Skeptical Kiwi

"Ours are not beliefs. Ours are studies, facts, and science. Antivaxers have belief, just as delusional religious fanatics do because facts and reason are not on your side. All you have are delusions and misinformation." - Skeptical Kiwi. Why do I do this? My partner asked me this question the other day. Why do I find so much pleasure in "trolling" idiots on the internet? Well, the short answer is, I enjoy it and think it's necessary. The long answer, well, let's talk about that. I am a layman. I'm currently studying for a Bachelor of Science and hope to do more after that too. I currently enjoy all science really. I enjoy watching and reading about astrophysics and love Neil De Grasse Tyson and Brian Cox. I think though that learning Calculus and getting fully into physics is beyond me. I'll enjoy physics from a lay perspective I think. I thoroughly enjoy Biology and I'm good at it. My passion is vaccination. From the moment I found o...

Success What would happen to the road-toll if drink-driving became an individual choice? Vaccines are the greatest success of modern science, yet, they’re still an individual choice in New Zealand. They’re safe, effective and necessary for a healthy population. Vaccines eradicated smallpox (Koplow, 2003) and controlled polio, tetanus, measles, varicella, HPV and pertussis. Unimmunised children are a health risk to the entire community (Omer, Salmon, Orenstein, Dehart, & Halsey, 2009). Schools are environments where infectious diseases spread quickly, so a high coverage is needed to keep a population safe, known as herd immunity (Ministry of Health, 2017a; Fine, 1993). When the coverage drops, infectious diseases spread quickly and lead to outbreaks (Hayman, Marshall, French, & Carpenter, 2017). Unimmunised children should not be allowed to attend schools in New Zealand. Freedom of Choice The issue with mandating anything is that the government is then taking away...