deserve the same respect and civic protections that religions and philosophies do, that is also a boneheaded belief on your part.

MY idiotic ideas about fluoridation, crystals, blackstrap molasses, or four-leafed clovers.

Do you consider that to be an intellectually honest form of argument? You suggest a bunch of straw man ideas which I have not expressed any belief in or addressed in any way, you imply they are idiotic in the same way that some unidentified idea I did express was idiotic. You go on to say that if I believe ideas like those which you bring up as examples of idiocy, that that would ALSO demonstrate a boneheaded belief on my part? Tell me please, what is the boneheaded belief on my part' which I have expressed in my comments on this topic? What is the belief that the "also" refers to in your comment? And, while I clearly said that some beliefs were wrong, where did I suggest that, just because someone believed something, that that belief deserved respect?

Well, let's stick to the

Doctor Cleveland — Mon, 02 Feb 2015 04:27:11 +0000

In reply to Sorry, Doc. Believe it or

Well, let's stick to the common meanings of words, then.

We call people who believe pork is ritually unclean "Jews" or "Muslims."

We call people who believe pork causes leprosy "boneheads."

Jews and Muslims are owed a certain amount of respect for their beliefs.

Boneheads are owed nothing.