August 5, 2007
Democrats, empowered by their victories last November and in response by a nation-wide desire to hold the presidency accountable vote to expand warrantless wiretapping.
Wait, what?
August 3, 2007
Slate has a story by John Dickerson about how Obama has rejected the weasel tactic invented, or at least perfected, by Bush for avoiding questions.
To hide the fact that they're hiding something, candidates elevate their refusal to a virtue. "One of the jobs of a president is being very reasoned…
August 1, 2007
Welcome to the 66th meeting of the International Society of Skeptics.
Abstracts from attendees:
Straw Men and Circular Reasoning
Author: Skeptico
Introduction The problem of debunking crop circles persists despite many previous valiant efforts (See Sagan, C.S. Demon Haunted World).
Results In…
August 1, 2007
Janet points us to this AP article about how the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine -aka PETA pretending to be doctors (less than 5% of them are actually doctors) - is now suing UCSF over reported violations of the animal welfare act.
I'm sure this is as noble as their attempts to smear…
July 31, 2007
What is it about reporting on pot that makes people so Puritanical? Today I read in the Guardian Cannabis joints damage lungs more than tobacco - study.
A single cannabis joint may cause as much damage to the lungs as five chain-smoked cigarettes, research has found.
Is that so? Let's take a…
July 31, 2007
Just a reminder, I would like all submissions to the 66th Skeptics Circle by today.
July 30, 2007
A lot of people are talking about a new study showing a 40% increase risk of "psychosis", which I first heard news of in this story, from the Daily Mail:
A single joint of cannabis raises the risk of schizophrenia by more than 40 percent, a disturbing study warns.
The Government-commissioned…
July 29, 2007
We already knew from former Surgeon General Carmona's testimony that this was happening, but now the WaPo brings us
a specific example of science being squelched by a political appointee. It's not only inappropriate, but just despicable.
A surgeon general's report in 2006 that called on Americans…
July 27, 2007
I can't quite come up with a good reason to see it, considering seeing movies in C-ville is usually a desultory experience. Our local chains, Regal and Carmike, typically play 10-20 minutes of advertisements before the trailers. Being a Tivo fan, my tolerance for commercials has decreased…
July 26, 2007
I couldn't resist when I read this Guardian story about Oscar, the death predicting cat.
When the two-year-old grey and white cat curls up next to an elderly resident, staff now realise, this means they are likely to die in the next few hours.
Such is Oscar's apparent accuracy - 25 consecutive…
July 26, 2007
The Washington post reports on new efforts by insurance companies to rate doctors performance and their policies that penalize doctors for performing poorly according to their metrics.
After 26 years of a successful medical practice, Alan Berkenwald took for granted that he had a good reputation.…
July 25, 2007
Steven Novella at Neurologica has written a thoughtful essay on where the limits of academic freedom should lie in light of the firing of Ward Churchill based on allegations of plagiarism and research falsification. Of course, many believe that calling 9/11 victims "little Eichmanns" might have…
July 25, 2007
I'm putting out my request for nominations for the 66th Skeptics Circle, to be held Thursday August 2nd (eight days from now). I'd like to have entries in by Tuesday July 31st at the latest.
Either self-promote some of your own entries or recommend others' you've enjoyed to mark at denialism dot…
July 24, 2007
Between electronic "smog" and their incessant bleating that every weather event is due to global warming, I have come to the conclusion that the Independent, with stories like this one, are trying to bring down the science of global warming from the inside.
It's official: the heavier rainfall in…
July 24, 2007
Gene Sperling in the WaPo points out that holding the NIH budget flat is like a cutting our budgets as inflation forces budget cutbacks. He forgets to mention the wasted expense of the NIH roadmap and the significant portion of the intramural budget devoted to security, but otherwise he's dead-on…
July 24, 2007
I've been reading Chris Mooney's Storm World: Hurricanes, Politics, and the Battle over Global Warming for the last week or so, and I've got to say, this is excellent science writing. A book on science for the non-expert reader should accomplish 5 things. It should let you know the history of…
July 23, 2007
So, who has heard of the Rife Machine? It is a quack device that purports to destroy diseases by homing in on their resonant frequency, and disrupting them with radiofrequency (RF) waves (like a soundwave shattering a wine glass). I've met true believers of this stuff before, and there is little…
July 22, 2007
Now that all of you have burned through the 7th Harry Potter book like GWB with an 8-ball of coke in the 70s, what is left for you to do? How to combat that remorseful feeling of being out of such perfectly fluffy literature?
Well here's an open thread to discuss those other series which may…
July 20, 2007
Writing for HuffPo, Charlottesville's own Barbara Ehrenreich takes on positive psychology. I have to remember to drop by sometime with a cake and welcome her to the city, even if it is a year too late.
She addresses something very annoying about the belief that positive thinking is a universal…
July 19, 2007
The Angry Toxicologist is here!
He's already got a bunch of posts up and he's clearly a man after my own heart. Show him some love.
July 19, 2007
Skeptic's Circle #65 is up at Neurologica.
I think I have to do it next time, is that right Orac?
July 18, 2007
New Scientist has an interesting article by Patrick Leman on the psychology of believing in conspiracy theories.
Belief in conspiracy theories certainly seems to be on the rise, and what little research has been done investigating this question confirms this is so for perhaps the most famous…
July 18, 2007
This article in PLoS caught my eye today. It's entitled, "Calories Do Not Explain Extension of Life Span by Dietary Restriction in Drosophila", and is an extension of the body of science showing that caloric restriction in a variety of animals, from fruit flies to non-human primates, may…
July 18, 2007
Is it just me or is Tom Coburn recommending a policy of shoot first ask questions later for our borders?
The patrol's deadly force rules were questioned at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing concerning the conviction of two agents who shot a fleeing, unarmed drug trafficker and covered it up.
"…
July 18, 2007
Two Guardian articles appear today on Andrew Wakefield and his associates. The first is a discussion of his unethical and invasive methods used in his now-debunked study that purported to show a link between autism and the MMR vaccine.
Vulnerable children were subjected to "inappropriate and…
July 17, 2007
No.
It's the same tired junk DNA argument from the ID creationists. But I find this one particularly funny - you'll see why. Luskin says:
It's beyond dispute that the false "junk"-DNA mindset was born, bred, and sustained long beyond its reasonable lifetime by the neo-Darwinian paradigm. As one…
July 17, 2007
I thought the denial of the link between smoking and cancer had gone out of style. The link between smoking and cancer is so thoroughly established that I thought no one could continue to defend cigarettes with a straight face.
Well, all Orac has to do is write a piece about the evidence for a…
July 16, 2007
Two posts on the scienceblogs today that shouldn't be missed.
Orac on second-hand smoke and those who deny it's health effects.
And Kevin Beck on Penis Pills.
It's a great example of the failure to teach critical thinking skills that people can sell tiny doses of ginseng to insecure males and…
July 16, 2007
The troofers seem to think so and based on the interview they have a video of after a screening they may be right.
Here's his reasoning for why we need to investigate 9/11 more.
"I've filmed there before down at the Pentagon-- before 9/11-- there's got to be at least 100 cameras, ringing that…
July 16, 2007
William Saletan takes the position that progressives have no real bioethical position on stem cells in his most recent column in Slate. I'm a bit disappointed with Saletan over this one, because in his never ending quest to be thoughtful about everything, he's usually much more fair to people -…
