Sunday School

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

Christians in the UK to celebrate begging their god to keep changing his plans for them.

Over 80% parents surveyed said they would be “uncomfortable” sending children to faith school in England.

At least seven faith leaders arrested at ICE facility protest.

State-imposed atheism in China undermines genuine freedom of conscience.

FFRF investigates ‘America 250’ partnership with Christian nationalist Sean Feucht.

Trump is trying to hide judicial nominations from the public to prevent proper vetting.

World of Woo:  Homeopathy for Rheumatological Disease.

Environment:  UN climate talks are built on consensus. That’s part of the problem.

String theory is mathematically elegant, but it has produced zero unique predictions.

Saturn’s icy moon may host a stable ocean fit for life.

Canada beats the USA to become the first country in the Americas to lose its measles elimination status.

Under RFK Jr., the CDC is scrutinizing the childhood vaccine schedule.

Long Reads:

A Texas church trains Christians to run for office. Now it may go national.

The surveillance empire that tracked world leaders and maybe even you!

Groupthink in science isn’t a problem; it’s a myth.

“Playing God” with De-Extinction of long-gone species.

How a neo-Nazi infiltrated so deep into the Republican Party.

I wanted to get rid of my possessions, because they stood between me and death.

Sunday Book Club: Flesh.

Some photographs taken last week.

While you are waiting for the kettle to boil……

Coffee Break Videos: The Religious Right is ignorant on purpose. Battle between Trump and universities hurting scientific research. Should we lie about religion if it is good for society? Inside a small town’s fight against a $1.2 billion AI Datacenter.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

Have a great week!

[StregaModerator]

Thanks Reg!!

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

Cheers Strega! Hope all is good with you!

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Reg,

Canada beats the USA to become the first country in the Americas to lose its measles elimination status.

This story prompts more questions than answers.

Why would Canada lose it’s elimination status for Measles before the U S.? Would it be because of Canada’s lower population and hence greater per capita infection?

And why would a nation with a supposedly superior Universal Single-Payer health care system have a problem with vaccinating it’s population against Measles?

And why would Mexico retain it’s elimination status for measles with a greater number of cases of Measles? Is this because of a greater population and hence lower per capita rate of infection?

And how many of the U S. cases of Measles spread from Mexico via unscreened illegal immigrants? After all, most of the U.S. States with the most Measles infections are closest to the porous Southern Border. South Carolina also has a sizeable population of labor from South of the Border too.

How great are Anti-Vax movements in each nation?

[PopeBeanieModerator]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

This story prompts more questions than answers.

I would start with the primary causes and facts, first.

The “R nought” factor for measles is estimated to be between 12 and 18, meaning on average in a fully susceptible population, an infected person will infect 12 to 18 other people. This leads to an estimate that a population’s vaccination rate of 95% is needed in order to attain “herd immunity”.

Measles cases are soaring around the world, as vaccination rates have been falling. From unicefusa.org. Anti-vax campaigns and/or unschooled, gullible minds are a primary cause.

I liken the infectability of a population to the dryness of a forest, and measles infections are lightning strikes and burning cigarettes thrown out of car windows into the forest. Of course other causes can exist as well, but all causes here are relatively random and unpredictable. Vaccinating everyone kept measles from spreading for decades, while knowing how to keep infected people (i.e. the “sparks”) in isolation would go a long way toward lowering R nought.

Did I not answer your questions? Oh, I didn’t! I would call them secondary to the main questions about R nought, the anti-vax movement, and flaws or laziness in human cognition. It is important to recognize how acute, area-specific epidemics are less predictable than we would like. In fact when epidemiologists and other disease specialists opinionate or predict too much, like what we saw during Covid, they too easily lose credibility… like what we saw during Covid.

Just as politicians should keep their mouth shut about science and medicine they don’t understand, so should the “real experts” refrain from pushing theories as facts, e.g. especially in podcasts and on TV, because of mass gullibility and/or stubborn ignorance of humankind.

• This reply was modified 3 weeks, 5 days ago by  PopeBeanie. Reason: typo fix

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

Did I not answer your questions? Oh, I didn’t! I would call them secondary to the main questions about R nought, the anti-vax movement, and flaws or laziness in human cognition.

@popebeanie – Yes, you are correct with the basics of ‘R Nought (12-18). But it does not explain why Canada lost elimination status before the US. But elimination status is not done on a per-capita basis, not importations and not the volume of cases.

Was there a period of 12 months or more of continuous endogenous transmission? If “Yes” then the country in question loses its elimination status.

Canada’s system covers everyone, and Universal healthcare makes vaccines free, but that does not stop misinformation from spreading online or bureaucratic incompetence in communications between provinces.

The WHO works on the transmission of measles during the year and not on the case count. So, it is irrelevant in both cases that Canada had fewer people or that Mexico had more cases. What matters is whether the outbreak became endemic. It is likely Mexico will lose elimination status too because of a continuous outbreak in Chihuahua.

CDC data for 2025 shows that 94% of US measles cases are acquired inside the US. Only 6% are importations. And of those 6%, 92% are unvaccinated US residents returning from abroad, not foreign nationals. The problem is the fuel, not the spark.

The anti-vax movements vary sharply by country.

In the US there is a highly organized anti-vax ecosystem that is politicized with echo chambers connected by large online misinformation pipelines. Yes, human gullibility exists but we can’t ignore the political and economic machinery  behind it.

