Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nunc ut sapien. Nunc non massa. Sed venenatis. Vivamus pede dolor, vehicula non, laoreet et, dapibus non, est. Etiam tempus justo a lacus. Vestibulum lectus purus, aliquet vel, bibendum pellentesque, commodo eu, nisi.
Seeing as Georgian-era medical literature isn’t exactly my wheelhouse, I’d be unable to provide much in the way of a decent review; however, seeing as this is a text for my Mosiac/IH class I’d be remiss to not summarize the key terms and themes in the text.
A few key terms before we start:
varialiation – Intentional exposure to a disease, usually a “tamer” strain, but the same. This was done in Jenner’s time (mid 18th century) with smallpox infections that were seen as more survivable. After Jenner’s work, in the 19th century, Parliament outlawed the practice.
vaccination – Using an (sometimes partially) inactive or similar disease (of less virulence) to train the immune system to prevent future symptoms occuring from an disease. The root of the term, vacca-, means cow in Latin.
inoculation – The process of exposure, either via varialiation, or the less-deadly vaccination.
In a nutshell:
The text describes Jenner testing his theory of smallpox exposure using varialation, or intentional exposure, to a variety of men, women, and children. Jenner also tries to trace the roots of the smallpox from an infection suffered from horses’ joints (called “the grease”); The roots of the disease aren’t from horses. Jenner shows after a large amount of infections of cowpox and then exposing these people to smallpox that none of his patients become infected with the dreaded disease.
In horrifically-reductionist terms: cowpox and smallpox are similar enough that after infection of the first, the body’s immune system is prepared to protect a person against the other. This is because of the specialized nature of what is called “killer T” cells.
Smallpox has over 200 proteins, versus less than 10 for measles, for instance. Thanks Paul Offit!
Themes:
Jenner’s ethics. Did he break the hippocratic oath? Some subjects were his own children, and his earlier believers.
Man’s place in the animal kingdom. Since man is at the top of the animal kingdom, is he sullying himself by using cow matter inside his body? (somehow hamburgers didn’t count)
Would Jenny McCarthy say that cowpox called her son’s demonic possession if she was born some 300 years earlier?
As part of a micro-site I’m working on (I seem to be quite afflicted by the micro-site bug since I updated my “talk”), I’m reading and reviewing a book every week this semester – on top of coursework. This isn’t because I dislike myself, contrary to common sense.
As I was on my way to a literature class, clutching a copy of Jenner’s 18th century work on the vaccination against smallpox in my hot little hands, I happened by a little student-ran book sale. Seeing this book popping from 3 year old organic chemistry books was quite a surprise, although not an unwelcome one at all.
After hearing the excellent Skeptoid podcast on the subject, I decided to determine if any ambiguity remains about this issue. And the answer, unsurprisingly, is no. The podcast uses Offit’s work pretty heavily in order to describe the landscape of “alternative medicine” treatments that parents have bankrupted themselves, including an anecdote about parents who were encouraged to take out a second mortgage to finance a hypobaric chamber for their autistic child to sleep in.
As my literature professor said at the beginning of class when we covered the material about vaccination (more on that soon), he said that there exists a controversy surrounding the sharp rise in autism in the US and UK in the last two decades; some blame the preservatives in the MMR vaccine. The link between the two becomes increasingly-inplausable as the book goes through the argument (read: not debate) since its inception with Wakefield (a now-unlicenced doctor from the United Kingdom).
A humorously-partisan clip regarding his “science”:
The book describes the increasingly-unprovable, wildly made theories about a link between preservatives in vaccinations (specifically the MMR), culminating with Jenny Mcarthy’s battle cry:
“My son is my science.”
I’m alright with the idea that modern medicine is like half guesswork, and largely not as effective as advertised, on the other hand, though, magic seems to work even less. The cottage industry surrounding autism, the descriptions of the increasingly-amatuerish pseudoscience developed for trial lawyers, and the incredible amount of flak that Offit himself received at the hands of his detractors are worth the price of admission – I’d suggest the podcast first, to make sure its not enough (as it would be for most people).
As part of a micro-site I’m working on (I seem to be quite afflicted by the micro-site bug since I updated my “talk”), I’m reading and reviewing a book every week this semester – on top of coursework. This isn’t because I dislike myself, contrary to common sense.
The God Delusion is a shiny-ass book, and what isn’t shiny is orange. Package design isn’t my forte, however, the impression that I got from this was “I’m a book who will do everything I can do to get people asking you if you are an atheist.” I am, but that’s beyond the point. Besides the notion that this book will do equally well as being a more nondescript volume, I find it an interesting thought. I’m nit picking, and this isn’t an accident – the book itself gives me impressions that are minor in nature. Thankfully, the ideas aren’t nearly as style-over-substance.
