What Causes Autism?

B B

BlueRon7

Well-Known Member
Joined
22 Nov 2009
Messages
290
I'm having this debate with a co-worker the other day.. Autism these days is getting more and more common to the point it's more common then diabetes and is heading towards being as common as Ashtma.

So what causes it? we still don't know, is it vaccines? is it natural occurrences? is it genetic?

I think most people fall on the spectrum somewhere, but only slightly. The ignorance is that everyone with Autism has to be non-vernal and sit in the corner, but that isn't the reality.
 
Oh it's definitely vaccines. Don't trust those statistians who have carefully gone over the data and have definitively ruled out vaccines as a cause - they're part of a huge world conspiracy. Trust me - it's vaccines - just ask the ultra knowedgeable Jenny McCarthy - she for sure knows - trust her far more than any professor.
============
Just sigh.

Why does this even come up. It's been fucking looked into. Vaccines don't cause autism.

If you don't believe this - you must believe that there's a world-wide conspiracy to conceal the fact that vaccines do contribute to autism - and moreover that otherwise trustworthy scientists have been bought off to lie.

For fucks sake.
===========
OtOH the evidence for autism being caused by vaccines is overwhelming. Let's listen to Jenny McCarthy - my son was vaccinated. And he developed autism. Case shut. It's clear that autism is caused by vaccination.

OtOH let's substitute "vaccination" with "breathing"

McCarthy - My son was breathing - and then he developed autism. Case shut - autism is caused by breathing!

This last claim makes actually more sense than the first claim since it's harder to disprove.
==============
Edit - this question raises an even more important point - how do we as a society know what's what?

Here's the simple answer - trust that the majority of people have the best interest of society in mind. So...

We should trust the experts in their field.

Scientists - who have no dog in any particular hunt - but who strive for truth.

Is this alone enough?

I think not.

A second requisite for knowing what's what is the ability to think critically.

Who opposes a particular view? Is the opposition partisan? Are the opponents of a view largely comprised of lay persons? Or are they knowledgeable in the field/scientists? If the later - were they paid? Are they respected by their piers? Are their views commonly shared?

Lack of critical thinking will rapidly lead you to believe that:
Vaccines cause autism.
Climate change is a hoax.
The telecommunication industry in the US is a competitive enterprise and market competition in this area benefits the US consumer.
Etc.
 
Last edited:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_autism

"vaccines have attracted much attention, as parents may first become aware of autistic symptoms in their child around the time of a routine vaccination, and parental concern about vaccines has led to a decreasing uptake of childhood immunizations and an increasing likelihood of measles outbreaks. However, there is overwhelming scientific evidence showing no causal association between the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism, and there is no scientific evidence that the vaccine preservative thiomersal causes autism"

Also, the perceived increase in cases should be attributed to better diagnostics.
 
Last edited:
I don't think it's becoming more common, I think it's just more recognised now. A kid growing up in the 80's would have just been labelled as a bit quiet, not very sociable whereas now that same kid will be diagnosed as on the spectrum.

Same reason you didn't see any metatarsal injuries in football in the 70's, it was just called a broken toe.
 
dickie davies said:
Imho the majority of cases it's vaccines
However the risk of autism compared to what a baby may contract by not being given the MMI is tiny
Click to expand...
Here's my advice to you - unless you're an expert in the field, trust those who are expert.

The experts have carefully studied this issue, conducting a detailed statistical evaluation, comparing those who where vaccinated against those who were not. The conclusion is, that with 99% confidence or higher, vaccines do not contribute towards autism.
=======
If you disbelieve the above, you assert that you're more knowledgeable than the experts in the field. The world academic community awaits your sage insights - please publish a paper detailing your thoughts on the matter.
 
Last edited:
CityInWashingtonState said:
Here's my advice to you - unless you're an expert in the field, trust those who are expert.

The experts have carefully studied this issue, conducting a detailed statistical evaluation, comparing those who where vaccinated against those who were not. The conclusion is, that with 99% confidence or higher, vaccines do not contribute towards autism.
=======
If you disbelieve the above, you assert that you're more knowledgeable than the experts in the field. The world academic community awaits your sage insights - please publish a paper detailing your thoughts on the matter.
Click to expand...

Have to applaud your composure :)
 
CityInWashingtonState said:
Here's my advice to you - unless you're an expert in the field, trust those who are expert.

The experts have carefully studied this issue, conducting a detailed statistical evaluation, comparing those who where vaccinated against those who were not. The conclusion is, that with 99% confidence or higher, vaccines do not contribute towards autism.
=======
If you disbelieve the above, you assert that you're more knowledgeable than the experts in the field. The world academic community awaits your sage insights - please publish a paper detailing your thoughts on the matter.
Click to expand...

So you're asking me, just a normal fella, to disprove all those health professionals and multi billion dollar drug companies!

I think the odds are slightly stacked against me
 
Jazzcat said:
Have to applaud your composure :)
Click to expand...
Touche! :-)

I get worked up on issues like this.

Unfortunately, in today's world, people are in a twitter echo-chamber.

No room for independent thought or reason on any issue - rather it's reinforcement about what one already believes.

And in this environment, facts, unfortunately don't matter at all. Rather it's all about sentiment - which to me is very troubling. At the extreme - unreasoning belief in some ideal wholly supported by faith but with no scientific backup whatsoever leads people to strap on bombs and kill one another.
 
chrishull said:
I don't think it's becoming more common, I think it's just more recognised now. A kid growing up in the 80's would have just been labelled as a bit quiet, not very sociable whereas now that same kid will be diagnosed as on the spectrum.

