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Thread: Conspiracy theories

  1. #81
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    Re: Conspiracy theories

    David, thanks for your story on the way you came around to trust the MMR (I have come around too, to the extent that I might now give it to a child of mine, whereas before I would have done all I could to avoid it being used on my child, though this is all hypothetical, so I may have felt differently "In real life" - agreeing to our daughter having the Whooping Cough vaccine back in 1984, was a hard enough decision).

    Moving on to the guy bigjiver has presented to us, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, around the turn of the seventeenth/eighteenth century, it is interesting that Darwin paid tribute to him. Sometimes it takes a challenge to our views to make us really think hard about what we are doing or thinking (not that our conspiracy theorist friends seem to have those concerns!). Watson and Crick thought a rival had got there first and worked out the structure of DNA, but they were able to realise quite quickly that whoever it was had got it wrong, and no doubt this spurred them on.

    Then there was Andrew Wiles (another Andrew!?) who managed to prove Fermat's last theorem: "Proving the Taniyama-Shimura conjecture was an enormous task, one that many mathematicians considered impossible. ... But he needed help from a friend called Nick Katz to examine one part of it. Wiles managed to fix the problem by merging two approaches. ..."

    One of the interesting things about this Andrew, was that he felt the need to shut himself away in order to carry on his apparently "impossible" task, not even telling his wife what he was doing, (as though any criticism or distraction at all might have defeated him). Then having spent so long on it, years solely concentrating on the task and almost failing it looked at one time as though he might lose his sanity if he didn't complete it they said.

    Is that why we here sometimes struggle when we can't agree, though to a lesser degree obviously?

    Finally, anyone got any good David Icke conspiracy theories to share? I know the one about powerful people who transmogrify into lizards, or with lizard heads, because he spoke about that on the now defunct Russell Brand radio show on BBC 2 (anyone hear that "classic" broadcast?).

  2. #82
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    Re: Obama still gives me the creeps

    Quote Originally Posted by stewart38 View Post
    If you provide ONE link as evidence that man made climate change is real and significant , 200 rep points on the way

    Please dont give me a link of a Polar bear swimming to an ice flow or show me how Florida could look in 75 years time if sea levels rose by 200ft etc
    New Scientist had an article in 2007 with a whole bunch of data and evidence on Climate Change: Climate Change - a guide for the perplexed.

    The one about human activity causing the rise in CO2 is here.

    It even has a Guide to assessing the evidence
    Love dance, will travel

  3. #83
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    Re: Obama still gives me the creeps

    Quote Originally Posted by Gav View Post
    You should get a job, or a hobby that doesn't involve stuffing animals with other animals
    Well - what do you suggest I stuff them with?

  4. #84
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    Re: Conspiracy theories

    Quote Originally Posted by grahamg View Post
    Is this what you are looking for Barry?
    Yup. See, I was looking for 'Wakefield' but he never used the name. Coo, chiz.
    Sorry, I am not going to buy into this at all, lets leave it there. We don't have to agree do we, and it doesn't matter a tuppenny **** what either of us think does it, as we're not medically trained.

    Please continue to ignore any information I brought before you which doesn't fit with your ideas, and return to more imaginative thinking on conspiracy theories and theorists we all want to hear about I'm sure.
    I never ignore new information, whether it fits with my ideas or not.

    BUT...you (I presume) have been made aware of the same information that I have:

    • Wakefield carried out his research and prepared its publication without informing his co-workers and co-authors that he was receiving Legal Aid money from personal injury lawyers looking for a link between MMR and autism
    • Wakefield submitted his paper for publication without notifying the editors that he had been receiving those monies
    • He publicised his data to the national press - presumably in order to obtain maximum publicity for himself - despite the fact that he must have known that with a sample size of only 12 his work was only fit for a marginal note in the scale of MMR investigation worldwide
    • As a doctor, he was aware of the fact that MMR vaccination was an important link in health policy makers' efforts to eradicate those illnesses in the same way as had been done with polio, and yet he deliberately ignored the deleterious effect on that effort which his self-publicisation would probably have
    • ...a deleterious effect which has seen the first deaths from measles in years and over 1500 cases last year, as opposed to a dozen or so in the year after Wakefield published
    • In the years since he published, the avalanche of evidence against his conclusions has become literally overwhelming, yet he has murmured not so much as as a bat-squeak of doubt
    • It now looks like he made up the published data anyway

    ...and yet you would argue that he is a fine upstanding citizen?

    I find myself wondering just how badly behaved someone must be before you start disapproving of him!

  5. #85
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    Re: Conspiracy theories

    Quote Originally Posted by bigdjiver View Post
    http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/lamarck.html

    It occurred to me long ago that some mechanism that transferred information about how the body was getting along back to the DNA would be highly beneficial, and could therefore be expected to evolve.

    The body makes extensive use of ribonucleic acid which is part of the mechanism by which DNA works. To me there seems to be plenty of scope for a feedback mechanism. I suspect and hope that Lamarck might eventually be proven at least partially right.
    Epigenetics does NOT ratify Lamarckian inheritance.

