June 7, 2007
After yesterdays pathetic article from the WaPo suggesting that scores were "up" (whatever that means under the moronic patchwork that evolved under the law) it was nice to see the NYT get it right. Their article exposes the joke of state standardized testing in response to the law, and further…
June 7, 2007
At Polite Company.
My favorite is Reasic's late but thorough dissection of Michael Crichton in his "Aliens Cause Global Warming" speech.
June 6, 2007
I hope this time I'm finally right about this. I've been hopeful that some strategy of developing stem cells would allow us to bypass the absurd ethical restrictions from those who think one type of destruction of an embryo is worse than another. Particularly promising were spermatogonial stem…
June 6, 2007
The Human Rights Campaign is concerned, and I would tend to agree, that Bush's recent nominee for Surgeon General has the earmarks of an homophobe.
In a document titled "Pathophysiology of Male Homosexuality," Holsinger opined, in his capacity as a physician, that biology and anatomy precluded…
June 6, 2007
Another credulous article on the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law appears today in the Washington Post. As someone who knows many teachers who have had experience with similar stupid laws in Virginia, and the history of the Bush administration pushing for these kinds of laws based on the "Texas…
June 6, 2007
I'm now convinced Castro will outlive us all. He's apparently going to give his first interview since he got sick and was hospitalized.
I was hoping that a conspiracy theory would evolve that Castro was really dead, and they were just hiding the evidence of his death from the press. It was going…
June 6, 2007
Fox news is pathetic. When discussing footage of Congressman Jefferson, the crook with the 90k in his freezer, Fox news chose to show John Conyers.
Now could this be a simple mistake of showing the wrong footage? Or did are they really incapable of telling the difference between two black…
June 5, 2007
The last day or so of posts on HuffPo is a perfect example of why I'll never take that site seriously, and why in the end, lefties are just as susceptible to anti-science nonsense as the right. We start with Donna Karen promoting her new health-care initiative, the Well-Being Forum with much…
June 5, 2007
We've had fun reading blogs 4 Brownback with their recent rejection of heliocentrism based on biblical literalism. Their science tag is a real joy to read including the aerospace conspiracy, their love of the science fair stalactite experiment that PZ trashed so thoroughly, and of course their…
June 4, 2007
Renegade Evolution encourages us to spend some time today blogging for sex education (she has a great feminist blog by the way).
I thought to further this aim I'd talk about this recent Nation article about the scam that is the abstinence education industry. Basically, it's just pork for the…
June 4, 2007
The latest gem from Egnor:
Clearly the brain, as a material substance, causes movement of the body, which is also a material substance. The links are nerves and muscles. But there is no material link between our ideas and our brains, because ideas aren't material.
I'm not a neuroscientist, but…
June 4, 2007
I've decided to describe a largely unacknowledged process of disease pathogenesis that I will call folie a news. To explain though, I'll have to first discuss a disease called delusional parasitosis.
Delusional parasitosis (DP - sometimes called Ekbom's disease) is a lot like what it sounds like…
June 3, 2007
I should have known better than to trust a single quote cited by a denialist or crank. In our Case Study of Alexander Cockburn we pointed out his selective use of data but we missed a big fat cherry-pick.
It's based on this quote from Cockburns article:
As Richard Kerr, Science magazine's man on…
June 1, 2007
Readers of the Nation are probably by now familiar with the lunatic ravings of Alexander Cockburn on global warming.
What is bizarre, is that, before he traveled down this road, he seemed able to identify other crank ideas - like 9/11 conspiracy theories, and criticized them. Further, it's…
May 31, 2007
In today's NYT
It's softer than the outright denial of evolution that was assumed when he raised his hand at the debate, and certainly doesn't sound like young-earth creationism. It seems to be intelligent design creationism without explicitly mentioning intelligent design - although some keywords…
May 31, 2007
Apparently, I'm not the only one who thinks the Independent is a joke when it comes to science reporting. The latest idiocy is the idea of "electrosmog", which I think results from having watched The Ring too many times (just that first scene with the two girls talking about radio signals). It…
May 31, 2007
Who wants to know how to be an effective crank?
Well, I've outlined what I think are the critical components of successful crankiness. Ideally, this will serve as a guide to those of you who want to come up with a stupid idea, and then defend it against all evidence to the contrary.
Here's how…
May 31, 2007
Gosh, they just can't accept that no reputable science department wants an IDer around. They continue to push this academic freedom issue, when it's perfectly acceptable to consider an applicant's ideas when they are pursued intramurally, and can't quite decide whether they want to make it a…
May 30, 2007
From Salon. Conspiracy Factory has a good overview.
Sounds like it wasn't anything sinister other than weird winter weather.
May 30, 2007
You remember when that creationist thought a can of peanut butter disproved evolution?
If you thought that was funny, you got to start watching some troofer videos. Screw Loose Change found this wonderful entry:
I realize this is low hanging fruit. But it was too funny to ignore.
May 30, 2007
The latest entry in the Darwinism = eugenics nonsense comes from the crank Michael Egnor.
Once again, as a Charlottesvillian I feel the cranks are invading my home turf. About a mile away from me is this sign:
It reads:
In 1924, Virginia, like a majority of states then enacted eugenic…
May 30, 2007
We've been on for one month now. It was a pretty good start. We got about 110k pageviews, about 54k visitors, 100 entries and 1050 comments on those entries. We've gone through what makes a denialist argument, what makes a crank, 3 major categories of denialists (there are many more) and almost…
May 30, 2007
Ok, here is my final thread on LOL creationists (see the previous entries). Anti-evolution brings us some entries, this is my favorite (below the fold - it's a tad dirty).
From Dustin:
I also like the DaveScot and Sal Cordova mockery with a denialist tinge (from Farland):
Someone's going to…
May 29, 2007
It's in the nature of cranks and denialists not to really object to other forms of crankery, as long as the other crank or denialist is also sowing doubt about the same scientific theory. This fits in with proof 295,232 that intelligent design isn't a science. Witness an IDer who really loves the…
May 28, 2007
Slate has coverage of the impending trial against vaccine makers over the inclusion of thimerosal - a mercury containing preservative agent - in childhood vaccines.
Luckily, the writers at Slate have done their homework. They present a laundry-list of denialist tactics from the anti-vax…
May 28, 2007
Corpus Callosum points us to a review in science entitled Childhood Origins of Adult Resistance to Science (Chris at mixing memory also has coverage of the article). This is a perfect study to emphasize a critical aspect of denialism and crankery, that is, the central role the overvalued idea…
May 27, 2007
His coverage of the creation museum is a must-see.
May 27, 2007
Today would be her 100th, and it presents us an opportunity to do two things. First, we salute a major influence in the birth of environmentalism in the United States and the world. Second, we want to use the opportunity to defend Carson from the specious attacks on her by the purveyors of the…
May 27, 2007
And kicks its ass.
What is up with the British and their fear of "radiation"? People complain about poor science comprehension here in the US, but it is by no means an isolated phenomenon. The fact someone was able to put a documentary on BBC suggesting that radiofrequencies of WiFi had any…
May 26, 2007
Well we've had some new entries and suggestions. I think the best so far is the entry from John Lynch of Stranger Fruit (inspired by Glenn Branch inspired by Carrie Sager).
More below the fold!
Expletive deleted has three entries (I helped with the PS a bit).
Carl Baugh
Ray Comfort
And Jonathan…
