Fri, 23 October 2009
John Rennie
Comments[15]
|
- In response to questions about my H1N1 vaccination:
1. I am doing just fine. The only adverse reaction was a sore arm at the injection site lasting about 2 days which is to be expected. I was a little tired the day after, but then I had to be up at 5am the next day so attributing that to the vaccine would be silly.
2. CSL Biotherapies does make the Panvax vaccine which is what I received along with the insert Steve refers to.
I am not sure what you are referring to in terms of "low-grade vaccines". Nor do I understand what you mean by "excessive vaccinations" and how this lends credence to that.
The vaccine is packaged in a multi-dose vial which uses thimerosal as a preservative. This is due to the potential for microbial contamination as the needle enters the vial (a new sterile needle of course). The single dose does not contain the preservative. Whether it does or not is of no consequence as it is well established that thimerosal use in vaccines is safe. I refer you to: http://sciencebasedmedicine.org/reference/vaccines-and-autism/ and
http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/vaccination/thimerosal_qa.htm
Thimerosal is no longer used in childhood vaccines, but is still used in other vaccines. The removal of thimerosal from those vaccines was due to hysteria surrounding its use, not because of any credible scientific data. - As the person who appears to be somewhat the 'focus' of this topic, I have a few things to say:
Firstly, myself, Richard and Dr Rachael were invited to speak at the conference - I was the one who said they would do so.
I am comfortable with this and I point to my article published in the Skeptical Inquirer Briefs, 'The Deist Skeptic'. My blog has some of my credentials, having worked in religious schools for all of my teaching career. If you see me as an 'ignorant atheist', please provide evidence.
Secondly, I would point out that our many episodes indicate that not only do we have a range of discussions that are inclusive of faith (such as interviews with deists Leeanne Rucks, Dr Caroline Watt and even Slau's discussion of working with people of faith; Dr Karl's discussion of religion and science as 'orthogonal')...
... which lead me to think that it's a little erroneous to think that (certainly in comparison to other shows, as mentioned!) that atheism has ever been a significant focus of the podcast or will be in the future?
I point to:
Our most commented episode - Episode #25: The Great Easter Debate 2009 (We can be good without God Ian Bryce from Australian Skeptics - Rev. Ian Powell from St Barnabas Church);
Episode #9 - Potholer54;
Episode #26 - Tim Minchin;
Episode #28 - Stephen Fry;
Episode #43 - George Hrab;
...yet if you can find the majority of our interviews delving into atheism, I'd like to see where? Those ones spring to mind in what I see is often a very well-ranging and diverse show. That is due credit to Richard Saunders, who works hard to encourage us to get material from a variety of sources and is the first to speak out if he sees homogeneity.
Regarding the original statement - is Potholer54 being called 'ignorant'? Or Tim Minchin? Is Stephen Fry? How about Ian Bryce? Or Eugenie Scott, for directly challenging these scholars? Who are these 'ignorant atheists' who are being promoted on our show?
Finally - the biggest assumption: that if I _do_ get the chance to interview people at this conference, it'll be on the topic of _atheism_.
For a convention in March - that hasn't even happened yet - you're claiming that I couldn't talk to Richard Dawkins, PZ Myers, Robyn Williams (one of the premiere science communicators this country has ever had), or A.C Grayling or Taslima Nasrin on topics _other_ than atheism?
I say that there's a lot of assumptions (and quite frankly, a rather prejudicial tone with the 'biblical scholars' vs 'ignorant atheists', as others have been quick to point out) being made.
...I'll just let you tune in to future episodes before any more judgements are made on that front.
I hope people like my presentation at the conference. - @ jay,
sorry, not getting you on the argument from ignorance may be its too early in the morning for me.
There's a world of difference between supporting the conference through one ad and actively promoting Atheism on the skeptic zone.
I do not see the skeptic zone promoting Atheism, indeed I find YAS has a more religious focus than TSZ.
There are plenty of good Atheist podcasts out there and I don't see the need for TSZ to carry an atheist theme, but I also don't think its something that they "dare not mention" for fear of offending someone.
Are we to shy away from faith healers? And is the topic of religion any more complicated than reiki, or homeopathy? We are dealing with peoples beliefs regardless.
- Personally, it's not the mention of the Atheist convention itself that disturbs me. It is the argument for it, the argument from ignorance, which I find quite pathetic.
That said, I think particularly now that with the new show on 2GB, new listeners might be turned off by the mention of atheist and LGBT topics.
It's hard enough to sell skepticism as it is, and I don't think you do yourselves any favour by promoting other causes, particularly atheism which is a minority held belief.
The fact that issues like homeopathy, chiropractic etc. are easily disprovable, yet are still widely accepted, is proof of how difficult our mission is. Why make it even harder by mixing in more complex issues, when it's so difficulat getting the message out about "easy" things?
I can tell you from personal experience that there is no easier way to deter people from skepticism, than by associating it with atheism.
From a fellow non-believer. - I think the ad was entirely appropriate. I am of the opinion that no field of inquiry should be free from a skeptical eye. Taking shots at only the woo merchants (new age religion?) strikes me as stalking easy game. Now we may argue that there are groups of atheists who devote considerable time to evaluating the claims of religion and exposing inconsistencies and fraud, and as such skeptical groups can concentrate on other areas.
- Atheism Skepticism of Deities. Individual atheists may not be skeptics. Individual skeptics may not be atheists. But there is a significant crossover of the two groups - most atheists are skeptics, at least.
Why no outrage at DragonCon? Comics and science fiction don't have anything to do with skepticism, after all - except for the fact that the geek subculture and skeptic subculture have a lot of crossover. The same is true here. - Well, since I produce a skeptical podcast for a major Skeptical magazine, I can say that we HAVE had some Atheist content on our show.
If you are a skeptic, you can't avoid it, unless you want to just bury your head in the sand. In almost ALL definitions of a skeptic, they always include the doubt of religion the original skeptics were born out of Greek philosophy, and that almost all centered around the doubt of anything supernatural, or 'god-like', was one of the reasons why the multi-god belief system started to crumble that was all too popular in that day.
Also, yes, it is easy to just ignore religion, we try to on Skepticality for the most part, but... religion steps on science FAR too much to not talk about it, or reconize it.
It isn't as black and white as "ignorant atheists asking biblical questions", that is quite a terrible statement. In fact, I was only one semester away from having another degree while in university, that would have been a degree in theology. I never set out to get that close to that degree, it was just the classes of study I chose for all my 'extra' course work. And, I am not alone in the skeptic circles in that regard. The people I know who know the most about religion of all sorts have always been skeptics and atheists, not the other way around. - Seeing as Kylie Sturgess will be speaking at the Rise of Atheism convention, I think it is entirely appropriate for it to be mentioned. Also the Skeptic Zone has had none or very few explicit references to atheism (that I can recall).
If biblical questions are still being asked by atheists, then the answers given have obviously not been to their satisfaction, you can either choose to ignore them, or you can engage in debate.
Plus, it's an independently run podcast, they can put in it whatever content they choose and you can choose whether to skip past what you don't like, or listen to opinions that may challenge your own. - I don't want to turn this into an atheist vs. skeptic discussion, but I think you guys should know better than to promote atheism in a skeptical podcast.
Besides for the obvious issues, it's incredibly annoying to hear ignorant atheists asking biblical questions as if their they're the only ones with answers to a question that has been asked (and answered) by thousands of biblical scholars before.
Besides for that, great podcast as always.
Post your comment:
