Comments on: Bravo to Salon.com for Taking Down RFK Jr. Vaccine-Autism Article

By: Pinko Punko

Pinko Punko — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 00:24:01 +0000

Keith is helpful with heaping of straw. One might note that throughout the blogosphere, “woo” is by far the most bi-partisan of all the “denialisms” and science-focused bloggers have no hesitation to prominently denounce the Huffington Post for its woo, Bill Maher and the rest. It is only on one side where we prominently see the trifecta of woo, AGW, and anti-evolution.

By: TTT

TTT — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 23:01:40 +0000

So does basically everybody on ScienceBlogs re: Maher.

By: Chris Mooney

Chris Mooney — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 21:49:59 +0000

oh. but see, I feel like I say “vaccine denier” all the time….

By: Keith Kloor

Keith Kloor — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 21:47:30 +0000

No surprise on my part, either. Just musing (in my post that I linked to, anyway) why liberals like Bill Maher and RFJ aren’t referred to as “deniers,” in the pure sense of the anti-science meaning that it supposedly connotes–be it denial of AGW, evolution, or vaccinations.

By: Lilian Nattel

Lilian Nattel — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 17:20:44 +0000

Good for Salon! They just rose another notch for me.

By: Chris Mooney

Chris Mooney — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 16:24:19 +0000

@2 no surprise to me that liberals can be deniers….

By: Keith Kloor

Keith Kloor — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 15:57:13 +0000

There’s always the Huffington Post, where celebrity and pseudoscience go hand in hand. And RFK has a perch there.

As I’ve argued here, liberals can be “deniers” too:

http://www.collide-a-scape.com/2010/11/24/when-liberals-are-deniers/

By: TTT

TTT — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 14:42:37 +0000

The case against a vaccine connection was already extremely strong in 2005, and they should have known better. We’re conditioned to say things like “it’s the thought that counts,” but in this case it’s the dead children who count more.

Speaking as a lifelong liberal, I find many other liberals show a strange and entirely undue deference–and sometimes downright admiration–to RFK Jr., and so are willing to indulge his quite nutty pseudoscience and conspiracy-mongering, even in mixed company. What’s really funny is that the opponents of liberal policies–chiefly the Fox News brand of pundit–doesn’t seem to have noticed this, as they wrongly accuse us of being in thrall to completely different overlords like George Soros, who actually has no interpersonal identity “clout” at all. I wish there had been an equivalent to “Climategate” years ago, but based on epidemiological facts and with Kennedy at the center, just to save otherwise useful thought leaders from following him off the credibility cliff.