Same reason you didn't see any metatarsal injuries in football in the 70's, it was just called a broken toe.
Click to expand...
Is the right answer.
 
dickie davies said:
So you're asking me, just a normal fella, to disprove all those health professionals and multi billion dollar drug companies!

I think the odds are slightly stacked against me
Click to expand...
Here's a thought - why not apply critical thinking?

It's the only thing that you and I can do.

If you have trouble doing so let me suggest the following:
1) Whatever your viewpoint, gather the facts about the exact opposite point you hold;
2) Follow up on the opposition claims; are they reasonable? Are they backed by data? Are the results trustworthy?
3) Next, survey the scientific community at large. What do they believe?
4) Too lazy to do the above? I usually am. So what to do - go to a reputable publication willing to publish the facts wherever they might lie. Wall Street Journal. The Economist. These come to mind. Undoubtedly there are other sources.
5) Have an open mind on all issues - lacking this 1-4 will get you nowhere.
 
Last edited:
CityInWashingtonState said:
Touche! :-)

I get worked up on issues like this.

Unfortunately, in today's world, people are in a twitter echo-chamber.

No room for independent thought or reason on any issue - rather it's reinforcement about what one already believes.

And in this environment, facts, unfortunately don't matter at all. Rather it's all about sentiment - which to me is very troubling. At the extreme - unreasoning belief in some ideal wholly supported by faith but with no scientific backup whatsoever leads people to strap on bombs and kill one another.
Click to expand...

Well, you're a better than me, I usually resort to complete condescension in such cases.
To think we live in the Information Age, it really is a contradictio in terminis, if ever there was one.
 
Last edited:
CityInWashingtonState said:
Touche! :-)

I get worked up on issues like this.

Unfortunately, in today's world, people are in a twitter echo-chamber.

No room for independent thought or reason on any issue - rather it's reinforcement about what one already believes.

And in this environment, facts, unfortunately don't matter at all. Rather it's all about sentiment - which to me is very troubling. At the extreme - unreasoning belief in some ideal wholly supported by faith but with no scientific backup whatsoever leads people to strap on bombs and kill one another.
Click to expand...

You don't know me, so you've no idea how old I am or if my view on this is from social media or was formed 30+ years ago well before the age of Twitter
You also don't know anything about my family history

And with that, I will leave the thread
 
dickie davies said:
Imho the majority of cases it's vaccines
However the risk of autism compared to what a baby may contract by not being given the MMR is tiny
Click to expand...

little snapshot from this http://briandeer.com/mmr/lancet-summary.htm
Andrew Wakefield's role unmasked

But as journalists queued to report on parents' fears, Brian Deer was assigned to investigate the crisis, and unearthed a scandal of astounding proportions. He discovered that, far from being based on any findings, the public alarm had no scientific basis whatsoever. Rather, Wakefield had been secretly payrolled to create evidence against the shot and, while planning extraordinary business schemes meant to profit from the scare, he had concealed, misreported and changed information about the children to rig the results published in the journal.
 
dickie davies said:
You don't know me, so you've no idea how old I am or if my view on this is from social media or was formed 30+ years ago well before the age of Twitter
You also don't know anything about my family history

And with that, I will leave the thread
Click to expand...
Yes I don't know you.

And you don't know me - think you're older than I am? (You're probably not, though we may be of a similar age).

Think that age matters at all (It does not).

Nonetheless, my council for you to think critically and to form an unbiased opinion remains - who cares what I think!? Form an unbiased opinion of your own.

The fact that you've left this tread suggests that you're unwilling to think on your own.
=================
Here's a bit of personal background about me and unbiased opinions.

I was brought up ultra conservative. For the first 40 years of my life or so, liberal ideas were de-facto crazy.

At about the age of 40 or so, the first evidence of climate change caused by human emission of greenhouse gases emerged to the public.

Well, OK, maybe - I thought.

And then Michael Creighton spoke out against this issue. The science is shoddy - he claimed. Data was bad and inconsistent - historically, temperature data was inconsistently recorded and could not be relied upon. Climate change models were hugely speculative and could not be trusted.

Moreover, scientists couldn't even state with any certainty that CO2 was a greenhouse gas - maybe CO2 was neutral or even caused cooling.

Creighton - a layperson - eventually testified to the US Congress expressing his views.

Well, that booked it for me - climate change was a hoax.
==========
And yet - glaciers are obviously disappearing. And virtually every credible scientist not obviously connected to the oil industry states the same thing - climate change is caused largely if not soley due to human emmission of CO2.
==========
The clincher for me was a McLaughlan Group episode where the panelist from "The Ecconomist" made the following point - if climate change is a hoax, why is it that the vast majority of reputable climate scientists claim otherwise?
==========
Following this broadcast I changed my mind - I applied critical thinking to the issue.

It made no sense at all that climate change was a hoax unless I believed that the majority of climate scientists were either totally incompetent or were part of some huge global conspiracy.

That such brilliant people were incompetent or were part of a conspiracy makes no sense - ergo, climate change must be real.

Or at least, a lot of people who are a lot smarter than I am and who make it their life's business to study the climate believe that climate change is real - do I really have the hubris to argue with this?
==========
I suggest you do the same with regard to vaccinations.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Unread Posts

Don't have an account? Register now and see fewer ads!

SIGN UP
Back
Top