Vaccines, Climate Change and the Voices of Unreason

Dear Malin Reese,

I want to have a chat about vaccines. Much like climate change, the Science behind the effectiveness of vaccines is flawed at best. I stand with other anti-vaxxers in the fight against the vaccination-poisoning-complex. As Rand Paul brilliantly said recently, ““I’ve heard of many tragic cases of walking, talking normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines.” Genius. His subtle inference that vaccines are linked to autism now helps to guide my view on this topic.

Ok, Malin, that’s as much bullshit as I can string together in this letter. I’m being facetious about my views on vaccines because it is currently dominating the news cycle and i don’t have a clue why. There was a time when vaccines weren’t controversial. There was consensus among citizens, even political parties, that the Science behind vaccines was pretty damn solid. There’s a really loud, misinformed group of people that are letting their poor decision making be driven by their own fear and their outright denial of reason. Sadly, this denial of reason isn’t contained to just the issues of vaccines.

I flippantly mentioned climate change above. It’s another example of an issue that’s become controversial. Something like 97% of climate scientists believe that climate change is occurring and that humans are having a profound effect on the change. Yes, a small percentage of these scientists have been found to be agenda-driven when it comes to climate change but the majority rules on this. There’s absolutely no reason to defy reason on this subject.

A long time ago, people believed the Earth was flat. Then this bearded Greek guy named Aristotle came to the conclusion that the earth was indeed round. He didn’t just wake up one morning and shout it from the rooftops. He came to this reasoning during his careful study of the constellations. It is now universally accepted that the earth is round. If someone ever tells you differently, smile, nod your head and slowly walk away. Alright, so we know the earth is round. No controversy there. But how old is the round Earth? By all reasonable accounts(science and stuff) the Earth is 4.54 billion years-old. No controversy there, right? Um, actually there is. A fairly sizable number of people believe the Earth is only 6,000 years-old. Wait, how can there be such a large gap within each conclusion? Well, one set of beliefs is based on reason derived from method. The other set of beliefs is based on Dogma. Why can’t all these things align? Mostly because Dogma kills reason.

Malin, I want you to be skeptical, to ask questions and doggedly challenge your own belief systems. That’s a healthy way to lead your life. Just don’t dig in and defy reason for the sake of being skeptical. It’s a waste of your energy,and worse, a waste of your intellect. I’m not right about everything but I’m pretty certain I’m right about this.

P.S. I really love watching you conquer the world around you.

Love,

Dad