This is an extension of my user page and should only be edited by me. Feel free to use this document's Talk page if you wish to comment. Any edits made by others than me will be reverted at the first opportunity.
Midgley has launched a campaign against me lately, and here are a few examples:
There are undoubtedly many more, and I have asked Midgley several times to extend the courtesy of notifying me when he lodges such complaints so that I can defend himself.
[9]
[10]
[11]
[12], which are all deleted on his talk page.
He also nominated this very page for deletion, as he felt it was all an "attack." Some choice quotes from his nomination:
Midgley has also included a number of ad hominem attacks on me in the past, such as:
I can certainly defend myself against these charges, but I think those interested in this dispute should understand what our disagreement is about.
Now, I'm not going to claim I'm completely blameless. But let's go through the contentious issue here:
Midgley has done a few things I disagree with. It started out on February 1st, 2006 at 19:08 hours when he blanked out an entire section of Thimerosal [14] and buried it in a recently created article [15] called Anti-vaccinationists. The burial is evident here: [16], where he labeled objections to one particular aspect of vaccinations as "attacks against a broad front." He claimed that the move followed a thoroughly discussed consensus on the talk page for Thimerosal, when in fact he proposed the move at 18:57 [17], a full 11 minutes before he went ahead and blanked and moved, and then to a different article than what he originally proposed.
I nominated the anti-vaccinationist article for deletion. The nomination attracted furious debate, and was prematurely closed after only four days. I still stand by the grounds for the nomination, and I believe subsequent events have vindicated me, but I respected the decision.
Midgley has made much of the fact that my google search came up with no hits for anti-vaccinationists. I'll confess that I probably misspelled the term in my search, but it's still not a widely spread term. I get 470 hits for "anti-vaccinationist" [18] and 945 for anti-vaccinationists [19], a number that gets reduced if you take out a) referrals to the article by Wolfe and Sharp; and b) mention of the historical movements that labelled themselves as anti-vaccinationists.
But, since I am an inclusionist by disposition, I have two additional and arguably more important objections to this article:
To be sure, critics of vaccination cover a wide range. Some, like whale.to, incorporate opposition to vaccination into a broader set of beliefs that I personally find a little zany. Others are questioning the claimed efficacy and safety of vaccinations by trying to document problems with such claims. And some are critical to specific aspects of vaccination but accept their general use. My view, which I've made repeatedly, is that parents should make an informed decision about vaccination, and that means understanding the state of the controversy. I have never sought to delete or discredit any opinions or fact that support vaccination. My original draft of Vaccine controversy summarizes the case for vaccination in its introduction [20], and I have consistently sought to maintain NPOV in it.
Now, it seems evident to me that Midgley believes that "anti-vaccinationist" activity (however he defines it) is of harm. Here we also disagree. I think that it is appropriate for people to continually question conventional wisdom of any matter, and certainly in the field of rapidly evolving medical science. If history is any guide, many of the medical treatments we take for granted today will be completely rejected within the next 100 years.
All I have asked for is that the article be labelled in a way that doesn't beg the question, and that the content conform to NPOV standards. I have made several proposals for accomplishing this [21] [22], but none have met with Midgley's favor [23].
I should note that Midgley hasn't made any specifics in these accusations to substantiate his case, so it's a little hard to know how he derives his opinions. Still, here are some of them, with comments:
This is an extension of my user page and should only be edited by me. Feel free to use this document's Talk page if you wish to comment. Any edits made by others than me will be reverted at the first opportunity.
Midgley has launched a campaign against me lately, and here are a few examples:
There are undoubtedly many more, and I have asked Midgley several times to extend the courtesy of notifying me when he lodges such complaints so that I can defend himself.
[9]
[10]
[11]
[12], which are all deleted on his talk page.
He also nominated this very page for deletion, as he felt it was all an "attack." Some choice quotes from his nomination:
Midgley has also included a number of ad hominem attacks on me in the past, such as:
I can certainly defend myself against these charges, but I think those interested in this dispute should understand what our disagreement is about.
Now, I'm not going to claim I'm completely blameless. But let's go through the contentious issue here:
Midgley has done a few things I disagree with. It started out on February 1st, 2006 at 19:08 hours when he blanked out an entire section of Thimerosal [14] and buried it in a recently created article [15] called Anti-vaccinationists. The burial is evident here: [16], where he labeled objections to one particular aspect of vaccinations as "attacks against a broad front." He claimed that the move followed a thoroughly discussed consensus on the talk page for Thimerosal, when in fact he proposed the move at 18:57 [17], a full 11 minutes before he went ahead and blanked and moved, and then to a different article than what he originally proposed.
I nominated the anti-vaccinationist article for deletion. The nomination attracted furious debate, and was prematurely closed after only four days. I still stand by the grounds for the nomination, and I believe subsequent events have vindicated me, but I respected the decision.
Midgley has made much of the fact that my google search came up with no hits for anti-vaccinationists. I'll confess that I probably misspelled the term in my search, but it's still not a widely spread term. I get 470 hits for "anti-vaccinationist" [18] and 945 for anti-vaccinationists [19], a number that gets reduced if you take out a) referrals to the article by Wolfe and Sharp; and b) mention of the historical movements that labelled themselves as anti-vaccinationists.
But, since I am an inclusionist by disposition, I have two additional and arguably more important objections to this article:
To be sure, critics of vaccination cover a wide range. Some, like whale.to, incorporate opposition to vaccination into a broader set of beliefs that I personally find a little zany. Others are questioning the claimed efficacy and safety of vaccinations by trying to document problems with such claims. And some are critical to specific aspects of vaccination but accept their general use. My view, which I've made repeatedly, is that parents should make an informed decision about vaccination, and that means understanding the state of the controversy. I have never sought to delete or discredit any opinions or fact that support vaccination. My original draft of Vaccine controversy summarizes the case for vaccination in its introduction [20], and I have consistently sought to maintain NPOV in it.
Now, it seems evident to me that Midgley believes that "anti-vaccinationist" activity (however he defines it) is of harm. Here we also disagree. I think that it is appropriate for people to continually question conventional wisdom of any matter, and certainly in the field of rapidly evolving medical science. If history is any guide, many of the medical treatments we take for granted today will be completely rejected within the next 100 years.
All I have asked for is that the article be labelled in a way that doesn't beg the question, and that the content conform to NPOV standards. I have made several proposals for accomplishing this [21] [22], but none have met with Midgley's favor [23].
I should note that Midgley hasn't made any specifics in these accusations to substantiate his case, so it's a little hard to know how he derives his opinions. Still, here are some of them, with comments: