Mike Adams – Pyromaniac in a Strawman Factory

(Unfortunately I didn’t invent that phrase.  I wish I had, but I didn’t.  It seems to fit Adams so well though.)

Mike Adams is going nuts.  (Possibly the word “going” is superfluous there – I’ll let you, gentle reader, decide.)  Following his meltdown after being disqualified from the “Shorty Awards” for cheating, he has just had another meltdown – this time about us evil skeptics - What 'skeptics' really believe about vaccines, medicine, consciousness and the universe.  This is a list he claims he pulled from various skeptic websites, although not one link is provided to show that any skeptic actually holds the positions he says we do.  It’s mostly a list of fairly obviously absurd straw man skeptic positions, plus a few actual skeptic positions that do actually make sense (eg we are opponents of homeopathy – well duh).

Here’s just one example of Adams’s idiocy:

Skeptics believe that ALL vaccines are safe and effective (even if they've never been tested), that ALL people should be vaccinated, even against their will, and that there is NO LIMIT to the number of vaccines a person can be safely given. So injecting all children with, for example, 900 vaccines all at the same time is believed to be perfectly safe and "good for your health."

Well, I don’t think I ever said that all vaccines are necessarily safe if they haven’t been tested, and I’ve certainly never been in favor of forced vaccinations against anyone’s will.  But the puzzling thing is the “900 vaccines all at the same time…” bit.  Why 900?  Where did that come from?  Why not round it up to 1,000 and be done with it?  In a rant that makes no sense, “900 vaccines” isn’t even wrong.

I’d go through the whole thing line by line, but fortunately I don’t have to because Tom Foss already did.  Read Tom’s line by line take down of Mike Adam’s rant on skeptics.  It’s a classic.

Addendum January 25:

We’ve certainly riled Adams up.  Today he has yet another post up about skeptics.  More hilarity ensues, although you should probably shield your irony detectors before reading it.

This article succeeded wildly in infuriating the "skeptics" across the 'net by simply reminding them what they believe.

No, we weren’t infuriated at all.  Astonished by the stupidity and number of blatant straw men, to be sure.  But most of us found it hilarious.

They then resorted to their same old dirty tricks to attack me by doing things like joining our Facebook page then posting a message that says, "That article made me so mad, I'm quitting this forum!"

That’s pretty funny because, as you’ll read in a comment below, Tom Foss tried to leave a comment at Adams’s site, but Adams deleted it.  That’s how confident Adams is in what he’s writing – no one is allowed to criticize Mike Adams.  And if you do it's a dirty trick!

Here’s where you’ll need to shield your irony meter:

They also tend to jump to false conclusions about what people are really saying. In my previous article, for example, I never stated whether I believed in God, or whether I was an athiest (sic), or whether I followed organized religion and yet people read the article and they leaped to conclusions, assuming I was promoting organized religion, for example, or that I was condemning atheism.

Actually I never stated my position on those matters in the article at all, but the skeptics leaped to the conclusion that I did. This speaks to their tendency to warp all incoming information and restructure it to conform to the beliefs they already carry about the subject at hand.

Yes, Adams is annoyed because he thinks skeptics have misrepresented his positions.  Because, you see, misrepresenting an opponent’s position is something Mike Adams would never do.

Steven Novella also responded today: Mike Adams Takes On “Skeptics”

As did Orac: A pyromaniac in a field of straw man or a black hole of burning stupid incinerating every straw man in the universe? Mike Adams attacks skepticism

Comments

[pendens proditor]

I'm simply shocked that this person actually exists.

I couldn't come up with a caricature of a woo that's as absurd as this guy if I tried my hardest.

[Tom Foss]

Well, it's no Uncommon Descent, but I've been banned from NaturalNews, and my honest-but-negative comment was deleted. Why allow people to rate posts if you're just going to delete the negative ratings?

[Valhar2000]

To ave your ego massaged on a regular basis, Tom: that0s why you would do it.

These people are unbelieveably petty.

[Larian LeQuella]

Maybe he's confusing the number of antigens contained in a vaccine schedule? Something I have on my web page for fighting the anti-vax pro-disease nutters: http://factsnotfantasy.com/vaccines.html

* Something for people concerned about overwhelming the immune system, take into account that in 1985, doctors vaccinated for seven diseases using 3,000 antigens. Today, health care providers can vaccinate against 16 diseases using only 200 antigens.

[Big Al]

I am relying on fallible memory here, so please feel free to correct me or post a reference: I seem to remember reading that some scientist proved that it would take 10,000 simultaneous or serially-delivered vaccinations to overwhelm a child's immune system.

If my memory is correct, then bring on your 900 vaccines, woomeister.

[Big Al]

My FSM... I followed the link and read through this guy's downright dangerous twaddle.

I feel dirty and sullied now... this guy is frighteningly idiotic. The damage he could cause to the vulnerable is immense.

[Bronze Dog]

Big Al, on the 10,000 number, my memory says that was how much an infant could take in terms of antigen load, since they're exposed to millions of antigens just by the act of living in a non-sterile environment, and they can take it.

[Chris]

Big Al, here is the paper: Addressing Parents’ Concerns: Do Multiple Vaccines Overwhelm or Weaken the Infant’s Immune System?

[Big Al]

Sorry, Dog, but one of the conclusions of the paper Chris cited seems to tally with my memory of it:

then each infant would have the theoretical capacity to respond to about 10,000 vaccines at any one time

The paper estimates the max antigen count as in the range 10^7 to 10^11 - allowing a minimum of 1000 antigens for each one of those 10^4 vaccines!

[Big Al]

Sorry, make that 10^9 minimum - a cool 100,000 antigens per shot.

[Bronze Dog]

Okay. You win. :)