[BigV]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

Things that were also very effective at their given purpose: asbestos, Thalidomide, DDT. The argument has never been over effectiveness, and it's a straw man to keep pointing it out.

Phil Plait, aka Bad Astronomer, has a good piece about all the anti-anti-vax polemics.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astro..._all_this.html

In short, you are making your own problem worse with all your ranting and facepalming and JFChristing.

Yeah, no.

We, as a nation, are having a conversation about measles outbreaks. The reason it's noteworthy on a national scale is because it's novel. It's novel because it's uncommon and it's uncommon because of the effectiveness of measles vaccinations throughout our population.

This is not a straw man argument.

I am not doing anything like this:

Quoting an opponent's words out of context—i.e., choosing quotations that misrepresent the opponent's actual intentions (see fallacy of quoting out of context).

Presenting someone who defends a position poorly as the defender, then denying that person's arguments—thus giving the appearance that every upholder of that position (and thus the position itself) has been defeated.

Inventing a fictitious persona with actions or beliefs which are then criticized, implying that the person represents a group of whom the speaker is critical.

Oversimplifying an opponent's argument, then attacking this oversimplified version.

Perhaps you're suggesting that I am making a straw man argument by oversimplyfing, calling all anti-vaccination supporters "stupid". That would be a straw man argument, but I'm not doing that. Stupid people are stupid, vaccinations notwithstanding. But opting out of vaccinations for stupid reasons is stupid. Like the woman in Stewart's clip (no link before, but here ya go: Liberal idiocy, Les Measlesrables) who chooses to avoid vaccination for stupid reasons, that's stupid. Science denial is stupid. There *are* circumstances where the choice to avoid vaccination isn't stupid, for children who have compromised immune systems. Not stupid.

Anyhow, I'm not making blanket statements.

While we're discussing each other's logical arguments, associating "asbestos, Thalidomide, DDT" with vaccinations is just throwing some unhelpful red herrings into the conversation. Not helpful.