A few days ago, Professor Dorit Rubinstein Reiss published a heartfelt article on this website about the death of Nick Catone’s son that Catone blamed on vaccine induced sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). The death was tragic, as is the death of any child, but there is absolutely no evidence that vaccines were the cause. Of course, within hours, the anti-vaccine religion poured forth in their usual vile, disgusting, racist, grammar and spelling deficient manner.
Mostly, I just delete the most nasty comments, and move on. But today, I’m not in a good mood. I want to point to the anti-vaccine religion for all to see. Like all religions, the anti-vaccine sect must attack others who follow rational thought or simply reject their religion. The religion of anti-vaccine hatred seems to be no different than other religious hatred throughout this world.
Let’s talk about ad hominem arguments
Before we proceed into showing the hate speech of the anti-vaccine religion, I wanted to take a moment to explain argumentum ad hominem, an informal logical fallacy. It is strategy whereby someone attempts to refute an argument by attacking the character, motive, or other attribute of the person (or group of persons) making an assertion, rather than addressing the evidence presented, or presenting contradictory evidence. The anti-vaccine religion loves this logical fallacy.
Ironically, the anti-vaccine religious adherents think they are so clever when they attempt to accuse the pro-vaccine pro-science side of an ad hominem argument when we call out the lies, misinformation, inaccuracies, tropes, and ignorance of the vaccine deniers. All of the evidence supports the safety and effectiveness of vaccines. There is an overwhelming mountain of evidence that vaccines are not related to autism.
If the pro-science pro-vaccine side of the discussion calls out someone for being an ignorant fool for rejecting scientific facts because they don’t like those facts, that’s not an ad hominem attack. It may show a lot of frustration at arguing the scientific facts to people who reject it without evidence, but it’s not a logical fallacy.
So, it’s simple. If you have overwhelming scientific evidence on your side, and you personally attack the other, that’s not a fallacious argument. Maybe it’s not professional. Maybe it’s bad behavior.
But if you’ve got no evidence whatsoever, and your only choice is to attack the other side with insults and such, well, that’s a fallacious argument.
And remember, the anti-vaccine hatred religion complete lacks any reasonable evidence published in high quality journals. These people tend to cherry pick a paper that is published in a predatory, low ranked journal or that has been retracted for malfeasance.
The Catone article’s comment section was filled with ad hominem personal attacks from the anti-vaccine religion. Some of it quite horrendous. Let’s look at some of them, and call out the authors of said attacks.
The anti-vaccine religion of Edward Crust
First up from the Catone article is some guy named Edward Crust, who is so cowardly that he uses an anonymous proxy which is blacklisted for spamming and malicious activity. He (or she) set up the account just to attack Professor Reiss and myself. Let’s take a look at a smattering of his ignorant nonsense.
I don’t know, but that seems like an unhealthy obsession with Dr. Reiss’s son’s genitals. With a bit of racism (Dr. Reiss is Jewish) thrown in for good measure. I’m not an expert, but I think this is some form of pedophile behavior. Maybe I should contact the police, but like a good pedophile, Crusty uses that anonymous proxy to keep the cops away. If he is a pedophile, I’m not saying that he is.
Just so we’re clear, his unhealthy obsession with children’s genitals occurs in numerous other comments on the Catone article. I just chose the less obnoxious ones.
First, the childish renaming of Dr. Reiss. Crusty the Pedophile (not saying he’s a pedophile) must think he’s so clever (not saying he’s clever). Second, Godwin’s Law gets invoked, though that’s truly anti-semitism when one accuses a Jew of being a Nazi. What a putz (not saying he really is a putz).
Crusty the Ignorant (yes, I’m saying he’s ignorant) goes for the childish name calling. What is this guy, the typical anti-vaccine hatred religion believer with a 3rd grade education? Does he think he’s on the playground?
Yes, Gardasil prevents cancer, that’s been established by vast scientific evidence. As I said above, I now can insult Crusty the Jackass (not saying he’s an actual male donkey) because all of the evidence supports my side, and he’s got nothing. He is so ignorant that I think he sets the modern world record in ignorance.
Finally, Crusty the Creepy Clown goes for some really lame scatological humor (oops, I used a 5 syllable word, probably too much for the anti-vaccine crowd – it means 3rd grade potty jokes). But seriously folks, he thinks science based evidence is “bullshite.” That’s how the anti-vaccine hatred religion works – just like real religion – ignore evidence and science that doesn’t support their predetermined beliefs.
Oh my. The whole “Dorito” thing again, as if Professor Reiss is crying in her office when she sees that. Seriously members of the anti-vaccine hatred religion – it’s so childish that I’m wondering if kids are trolling us because they are afraid of needles or something.
Important disclosure – I love Doritos, specifically Cool Ranch. Though the old school Cheese Nachos are still a favorite. I want a spicier version though. I hope Big Tortilla Chip follows this blog.
Crusty the Dimwit (yeah, he’s a dimwit) dropped over 80 comments on the Catone article in like 2 days. Obviously, he has no career other than causing harm to children by trying to poison the well about vaccines. He failed, because he has no evidence, and he has no professionalism about the topic. He just hates.