In Canada hesitancy has grown but is less ideologically entrenched. It is more about post-COVID mistrust caused by the ”Freedom Convoy”  which led to large declines in MMR coverage. Thanks, Social Media!

In Mexico there are traditionally high MMR uptake rates. The problem here is not a similar warped ideology. It is more to do with breakdowns in the supply chain wand missed second doses. Yes, anti-vax sentiment exists but is far weaker than in Canada and the US.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Reg,

You got much closer to answering the questions, although PopeBeanie’s UNICEF link did also link to a Conversation article detailing the criteria for elimination status.

https://theconversation.com/canada-loses-its-official-measles-free-status-and-the-us-will-follow-soon-as-vaccination-rates-fall-269090

Thank you for clarifying that per capita infection does not determine elimination status.

CDC data for 2025 shows that 94% of US measles cases are acquired inside the US. Only 6% are importations. And of those 6%, 92% are unvaccinated US residents returning from abroad, not foreign nationals. The problem is the fuel, not the spark.

Thank you for clarifying that infections in the U.S. are mostly domestic. Any word on whether the infections from importations may be related to human or illegal drug trafficking? Although 6% is small, it could still make a dent in herd immunity.

Also, could Mexico’s broken supply chains for vaccine be related to struggles for control between the government and the Cartels?

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

There’s no evidence that a cartel vs government conflict is directly causing measles vaccine supply problems in Mexico. But cartel control of territory does indirectly make healthcare delivery harder in some regions. So the relationship is indirect and structural, not the main driver. Public-health workers sometimes avoid cartel-dominated areas. The biggest health problem Mexico faces is the control that the cartels wield. It affects all public-health efforts, from maternal care to tuberculosis screening.

There are also federal procurement failures. Mexico changed its purchasing rules in 2018–2019, cancelling long-standing contracts, switching tender rules, and trying to buy directly from international suppliers. This was a bit of a disaster but overall Mexico makes great efforts to eradicate it, despite the roadblocks.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

This is going to be a hugely successful album. Millions of plays already on Spotify. Not my usual scene but the musicianship is top class.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lux_(Rosal%C3%ADa_album)

 

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

Groupthink in science isn’t a problem; it’s a myth.

From my experience, if you want to convince a scientist of new ideas, they are often willing to listen, as long as you come with a convincing argument.  I find this is very different from politics or religion.

The enemy is where someone doesn’t like to admit they’re wrong or don’t know something.  A good scientist should say, thank you for proving me wrong.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

Personally, I disagree somewhat with the heading that “Groupthink in science isn’t a problem; it’s a myth.”

In principle, yes. In practice, Groupthink happens whenever careers, funding, prestige, or consensus incentives push people to ‘not rock the boat’. Science has mechanisms to counter this, but those mechanisms are imperfect.

Being human, scientists will carry the baggage of their own biases with them. New ideas aren’t only judged on merit; they’re judged on risk. Scientists can and do cling to pet theories.

Admitting error is the ideal but defending one’s career is the reality. The embarrassment cost is tiny, but the career costs can be enormous.

None of this undermines science as a method. But it would ring truer if the heading was “Science corrects groupthink eventually, not instantly”.

Science is a pathway to understanding, not a vault of final truths. Every scientific model is provisional. It stands until better evidence confirms it, refines it, or overturns it — and any of those outcomes counts as progress. What matters isn’t protecting a paradigm, but stress-testing it. Understanding evolves the same way biological evolution does: variation, selection, refinement. There’s no predetermined goal, just “let’s follow the evidence and see where it leads.”

A good model survives scrutiny, and a better model replaces it. Confirmation strengthens confidence while falsification strengthens knowledge.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

Scientists can and do cling to pet theories.

Admitting error is the ideal but defending one’s career is the reality. The embarrassment cost is tiny, but the career costs can be enormous.

There have been scientists who continue to push false and even harmful theories even after they’ve been completely discredited, seemingly because they love the acclaim.

But I think the reason people cling to pet theories is mostly that they think they’re right, and nobody has proved them wrong.  That’s very understandable.  Another reason is, fashion.  If you go against the fashion, people call you an idiot, full stop.  That’s kind of understandable as well, but it’s unscientific.  I guess people assume that the prevailing view must be correct, and “assume” makes an ass of u and me.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Lets call it group-think. Come on man.

Are scientists as vulnerable to that oh so human attribute? Probably not but it aint exactly inexistent.

The thing has never left me is how i would sit there in elementary school through some boring classes on how we homo sapiens were unique in the animal kingdom. Yeah BS i thought. We aint giving other animals their due. This is some special creation bs.
And then when i was 12 i read In the Shadow of Man by sweet lovable Jane Goodall. I think that was the title anyhow. And she recounted how the scientific establishment took a leak on her head and patted her as though she were an impressionable but ultimately stupid kid. Her observations regarding chimps and our consanguinity were i guess revolutionary. But to me it always made sense. If we are all evolved, if evolution aint a sham, then what else could we expect? Well not those group thinkers. They fed off each other.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Oh and i should adduce cuz what the deuce that Goodall herself was a theist. I was disappointed to learn of her blind spot. But there it was. And the leak on her head was a reference to Leakey. Not saying Richard Leakey had a big giant prostate and no matter how much he shook the last dribble ended up in his…

That was not autobiographical. Ok glen get back to the horses. Ya got some decent payoffs going…

[Author]

Posts