Beter H1N1-vaccin voor Duitse politici

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Op woensdag 18 november 2009 14:48 schreef Monolith het volgende:

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Wat dacht je, ik copy-paste een stukje tekst van een of ander anti-vaccinatie siteje? Een groot deel van die publicaties is nog van voor 1990, Mark Geiser is nou ook niet bepaald onomstreden, er staan legio publicaties tussen die geen zak te maken met Thiomersal, er staan legio in vitro experiment en rapporten van incidenten tussen, etcetera. Doe maar gewoon wat serieuze meta-reviews van klinische trials m.b.t. Thiomersal.

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Op woensdag 18 november 2009 14:57 schreef Re het volgende:

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het is ook een vrij eenzijdige lijst.. wat suggereeert dat er een bias is...

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Op woensdag 18 november 2009 15:01 schreef Dutchguy het volgende:

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Toch flinke lijst. En dat de overheid neutraal is in deze lijkt me ook niet.

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Op woensdag 18 november 2009 14:54 schreef Pietverdriet het volgende:

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Je hebt helemaal gelijk, wetenschappelijke publicaties moet je ook kritisch lezen. Tenzij het over de CO2 broeikas gaat natuurlijk

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The opposition to science doesn't seem to know any party bounds. On the right, global-warming skepticism is the rule, evolution a minority 'opinion', and if WorldNetDaily is to be believed, soy turns your kids gay.

On the left, we've now got the Huffington Post, recently lending their voice to Deepak Chopra, who in his latest contributions to the site expounded his philosophy of the mind (or whatever you want to call it), apparently seeking to justify it in quantum mechanics. Which gives it unwarranted legitimacy and worse, spreads disinformation about the science. Being somewhat qualified to rebut this, I thought I would try.

Now it's far from the first time the Huffington Post has gone off promoting bad science, pseudoscience or outright crankery, having for instance lent its voice to Jim Carrey (in his latest role as an immunologist) preaching the 'dangers' of vaccines. I'm not the only one around here who seems to think they've grown increasingly sensationalist as well as anti-science (although this is more in the realm of 'bad science').

(So in the bigger perspective, I guess it's not that bad as far as these things go. Unlike vaccine scares, it's not likely this particular nonsense is going to lead to unnecessary deaths, for instance.)

The reason why I'm relatively qualified here, is that I'm a quantum chemist who studies biochemical systems. In short, I apply quantum mechanics (QM) to figuring out how chemistry works, specifically biochemistry. So I'd hope to know something about the subject. On the other hand I don't really want to appeal to authority alone. (Being somewhat pseudonymous, you've got no real reason to believe in my authority either. But do feel free to ask about quantum chemistry! )