Other anti-vaccine religion on the article
Crusty wasn’t our only crackpot hater on the article. There were many more who relied upon ad hominem personal attacks, cherry picking awful “scientific” articles, and the Big Pharma shill gambit. We’ll examine some of these individuals.
Nick Quinlan is in love with the Big Pharma Shill gambit, which is an attempt to poison the well of evidence by making false claims (lies) about the motives of those who are pro-science and pro-vaccines. It’s a form of ad hominem argument, which is a favorite of the anti-vaccine hatred religion because, once again, they have no evidence to support their claims. And they have absolutely no evidence that anyone is a “shill.” But they think, in their simple minds, that accusing someone of being a shill means it’s a fact.
There is a group on Facebook that jokingly whines about the bounced checks, the non-checks, and the disappearing checks that we shills have not received from our Big Pharma overlords (they’re lizard people, to be honest). I’ve been blogging, on and off, for about 10 years. I have sent at least 2000 invoices to Big Pharma HQ. I’ve gotten nothing. Nada. Squat. Nichts. They’re jerks.
But honestly, I write about the evidence. I don’t care what it says, as long as all of the evidence provides the basis of refuting or accepting a hypothesis. You know, good science.
Nick seems to not have the ability to comprehend real science. He fails to grasp that the pro-vaccine people are anti-disease – diseases that kill children.
Does this mean that Nick is part of the pro-disease crowd? And we know that they really are Big Pharma shills since if we had massive disease outbreaks if we end vaccinations, Big Pharma makes boatloads of money from sick children in hospitals.
And Big Hospital makes huge amounts of cash because all of their beds are filled with critically ill children.
And Big Mortuary makes tons of money burying children who die of measles, diphtheria, whooping cough, influenza, and tetanus.
So Nick Quinlan, for whom are you shilling? Or do you not care, you’re shilling for them all.
And Big Healthcare Insurance – wait, they’ll be paying out huge claims. Yeah, they probably don’t like Nick since they have figured out that vaccines lower their costs in the future as fewer kids and adults get sick. OK, Nick, I won’t accuse you of being a shill for Big Healthcare Insurance.
Next up, we have some dude who thinks he’s so funny but calling himself “Pablo Offit.” I’m amused, is anyone else amused?
So Pablo thinks he’s also funny to accuse the feathery dinosaur of having brain damage. What if I do? Oh that’s right, you all hate those with neurological disorders. You think autistic children are “defective,” and are a “burden.” I think autistic children are wonderful, but maybe I’m defective too.
Oh, one more thing. There is no evidence that aluminum in vaccines has any effect on anything, except in the imagination of the anti-vaccine religion. Or in the minds of the discredited “researchers,” Shaw and Tomljenovic, who have had their aluminum causes autism articles regularly retracted by real journals.
Oh here we go again. Suzanne Humphries (not Humphrey – you can’t even get your science denying shills’ names right), the lunatic who has NEVER done any research in any area of vaccines, and who has no peer-reviewed articles published about vaccines. Or Mr. Andrew Wakefield, the cunning fraud, who has been stripped of his license to practice medicine, struck from the register of surgeons in the UK, and has had his article claiming a link between vaccines and autism retracted by the journal. Those two are the best you can do there François?
And François also jumped on a logical fallacy of appeal to popular belief– he claims that “thousands of doctors” have rejected vaccines. That’s funny. I’d like to see a list of “thousands of doctors” (and I demand real doctors, not quacks who aren’t doctors, naturopaths, homeopaths and chiropractors). In fact, there will be millions of doctors who accept that vaccines are relatively safe and effective because of the evidence. The only thing that matters is scientific evidence.
The only people on their knees “begging for mercy” (a violent threat implied) will be those who allow children to die from vaccine preventable diseases. Why do you hate children François? Is the anti-vaccine religion so seductive that you make these violent threats? That you want children to be harmed by deadly diseases? Maybe they tolerate violence up there in Montréal, Québec.
Let’s talk about the comments
I generally don’t care what people write in the comments. I have no time to moderate ever comment. But after a certain number of flags (I’ll keep the exact number to myself, to prevent gaming of the system), I review the comment and either approve or delete it.
If you spam the same comments several times, I delete all of the spammed comments except the first one.
If you threaten violence or incite violence, I will block and ban you immediately and report your IP address to your local authorities. I don’t care where you live, it’s easy to do.
If you are pedophile, I ban and block you.
Dropping a handful of misogynist and classless words will get your comment flagged and probably deleted.
Calling Professor Reiss “Dorito” just means we laugh at your childish trolling.
If the anti-vaccine religion wants to troll my articles, like with the 1600 or so comments on the Catone article, I’m OK with it. Just realize that there are a bunch of loyal readers who prefer science and facts to lies, logical fallacies, and lame pseudoscience. And they’re going to point out the issues with your vaccine denial.
And we see the pattern over and over, the anti-vaccine religion lacks any evidence to support their beliefs, so they attack with childish and violent words. At that point, you lost the debate, even though there is no debate.
