klondikered

I meditate to awaken (in the deeper sense), to bring calm to a wild mind (as I think Robert Pirsig said, peace of mind is not the most important thing, it's the only thing), and to try to become a better, more compassionate person.

You don't have to meditate in a convoluted sitting position if you choose not to (although there are good reasons for sitting in lotus).

I would start by just regularly sitting or walking quietly, being aware of your breathing, and watching thoughts and emotions flowing into and right back out of your mind's I.

There's also a good list here:

http://wiki.henryfarrell.net/wiki/index.php/Mathematics/Stat...

Your argument that "vaccines cause autism" has huge problems, not the least of which are thimerosal-free vaccines over the last decade.

In addition, the authors of the first study you cited appear to be involved in vaccine litigation and in a business that purports to treat autism by "chelation therapy" and would thus seem to have a vested interest in research findings that show heavy metals cause pathology.

Your second link doesn't go to a paper - you linked to some anti-vaccine website which itself doesn't link to a paper.

There actually is a paper in JANE here:

http://www.ane.pl/pdf/7020.pdf

You can read the paper for yourself - but I am personally not at all impressed by an N=16, with N=3 in the control group. Complete MRI data in this study were obtained on N=9 in the treatment group, and only N=2 in the control group.

Another discussion of the posters that preceded this second paper's publication can be found at:

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=100 http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=1989

and the second paper itself at:

http://www.opposingviews.com/i/new-paper-vaccines-cause-auti...

You rather carefully chose to note that neither paper was "written" by Wakefield. However, the authors of the second paper noted that Wakefield reviewed their paper and actually helped design their study:

"We thank Drs. Saverio Capuano and Mario Rodriguez for veterinary assistance; and Dr. David Atwood, Carrie Redinger, Dave McFarland, Amanda Dettmer, Steven Kendro, Nicole DeBlasio, Melanie O’Malley and Megan Rufle for technical support. Special thanks to Dr. Andrew Wakefield for assistance with study design and for critical review of this manuscript; and to Troy and Charlie Ball and Robert Sawyer. This work was supported by the Johnson Family, SafeMinds, The Ted Lindsay Foundation, the Autism Research Institute, the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, the late Liz Birt, David and Cindy Emminger, Sandy McInnis, and Elyse Roberts. Prior to 2005, Carol Stott was involved in vaccine litigation."

Papers aside, some anti-vaccine folk seem to have a great deal of emotion invested in the issue:

http://briandeer.com/mmr/carol-stott.htm

No, he's not being unfairly downvoted, and I cannot upvote you either. You are basically talking out of your ass...please cite figures to back up what you mean by "a not insignificant number". And how, pray tell, is some unhappiness essential to "social stability", whatever that may be...