Anti-vaccination instruction at Queen's needs review, students urge

5 posts / 0 new

Wed, 2015-02-04 22:31

Snuckles

Quote:
The teaching of Melody Torcolacci, a professor who allegedly promotes anti-vaccination views at Queen’s University, has prompted calls by a student group asking for her course information to be reviewed and fact-checked.

When students in Torcolacci’s first-year physical determinants of health class took a test Tuesday on vaccination materials, some took to social media to complain about how she cited a disproven study linking autism to vaccines.

Read it [url=http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/anti-vaccination-instruction-at-queen-s-ne....

Wed, 2015-02-04 22:59

Mr. Magoo

Some academics obediently and slavishly follow the superstition we call "science", while others are brave enough to follow Dr. Oz and Dr. McCarthy. One cannot serve two masters.

Thu, 2015-02-05 12:06

Winston

Mr. Magoo wrote:

Some academics obediently and slavishly follow the superstition we call "science", while others are brave enough to follow Dr. Oz and Dr. McCarthy. One cannot serve two masters.

It took me a minute to recognize the sarcasm in your post... Well played!

Sat, 2015-07-11 22:37

bekayne

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/u-of-t-one-step-closer-to-of...

Yet the review, conducted by U of T’s vice-president of research and innovation, Vivek Goel, concluded that, despite the fact that “many of the readings in the course are from secondary sources on the internet,” and while “the course could be enhanced by a greater reliance on the scholarly literature,” it could not “have reasonably been perceived to be unbalanced…in context.”

The “context” to which he refers is all the courses the students took thatweren’t chock full of pseudoscience. The students would, after all, have taken courses that didn’t attempt to explain why “meditation alone can … reduce the size of cancerous tumors,” and that vaccines are dangerous – in part, according to Ms. Landau-Halpern, because illnesses are what make children grow bigger.

“Normal childhood illnesses like measles and chicken pox are almost always followed by massive developmental spurts,” she wrote on the website for her homeopathic practice.

(I can only say that if I’d taught a completely absurd university course while being married to the dean of Scarborough campus – as is Ms. Landau-Halpern – I’d go a bit easier on the correlation-implies-causation stuff.)

Sun, 2015-07-12 18:07

Mr. Magoo

The good news is that if someone wants to pursue their Bachelor of Kookery (B.K.) degree they can choose between two of the most prestigious universities in Ontario.

Are you listening, McMaster? Can you get a "Science of Healing Crystals" minor into the calendar by Fall?