Magic? Or science?

We could make a good game out of that idea, J0.

"The natural way is better..." The magic word - natural. What nonsense!
The natural way is smallpox, syphilis -" a thousand natural shocks" - infant mortality - rickets - snake venom - botulism... all natural, ma deer!

Shakespeare. Tennyson. Why not put 'em together to get a quotation that suits!

I've been mixing my quotes up!

"More things are wrought by prayer Than this world dreams of". From Morte d'Arthur by Tennyson.

And then there's the Hamlet one.

There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Well, we've found out a lot more about these things since Shakespeare's time and we shall continue to make discoveries about this world, other worlds, this galaxy and other galaxies. The more we learn, the more things are thrown up to investigate. Science is never-ending.

That is sad gorki, that she should now feel guilty about this. The people that promulgate anti vaccine myths have a lot to answer for.

I have met people j08 who seem to think it is cool. The natural way is better etc etc
If people are anxious and doubtful why don't they ask their doctors whether they had their children and grandchildren vaccinated?

Her understanding of the situation comes from the media :magazine articles, newspapers and the Autism channel on TV plus general hearsay resulting in the belief that there is no smoke without fire. As j08 says there is much fear and the belief that the nagging doubt might just be true. Not necessarily logical but very real all the same.

J08 Shakespeare, although slightly misquoted! Hamlet.
feetle well said.

It's cold fear that stops people getting their children vaccinated, not being"cool". It can seem a nightmare decision at the time.

Where did she get her 'knowledge' from? Dr Andrew Wakefield's supposed study was a farce, completely discredited.

It's odd to see people deriding science while using it's products to communicate their ideas... not to mention still being alive due to its advances when in the past people died so much younger.

And yes, J08, you tease, you - I do recognise Hamlet quotations!

I totally agree with you Jess and feetle but I wish someone would convince my daughter that there is no connection with autism. She continually berates herself for "causing" her son's autism by allowing him to have the vaccines. Unfortunately there is still a powerful group in America who believe there is a link in those already predisposed to autism. Once seeds of an idea have been sown it is very difficult to disregard them.

coolgran I am definitely very pro vaccine myself. I find it sad when people label the whole of science as untrustworthy. Of course it is not perfect but it is a darn sight better than what my great grandmother had available.
Only this afternoon I have been to visit a friend who is having his life saved (hopefully) by science. One day he was feeling a bit tired, he had a blood test and then was summoned into hospital when someone in a laboratory looked at the results and raised the alarm.
I don't think it is a bit cool to choose not to vaccinate or to pour scorn on the whole of medical science. Whooping cough, for instance, is a very dangerous disease in newborns and is on the rise - hence the recommendation that pregnant women should have a booster shot. Rubella in pregnant women is known to cause serious damage to her foetus - only solution is vaccination. The measles epidemic in South Wales contributed to the death of one young man and hospitalised many children - all down to people thinking they somehow know better than their GPs, who, you may depend, get their kids vaccinated.
Exactly feetle there is not a shred of evidence that vaccines cause autism, not one shred, and the doctor who put this idea into the public domain on the basis of his person hunch has been struck off.

I didn't say that. Someone else did.

You say that - but you don't say what they are. If they leave no trace then they probably don't exist.

Whatever does exist will most likely be explained by science, if not now then in the future. Religion/magic won't explain anything - it never has.

More things in heaven and earth than this world dreams of...

Right o.

I'd be subject to ridicule and scorn if I said J0 but if you want to PM me then I will tell you privately.

Aka Come on...what happened?? You tease

Aka you can't leave it at that!

Pleease!

As a confirmed atheist of course I don't believe in anything spiritual...or I didn't until yesterday morning. I still can't believe what happened but it shook me to the core and has left me wondering.......

Coolgran - sad to actually encounter a conspiracy theorist... Especially one who seems to hail the actions of those who would compromise the health and safety of others. Vaccines have nothing to do with autism - there is not a shred of evidence to connect them. Meantime, the anti-vax mob are causing epidemics of measles to take hold where herd immunity has fallen far enough, and children are dying.

Vaccines rid the world of smallpox. Polio was on the way out - but that progress has been halted by the fantasists...

Well said. The Science (controlled by Big Pharma) can't be trusted as all the (covered up) UK deaths & injuries from vaccines prove. 1 in 38 British boys are now developing Autism & the Gov't won't investigate for obvious reasons or correctly attribute deaths to vaccines. Too many people in high places with links to the vaccine manufacteurers are worryingly in charge of the UK Immunisation programme. Read bit.ly/11cPouv and bit.ly/10LeIfB and bit.ly/13TStqC Our Grandson is going to be an unvaccinated child that doesn't have his immune system compromised by toxic and failing vaccines.

I find the universe a sufficiently fascinating thing to keep my imagination alive without needing to believe in anything supernatural.

marconi I am sure you are sincere in your practice. In 19th century there was quite an outbreak of "spiritualists" holding seances and claiming to contact the dead. I have no idea what modern practice involves. My concerns about preying on the vulnerable are more focussed on those who sell unproven pills, potions and so on, along with those who claim that positive thinking, diets etc can cure cancer and other serious diseases.
Lilygran I hope we are not drifting back. But the point of my blog is that we all have an imagination and a strong desire to explain the inexplicable or unfair. With less formal religious belief in our culture these days this finds other outlets. The sciences I know most about are those that deal with living things. Ones where you can conduct experiments or, if not, engage in systematic and meticulous observation. The outer reaches of theoretical physics, as mentioned in the article, seems to be a combination of imagination and very hard mathematics. Can't experiment on the origin of the universe or observe it. Gets a lot of publicity though doesn't it, compared to more mundane branches of science. But for the mass of people who work at less high profile science, there's not much metaphysics or philosophy involved. They might though use their imagination though, as in the team who worked out the structure of DNA - they had to imagine a double helix with 4 base pairs. Much more recently some scientists speculated that they could use DNA as an information storage medium. They proved they could do this by constructing some DNA that encoded the whole of Shakespeare's sonnets. Sent to speck of DNA where they correctly de-coded it.