Geeky Bob

I've noticed that people who hate Electric Vehicles (EVs) absolutely love to share videos of EVs that have caught fire. For example:

While this video certainly illustrates an EV fire, it is also overshared by people who selfishly want to promote a story that EVs are more dangerous than gasoline powered vehicles, even though the actual data tells the opposite. Many articles have been written and several studies have been conducted about this subject, but most of these articles and studies are ignored by people who want to "do their own research," which is really just a sad excuse for looking for something that supports their preconceived biases.

So if you have an open mind, I'd suggest reading the following articles:

• MotorTrend: You're Wrong About EV Fires
• Popular Science: A new study has some surprising findings on car fires
• CleanTechnica: Actually, EVs Don't Catch On Fire As Frequently As Gas-Powered Cars Do

In the end, most people want to paint a picture that EVs are unsafe because they're angry about the government trying to force EVs on the general public when EVs still do not have feature parity with gasoline cars, and I get that. But sharing false or misrepresentative data isn't the answer.

Although having said that, I thought the following video was hilarious.

I stumbled across the following post from an antivaxxer on social media, which I thought warranted a response:

"90% of the 'food' in grocery stores today didn't exist 90 years ago. Guess what else? 90% of the diseases we face today didn't either. Think about that."

If this antivaxxer was only referring to food allergies, then I think - in a few situations - that they might have have a point. However, with regard to diseases, those numbers aren't just wrong, and they're not just dishonest, they're a complete fabrication.

Over the past century the combined scientific efforts from every corner of the globe have managed to completely eradicate or significantly reduce the impact of Smallpox, Measles, Polio, Rinderpest, Dracunculiasis, Tetanus, Yellow Fever, Helminthiasis, Schistosomiasis, Malaria, Hookworm, Rubella, Onchocerciasis, Typhoid Fever, Trypanosomiasis, Leprosy, Lymphatic Filariasis, Chagas Disease, Chicken Pox, Diphtheria, Haemophilus Influenza, Whooping Cough (Pertussis), Pneumococcal Disease (Streptococcus Pneumoniae), Yaws, etc.

Look, I get it - some people distrust science because they don't bother to learn about it. For most antivaxxers, "science" is what goes on behind closed doors and makes billionaires out of some truly awful people. But the majority of virologists, immunologists, and biologists are obsessed with making the world a better place, and as a result less babies are dying in infancy, more children are living to adulthood, and more people are living longer lives than at any point in human history. To infer otherwise does a tremendous injustice to the thousands of people in the scientific community who sacrificed their lives and talents to ensure that humanity is alive and well today so that antivaxxers can berate and belittle science from their ivory towers of unearned and undeserved health.

UPDATE: This post is one of several that I had written that I later discovered had never been set to "public."