Theodore Beale
oracknows | September 7, 2016Remember Vox Day?
Vox Day is the pseudonym used by a truly vile man named Theodore Beale. I first encountered him 11 years ago on the precursor to this blog, thanks to his antivaccine stylings and outright misogyny. Later, I learned the depths of his wingnuttery, such as his accepting pseudoscientific claims that vaccines cause sudden infant death syndrome, and several others. Hilariously, his anti-science rants are inevitably accompanied by smug posturing about how scientists are arrogant (pot, kettle, black) and how science is a corrupt system that is ideologically driven (talk about…
oracknows | December 29, 2015Vaccines and the antivaccine movement were in the news a lot in 2015. The year started out with a huge measles outbreak originating at Disneyland over the holidays last year and dominated news coverage in the early months of 2015. This outbreak had enormous consequences. It galvanized public opinion such that something I had never thought possible before, least of all in the hotbed of the antivaccine movement that is California, became possible. After a prolonged debate, the California legislature passed SB 277, a law that, beginning with the 2016-2017 school year, eliminated nonmedical…