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    Re: Conspiracy theories

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    Epigenetics does NOT ratify Lamarckian inheritance.
    I wonder what odds you'd have got on ever seeing that sentence on the Ceroc Scotland forum?

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    Re: Obama still gives me the creeps

    Quote Originally Posted by Astro View Post
    Some say the Cold War was a hoax.
    They are clearly wrong though. What evidence is that theory based on then?

  8. #88
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    Re: Obama still gives me the creeps

    Quote Originally Posted by straycat View Post
    Well - what do you suggest I stuff them with?
    Yes, Gav what do YOU stuff poor defencless animals with?

    hmm strayCAT...watch yourself

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    Re: Obama still gives me the creeps

    Quote Originally Posted by TurboTomato View Post
    They are clearly wrong though. What evidence is that theory based on then?
    Global warming! (obviously)

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    Re: Obama still gives me the creeps

    Quote Originally Posted by Dreadful Scathe View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by straycat View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Gav View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by straycat View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Dreadful Scathe View Post
    rubbish...Dogs don't float
    They do if you stuff them with ducks. Case proven
    You should get a job, or a hobby that doesn't involve stuffing animals with other animals
    Well - what do you suggest I stuff them with?
    Yes, Gav what do YOU stuff poor defenceless animals with?

    hmm strayCAT...watch yourself
    Well, stray cats or people who can't dance obviously!

    I'm not sure how that'll help with the floating beagle experiment though?

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    Re: Conspiracy theories

    Quote Originally Posted by robd View Post
    I wonder what odds you'd have got on ever seeing that sentence on the Ceroc Scotland forum?

  12. #92
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    Re: Conspiracy theories

    Quote Originally Posted by grahamg View Post
    Then there was Andrew Wiles (another Andrew!?) who managed to prove Fermat's last theorem: "Proving the Taniyama-Shimura conjecture was an enormous task, one that many mathematicians considered impossible. ... But he needed help from a friend called Nick Katz to examine one part of it. Wiles managed to fix the problem by merging two approaches. ..."
    You do realise the article you're quoting from was written by an A-level student? I really doubt you'd find many professional mathematicians who considered proving Taniyama-Shimera to be impossible. (Since professional mathematicians tend to be pretty careful about using words like "impossible").

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    Re: Conspiracy theories

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    Yup. See, I was looking for 'Wakefield' but he never used the name. Coo, chiz.

    I never ignore new information, whether it fits with my ideas or not.

    Break


    you would argue that he is a fine upstanding citizen?


    I find myself wondering just how badly behaved someone must be before you start disapproving of him!
    Dear Barry,
    I started out arguing this one with Dave didn't I then have somehow found myself at odds with you, even though Dave and I seem happy to leave things as they've settled (each happy for different reasons to believe using MMR may be our choice, or preference should we ever face that decision again).

    However, if you wish to discuss this further I would be delighted if you came to the following forum, where someone with what I would say is an "open mind" is trying to look at all the evidence, as you say you do (scroll down the following page on the mayor of London's forum):
    http://www.boris-johnson.com/forum/

    I look forward to catching up with you there, and taking up the matter as I can't see where you've addressed the evidence presented, (which came to me via that forum) and I don't want to badger you into doing so here, where I'm far more entertained by those suggesting ways to stuff animals etc.

    I will just throw in one more comment for you, and that concerns two families I've come across who have avoided all vaccinations so far as I'm aware (one family who lives near me didn't even go for electric lighting until the last ten years, but they are nonetheless very popular and hard working people). In the second family I'm thinking of the mother decided not to give her daughter's even polio vaccine, but more fit and healthy people you couldn't imagine (even the mother was tasty if you know what I mean). I totally accept that these people have benefitted from the fact that the majority of the population do get their children vaccinated, and this is what has protected them, along with their own healthy immune systems (not all people exposed to infections develop the actual diseases of course).

    So, what are we to do, force everyone to have all vaccinations, including those who are adamant they don't want them, or trust them?

    Whatever your answer to that question I still maintain that unless people like Dr. Wakefield are prepared to stand up and say unpopular things, or things that may be unpopular at the time with their masters, then the chances that errors will one day come to light become diminished. Gastric ulcers were shown by an Aussie doctor to be largely caused by bacteria (the Helicobacters I believe) living in the gut some years ago. The medical establishment tried to ridicule his research, not least the pharmaceutical companies who made money out of gastric ulcer remedies (I used to work for one of these, and generally think they do a great job, but not always perhaps).

    I'll leave it there and get back to considering what might be best to assist in floutation of fidos!

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    Re: Conspiracy theories

    Quote Originally Posted by grahamg View Post
    So, what are we to do, force everyone to have all vaccinations, including those who are adamant they don't want them, or trust them?
    I have three kids and all of them are vaccinated, even though naturally, as a parent, I was worried about the whole autism scare.

    Parents who don't get there children vaccinated are either ignorant or selfish. There are no excuses as you can have the MMR vaccine in three parts if you're prepared to pay for it, but instead they put the rest of the population at risk by potentially causing an epidemic.

