Nobody wants to kill their own children. I mean, that may seem like a good solution at tantrum time, but all kidding aside parents for the most part really want to see their children survive them.
However, the desire to feel good about protecting your children can lead down a path where feelings outweigh reasoned arguments. Thanks to my friend Eric for sending me this great article on one facet of the crisis in this country concerning the irrational, wish-dream advocates attack on all intellectual and rational pursuits.
This article at Wired (“An Epidemic of Fear: How Panicked Parents Skipping Shots Endangers Us All”) does a good job of summing up the current information about immunization and the alarming trend to ignore the body of science supporting it. Definitely a good read.
What is interesting to me (and to a number of friends with whom I have discussed it) is this willful embrace of ignorance. It’s not just present here in this immunization issue. Anytime truth comes into conflict with emotion there will arise a faction who cling to untruth for the sake of the heart-strings.
While I am certainly capable of sympathy with those many positions which feeling leads us towards, an important part of growing up is recognizing that the world is rarely as we wish it.
It’s time to grow up, everybody.
Though it is likely true what this article posits in its final paragraph: “There will always be more illogic and confusion than science can fend off.” Nonetheless, we can and should raise our rational voices against the gale of emotive blabbering.
It is no longer enough to rest assured that the truth will prevail in time. Yes, the Catholic Church did finally pardon Galileo. But he died blind and separated from his daughters under house arrest in Rome.
Raise up your rational voices.
Just this afternoon, I have got the H1N1 flu vaccine injection at school. And The violence from the main stream and the majority like the media, government and the public, is really horrible.
What sort of experiences have you had from the media or from people?
In the world of internet, there exist something called “Cyber Manhunt”. It has become almost a common phenomena. Someday netizens and media all over the country may try to trace you down with the help of search engine and your connections with society, maybe because you trigger their ‘Sence of Justice’ and they want to make a trial on you for the sake of justice. Almost every time, the majority win, and the prey’s life broken, because every piece and detail of his life will be exposed, and people around him get hurt. That may be described as ‘No way to live, no place to die.’ Cases like this happens for many reasons. for example, some guys post an annoying or disgusting video on the internet, or the media hype the fact and lead the public to do such things.
You know, the April Fool’s Day of 2008, Google even start a project called “Flesh Hunt Engine”
Information tranfered from one person to another may change depending on their ability of expression and their intention. So, don’t be too serious with the description above out of my broken English. Just a example.
regards.
Oh, Sorry, please remove the sufix ‘.sixxs.org’ at the end of the domain name. The page is in Chinese.
I don’t know of a Google joke about this but I did locate this article.