The other day, I was in Safeway—buying Diet Dr Pepper, naturally—when I heard the guy up ahead of me say something to his friends that I was positive I must have misheard. Specifically, what I heard him say was "and there's this really awesome parasitic wasp that drives its victims like cars." Now, I like parasitic wasps. I am, one might say, unduly fascinated by parasitic wasps. So I tend to assume that when I hear other people bring them up in conversation, I'm hearing them wrong.
I began shamelessly eavesdropping...and wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles, he was talking about insect parasitism! Yay! As the conversation swung toward blood flukes, I interjected to note that blood flukes were probably largely responsible for the evolution of gendered reproduction. He looked, in a word, delighted.
What followed was the largest, rowdiest, happiest discussion of parasite behavior I have ever been involved with outside of a group of my friends. All five of the people involved had read Parasite Rex, and parthenogentic reproduction came up, gleefully.
I think I may have met my male equivalent from a nearby parallel dimension.
Yes, I do. I know someone who works in autism research (real autism research) and one of my best friends is an evolutionary biologist who studies how environmental factors (like toxic loads, and for that matter, viruses, bacteria, and parasites which is what she was studying the last time I checked) influence human conditions like depression, autism, cystic fibrosis, and so on. Interestedly, but anecdotally of course, said person I know who works in autism research has a son with Aspergers. He was not vaccinated in a timely fashion, but not due to paranoia on the part of his parents--it was due to allergies he had, which required special vaccinations. He was eventually vaccinated, but it was only after he'd been diagnosed with Aspergers.
I think of her and her son when people bring up the whole correlation/causation problem with age of onset with autism and vaccinations. Just because children tend to start showing real signs of the condition at the age they are vaccinated doesn't mean the two relate. It's a logical fallacy.
geeky
June 30 2010, 23:28:09 UTC 7 years ago
I think of her and her son when people bring up the whole correlation/causation problem with age of onset with autism and vaccinations. Just because children tend to start showing real signs of the condition at the age they are vaccinated doesn't mean the two relate. It's a logical fallacy.
July 1 2010, 05:08:58 UTC 7 years ago