“A few” deniers of evolution? Don’t make me laugh. Try tens of millions, almost all on the right.
And as for your anti-vax point, here’s a thought-experiment: can you imagine a right-leaning board shouting down global warming deniers half as much as anti-vaxers are shouted down here?
Point taken. But when you look at the people in power who attempt to legislate creationist policies, they are mostly republicans. Meanwhile, the people who attempt to legislate anti-vax policies are…also mostly republicans (like Rand Paul).
You know, I see your point here. As a liberal, I have tended to label the anti-evolution movement as ‘Conservatives’. Though really I should be viewing it as a movement that overlaps certain areas…
And yet, with the anti-vax movement I’ve never thought ‘Liberals’, even though it is prevalent in certain liberal areas. Instead, I see them as pseudo health nut freaks spawned by Oprah-ism*. The fact that many are liberals is incidental. (Plus, stupid is an infectious disease therefore it’s spreading in those liberal areas quickly.)
The problem is that movements such as these are so *loud *that it’s hard to not start generalizing about the opposition.
cite, my anti-vax sister. Last week she told me my plastic shower curtain is going to make me fat.
First of all, I have allowed for conservative anti-vax sentiment in my first post here - yet even someone so obtuse as yourself would allow that Ms. Schlafly’s influence is minimal in Berkeley or Marin County. Something else has to be going on there.
Secondly, the links I provided did give statewide averages for California right next to those for Berkeley and Marin County. It is 91.1%, which in itself is a bit low.
You’re right, there is a small sub-group of liberal types who make up a pretty visible section of the anti-vax movement.
The problem, though, is not simply that irrational people exist; it’s a question of how many of them there are, how much influence they have, and how much slack the non-crazy elements of their political group are willing to give them.
And there’s the key issue with the conservative anti-evolution crowd. Not only are there lots of them, but they have considerable political clout on their issue in many areas (especially in local and state races), and even mainstream conservatives who do believe in evolution go out of their way to pander to the extremists because they want and need their votes.
By contrast, even here on the uber-liberal SDMB, the anti-vaxers are not only opposed, they are actively ridiculed as dangerous and deluded, usually by liberal Dopers. Here’s a thread from less than two weeks ago.
Well, i don’t claim to be able to read Bill Buckley’s mind. I just made the point to Starving Artist because his mode of argumentation is so antithetical to Buckley’s intellectualism that his invocation of Buckley struck me as hilarious.
If i simply say that Buckley would find more to admire in your arguments than in Starving Artist’s that’s not really much of a compliment to you. But, more generally, i think he would appreciate your willingness to be thoughtful about the issues, to be honest about the origins of your personal moral beliefs (your Catholicism, etc.), and to change your mind when presented with an argument that you find compelling. He would, however, probably get frustrated with your insistence on answering moral and philosophical arguments with legal rebuttals (or maybe i’m misreading him there).
Look, while i have some admiration for Buckley’s intellectualism and his historical role in the rise of American conservatism, i still don’t like him very much. Hell, even on his Firing Line show he could be sufficiently dismissive and pandering to compete with modern TV talking heads like Rush Limbaugh. Instead of blustering and shouting, though, Buckley adopted a certain patrician dismissiveness and condescension.
His interview with Noam Chomsky, for example, has a few instances in which he oversimplifies or caricatures Chomsky’s position, as well as a (humorous) threat to punch Chomsky in the face. A short example can be found here, and a much longer section of the interview (not sure if it’s the whole thing) can be viewed here.
I’m the obtuse one? You’re the one who has come here claiming some kind of particular link between liberalism and anti-vax sentiment, and all you can do to support it is to give vaccination rates in two localities, absent any particular context? We don’t even have to debate your characterization of these as representative of liberalism, because your argument doesn’t even get that far. It fails on basic logic and stats right out of the gate. It’s a non fucking starter.
Now, I’m not making any claim about the relationship, but I’ll advance your argument a bit further. Let’s look at MMR vaccination by state. Here’s the CDCs rates for 2007.
Let’s just grab some places by their typical political ideological characterizations:
California: 94.6%
New York: 93.6%
Massachusetts: 93.3%
Vermont: 93.6%
New Jersey: 91.6%
Texas: 90.4%
Georgia: 91.4%
South Carolina: 92.5%
Arizona: 89.0%
South Carolina: 92.5%
Weird. Those places that are typically characterized as more liberal seem to be showing higher rates of MMR vaccinations, despite the belief by some that these vaccines cause autism.
Lobo, I don’t think a guy who can’t tell a fact from an opinion has any business calling others stupid. Remember that thread recently where you got on my ass for ignoring “facts” and then said the “facts” I ignore are “Keynesian economics” and “health care reform” and “global warming”?
Well, one thing we need to be careful of here is that we don’t correlate rates of vaccination directly with anti-vax sentimient. That is, there are reasons other than anti-vax ideology that certain populations might not get vaccinated.
In some areas, people who have trouble with English, who are in the country illegally, or who are poor and uneducated, might not find out about vaccination at all. Also, even among those who refuse the vaccination, there’s an important difference between those who are frightened of something they don’t understand and those who actively oppose vaccination due to incorrect ideas about its effects, between people who don’t know all the facts and people who stubbornly refuse to admit the facts.
Hentor, I also cited high rates of exemptions from immunization for personal beliefs in Marin and Berkeley - and Boulder as well, in the older article. Your latest cite does not address the issue of PBEs at all - these low rates of immunization could be attributed to many other factors, including poverty, access to medical care, and the like.
Please show how PBEs contributed to the lower rates for Texas or Arizona - and keep in mind that their immunization rate statewide still is higher than that for Berkeley or Marin County.
And the stupid viewpoiont has weighed in. You get pretty fucking tired arguing with people who don’t listen but instead gibber about God said (and that’s usually wrong and misquoted) or the “Invisible Market Hand” or the good old “you traitor get out of myc ountry”. You get sick of teh same old bullshit tripe from the same old bullshit “tape recorder”. And like many have told you before, it isn’t the Sixties and the Diorty Hippy Contingent.
There is no “other side of the argument” and there are no provable or half ass supportable FACTS on the other side of Evolution. So WHY should we waste our time dignifying the same ignorant stupid fucking LIES all over again?
God you’re a fucking idiot. Some things never change.
P.S. I know that tired “teach the controversy” line. More bullshit.
Others have already responded to this, but allow me to say, that is actually a thoughtful and reasoned post. It’s stupid and wrong, but at least you’re trying.
I agree with you that this method is an exceedingly poor way to test the hypothetical relationship between anti-vax sentiment and political orientation. I would never have selected it myself. Having had the person making the argument select it, however, I’m more than happy to demonstrate how the hypothesis is not supported even when using that (extremely dubious) methodology.
Since this is your assertion, not mine, how about you take the time to support it. Please provide evidence that those with an anti-vaccination orientation are more likely to also have a liberal political orientation. Preferably, please select a better method of doing so than pointing to community level rates, particularly by pointing to one or two communities alone.
