Tim Lambert (deltoidblog AT gmail.com) is a computer scientist at the University of New South Wales.
Over at the denialism blog, Mark Hoofnagle catches the creationists at Uncommon Descent blaming Rachel Carson for millions of deaths. The funniest bit is in the comment at UD pointing out that they should blame God, not Carson:
All very pertinent to Michael Behe's new book 'The Edge of Evolution', in which he says "an intelligent agent deliberately made malaria" (p237), life on earth is "horrific", and "maybe the designer isn't all that beneficient" (p239). Doesn't this raise the specter of the designer planning to kill millions of people, including children, especially as Behe says that mosquito mutations leading to resistance cannot happen without the input of the designer?
Also, Hoofnagle catches Tim Blair quote mining, which led to Team Blair taking the field in comments in an attempt to totally, but totally disprove global warming. My favourite comments from Team Blair: Harry Eager:
"I already gave an example of the lies about malaria. It's not a tropical disease. The climate for the Plasmodium is always 98.6 F."
Hmm, the CDC says
Malaria is transmitted in tropical and subtropical areas, where:
- Anopheles mosquitoes can survive and multiply
- Malaria parasites can complete their growth cycle in the mosquitoes ("extrinsic incubation period").
Temperature is particularly critical. For example, at temperatures below 20°C (68°F), Plasmodium falciparum (which causes severe malaria) cannot complete its growth cycle in the Anopheles mosquito, and thus cannot be transmitted.
It's not even true that the climate for the Plasmodium in the human body is always 98.6 F, since it often creates a high fever.
John "Entropy is a form of energy" A also showed up with this:
When it comes down to it, this whole blog is really about defending the Hockey Stick from the entirely true charges that it is a) a fake b) scientifically meaningless and c) a disgrace.
Number of posts about the Hockey Stick at the denialism blog: 0.
Comments
Now isn't this cherry picking, sorta, since you're picking out the stupidest people you can find to criticize?
Posted by: ben | June 13, 2007 11:45 PM
"I already gave an example of the lies about malaria. It's not a tropical disease. The climate for the Plasmodium is always 98.6 F."
By that "logic" there are no tropical diseases.
Wow! Isn't it easy to solve global problems with "logic'.
Posted by: Chris Noble | June 14, 2007 12:49 AM
Honestly I don't think Tim's examples were the dumbest comments, at least not in the latter referenced post. That's the really frightening part.
Posted by: Davis | June 14, 2007 4:54 AM
Ben, true, but it's not as if Tim is trying to win any arguments here. It's pure entertainment. For that, you want the cherries.
Posted by: David | June 14, 2007 6:49 AM
I suppose, but if he wanted a really easy target, look no further than the creation museum. I suppose it is at least a private organization, and as such can plug whatever it wants. The problem comes when people want this stuff taught in schools.
Posted by: ben | June 14, 2007 11:04 AM
"you're picking out the stupidest people you can find"
Oow, that's a bit nasty. Poor John A.
Posted by: Chris O'Neill | June 14, 2007 11:20 AM