Remember Winnie Cooper from The Wonder Years?

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I guess my point is, she’d heard a million equally nice things said about her and her life choices long before she expressed any doubts about vaccination, or started seeing doctors you don’t approve of.

Her “resistance” seems to have been limited to the “I’ll make up my own schedule” variety. Now, I’m as pro-vaccine and pro-Western/allopathic/orthodox/whatever-you-want-to-call-it medicine as they come. So I guess are you. She falls short of our beautiful standards in that respect, if not as short as full refuseniks. She makes choices we wouldn’t for her children. Why do people–intelligent people, scientifically educated people–do these things?

The complicated answer is that what medicine is “loopy” and what is “scientific” is culturally contingent–but the complicated answer usually involves the person giving it writing long and incomplete disquisitions on the sociology of science, and the person the disquisition is aimed at screeching in frustration because they’ve got a more “objective” definition in mind.

The less complicated answer is that the millionth time someone tells you, “Ugh, no, sigh, wrong, dummy,” whether it’s about vaccine schedules or anything else, a powerful human impulse arises in you to resist, and also to finish a lot of sentences with “…and the horse you rode in on.”

Snarking and sneering has passed the point of marginal utility with anti-vax crowd. Education hasn’t, but hectoring has. If you don’t believe it, find an anti-vax mommy-blog, of which there are many, and feel your collar get hot as you read the snarky things they’re saying about you. Does it make you want to change your mind? Are you in any way moved to dispassionately reconsider which authorities you trust on the topic?

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http://www.cracked.com/blog/a-series-of-messages-from-fred-savage-to-danica-mckellar/

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So, what is her Erdős number? And her Erdős-Bacon number for what it’s worth?

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I think I’m in love, all over again.

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Code Hopping, she and her Father thought it up on the piano. [that is a rough recall sans my morning coffee].

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Hope you had some coffee then. It was Frequency Hopping, intended for spread spectrum transmission in the control of torpedoes. Code hopping refers to rolling codes, which are something entirely different.

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And none of that has a darn thing to do with being anti-vaxx.

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It’s 6.

Mine is 7 (my Erdős number, I’ve never been in a movie), so…

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I think what you’re trying to express is that you’re shocked–shocked!–that a person’s reactions or professions on the subject could have something to do with how she was treated on other matters pertaining to her lifestyle or child-rearing. But I’m not sure you actually believe that.

Here she was on FB last year: “i would like to dispel the rumors about my stance on vaccines. i am not anti-vaccine. my children are vaccinated.” See the posts that floated to the top if you want to compare and contrast that with someone a little more straightforwardly “anti-vaxx.”

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One of my uncles was a professor or pure mathematics and philosophy at Cambridge; but had no idea about household accounts. The family was strapped for cash and his wife went on a hunt around the house for small change. Going through his desk, she found loads of uncashed checks he’d received for public speaking engagements and just chucked in a draw when he got home.

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They weren’t rumors, they were quotes from her, why retcon it as anything else?

http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/2014/03/28/mayim-bialik-is-a-problematic-ambassador-for-science/

She may have changed her stance when it was convenient to (international travel) but it’s a convenient erasure of her former statements. If she changed her mind she should explain why, otherwise I rightfully assume a lack of sincerity. She also ascribed to other quackery, which she’ll probably still promote until called out there as well.

I don’t know why this is being pushed as a gender issue, the issue is her promoting woo.

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I like that she got the Frequency Hopping idea from seeing a friend compose music for player pianos and aero-engines.

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From my experience of people with mathematics degrees, this does seem to be common. Maybe they’re too detached from the practical applications of their skills.

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Well, clearly, from reading your source, my only conclusion is that Tara C. Smith is one seriously misogynistic dude.

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So, you’re saying that because people gave her crap about other aspects of her life, that’s why people are giving her crap about being anti-vaxx?

Look. I’d love it if, in 2016, we could all gather around in a circle and sing kumbaya. Here’s the thing.

Here she was on FB3
last year: “i would like to dispel the rumors about my stance on
vaccines. i am not anti-vaccine. my children are vaccinated.” See the
posts that floated to the top if you want to compare and contrast that
with someone a little more straightforwardly “anti-vaxx.”

And look at the comments on there. Why would a bunch of anti-vaxxers be following someone who is “not anti-vaccine” and spewing in the comments? Hm.

And then she followed up later with:

honestly, people. do your research. do what’s right for you. let me live my life and you live yours. no one gets to know the timeline of my kids’ medical appointments because they are not celebrities and they are not your property. put me on the altar if you have nothing better to do today, but just be happy with your decisions and leave my kids alone. my job is not in jeopardy. everything is fine, except in the clearly supportive and loving world of social media and gossip. have a fantastic day everyone.

Source, since the original post is gone.

I wish it didn’t matter what Mayim Bialik thought about vaccinating kids. I mean, if I’m looking for investment advice, I’m going to ask someone with expertise, and really don’t give a shit what Johnny Depp does even if he talks about his retirement plan during an interview. Unfortunately, we live in a society that has two problems.

First, we like to look up to celebrities. For some reason, some people really do give a shit what the Kardashians are doing this week. If Mark Hamill posts something about the future direction of Star Wars and it’s contradicted by Kathleen Kennedy, fans will give more of a shit about what Mark says because he’s Luke Skywalker. And if Jenny McCarthy or Mayim Bialik speak out about the safety of vaccines, for some reason people give a shit about that, and think that science is lying.

And the second is that she’s a mother. Our society has this meme that because she’s a woman, she knows what she’s talking about. As a mother…well, I’m not a mother, obviously, but I’m a parent. And y’know what? I put more trust in a pediatrician than I do in myself. Because I’m not a doctor.

And I know someone’s going to argue that Jenny McCarthy isn’t anti-vaxx anymore. Well…yes, and no. She’s not as rigidly anti-vaxx as she was, she’s just pro-safe vaxx. Totally different.

And all of this matters not as a way to police mothers or take away choice. Right now, you probably have friends and neighbors who are immunocompromised, whose continued existence as a living human being is dependent upon herd immunity, and there are parents out there making the decision to not vaccinate their kids against easily preventable diseases because an instantly recognizable person on the magic talkin’ picture box said that it can cause autism.

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