I’d like to start with that many of these ideas aren’t exactly new or novel, but the approach that Dawkins employs can’t be fairly be called “barely disguised misanthropy” like his fellow atheist-in-arms Hitchens (who was only quoted once, in “the Delusion,” to my knowledge). Some of the child abuse rhetoric Dawkins applies may be a little over-the-top, especially in the context in American children, who are lightyears ahead of even his generation when it comes to the wise application of bullshit filters. Regardless, the point is (admittedly belaboring to make) that overall, the handling of religion is fair, that is, without kid gloves (or worse, with the (bullshit) multiculturalist) or a predisposition to blame religion. All of the attacks, in the English way of using passive voice without seeming to, are backed by personal stories that Dawkins surely had straining the back of his mailman.
In the end, I’d recommend this book as a way to provide others with an easy to understand, relatable, and yes, even spiritually-fullfilling introduction to atheism. True believers aren’t going to change their minds, or else they wouldn’t be true believers, would they? The messages to agnostics and parents are where Dawkins is at his best, in my mind.
As this is the flying-car century, I find it important to figure out how exactly we ended up “here,” or at least in our hearts and heads. As any responsible person would do, I googled it.
Since I purchased a Macbook Pro in 2007, I’ve had quite the love affair with my Apple machine. Like any interesting love affairs, its been an abusive one, to be sure, but since I’ve been on winter break, I’ve felt the PC love again. Maybe it is because my laptop lies dormant on my desk while I enjoy some much-deserved R&R playing Ogre Battle, or the joy of not having Opera crash every time I open Twitpic, of all programs.
Then, CES.
The 2010 Consumer Electronics Show, covered lavishly by my favorite blogs, Engadget and Gizmodo, does have its fair share of stupid peripherals, televisions that are larger than most of the walls in my house, and never-shipping mock-ups (I’m looking at you MSI, but much love later).
Alternatives to Apple supremacy everywhere gets challenged in the ever-quickening product life cycles of computing products. We have the lowest-hanging fruit in that the word this year is “slate” and Apple is going to maybe, probably or definitely ship one. Microsoft believed it, based on their keynote, and I’m left wondering how you tape two HP Windows 7 slates together to get the Courier magic to ignite.
Peripherals: Just because Magic Man was an awesome song doesn’t mean you need the mouse.
I thought about the quickly-aging Logitech MX Revolution mouse on my desk and was flirting with the idea of the Apple’s Magic Mouse. Then I saw the Mad Catz Cyber Rat mouse (MCCRM)[Engadget]. I wish every mouse in the world was made of metal and wasn’t wireless. Really.
[image via Engadget]
What I’m really finding appealing about the MCCRM, besides the industrial design of functionality, is that unless you happen to have ideal hands, mice can be a pain. I loathed my Bluetooth Mighty Mouse so much that I think I killed it with my mind. It simply wasn’t that good at the whole scrolling thing (a pretty common complaint). And it didn’t really fit my long-fingered hand very well, either. This lead to my palm dragging behind the mouse, reminiscent of the rant Martin Lawrence delivered in regards to impractical cars in Bad Boys.
All-In-One PC: The knee-jerk is to buy an iMac.
I got a call from a friend who was shopping for all-in-one computers that could also double as a TV. I almost started on the
“well the iMac does it but its a lot of work to get streaming working with your 360″ then remembered that MSI (I stopped hating you for the reference design that Averatec put out their awful 2100 on) announced the AE2420, a 24 inch beast that startes at $1200. Assuming that base model is packing an i5 and a decent GPU, he can expect similar performance to the 24″ iMac in my house that was about $1600.
[image via Gizmodo]
And, if the indications from earlier MSI all-in-ones are true, then you can expect HDMI input, in lieu of weirdo mini displayport (whatever the hell that is). I’m pretty miffed that Apple waited for LED backlighting for the iMac until this generation. Seriously, this is the future we should have flying cars, the least you can do is rid the world of the CCFL-backlit LCD display.
Any of my long-time followers (read: my girlfriend and mom) remember the talk I gave in 2008 about creative web work. Since I was already dusting off the rest of my site, I decided to give it a bit of a facelift and put it back where it’s always been (mydomain.com/talk.html) since I gave it.
Anyways, I hope to make another one pretty soon, when I am once again feeling good about apple-polishing and giving some sage advice to my peers.
