- "Skeptics believe that ALL vaccines are safe and effective (even if they've never been tested), that ALL people should be vaccinated, even against their will, and that there is NO LIMIT to the number of vaccines a person can be safely given."

I'm not aware of any skeptic who agrees with numbers one and three here. There are good public-health reasons for wanting all people who don't have contraindications to be vaccinated with safe and effective vaccines against contagious diseases.

- A good intro to immunization from the American Academy of Pediatrics. Here's the FAQ for starters.



- "Skeptics believe that many six-month-old infants need antidepressant drugs."

IMHO, the high levels of prescription of antidepressant drugs -- even for young children -- in our society is evidence of a serious problem. I'm not aware of any "skeptic" who advocates that these drugs be administered to six-month-olds, though of course there may be some.



- "Skeptics believe that the human body has no ability to defend itself against invading microorganisms ..."

I'm not aware of any "skeptic" who believes this as stated. The human body obviously normally has truly awesome abilities to repel infection, or none of us would survive more than a few hours. Primary immunodeficiency and acquired immunodeficiency are recognized, serious medical abnormalities. In cases where the immune system has trouble coping with infections, medical intervention of various sorts is often extremely beneficial.



- "Skeptics believe that pregnancy is a disease and childbirth is a medical crisis."

I'm not aware of any "skeptic" who believes the first part of this.

Pregnancy and childbirth in human beings are certainly events that often strongly benefit from high-quality medical care.



- "Skeptics believe that there is no such thing as human consciousness. They do not believe in the mind; only in the physical brain. In fact, skeptics believe that they themselves are mindless automatons who have no free will, no soul and no consciousness whatsoever."

I dunno. Consciousness continues to be an extremely mysterious phenomenon. I'm sure that you could find various "skeptics" who believe a wide variety of things about it. I think that most "skeptics" believe that there is nothing corresponding to the "soul" or supernatural "spirit", though I'm sure that there are exceptions.

I'm not aware of any sane person who consciously acts as though he or she has no free will.



- "Skeptics believe that DEAD foods have exactly the same nutritional properties as LIVING foods."

IMHO "dead foods" and "living foods" are not useful categories. Foods which contain high levels of beneficial nutrients and low levels of pathogens, toxic substances, and/or "risky" nutrients such as fats and sodium are healthier than the reverse.



- "Skeptics believe that water has no role in human health other than basic hydration. Water is inert, they say, and the water your toilet is identical to water from a natural spring (assuming the chemical composition is the same, anyway)."

Not entirely sure what "inert" means here. Two samples of water with identical chemical and bacteriological compositions are identical. At least some of the water in your toilet was very likely in a natural spring not too long ago. Some of the water in some natural springs was in somebody's toilet not too long ago. The water in many "pristine" natural springs is unsafe for human consumption, because it contains harmful pathogens or minerals such as heavy metals or alkali.



- "Skeptics believe that all the phytochemicals and nutrients found in ALL plants are inert, having absolutely no benefit whatsoever for human health."

Again, not sure what "inert" means here. I don't think that there is any sane person who believes that "all the ... nutrients found in all plants are inert, having absolutely no benefit whatsoever for human health" -- obviously enough, many food plants contain nutrients beneficial for human health. I'm not aware of any "skeptic" who believes that "all the phytochemicals ... found in all plants are inert (which is to say, I guess) having absolutely no benefit whatsoever for human health." Many medically-useful substances were originally discovered as phytochemicals, and are either still so derived or are now synthesized artificially, and I think that most "skeptics" are well aware of this.

For example, in his poem Storm, which has been called "a kind of anthem for the skeptical movement", "skeptic" Tim Minchin mentions that aspirin is a herbally-derived remedy.

"Earlier this year, Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) introduced legislation 'repealing the...[EPA’s] scientific finding that carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases are endangering human health and the environment.'

That's right, politicians voted to repeal a scientific finding.

It failed in the Senate. But if Republicans were to take control of the White House and Senate, the bill would undoubtedly become law. ...

'Once you allow the majority to define what science is, all kinds of possibilities open up,' says Arthur McCalla, professor of religious studies at Mount Saint Vincent University. 'When religiously inspired populism meets corporate power, things can get really bad.' ...

'It goes right back to those basic fundamentalist points. We say what science is. It doesn't matter what scientists say science is. We know what science is,' says McCalla. 'To what extent are today's Republicans doing the same thing, except instead of defending the Bible, they are also defending industry?'

Everyone has their own truth. Whichever rendition has the most powerful patron wins. “Facts” get made up about everything: science, abortion, the budget, and Iraq.

Arizona Republican Jon Kyl took to the Senate floor and claimed that abortion was 'well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does,' when the number was actually just 3 percent.

Caught in a lie, Kyl released a statement matter-of-factly explaining that his comment was 'not intended to be a factual statement.' Kyl, notes Stephen Colbert, simply 'rounded up to the nearest 90.' "

"The Tea Party and its allies had made it unacceptable to the GOP base to be anywhere except pandering to the anti-science crowd.

None of this would have surprised historian Richard Hofstadter, who won a Pulitzer in 1964 for his book Anti-Intellectualism in American Life. Starting with the colonies, Hofstadter shows how the vast underlying stratum of anti-elite, anti-reason, anti-science Americans has frequently erupted into political and cultural action. These are folks who never heard of the Enlightenment of the 18th century, and do not experience a lot of reason, logic or the empirical method in their daily lives. They live by "common sense", personal relationships and superstition. They have always been with us, and there are a lot of them."

Re discussion with "a group of young Christians, who had recently received graduate degrees in “creation biology” from a Christian university." --

"My son said that talking science with these "Christian scientists" was just like trying to explain the fundamentals of science to a group of pre-school children ....

... it quickly became clear that these Christians had no understanding of the difference between scientific theory, and simple mindless conjecture – and they maintained the argument, that the whole vast universe was simply created for mankind to live here on earth. None of them seemed to have any real conception, of just how large the universe actually is, or the fact that it's still expanding and growing even bigger with every second of every day. And when my son offered the fact that the universe is still expanding, as evidence supporting the fact that the universe started with a big bang – one of the Christians got up and screamed at my son: 'you can’t prove any of this,' and as the other Christians wildly applauded this Christians ignorant remark. My son then simply replied: 'and I can't prove anything to a rock either – but the fact is that no one would argue, whether or not a real rock is in fact a real rock, unless they also, have a rock for a brain.' "