A few weeks ago we had a situation at school that made me think about the topic of defaults, i.e. should people be opted in or out by default.

When we filled in the paperwork to enrol our children in primary school there was a checkbox on the form to indicate your preference with regards to scripture class. Being atheists as we are we naturally ticked the option to have them not attend scripture.

At the intake interview a teacher checked through the paperwork with us and when they came to the scripture information quizzed us on the reason for our choice. I was somewhat offended by the question as it was my understanding that it is entirely our choice as to whether our children attend or not, I chose not to make a fuss and explained clearly that we are atheists and feel very strongly that scripture class is something we do not want our children exposed to. The teacher explained that she was only asking in case we were concerned about the denomination of the class, it was apparently a non-denominational class in case we were concerned.

This was a little over a year ago and in the intervening time we had made our wishes known verbally to the relevant members of staff, scripture class does not commence until the second year of primary school so we had put it on the mental back-burner.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago when our eldest son’s class started scripture lessons… Can you guess what is coming???

Against our strict written and verbal instructions our son was indeed sent to scripture class.

As you may imagine we were not happy to say the least.

At this point it is probably worth explaining the reason for our objections.

We are not against religion per se (well I am but my wife is far more moderate than I), but rather our objections lie in the fact that scripture is taught within the school in a setting that to the children is indistinguishable from their normal secular studies.

In our minds this blurring of religious and secular instruction adds unwarranted weight to the religious material being taught.

Our nightmare scenario would be for the children to accept the religious material as fact in the same way that they would accept subjects like Maths or English.

On the way home from school that very day our fears were realised, our son when questioned about the scripture class told us that “God exists because school says it does”, we couldn’t have scripted it any better ourselves.

That night I drafted a letter to the principal outlining what had happen and how we feel about it, I spent an hour on it trying to make it as clear as possible while keeping it free of emotion, it was not easy I will tell you, I am probably the most even tempered person on the planet and I was really angry.

We had a meeting with the principal a few days later, seeing as the damage was already done I would have accepted a written apology. In the meeting we again explained how we felt about it all and that as far as we were concerned the damage was done but if we ever had a repeat of the incident we would certainly escalate it as far as we could.

It turns out that the list of non-scripture people was not given to the supervising teacher (who was a casual on that day, as was the teacher with the list) which brings me to the point of the post, what should the default position be for scripture?

The principal tells me only about 5% of children opt-out, my understanding was that statewide it is about 20% so I guess we are in our own little “bible belt”, so in the absence of other instructions our son was put in with the rest of the flock.

We talked about opt-in vs opt-out with the principal and he said that the general rule, due largely to apathy on the part of the parents is to opt-in. While this is a reasonable position given the 95/5 split it seems to me that not all choices are equal.

Imagine if the choice was whether to eat a peanut butter sandwich or not and 5% of the children were allergic to peanuts, or if the class in question were sex education (a hot button issue for some people, personally I’m disappointed that our school doesn’t offer it at all), or perhaps if a “Christian” child was made to attend a Muslim class….

The problem in this case is that religion is seen as completely safe so accidentally sending atheists’ children to scripture is “harmless” so there’s no need to make sure the substitute teacher has the list, I certainly don’t think it is harmless and I hope more people come to that realisation.

Last week I posted about a story on channel Seven’s “Sunday Night” program on the issue of vaccination.

I was impressed with the story, it was well written, backed by science and about as unbiased as  commercial networks get on a prime time current affairs style program. ( 60 Minutes, I’m staring at you buddy. )

I started seeing promos for last nights program that made me worry, it felt like they might be going to focus on “The Other Side” of the debate. It was with quite some trepidation that I sat down last night to watch the followup.

I was all ready to hurl a heavy object through my TV….

Fortunately for me and my TV this didn’t happen. What I saw last night was clearly an attempt to provide a forum for the anti-vacc movement to have their say while still keeping things firmly based in reality.

The panel featured Prof. Peter McIntyre from NCIRS ( The National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance ) and Dr Giselle Cook (apparently the only doctor they could find that was anti-vaccination and willing to appear on the show).

The started with a recap of the previous weeks’ story and then allowed questions from the audience.

The most vocal audience member was, as I expected, Meryl Dorey of AVN (Australian Vaccination Network). The AVN claim to be all about “Empowering the people to make informed choices”.

Their website looks professional (if you ignore the numerous typos) but seems to be largely concerned with attacking the traditional medical establishment and spruking “Alternative Medicine”. There were plenty of things you could buy from them and an easy way to donate to the cause, but I couldn’t see any links to peer reviewed articles or studies.

To me the AVN seems to be all about muddying the issue, spreading doubt and making a tidy profit on the side.

