Why I Changed My Mind - Waney Squier

This isn't an easy subject to bring up, since it has a personal impact. Actually I was not directly affected, but was at the edges of a situation involving the topic here.

World-renowned doctor, Waney Squier, tells Dominic Lawson the price she paid for changing her mind about shaken-baby syndrome.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bf67lw

Even for those unaffected, it is still a disturbing area, involving family tragedy and pain, as well as pointing to possibly much broader problems in the workings of the criminal justice and medical/scientific establishments.

May not be available outside the UK - message me if that's a problem.

This interview was typical of those who oppose the mainstream view, whistleblowers etc. I’ve just listened to the audiobook written by Andrew Wakefield, the Doctor behind the autism controversy, it was interesting and quite disturbing.

I wanted to write more but the software makes it so difficult to do so using an IPad (gets so like I’m typing in treacle!) so I’ve changed to Tapatalk which uses different software.

Listening to people like this lady or Andrew Wakefield, or individuals like John Kiriakou or Stuart Murray has shown me that going against the mainstream is not good for one’s health. Alex was so right when he says ‘facts don’t matter’ which is so ironic, when the loudest voices who that oppose such individuals are often those who champion science and hold it up like a sacred torch. They are frequently arrogant.

It is scary. It really is. A Facebook friend recently put up a comment to his own post which was about deaths from measles in Europe, suggesting that ‘parents should be charged with manslaughter if they didn’t have their child immunised and they subsequently catch measles and it proves fatal’.

This is from a man that has worked for the BBC and may still do, as a Technology Reporter, in any event he’s a voice of the mainstream. I just know that he is unmovable on this topic, his mind is made up. Anyone who even asks questions challenging his thinking will run the threat of being ridiculed as an idiot or worse. He recently unfollowed me with this parting volley ‘trying to explain things to me was like trying to describe string theory to a rodent’. I accept that I’m not able to understand some complicated things very well, string theory among them, but the thing was, I understood very well what his viewpoint was, it revealed much about his bias and dogma and wasn’t complicated at all. He was simply frustrated with my disagreeing with him.

Now I’m not saying that he’s wrong in his general attitude to vaccines, but he’s definitely wrong with his certainty about it being ‘definitely sorted’. Like climate change is definitely sorted, or ‘the supernatural’ or the ufo question, and many others. If I, like my unfortunate friends, really believed that the MMR vaccine had caused autism in my child, then my mainstream ‘definitely sorted’ friend might well find an equally determined, hard arsed opinion to oppose him. And who can say with 100% certainty that ‘they’re right’. Especially when evidence that whistleblowers’ and those opposing the mainstream ‘thinking’ - as opposed to objective factual evidence - may itself be highly dubious on the mainstream side.

This is a major, perhaps fatal, flaw in the 21st century that we are wilfully ignoring. It’s a tricky one to solve. The revealing thing is that my Facebook ‘pal’ is a decent guy, but his dogmatic view of science turns him into someone who’s stopped listening. A religious extremist would not be any different. That’s what’s scary.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Maybe there's a preference for things to be clearly-defined as for example a square or a triangle in geometry. We can all reach common understanding and agreement on what we mean in that case. But many issues are nuanced, and have many shades, not stretching all the way from right to wrong, but stretching all the way from right to right. The hardest thing to grasp is that seemingly contradictory positions can each have merit, simultaneously.

In purely technical matters, such as wave-particle duality, that's all well and good. But when it comes down to the way things impact real lives, it seems that what is often missing is compassion. It's all very well to make lofty pronouncements, but at the end of the day, a little care may be what is really needed.

Maybe there's a preference for things to be clearly-defined as for example a square or a triangle in geometry. We can all reach common understanding and agreement on what we mean in that case. But many issues are nuanced, and have many shades, not stretching all the way from right to wrong, but stretching all the way from right to right. The hardest thing to grasp is that seemingly contradictory positions can each have merit, simultaneously.

In purely technical matters, such as wave-particle duality, that's all well and good. But when it comes down to the way things impact real lives, it seems that what is often missing is compassion. It's all very well to make lofty pronouncements, but at the end of the day, a little care may be what is really needed.

After reading this, I asking myself: Why am I the one that’s written two books? 

Nice Typoz, nice. 

After reading this, I asking myself: Why am I the one that’s written two books? 

Nice Typoz, nice. 

You mean I should pick up my quill and start putting some ink on paper myself?

Seriously, I've been trying to meditate a bit more recently. It isn't anything highly advanced, just making some time to stop being 'busy'. It helps.

You mean I should pick up my quill and start putting some ink on paper myself?

Seriously, I've been trying to meditate a bit more recently. It isn't anything highly advanced, just making some time to stop being 'busy'. It helps.

If that post is an example of how well you are able to express some opinions so beautifully and efficiently, I think you definitely should.

My own writing is rarely if ever able to cut to the chase so effortlessly.

If that post is an example of how well you are able to express some opinions so beautifully and efficiently, I think you definitely should.

My own writing is rarely if ever able to cut to the chase so effortlessly.

Thanks, though I think you do yourself an injustice.

Now Typoz, about that money you said you’d loan me.