November 5, 2007
On his blog Stein espouses one of the weakest attacks I've heard yet against evolution, and not even original. It's a pathetic set of logical fallacies. Basically, he starts from the assumption that scientific theories arise if they serve the prevailing ideology of the time period, and because "…
November 5, 2007
The mainstream media has been reporting on this paper (open access at PNAS) on the hunt for the origin of HIV in the Americas.
The surprising result was the finding that HIV first came to the United States from Haiti (rather than the previous origin which was thought to be a flight attendant from…
November 2, 2007
The latest pathetic assault on a scientist came from ALF against UCLA scientist Edyth London. Using a garden hose they flooded her home, causing tens of thousands in damage. However, rather than intimidating her out of performing research in addiction she has written an article for the LA Times,…
November 1, 2007
Last week you may remember I watched phenomenon with eye out for Uri Geller's nonsense, and I was pleasantly surprised to find Criss Angel playing the skeptic pretty well.
Well this week's was awesome! Jim Callahan does a pretty cheesy psychic bit, with some really terrible acting, and it's so bad…
November 1, 2007
The question this month is "Which parts of the human body could you design better?"
This is a great question, because a lot of aspects of the human body represent what worked well enough for survival, not necessarily what works best. Therefore the engineering ends up being rather ramshackle, and…
October 30, 2007
Another sign the monkeys are running the zoo is the news that the head of consumer protection doesn't want consumer protection.
The top official for consumer product safety has asked Congress in recent days to reject legislation that would strengthen the agency that polices thousands of consumer…
October 30, 2007
It's already got the fundamentalists up in arms. Apparently, one of them managed to read something outside the accepted cannon of Christ-like books and now they're all bothered about the December 7th release (see trailer) of the first installment of Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy -…
October 29, 2007
How do doctors decide what is healthy and unhealthy? Do they arbitrarily decide on risk factors to line their pockets - creating false epidemics as Sandy Szwarc at Junkfood Science suggests? Or, is there actually a science, called epidemiology, that is the basis for health recommendations?
As I…
October 29, 2007
BPR3, or Bloggers for Peer-Reviewed Research Reporting has announced the release of their new icons. For those of you who don't know what this is all about, it's pretty simple. When we're not making up lolcats, and being all super-serious, we want to have a simple way to communicate to the…
October 27, 2007
A halloween prank from CNN maybe?
October 26, 2007
It's the big news, at a FEMA press briefing FEMA employees threw softball questions to give the appearance of answering questions from the press.
. No one asked about trailers with formaldehyde for those made homeless by the fires. And the media seemed to be giving Johnson all day to wax on and on…
October 26, 2007
In honor of Phenomenon and the fun of talking about magic tricks check out Ramana, aka Wouter Bijdendijk who has been doing the levitation trick shown below, only he's doing it in front of the Whitehouse.
Here he is doing a similar piece standing on the side of a building - more performance art…
October 26, 2007
I think I'm going to have to add a new behavior to the crank HOWTO based on the latest campaign by troofers to get attention by disruption.
First it was Bill Maher:
Who I think handled it right.
Now Bill Clin-ton.
Bill also does a pretty good job with the kooks. But it has me thinking that…
October 26, 2007
Are placebo's really effective? So asks Darshak Sanghavi in Slate, citing this study from 2001 that shows the placebo effect, compared to passive observation, to be relatively minor for improvements in pain or objective measures of health.
This is an interesting topic, but unfortunately, a really…
October 26, 2007
Both Orac and MarkCC have been having a blast tearing to shreds virtually every aspect of the latest nonsensical piece by Dennis Byrne based on this idiotic study at JPANDS.
One thing struck me in the two analyses, was MarkCC's emphasis on the idea of triage in assessing the scientific literature…
October 25, 2007
Le Canard Noir scolds me at the Quackometer for the 72nd installation of the skeptic's circle. Check it out!
October 25, 2007
As promised, I watched Phenomenon, and I've got to say, I'm unimpressed. The premise of the show is there are 10 people with paranormal abilities vying for a 250,000 prize (they could make more if they tried Randi's challenge - I wonder why don't they?). The one that impresses the judges - fraud…
October 24, 2007
This is why we need the Office of Technology Assessment (and listen to it), Bush is trying to bring back SDI, big time.
President Bush said yesterday that a missile defense system is urgently needed in Europe to guard against a possible attack on U.S. allies by Iran, while Defense Secretary Robert…
October 24, 2007
Or is unintentionally channeling them is my conclusion from reading his latest WaPo Op-Ed entitled, "The Eugenics Temptation". This Watson nonsense has somehow convinced all these conservatives that lurking beneath the surface of every scientist is a seething eugenicist, biting at the bit to…
October 24, 2007
I'd love to see what the angry toxicologist thinks of this scary article from CNN Tests reveal high chemical levels in kids' bodies.
Michelle Hammond and Jeremiah Holland were intrigued when a friend at the Oakland Tribune asked them and their two young children to take part in a cutting-edge…
October 24, 2007
Orac has brought up the interesting point that debating the homeopaths at U. Conn might not be a good idea.
On a related note, in a post derriding attacks on consensus I was asked by commenters if isn't it incumbent on science to constantly respond to debate; to never let scientific questions be…
October 24, 2007
Sorry for the absence. Between travel, catching up from travel, and preparing manuscripts, I've been slow to blog. I'm back now, but still busy.
Meanwhile, I've been enjoying cectic's comics immensely. I can no longer figure out who in my RSS feed linked these strips, but they are awesome!
Case…
October 18, 2007
Today I'll be leaving for Las Vegas until Sunday so I'll leave it to my brother to post the next couple of days.
Until then, have fun, and don't let the cranks run wild in the comments.
October 18, 2007
Sandy Szwarc continues to wage her war against the "obesity myth", and has fallen into the classic crank trap of the attack on scientific consensus. It's right up there with attacking peer-review as a sure sign you're about to listen to someone's anti-science propaganda.
She cites this article at…
October 17, 2007
WaPo reports on the appointment of Susan Orr:
The Bush administration again has appointed a chief of family planning programs at the Department of Health and Human Services who has been critical of contraception.
Susan Orr, most recently an associate commissioner in the Administration for Children…
October 17, 2007
Pat at Screw loose change brings us the latest dishonesty (or carefully reinforced self-delusion) from the 9/11 troofers.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology released this letter (PDF) in response to the troofers, but failed to realize that the troofers will stoop to pretty…
October 17, 2007
I've postponed writing about Gore/IPCC Nobel largely because I wanted to see how the denialists would respond, and it has been interesting.
The problem is worsened by what Paul Krugman called Gore Derangement Syndrome:
So if science says that we have a big problem that can't be solved with tax cuts…
October 17, 2007
Archbishop apologizes for giving Communion to Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence
And what a great article too! PZ would love this group.
On Oct. 7, Archbishop George Niederauer delivered the Eucharist to members of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence - an activist group whose motto is "go forth and…
October 17, 2007
Short answer, no.
The latest is Dembski laughing with glee at the latest bigoted ramblings of James Watson who apparently has gone and said Africans are stupid and that's why Africa suffers. This is not the first, or last time that Watson will say something dumb, offensive, and backwards. Like…
October 15, 2007
The inability to achieve erection has been a source of consternation for men for, well, a really long time. But the recent history of treatments for impotence, wait, I mean Erectile Dysfunction, oh no, now they're calling it Male Sexual Dysfunction, represents a medical revolution. In the last…
