45 Myths And Misconceptions That Some People Mistakenly Believe Are Actually True

They do the latter mainly

To be fair, "high IQ" means exactly nothing because it's been accepted for forty years that IQ tests are worthless as a general measure of intelligence. All they do is tell you whether or not you're good at IQ tests.

Agreed IQ tests don't capture all forms of intelligence and can vary with time and circumstance in the same individuals, but they are a fairly reliable indicator of reasoning/logic skills in the aggregate, anyway. They're poor for evaluating creativity and emotional intelligence and not great at capturing a true picture of general intelligence in disadvantaged individuals.

Not just disadvantaged individuals. Critics have been pointing out for a long time that IQ tests are culturally biased. They've also been shown to be negatively affected by lifestyle factors and mental health.

The value of IQ tests is that they measure general cognitive ability, which has been proven to be a fairly accurate indicator of intellectual potential.

Red, yes I agree that the engineer mindset may have something to do with it, but with my father he also had bad experiences with doctors that led him to distrust traditional medicine. He also was prone in general to believing in political conspiracy theories.

That would certainly add to it I imagine. If you don't mind my asking, did your father have an issue with anxiety in general? I've read that anxiety can also contribute, as it's more reassuring to believe that someone is pulling strings behind the scenes (even if the conspiracy theory itself is pretty scary) than to accept the messiness of humanity and politics, especially in democracies, which are inherently pretty messy.

Not any issues that he would admit. But when he was finally forced by health issues to go back to the doctor his blood pressure was always high...but JUST in the doctor's office. Nowhere else. It even has a name "White Coat" Hypertension and if you look it up it is caused by anxiety.There were other signs as well that he had anxiety issues, but he did a good job of hiding it as men of his generation were trained to do.

Yeah that's not surprising with his previous bad experiences. It's a shame so many people have felt they had to hide their anxiety issues since they'll manifest in one way or another. Could be they encouraged your dad's tendency to believe in conspiracy theories. But I'm sure he was just doing his best to deal with the world as we all are.

He didn't believe it. It was a cynical attempt to scare people out of using the MMR jab because he had financial interests in a competing product. That's why he was struck off by the BMA.

If he was trying to sell a competing vaccine, he wasn't an antivaxxer.

Dave, I clicked on the link and it came up just.fine for me.

This link, which presumably is meant to lead to the court's judgement: http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/CAMPBELLSMITH.%20DOE77082710.pdf

Not the link to CBS, Mary; the link on the CBS page to the court decision. The link-within-a-link, if you will. I appreciate I probably didn't elucidate that very well.

It did link to the court decision article for me. Perhaps there was some computer glitch when you tried it.

Maybe it's because I'm on a mobile. I've tried it multiple times and only ever got the 404 result.

Are you talking about that Wakefield paper? If so, you should read it before you write of it. He found nothing and said so in the paper. Every single point you've made is wrong. Just saying, as people write such rubbish about it.

Also, a simple search of "do vaccines cause autism" will give you countless scientific studies showing that they do not.

He didn't falsify evidence, he was struck off for not declaring financial matters (which the Lancet editors knew about and accepted when they looked at the matter in 2004). He recommended that concerned parents ask for the single vaccines that had been available for over a decade, and everything was fine until the single measles vaccine was withdrawn from sale ten months later. He didn't have shares in any vaccine that the MMR replaced. He had produced a treatment for children with gut problems that could be used to vaccinate them. It was not intended for general use and in the 12 years between the paper's publication and his trial by the General Medical Council, he made no attempt to manufacture or sell the treatment. He wrote in that paper (which was a case study - look it up) that he did NOT prove any link between "the syndrome described" and the MMR. He said it in an interview and he was wrong, but he wasn't evil. He really believed that a mixed vaccine with measles was a bad idea.

To everyone against vaccines: Some people have had concerns that ASD might be linked to the vaccines children receive, but studies have shown that there is no link between receiving vaccines and developing ASD. The National Academy of Medicine, formerly known as Institute of Medicine, reviewed the safety of 8 vaccines to children and adults. The review found that with rare exceptions, these vaccines are very safe. source: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/autism.html. Also 95 percent of people in the US are vaccinated, and only 2.21% of all people in the US, vaccinated and not vaccinated have autism. Do the math, 95 percent is more than 2 percent. Sources for statistics: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations_vacc-total-admin-rate-total and https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/features/adults-living-with-autism-spectrum-disorder.html#:~:text=An%20estimated%205%2C437%2C988%20(2.21%25),high%20of%202.42%25%20in%20Massachusetts.

I think when Steve said not, it was a typo

That's GREAT A'Tuin to you pal