good vaccination information?

[Ca Plane Pour Moi]

Yup, that's why I did say it's different in the UK; I wish we were paid to vaccinate our children! My mother would be quids in! Here we have to pay for many vaccinations and no money back. At least the "normal" ones are on the NHS.

But that's not helping the "informed vaccinationer" either - people may believe you vaccinate for the money. Which would NOT be an issue with me, but would be for some. If only people would sit down and discuss it all openly and then you could make an informed decision either way rather than pushing one side only - paying for vaccinations doesn't help either side in the slightest.

[BellyBelly]

It's like the democrats say, 'We're keeping the bastards honest.' Just like there is labour and liberal, one without the other would not be good for civilisation. If no-one puts this stuff out there, who will? And who will know what the choices are? What will the other side get away with?

[tenar]

It's like the democrats say, 'We're keeping the bastards honest.' Just like there is labour and liberal, one without the other would not be good for civilisation. If no-one puts this stuff out there, who will? And who will know what the choices are? What will the other side get away with?

Well I for one entirely agree with this. It is very important to be informed about multiple sides to any such decision.

My other opinion on the matter (and I'm certainly not afraid to state this one!) is that everyone should study more statistics at school. If people had a better understanding of risk and probability we would live more relaxed lives and we'd make better, better-informed choices about many of the things we do.

[BellyBelly]

The problem with wikipedia is that anyone can contribute. You or I could... it's not the most reliable form of information. I have contributed to it too and I know others who have.

[tenar]

Of course I've also contributed to wikipedia - I doubt there are any very internet-centered people (and most of us here are clearly that), who haven't

This is, in my opinion, the most powerful thing about it. Wrong information doesn't stay wrong for long. I believe it to be a very reliable source of information about science (which doesn't change very fast), less so about things like politics (do change fast), and even less so about things where you have subjective opinions, not actual facts and numbers. I'm a scientist by trade and I tell my students that a wikipedia article on the topic is a good enough reference for me, for something they want to write a short article for me on for an assignment question or whatever. That's how good I think the information is, for things in the physical sciences, at least.

In any case, any good wikipedia article (the ones that are not so good are nearly always flagged as such, or else they are very very new, certainly articles about things as well known as measles have been very thoroughly reviewed), will have an extensive list of references at the bottom, where one can check the source of the information. Wikipedia's brief is to be encylopedic, and to only present facts that can be verified elsewhere (eg papers on the research, or whatever suits that topic). So nothing should be there where the original source cannot also be checked for the details.

Someone did a study (I think it was published in Scientific American, but I might misremember the journal) where they sent articles from Wikipedia and from Britannica, on a range of scientific topics, to experts in the field. They found that the rate of errors in both encyclopedias was similar (can't remember which was worse). Wikipedia isn't perfect, but it's a pretty good source of information at least in some areas.