I was very pleased to see that Prof McIntyre was easily able to refute Meryl’s claims and that Mike Munroe stepped in to rebut her as well.

When asked about her professional qualifications Meryl Doyle stated that she has been researching the issue for 20 years and has a brain.

When asked why she provided no evidence for her claims she stated she sent many studies and the names of vaccination victims to the Seven network. Mike Munroe denied that they recieved her evidence and stated that the victims she named refused to speak with them…

Please check out this link to a post on “The Skeptics’ Book of Pooh Pooh”, the poster was actually at the debate and has a lot to say about it…

Here is a link to a post from the father of Dana McCaffery that everyone should read…

The debate ended up with the anti-vacc movement calling for “More information” so that parents can make an informed decision….

This tactic, we need more information, crops up in many areas as a means to create doubt in the minds of the audience. The fact is that vaccines have been studied, tested and retested for as long as they have been around. The risk factors are well known and understood, the information about the risks is readily available.

The problem is that not that there is too little information for parents but rather that there is too much information to wade through.

As a parent myself I can attest to the fact that it is easy to become confused and overwhealmed with all the information that you are bombarded with by friends, relatives, healthcare professionals etc

Unfortunately many parents choose not to read what they are given, they don’t ask enough questions of the healthcare professionals looking after them and their children.

In todays modern, frantic, ADHD ridden, push responsibility onto others culture we want to be spoon feed everything and make sure there is someone to blame when it all goes pear-shaped.

Taking the time to read the information ( Click here for the comprehensive Australian Government immunisation guide ) is probably the most important thing that a parent can do. It might be a pain and require some commitment but to put it bluntly it is part of your job as a parent to make informed decisions based on the most accurate information you can get access to.

If we can put the emotional outbursts aside (which I admit I have a lot of trouble doing) and approach this issue with logic and reason backed up with a through thorough education then it will be clear what the right choice is…

Back in the 80′s Australia was pushing to become “The Clever Country”, recognising the importance of a well educated populace (and hence workforce) in securing a bright future for the entire nation.

Roll forward nearly thirty years to the current day, how well educated and “clever” are we now??

The “Internets” are abuzz these days with debate over the “Vaccination Issue”, on one side we have well known celebrities like Jim Carrey and his wife Jenny McCarthy spewing torrents of pseudo science, lies and downright non-sense and on the other the medical and scientific communities desperately trying to counter them with logic and reason.

Personally, I place as much credence on the opinions of celebrities as I do on those of random people on the street, the trouble is that there are a lot of people unable to separate the celebrity from the status.

Outside of North America we tend to look on the “antics” of “The Yanks” as amusing and fun to comment on but largely unimportant. Unfortunately in the case of the “Anti-vacc” movement, here in Australia it is becoming all too real.

I read an interesting blog post (via Twitter) from Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy website. I was disturbed to hear that we had any serious “Anti-vacc” movement in this country.

One thing Phil and I have in common is that we both get worked up over “woo woo”, pseudo-science and quackery.

A post here at “Skeptic Zoners” talks about the Australian “Anti-vacc” movement.

All hope is not lost, according to figures from the “National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance“, immunisation rates in Australia are around 90%, we cannot afford to be complacent though.

There is a link from Phil’s blog to a story about an episode of “Sunday Night” on the Seven Network that screened last night and covered the vaccination, including the tragic death of Dana McCaffery aged 1 month, in a way that was positive and well researched.

On the topic of Vaccination I feel very strongly that it is our duty as citizens to maintain the currency of our vaccinations for the good of the whole country. Vaccination is not only beneficial to the one that is vaccinated but the “Herd Immunity” that comes from the majority being vaccinated helps those who are unable (or unwilling) to be vaccinated themselves.

Speaking as a parent I have put my money where my mouth is, so to speak, with both my children. In fact my youngest, Callum, is part of a whooping cough vaccine trial run by the Children’s Hospital at Westmead in Sydney, the trial was to see if vaccination from birth can be effective.

( a link to an article discussing this study can be found here )

As a result of this study, we believe, Callum becomes very distressed whenever we take him to see a Doctor.

We’re sure he will grow out of this but given the opportunity again we would definitely enroll him in the study.

So far it seems that the study is pointing to whooping cough ( and possibly other vaccines ) being very effective even from birth and if the whooping cough vaccination starts to be routinely given at birth then tragedies like the one that befell Dana McCaffery and her family can be entirely prevented.

As you probably know our number one son Seth recently started school.

So far his weekly report cards have been really good and his behavior in class has been great.

We’ve heard stories of other children in his class getting awards and certificates but nothing for him until this week.

Sethy won the student of the week award and gets to be the “leader” when the class goes to other locations in the school. He was really pleased with himself and we were naturally very proud of him.

Here is the certificate he was awarded….

