So, apparently Jenny McCarthy's kid never had autism in the first place

[Mick Houlahan]

OK, her kid's NOT autistic after all. Is he still a Crystal Child, and is McCarthy still an Indigo Mom?

 

[ShadowSot]

Randi's expertise is in magi tricks, which it just happens are the same stunts used by fraudsters to convince people they have supernatural abilities.

 

[crhkrebs]

.....as I try to distinguish her advice from, say, James Randi or Penn&Teller or Mythbusters who are also unqualified celebrities using their fame as a platform to promote unconventional scientific opinions.

False equivalency. Do you really consider them the same? How many people have died from Woo pedaled by Penn And Teller? Is Randi also considered "a menace to public health" by the CDC?

You also do not seem to understand the role that magicians play in the sceptical movement. And why.

 

[joesixpack]

I hadn't heard this until yesterday when I read it here. Now I'm seeing this story all over FB. It's almost 4 years old. Why did it suddenly go viral? And why not years ago?

 

[Axiom_Blade]

I hadn't heard this until yesterday when I read it here. Now I'm seeing this story all over FB. It's almost 4 years old. Why did it suddenly go viral? And why not years ago?

Somebody posted it to Reddit recently.

...As for why it caught on now, instead of the other dozen times somebody posted it to Reddit...who knows.

 

[joesixpack]

Somebody posted it to Reddit recently.

...As for why it caught on now, instead of the other dozen times somebody posted it to Reddit...who knows.

Well, it seems you've made this go viral.

Good work!

 

[rwguinn]

I guess I meant qualifications in science, which seems to be a lot of what they claim to be teaching.

Emgineering = applied SCIENCE

(Recent joke from Community: "I can't just stand up here and act funny and say I'm teaching. I'm not Mythbusters.")





So are P&T, which is my point... skeptics have our own Jenny McCarthys and a lack of insight about it.

I would point out that they are experts in stunts and special effects, not science.

BS: see above

But I can see how Mythbusters is on the edge, as most of their science claims are uncontroversial. I am perfectly willing to deduct them from the list based on that.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Can the Mods please cancel this thread?

Jenny McCarthy is setting the record straight. The View co-host has slammed reports that her son Evan, 11, doesn't have autism. On Friday, a rumor surfaced that the 41-year-old revealed that her only child is not autistic, even though she's publicly talked about his condition over the years.

http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity...1-year-old-son-evan-doesnt-have-autism-201441

My work here is done.

 

[joesixpack]

The story is getting weird.

 

[Cool Hand Luke]

He might have Munchausen's Autism by Proxy.

I do feel very bad for this child. I have a hard time believing that all of these "remedies" aren't causing him even more suffering.

The things people do "for" their kids . . . .

 

[Axiom_Blade]

He might have Munchausen's Autism by Proxy.

Oh, man, that's a sad thought.

I actually used to know a woman who I was pretty convinced had Munchausen's Syndrome. She was always regaling me about some new injury or disorder she'd developed. She did have a son, but she didn't become obsessed with his health, fortunately.

 

[Elizabeth I]

Woops, she still says he does have autism, and is "furious" about reports that he doesn't: http://www.foxnews.com/entertainmen...over-reports-that-her-son-doesnt-have-autism/

 

[thaiboxerken]

She wrong about vaccination either way.

 

[MattusMaximus]

Sadly, some people totally lose their reasoning ability when a pretty face and a nice set of mammery glands are involved......

That's oversimplifying the matter, and it's also kind of insulting to attractive women in general. I know a lot of attractive women with a pretty face and nice boobs who are way smarter than me.

The real issue is that she is someone with whom a lot of people (many of them mothers) can relate. She's attractive, well-spoken, and can connect with these mothers on an emotional level; and as we should know as skeptics, once the question becomes a competition between emotions and rationality, we as humans tend to go with the former.

The fact that she's 100% completely wrong about her anti-vax nonsense is irrelevant to many people who don't know any better. All they see is someone whom they trust, for the aforementioned reasons, and they make poor decisions based upon that trust.

That's why learning how to communicate on these issues is so important. Hence, the JREF's research on the matter, which you can download here.

 

[Estellea]

Aah but Jenny says she recovered or cured her son of the autisticooties: http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/the-false-prophets-of-autism/?_r=0

She never challenged the original opinion that her son more likely had Landau-Kleffner syndrome rather than autism so why now? I would love to see a legal challenge however as someone in her own circle did the same years ago, cough Andy Fakefield cough and it opened a Pandora's Box that was his ultimate demise.

He very well could have been misdiagnosed with an ASD so she's not lying on that account but that doesn't mean the diagnosis was correct and he doesn't have L-K or another seizure disorder which would initially present as an ASD. I feel sorry for the poor child having been made a poster child for "autism recovery" via horrible and dangerous "treatments" by his own mother and now being old enough to find all of her nonsense making what should be his private life very public.

Este

 

[Clayton Moore]

If Jenny was the devil and really wrong about vaccines ABC would not have hired her. Methinks ABC is hedging it's bets.

 

[JimOfAllTrades]

If Jenny was the devil and really wrong about vaccines ABC would not have hired her. Methinks ABC is hedging it's bets.

Please. The networks hire people based on their perceived ability to draw viewers. How right or wrong the network may think they are has nothing to do with it.

As long as they don’t directly endorse her opinions, and maybe issue a five second disclaimer, they’re in the clear and reap the benefit of any controversy in the form of more viewers, and hence more advertising money.

 

[blutoski]

The difference is that P&T have much better evidence (usually) to back themselves up.

That's not the way I see it, and that was my point. I think they collect the evidence that confirms their predetermined conclusions. This gets them into a situation when they conflict with the experts.

 

[blutoski]

Her advice is faulty far, far more often than any of the others you list to be completely wrong likely as a result of her not applying skeptical inquiry or valid reasoning, instead embracing many fallacies, while the rest use some combination of critical thinking, skeptical inquiry, scientific reasoning, and direct experimentation.

I doubt that. I'm pretty sure P&T just Google to find the studies they describe. Without knowing their methodology for study search, and criteria filtering, there's no certainty they're exercising critical thinking any more than McCarthy.

I know you're skeptical of skeptics but in a game of 'one of these things is not like the other' being incredibly wrong a lot should be an easy one to spot.

What I was mainly saying is that she's not the source of information, just a celebrity who is raising attention to dubious claims. Nobody 'cites' her that I'm aware of. They cite the information they found on the Internet when they Google.

Likewise P&T who opine on health issues... skeptics don't 'cite' them, they are simply drawing attention to a topic and skeptics for the most part are Googling by themselves.

So this is the similarity I was describing: none of these people are qualified to give medical advice, but for some reason we criticize McCarthy for overstepping her competence, but not P&T or Milloy even though they're pretty clearly doing exactly the same thing.

 

[joesixpack]

If Jenny was the devil and really wrong about vaccines ABC would not have hired her. Methinks ABC is hedging it's bets.

Is being hired by ABC the gold standard in establishing one's credibility? This is news to me. That puts Rosie O'Donnell and Whoopie Goldberg up there with Peter Jennings, I guess.