Kathleen Seidel, who writes at Neurodiversity.com, is well known for her careful, closely-reasoned work on disentangling the arguments behind vaccine-injury litigation. Her most recent article, A Whale of an Expert, delves deeply into the lies, distortions, and fantasies at Whale.to (warning: severe danger of cerebral apoptosis). From Seidel's article, I learned of Scopie's Law:
In any discussion involving science or medicine, citing Whale.to as a credible source loses you the argument immediately…
…and gets you laughed out of the room.
Kathleen explains why Scopie's Law has not yet been fully accepted by Wikipedia, and Orac follows up by proclaiming Save Scopie's Law!
A sarcastic and cutting, point-by-point refutation of a a piece of writing is referred to as "fisking" said article. One of Seidel's commenters proposes a new term:
[A] thorough, detailed, well-referenced, wholly comprehensive coverage of an issue should be known as “doing a Seidel”?
I'm for it.
I do not want to stir anyone to anger but these "alternative" views are very upsetting. The safety of children and the loving care of children are things I am willing to fight for. I have a family history of many of these neurological disorders and am very active with my family and community on education and support. I am trying to spread the word and raise awareness for Heal Sick Children www.healsickchildren.org: they're building a Neurological Research Center, in a effort to find a cure for Autism, Asperger's, Cerebral Palsy, Fragile X and the list goes on. I have faith in the broad medical community and the local community coming together with the solution.
Posted by: Christina | Monday, June 16, 2008 at 06:14 PM