It appears the anti-vaccine caucus has bubbled up to the tepid surface again. It's always worth revisiting Dunning-Kruger syndrome, a phenomenon that never seems to really ebb. It's the tendency of the least informed, most willfully ignorant or in some cases the most wantonly dishonest, to insist that they and they alone know and bravely speak The Truth:
[T]he D-K phenomenon tends to take the form of parents who think that their University of Google knowledge trumps the knowledge of physicians and scientists who have dedicated large swaths of their lives to the rigorous study of conditions such as autism and the question of how vaccines work.
Nowhere is the D-K effect more intense and painful to behold than at a blog with a name so arrogantly misplaced that it lights up the planet with its waves of burning stupid. I’m referring, of course, to The Thinking Moms’ Revolution (TMR), where the denizens think so highly of themselves that they refer to themselves as “Thinkers” (yes, capitalized).
Oh I must disagree a tiny bit, Dr. Orac. There are many blogs, discussion groups, and, lately, even popular TV series on channels once dedicated to legit science and history, now locked in fierce competition for the ultimate badge of ignorance with the site you flagged. Including claims as outlandish as secret alien societies or stealthy Sasquatch clans operating unnnoticed right under our collective noses.
- From the ragged edge of space and time, a faster-than-light phenomenon called inflation, which is central to Big Bang Cosmology, got a Big Boost this week.
- What organism do you think has the longest, most intricate genetic blueprint known to biological science? I bet you won't guess the answer!
- Young kids and not so young kids, T. rex may be coming soon to a town near you. But be advised, s/he will be looking a little more dressed up than the one you may fondly remember:
"We've decided to bring them up to date," said the show's self-described "resident dino geek" Philip Millar. "I've been going on about feathers for some years now. And now we've finally taken the leap and we're applying the feathers to the dinosaurs we're fairly confident had feathers."
Recent discoveries by paleontologist point to the possibility that a large number of non-avian dinosaurs had feathers or something similar — paleontologists call it "dinofuzz" — as part of their body covering, blurring the distinction between dinosaurlike birds and birdlike dinosaurs.