EXCELLENT POINT! It is his career. I cannot find anything else that he recently or currently has in print. This question begs an answer:

WHO IS PAYING DAVID KIRBY???

I see the same habit of mind in politicians. When confronted with a problem, the automatic action is to do something.

Unfortunately, they often leap to “doing something” without a clear understanding of the problem or the likely effects of what they plan to “do”.

This sort of thinking is behind the rush to blame “something” (or better yet, someone, preferably someone with a lot of money) for the “autism epidemic” without first determining [a] if there is an autism epidemic (which is currently a matter of dogma with most “autism advocacy” groups) and [b] if the “something” actually causes autism.

I don’t mind a bunch of people running around like lemmings screaming “the sky is falling”, but it does disturb me that these people – through their politicians – are directing research funding and legislation at “causes” of autism that are being shown – one study at a time – to be wrong.

The problem is that legislation – including research policies and funding “earmarks” – is very hard to change. Once Congress or Parliment decide that mercury or vaccines or alien mind-control devices cause autism, it will be very hard to do any meaningful (i.e. well-funded) research into the real cause(s) and treatments of autism.

Prometheus

For those who don’t remember the story, the basic plot is:

[1] An acorn hits Chicken Little (or Chicken Licken, in my old version) on the head.

[2] He thinks that the sky is falling and runs around telling his friends and neighbors.

[3] Foxy Loxy takes advantage of the panic to entrap a number of Chicken Little’s friends with intent to ingest them.

[4] There are a number of variations on the ending, some “happy” and others decidedly carnivorous.

You see, this is exactly what’s happening! Various uninformed or obsessed people have mis-interpreted the data (e.g. acorn for sky falling) and are running around drumming up panic in a (for the most part) well-meaning attempt to goad them into action.

Meanwhile, other less scrupulous persons are taking advantage of the panic in order to make money or gain political influence.

The ending of this story is in the future. I suppose it is our actions that will determine whether that ending will be happy or not.

Prometheus

Do please understand, Todd, that disagreeing with roundly discredited hypotheses does not mean that anyone isn’t interested in hypotheses that remain potentially valid.

What if the sky isn’t falling? Wouldn’t that be a better explanation for the number of people – and people with the education, training and experience to know – say that “the sky isn’t falling”?

Or does it make more sense that a handful of “maverick” doctors and scientists – not to mention journalists with no discernible skill in the sciences – are right and everybody else is wrong?

Some people just aren’t happy unless there’s a conspiracy to denounce.

Todd is also using a “straw man” argument – I seriously doubt that when the editors of The Washington Post wrote “Too little is known about the nature of autism to blame any factor.”, that they were advocating a halt to any research into autism.

However, if the Chicken Littles of the world manage to convince Congress that vaccines are the cause of autism, then we can expect research into the real cause(s) of autism will be severely curtailed – due to lack of funding. After all, why keep looking for “the answer” when you already have it?

Fortunately, the real autism researchers haven’t bought into the “received knowledge” of vaccines-cause-autism and are still looking for the cause(s) and treatments.

Prometheus

One nice juicy fallacy of thought for him to wriggle out of, if he knows that VICP plaintiffs are responsible for outlining their theory of damage, then why oh why state “It was a tantalizing admission but did little to explain just how the vaccines had aggravated the disorder or caused autism.” when as a VICP observer he already knows it was the job of her care and legal team to get this explanation/theory on the table?

Perhaps he should consider how lucky they were just to get the testing done (by Repondents?) that her original care team had overlooked.