Perhaps better known as the character Amy Farrah Fowler on the – frankly rank anti-science – TV show The Big Bang Theory, Bialik is quickly rising to become one of the leading voices of pseudoscience and denialism in real life. Bialik does, indeed, have a degree in neuroscience, and, when combined with her character in the aforementioned TV show, that apparently lends her a bit of credibility as a spokesperson for various scientific issues, opportunities she uses to spread misinformation, quackery and evil, in particular anti-vaccine conspiracies and support for homeopathy. It should be a cause for concern that she was invited as the 2014 featured speaker at the National Science Teachers’ Association conference.
Bialik is, for instance, a celebrity spokesperson for the Holistic Moms Network, an organization promoting “natural” parenting, where “natural” apparently means embracing every form of “natural” woo yet invented, sponsored by a range of quack institutions including Boiron (manufacturer of the homeopathic remedy for flu known as Oscillococcinum), the Center for Homeopathic Education, and the National Center for Homeopathy – heck, their advisory board include Lauren Feder, Barbara Loe Fisher, Peggy O’Mara, publisher of Mothering Magazine, “integrative” pediatrician Lawrence Rosen, and Sherri Tenpenny.
Most importantly of all, though, Bialik is anti-vaccine (though she has tried to deny it), primarily – it seems – because she views vaccines as “unnatural”. Somehow, though, she justifies not vaccinating her kids because it is, according to her, a “personal decision”, even though not vaccinating is a personal decision in the sense that texting while driving is a personal decision.
Diagnosis: A sad case for reason, science, and critical thinking. Apparently a real science education is no guarantee for understanding how reason or evidence works. Hysterically lunatic, and dangerous.