In his latest article, David Robert Grimes traces the history of the anti-vaccine movement. Ever since Edward Jennner's early experiments, using a relatively mild disease (cowpox) to protect against a much more serious one (smallpox), people have expressed scepticism, fear, scorn and outright opposition to all forms of vaccination.

Vaccine hesitancy has increased significantly in the last few years, especially during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, and Jim Reed's article also notes that the sheer quantity of vaccinations that are being pushed onto people has resulted in a degree of vaccine fatigue, even among NHS workers.

Those who believe in the efficacy of vaccines, and in the important contribution that vaccine makes to public health, tend to see the anti-vaccine movement as fueled by conspiracy theories, immune to scientific argument because the adversary in this game plays according to rules that are not generally those of science WHO 2007.

In relation to another area that has promoted strong opposition in some quarters, the idea of eating insects as a source of protein, Riley Farrell's article quotes Stephan Lewandowsky, who suggests arguments based not on the content of the beliefs but on their purpose. You're not going to be successful if you say, Uncle Bruce, you're crazy… don't believe this utter nonsense. But instead, you can ask: What function do your beliefs serve? Why are you believing this?

Many politicians and internet celebrities take strong positions on vaccines, bug eating and other topics, and some of these may be cynically driven by the desire to build support and revenue rather than their own private beliefs - for example vaccinating their own families while attacking vaccines for everyone else. For such people, the purpose of these positions may be clear, although they probably won't acknowledge it. But as for Uncle Bruce, it's not at all clear what kind of answer Professor Lewandowsky would expect or accept, or what arguments this would lead to.

Underpinning all of these movements is a distrust of authority, especially governments, big business and scientists. And yet a willingness to trust the biggest businesses on the planet - the tech platforms and their Generative AI tools that add fuel to these theories, and generate income for themselves. Obviously.

Riley Farrell, How eating insects became a conspiracy theory (BBC 4 September 2025)

David Robert Grimes, The strange history of the anti-vaccine movement (BBC 5 September 2025)

Jim Reed, Rise of vaccine distrust - why more of us are questioning jabs (BBC 16 January 2025)

WHO Bulletin 27 November 2007 86(2):140–146. doi: 10.2471/BLT.07.040089

   

As previously noted on this blog, lists may be constructed for various purposes, but the list then becomes a thing in its own right.

One of the open questions of our time appears to be the existence or non-existence of a list, supposedly maintained by Jeffrey Epstein, possibly with the assistance of Ghislaine Maxwell. And the presence or absence of certain names on this list, if it exists. Interviewed in prison recently, Maxwell has denied the existence of such a list.  

But surely the more important question is about the relationships that Epstein maintained with a number of wealthy and well-connected people, and the extent to which he had any kompromat over them. Not whether he kept all their names in a grubby little notebook, like he was a villain in a B-movie.

If the list only ever existed in Epstein's head, does that count?

Wikipedia: Jeffrey Epstein client list, 

Luc Cohen, Andrew Goudsward and Jack Queen, Ghislaine Maxwell told DOJ she is unaware of any Epstein 'client list' (Reuters, 23 August 2025)

   

Interesting piece by Deena Prichep, in which clergy agonize as to the ethics of using a chatbot to construct a sermon.

The first point is that it is easy - perhaps too easy. ChatGPT currently advertises its sermon-writing services as follows: 

Your preaching companion. Transform Your Message into Impactful Sermons. Just provide your topic, choose from three tailor-made outlines, and let's co-create a captivating sermon. Fully adaptable to your congregation's needs - denomination, duration, tone, and language.

And for busy clergy the results seem almost touched by the Holy Spirit (aka Ghost in the Machine). Prichep quotes a Lutheran pastor whose first reaction was Oh my God, this is really good. (I may be doing my own research here, but I think there may be something in the Bible about taking the name of the Lord in vain.)

But just because you can doesn't mean you should. One of the arguments in favour of letting a large language model write your sermons for you is that it frees up your time to do more important things, like pastoral care. But are these things really more important? Brad East argues (following Calvin) that the primary task of ministry is the service of Word and sacrament, and that use of Artificial Intelligence shortchanges something essential.

So the underlying principle here seems to be that it might be okay to use AI tools for less important tasks but not for your most important task.

However, there are some other issues with the use of AI tools, including the environmental cost. And East notes the possiblity that large language models might fabricate material as well as pushing a particular agenda, although one might think preachers have always been able to do this without the aid of technology.