    It's like these mothers who won’t let their teenage daughters have the vaccination to protect them against the HPV virus. What's wrong with these people?

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    Re: Conspiracy theories

    Quote Originally Posted by David Bailey View Post
    Nutter


    Double nutter


    No, because all the True Believers fit into the "conspiracy nutter" mindset - that is, people who simply won't consider the evidence; they know what they know, and they won't consider changing their opinion.

    I'll ask you what I asked grahamg - are there any circumstances in which you'd change your mind? Or would you always think "Well, there must be something in it", no matter what?

    If you answer "No" and "Yes" respectively to those two questions, then you're in the conspiracy-theory mindset. Your mind is not open, it's closed.
    I do have an open mind, I'm not a 'follower' of Andrew Wakefield.
    My conclusions that vacinations are harmful are based on two actual events.

    1. My cousin (born perfectly normal) had the MMR vacination as a baby and became a cabbage, mentally and physically.
    She spent her life in an institution for handicapped children and died aged 10, when her body finally gave out.

    There is also a government department that pays out compensations to children who have been damaged by vacinations, but not killed (I don't think) It is for care.

    2. When my boys were small a good friend of mine took her baby to our GP's for her MMR. Whilst there a baby actually died immediately after the shot.

    Needless to say, all the mother's scarpered. [quote]

    Quote Originally Posted by grahamg View Post
    The medical establishment tried to ridicule his research, not least the pharmaceutical companies who made money out of gastric ulcer remedies (I used to work for one of these, and generally think they do a great job, but not always perhaps).
    Well of course, vaccinations are BIG money for the pharmas.

    They pay an incentive bonus to GP's. The more vacinations GP's carry out the bigger the monetary bonus.

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    Re: Conspiracy theories

    Quote Originally Posted by David Franklin View Post
    You do realise the article you're quoting from was written by an A-level student? I really doubt you'd find many professional mathematicians who considered proving Taniyama-Shimera to be impossible. (Since professional mathematicians tend to be pretty careful about using words like "impossible").
    Ah ha, touche, etc. etc.

    Take a look at this website, http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A521966 and although my extracts below are taken from a students website, they are nonetheless true statements (I knew all those hours watching TV would come in somewhere):

    http://plus.maths.org/issue47/featur...zak/index.html

    "Andrew Wiles earned a bachelors degree from Oxford University in 1974 and a PhD from Cambridge in 1980."

    The story of the problem that would seal Wiles' place in history begins in 1637 when Pierre de Fermat made a deceptively simple conjecture. He stated that if is any whole number greater the equation
    ....and that this theorem would never be proved (there ther "impossible" bit)

    Wiles stated:
    "You can't really focus yourself for years unless you have undivided concentration, which too many spectators would have destroyed"

    "Wiles decided that the only way he could prove it would be to work in secret at his Princeton home. He still performed his lecturing duties at the university but no longer attended conferences or told anyone what he was working on. This led many to believe he had finished as a mathematician; simply run out of ideas. After six years working alone, Wiles felt he had almost proved the conjecture.

    There it was that in June 1993 Andrew Wiles announced his historic proof of Fermat's Last Theorem, but he still had another year to go after an error was found, so it came to be that after 358 years and 7 years of one man's undivided attention that Fermat's last theorem was finally solved."

    I rest my case M'lord
    Last edited by grahamg; 10th-February-2009 at 02:32 PM.

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    Re: Conspiracy theories

    Quote Originally Posted by Astro View Post
    1. My cousin
    2. my boys
    I don't know the stats but the reported incidents that may have been due to vaccines or may be coincidence are miniscule in comparison to the total population. It's just not worth the risk.

  18. #98
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    Re: Conspiracy theories

    Quote Originally Posted by Double Trouble View Post
    I have three kids and all of them are vaccinated, even though naturally, as a parent, I was worried about the whole autism scare.
    For those who don't know. my wife is Professor of Medication Safety at the London School of Pharmacy. Our daughter has had all her vaccines too.

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    Re: Conspiracy theories

    Quote Originally Posted by David Franklin View Post
    For those who don't know. my wife is Professor of Medication Safety at the London School of Pharmacy. Our daughter has had all her vaccines too.
    There you go then. All I have to go on is what is reported in the press and information from the internet. Your wife is an expert! Will your daughter be having th HPV vaccine when she is old enough?

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    Re: Conspiracy theories

    Quote Originally Posted by grahamg View Post
    Ah ha, touche, etc. etc.

    Take a look at this website, and my extracts below and see what kind of an 'A' level student you're talking about (I knew all those hours watching TV would come in somewhere):

    http://plus.maths.org/issue47/featur...zak/index.html
    Er... (emphasis mine)

    Quote Originally Posted by That Webpage
    Fermat's last theorem and Andrew Wiles by Neil Pieprzak.

    Neil Pieprzak is currently in year 12 studying for his A levels at Notre Dame Sixth Form in Sheffield.
    At this point I should probably point out that my Galois Theory supervisor at Cambridge was Richard Taylor, who was the guy who worked with Wiles to fix the problem with the original proof. I suspect I may know a little more about this than an A-level student.

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