Go Sethy!!!!

Viv and I have discussed the topic of buying a console many times and we were planning to hold off for a few years.

Well, as they say “The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray”.

We had some friends over last weekend (thanks Christine), and they brought a couple of PS/2s and an XBox360 with them. The boys loved playing with them, Callum really took to “Dora The Explorer”.

While I was out at “The Man Temple” (aka Bunnings Warehouse) Viv called to tell me that I was to buy a PS/2 stat…

I popped into EB Games at Tuggerah and picked up a “Pre-owned” slim PS/2, three games and an extra controller for $150.00

Now I just need to sort through the piles of hack slash & shoot-em-up games to try and find something for the boys to play..

Number one son, Seth reached a big milestone this week when he started Kindy at Wyong Public School.

He’s been so excited since last years jump start program, wanting to wear his uniform and eat out of his lunchbox.

We’ve had two days so far and he’s loving it, he’s already making new friends…

Here’s a picture of our big school boy

Inspired by my Texan colleague and enabled by my recent acquisition of a 3G iPhone I decided to have a crack at Geocaching.

For the uninitiated this involves trying to find a hidden cache of goodies based on GPS co-ordinates.

I checked out the definitive sight geocaching.com punched in the co-ordinates of my house and looked at the list of nearby caches.

Living out in the sticks as I do I expected their to be sod all choice, I was presently surprised to find one within 500m of my house!!!

I packed a little bag and Seth and I went to look for treasure….

I was pleasantly surprised with the ease of using the iPhone to find the cache, I added a bookmark on the phone at the GPS co-ordinates of the cache and just keep walking until the blue location dot meet the red map pin.

It actually took longer to find the cache once we got to ground zero than it did to walk from my place to the cache.

We ended up searching an area around 10m x 10m, it was off a trail in light bush so the GPS was struggling a little to keep a lock.

Sethy claimed a prize from the cache and we put something else in its place…

We are planning to check out another one next weekend about 1km in the other direction from our place.

If you are interested the cache we found is here…

We are thinking about hiding one of our own as well, watch this space…….

Sethy with his treasure

Early this evening at approx 5:32pm, after an insanely long (18 hours) and ultimately unproductive labour, my sister Vicky gave birth to her first child.

• Weight: 3.65 kg
• Length: 50 cm
• Head: 36.5 cm

Special mention goes to the Dad Paul, who, even though he has a tendancy to faint at the sight of hospital equipment managed to hang in for virtually all of the proceedings, only ducking out for the c-section….

I’ll post a picture when I manage to take one. [Update: Done!!!]

The race is on between Rachel and Jen to see who can have the first girl??

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Last week the boys reached another milestone, we enrolled them in the local Daycare centre, which just happens to be across the road from our new house

We expected tears and tantrums when we dropped them off but were happily disappointed… Seth ran straight to a quiet corner and started playing with some toys and Cal wandered around looking for mischief.

When we picked them up at the end of the day, they were happily playing but were quite content to head on home with us.

We have them in care 2 days a week now which gives Viv a much welcomed break as well as providing the boys with opportunities to socialise with other kids. The experience has been great so far with the only downside being the cost, approx $50 / day / child.

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I don’t post often enough about two of the most important people in my life…

"The Boys"

Seth’s speech has really started to take off, he still rambles alot and most of it makes no sense at all, but, when he wants to say something he is very clear. We’ve been working on manners, so now when you give him a drink he says "Thank you Mummy" or "Thank you Daddy" as appropriate, the thank you sounds more like "et tu" but it’s getting close.

When Seth is watching TV and the News finishes he says "Bye News" in a clear and audible way.

When I get home from work he runs to the door to let me in calling "Daddy’s Home" as he goes. It melts your heart let me tell you.

I can ask him to do things like clean up his toys or hand him something and ask him to give it to Mummy or to Callum and have a reasonable expectation of him doing it…

Seth spun me out on the weekend, I was in the lounge and he was sitting on the floor next to me and I heard him clearly saying "KMart", I looked around and he had a receipt in his hand from KMart. I took the receipt from him and asked him "what is this?", he pointed straight at the KMart logo and said "KMart", Viv has repeated the test with a Coles receipt and another KMart receipt and he got them both right.

Callum is getting ready to start walking, he will stand upright for 10-15 secs at a time and take 2 or 3 consecutive steps. He’s saying Mummy and Daddy all the time now but not a lot else as yet.

Callum is just a crazy bundle of joy, in the morning when you go to get him out of bed he is always standing up in the cot, as soon as he sees you he starts bouncing up and down laughing and smiling so much that you think his face will split in half.

On the other hand though when he’s upset or sick he has a scream that can curdle your blood, Viv calls him "Little Feral" and I think she’s right on the money.

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