On Immunity: An Inoculation

What is immunization, and what is its outcomes? A question that Eula Biss asked when she became pregnant. For it's a mother's task to protect her children in anyway possible. At the time, vaccinations were looked down upon in society because of the autism scare. It was believed that if you vaccinate your children, that they would eventually develop some sort of form of autism. Which if you look toward the scientific facts, this is unlikely. If it were to occur, the chances of a child developing autism is like one in a million. Which Mrs. Biss explains within the chapters of her book On Immunity: An Inoculation.

Mrs. Biss brings up three unique points about the body in her book. There's the individual's body, the community as a body, and the body of knowledge. Each body has the capability of being affected by a virus. Individual bodies can carry and be affected by viral infections like Influenza and other diseases. The community as a whole can be affected by viruses as well. If one person doesn't vaccinate, it affects the whole community and will spread like wildfire. However, if everybody gets a vaccination, the chances of a virus spreading is lowered immensely. Then there is the body of knowledge, which can be plagued by misinformation. Misinformation is like a virus to the mind, it causes someone to not accept the facts. Such as the scare of children developing autism. Scientifically it's highly unlikely, but people are still doubtful of it being true.

Eula Biss put a lot of research into immunizations and vaccinations for her book. She isn't a scientist, but she puts a lot of source references within her book. You'll discover that immunization is where you strength your immune system by infecting it with a minor form of the virus you're trying to defend yourself against. In the old days before needle injected vaccines, immunizations were conducted by cutting the skin of an infected person, taking their blood, and placing it in a cut on a person you're trying to vaccinate. Vaccinations have advanced considerably since that time. Now you can be injected with a vaccine without any skin damage.

Are vaccinations good or bad? If you were to ask Mrs. Biss, she'll most likely respond by saying it's a good thing. Historically, some diseases have been wiped out from certain countries because of vaccinations. Polio for an example doesn't exist any more within the United States thanks to vaccinations. Polio still exists around the world, but it's in countries that don't accept vaccinations. In all, vaccinating helps the individual's body as well as the community as a whole. If you vaccinate, you're not going to spread a disease because your body knows how to defend against the disease you vaccinated against.

On Immunity: An Inoculation is a good and informational book. Covering many subjects dealing with the body and immunizations. It's written very well, and has good solid evidence to back it up. I would recommend this book to anybody interested in immunizations, science or how vaccinations work. I hope you read it, and enjoy it!

Began Reading: On Immunity

A while back I began reading On Immunity: An Inoculation by Eula Biss. I haven't finished the book yet, but I can say that what I have read so far is really good. I discovered this book from Bill Gates' Beach Reading (and More) list. I always find the books that Mr. Gates recommends to be very interesting, for he is a rather highly intelligent person. So I decided to buy the e-book for Kindle, which was about $9.99.

Biss is a very good writer. First reading the book, I was amazed at how well the it was written. At the begin you discover that Biss is a mother, and that she never really paid attention to vaccinations until she had her child. The book is based on her personal life about vaccinations backed by scientific discoveries and facts. It's really a unique way of telling how vaccinations work and why it's important. Sure, you can give all the facts you want about how vaccinations work in the human body, but a person can really relate to it if you actually tell a personal story. In which case, this is the story of how Eula Biss discovered the power of vaccinations with the inoculation of her son.

You learn about it as she learned about it. Her story is rather telling, and eye opening. Each page was just another marvelous discovery that she learned about to save her child from the diseases of the day - such as measles, small pox, chicken pox, polio, and more. It's a very good read, and at this moment, I give it a high rating. I'll do a full-blown review once I finish reading.

Undeniable

Nearly a year ago on February 4, 2014 there was a debate between two opposing figures – Bill Nye and Ken Ham. From that debate you would know that Bill Nye is a strong advocate for evolution, whereas Ken Ham is for intelligent design. It was a rather lengthy debate, with an eye opener near the end.  When asked what would change their minds, Ken Ham said nothing while Bill Nye said evidence. It would take evidence for Nye to accept intelligent design. Nothing will ever change Ham’s belief, even with evidence he would and is denying evolution. This debate is what inspired Nye to write Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation.

The Science Guy does a really good job at explaining what evolution is and how it works in a very simple and humorous way. He starts off by explaining his desire to learn about the world around him. Such as any knowledge-seeking individual would do. For Bill “it started with the bees.” His young curious mind wondering how bees operate and where they came from and how they came to be. Only later to explain how bees have evolved to be what they are today.

He will give you a little history lesson on the evolutionary theory. Such as stating that the concept of evolution can be traced back nearly thousands of years ago from Greek philosopher Anaximander. Which Anaximander hypothesized that life began as fishlike creatures from the sea after observing some fossils. Following up to the recent discoveries conducted by Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace. Because of Darwin and Wallace we now fully understand the concept of evolution. That is why it is now the Theory of Evolution. In scientific terms a theory is a verifiable explanation of aspects of the natural world through peer-review and the scientific method. If you want to learn even more about evolution through the words of Darwin himself, pull up a chair, have a drink and read On the Origin of Species.

A good chunk of the book will discuss his experience with debating Creationist Ken Ham. If you haven’t seen the Ham-Nye Debate, I strongly recommend that you do. My personal favorite from both the debate and the book is when Bill Nye points out flaws with the Ark. The Ark would have to be massive to be able to hold two of each animal, especially when you consider how many different species of animals there are. It’s very eye opening when you consider that the Ark was built by a 500 year old man, perhaps unskilled in building ships. It takes many different types of engineers to build ships today. It just doesn’t add up how one man can build a gigantic wooden ship. When today it takes many people to build even a wooden ship and we have technology helping us.

Bill Nye did a superb job with this book. You’ll see many examples of evolution at work from reading each page. Periodically you will laugh from his jokes that just seem to appear out of nowhere. Near the end he covers some topics that some people might consider controversial – such as GMFs (Genetically Modified Foods), human cloning, and skin color just to name a few. He does it from the view of evolution. Evolution has a hand in all of these topics. Without it, none of this would be possible. Such as without gravity, you wouldn’t be sitting there reading this blog.

Bill Nye is the Science Guy. Well, actually he is a mechanical engineer. Like everything else, engineering requires science. Just like Nye, I too am a strong advocate for science. From science, we understand the world around us through an evolutionary standpoint. Please, realize that we didn’t actually come from monkeys. Bill Nye explained it rather well by stating that evolution is like a family tree. We all came from a common ancestor, and as the tree grows different species would branch out. From those species more would branch out, so on and so on.

So as an engineer myself and a fan of science, I strongly recommend that everybody pick up this book. Doesn’t matter if you already are in favor of evolution or a believer of creationism or intelligent design. It is a good read and witty at the same time. As you read, I hope you take some time after putting it down, to think about what you just read. Hopefully you’ll finish it with a better understanding about evolution.

[This Appeared on Learning Uncensored]