Over on Richard Dawkin's blog, Michael Shermer types an open letter to Bill Maher on vaccinations:
Vaccination is one of science’s greatest discoveries. It is with considerable irony, then, that as a full-throated opponent of the nonsense that calls itself Intelligent Design, your anti-vaccination stance makes you something of an anti-evolutionist. Since you have been so vocal in your defense of the theory of evolution, I implore you to be consistent in your support of the theory across all domains and to please reconsider your position on vaccinations. It was not unreasonable to be a vaccination skeptic in the 1880s, which the co-discovered of natural selectionAlfred Russel Wallacewas, but we’ve learned a lot over the past century. Evolution explains why vaccinations work. Please stop denying evolution in this special case.
Maybe Bill should invite Michael Specter on some time soon.