Known and Unknown...

An Epidemic of Ignorance

Michael Shermer, WSJ

"Humans are pattern-seeking primates whose brains evolved to look for and find meaningful patterns in the noise and chaos of nature. When we connect A to B, this process is called learning. Sometimes A really is connected to B, and sometimes it is not. The only reliable way to know for sure is via the scientific method...

...One of the most nefarious anecdotal patterns in recent years has been a seeming connection between autism and vaccines...


...almost no medical researchers in the field agreed with Dr. Wakefield's findings and that health officials in the U.K. immediately denounced his recommendations...


...Dr. Wakefield's research is quite possibly one of the weakest studies ever published in the history of science. Just this week, a thorough study of the data by the British Medical Journal concluded that it was nothing less than an "elaborate fraud"—a conclusion supported by Mr. Mnookin's own debunking. As he carefully documents, autism existed long before the MMR vaccine was introduced, and hundreds of millions of children have received the MMR vaccine without developing any negative side effects whatsoever (let alone autism)...


...Dr. Wakefield received more than £400,000 to provide support for publicly funded lawsuits against the drug companies that make the vaccines...

...Rates of unvaccinated children in New York and Connecticut, for example, doubled between 2005 and 2010. In New Jersey, they rose by 800%...



...Mumps and measles are on the comeback trail, and if this medical mass hysteria is not checked soon we could face a terrible resurgence in these deadly diseases, which killed hundreds of millions of people before the invention of vaccines..."



[Bias warning:  I like Donald Rumsfeld...big fan.  Doesn't mean I agree with everything he does, did or believes, but I have great respect for him]

...Yesterday, Donald Rumsfeld was all over the place getting interviewed about his new book, Known and Unknown.  EVERY INTERVIEW I heard, from both the people on the Left, and from the Right, asked, "in hindsight....blah, blah, blah, blah." 

When you start your question (and your entire premise) off with 'in hindsight...' you should think twice about what comes next.  In hindsight, should we have stopped Hitler sooner?  In hindsight, should we have stopped Stalin too?  In hindsight, should we have dropped the atomic bombs...sooner?

[ This being said, I fall guilty to the same.  Slightly off subject - Am I the only one who meets people, and forms first impressions - that are totally off base?  Most of the time, usually with 'officials', people of high office, rank or position - I later think 'that guy was a clown.' In hindsight, I should have done X, and said Y.  ...and then I do it again, "nice to meet you (wow, you have lots of experience, you look very professional, you must be smarter than me...)" ]

NPR asked Rumsfeld if the "$3.1 trillion spent on the Iraq war was worth it?"  Really? Where did that money go?  Where did that money come from?  How much went to pay the salaries and benefits of United States military personnel, how much went to pay United States companies (yes, I know, the 'military industrial complex') for their products?  How much went to pay airlines and shipping companies to get stuff over there? Did we make bombs and bullets out of that paper money, and it burnt up - and now we are trillions poorer?

The wealth of a nation is not determined by how much paper money it has.  It is not determined by how much gold it has (ie in Fort Knox).  If it was, any country could just print more money and become rich.  And who really knows how much gold is in Fort Knox anyway?  The wealth of a nation is determined by the amount of goods and services it produces, and how much work it generates. 

If the idiots at NPR knew this, would they thank people like Rumsfeld?  They are certainly oblivious to Obama's spending - or thankful for it.

..."Former President Obama, in hindsight, was your proposed budget in early February 2011 a 'stick in the eye' of common sense, did you not see the 'writing on the wall'?" 

Why wait for hindsight?

(Rumsfeld is donating all profits from the book to Veterans groups. And just like Dick Cheney, he is advocating for the release of documents so people can judge for themselves on the 'facts' as we 'knew' them.)