Brad East, AI Has No Place in the Pulpit (Christianity Today, 27 September 2023)

Deena Prichep, We asked clergy if they use AI to help write sermons. Here's what they said (NPR 17 July 2025) HT Carissa Véliz

Deena Prichep, Encore: Religion and AI, what does it mean when the word of God comes from a chatbot? (NPR 19 July 2025)

John Rector, The Ghost in the Machine (19 June 2024) 

Brad Turner, Beatitudes or Platitudes (Milton Church of Christ, 19 December 2021) 

   

As well as being a pioneer of heavy metal, Ossy Osborne was one of the early stars of reality TV. The MTV show The Osbornes, running from 2002 to 2005 and featuring Ossy, Sharon and two of their teenage children, was described as a reality sitcom. Previous fly-on-the-wall programmes had been presented as documentaries, albeit with some dramatic elements, but this one was edited for drama.

Reality TV receives a lot of criticism and disparagement. Some people have commented on the relationship between Sir Joseph Bazalgette, the Victorian engineer who build a system of sewers to pump effluent out of Londoners' homes, and Sir Peter Bazalgette, the creative director of Endemol responsible for Big Brother.

The BBC reports some sociologists as arguing that reality TV can have some social value.

Reality TV ... can be a tool for greater social understanding. Danielle Lindemann

It can potentially offer benefits to viewers and society because it can lead to wider conversations about the world we want to live in. Jacob Johanssen

However, Dr Johanssen has previously expressed criticism of the way participants in reality shows are exploited and shamed, both by the programme makers and by the audience (via social media). He frames reality TV as a neoliberal update on Guy Debord's notion of the spectacle.

Nathan Briant, The sisters from UK's first fly-on-the-wall series (BBC News, 21 June 2024)

Jacob Johanssen, Immaterial Labour and Reality TV: The Affective Surplus of Excess. (In: Briziarelli, M. and Armano, E. (eds.). The Spectacle 2.0: Reading Debord in the Context of Digital Capitalism. pp. 197–208. London: University of Westminster Press 2017). https://doi.org/10.16997/book11.l 

Alex Taylor, How reality TV changed the way we think - for the better (BBC News, 26 July 2025)

Caitlin Wilson, Ozzy Osbourne: From Prince of Darkness to reality TV's favourite dad (BBC News, 26 July 2025)

   

People have always sought to project evil onto their neighbours, and that desire now extends to random strangers on the Internet. Malcolm Gaskill shows how the science of witch-hunting took a leap forward in the Enlightenment period, thanks to the meticulous assembly and analysis of data to confirm or confound hypotheses, and describes how one seventeenth century German woman was found innocent of witchcraft only after the intervention of her son, who was able to use these same tools in her defence. Of course it helped that her son happened to be one of the greatest intellectuals of the period, Johannes Kepler.

Empiricism made witchcraft possible as an actionable crime before it made it an impossible one. Kepler saved his mother through formidable concentration, sticking to a firm line of reasoning and dissecting his opponents’ arguments, point by point.

In this week's news, two tech executives were spotted cuddling one another at a Coldplay concert, drawing attention to themselves by ducking in a guilty fashion when they realized they were being shown on the big screen. Internet sleuths were able to discover their identity, public shaming ensued, and jobs and marriages were lost - an example of what Cathy O'Neil calls Networked Shame. In his commentary on the incident, Brandon Vigliarolo noted our willingness to persecute someone for a perceived wrong despite not knowing the full story. 

Vigliarolo then went on to remind us of the eagerness with which other tech executives are pushing mass surveillance, which will apparently keep everyone on their best behavior through the use of constant real-time machine-learning-powered monitoring. 

Because we can trust machine learning to know the full story before jumping to conclusions, can't we?

See also: Witnessing Machines Built in Secret (November 2017), Metrication and Demetrication (August 2021), The Purpose of Shame (April 2022)

Malcolm Gaskill, Money, Sex, Lies, Magic (London Review of Books, 38/13, 30 June 2016) 

Malcolm Gaskill, Social media witch-hunts are no different to the old kind – just bigger (Guardian, 13 October 2016)

Cathy O'Neil, The Shame Machine (New York: Crown, 2022) 

Jon Ronson, So You've Been Publicly Shamed (Picador 2015)

Geoff Shullenberger, The Scapegoating Machine (The New Inquiry, 30 November 2016)  

Brandon Vigliarolo, Ellison declares Oracle all-in on AI mass surveillance, says it'll keep everyone in line (The Register, 16 September 2024)

Brandon Vigliarolo, Coldplay kiss-cam flap proves we’re already our own surveillance state (The Register, 18 Jul 2025)