denialism | December 3, 2012We've mocked Vox Day in the past for his creationism, his sexism, and his general stupidity which is of course matched with the usual crank traits of egotism, and unshakeable certainty. Today though, I he's apparently gotten even worse, endorsing white nationalism and defending the anti-Obama secessionists. His essay, in essence, says the only thing keeping him from migrating to a new country is there just isn't anywhere left that's all white. Via rightwingwatch:
Is the secession of several American states truly unthinkable? Is the breakup of the United States of America really outside the…
denialism | November 26, 2012I'm going for shameless self promotion today, sorry. Listen to my appearance on "Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow" discussing conspiracy theories. I almost never respond to press inquiries since I don't think I'm qualified to talk about many things as an expert, but wacky internet conspiracy theories? I'm your man.
denialism | November 15, 2012Via Ed I see that Christopher Monckton, the fake expert in climate change who has been repeatedly told by Parliament to stop calling himself an Member of the House of Lords,, claims he's the inventor of a magical disease cure of HIV, MS, flu and the common cold, and recently a birther, has now submitted an affidavit (read here) pushing his bogus birther stats argument. The only problem? I think one could argue he's now opened his factually-questionable statements to legal scrutiny. From his affidavit:
I am over the age of 18 and am a resident of the United Kingdom. The information herein…
denialism | November 14, 2012While I realize Joe Walsh lost his election bid, it is still worth emphasizing that his infamous statements about abortion are false, especially considering efforts like those in Ohio to pass a "heartbeat bill". Abortion is sometimes necessary to save the life of the mother. Via the Irish Times we hear the sad story of a woman being allowed to get sicker and sicker, while a non-viable but "living" fetus kills her.
“The doctor told us the cervix was fully dilated, amniotic fluid was leaking and unfortunately the baby wouldn’t survive.” The doctor, he says, said it should be over in a few…
denialism | November 7, 2012I'm so proud of my home state for affirming equality for all in the ballot box rather than in the courts. I was born and raised in Maryland, although I've spent more of my adult life in Virginia, one of the big things I've noticed in the divide between the two states (and I love both of them) is that Marylanders do a better job at taking care of each other, and running an effective state with high quality services. Marylanders believe government can work, and generally (outside of Baltimore) it does. Marylanders also reject bigotry, and with question 4 (the Maryland Dream act) and question…
denialism | November 1, 2012From Revkin I see yet another attempt to misunderstand the problem of communicating science vs anti-science.
The author, Dan Kahan, summarizes his explanation for the science communication problem, as well as 4 other "not so good" explanations in this slide:
He then describes "Identity-protective cognition" thus:
Identity-protective cognition (a species of motivated reasoning) reflects the tendency of individuals to form perceptions of fact that promote their connection to, and standing in, important groups.
There are lots of instances of this. Consider sports fans who genuinely see…
denialism | October 20, 2012I've been lurking at the Skeptical OB for a while and enjoying Amy Tuteur's very effective criticism of some of the extremes of the homebirth movement. I had noticed that among some advocates of homebirth that were proposing risky behavior for pregnant mom's that conflict with the literature that it appears to be a movement rife with denialists who promote the valorization of ignorance in Dr. Tuteur's words. Mostly their problems seem to be with accepting there is a real, measureable increase in risk with homebirth, and rejecting the very real health benefits that medical physicans offer in…
denialism | October 19, 2012This has been a year of some wonderfully crazy new conspiracies. Birtherism is actually looking pretty banal next to the "Obama is gay-married to a Pakistani" conspiracy, the "Obama is a Jihadist sleeper agent conspiracy, the Aurora conspiracies, job numbers conspiracies, polling conspiracy theories from America’s least-accurate pollster Dick Morris, and, my former favorite, the Obama is buying bullets for the Social Security Administration to kill all Americans conspiracy theory.
Now the American Spectator is publishing a new crackpot conspiracy theory that I think rivals my former…
denialism | October 19, 2012Scientific American evaluates the candidates on their answers to Sciencedebate 2012 and evaluates ideology-based denialism as a whole:
Today's denial of inconvenient science comes from partisans on both ends of the political spectrum. Science denialism among Democrats tends to be motivated by unsupported suspicions of hidden dangers to health and the environment. Common examples include the belief that cell phones cause brain cancer (high school physics shows why this is impossible) or that vaccines cause autism (science has shown no link whatsoever). Republican science denialism tends to be…
denialism | October 18, 2012
Every once in a while Everything is Terrible has a fun denialism-overlap as they show some ad for a terrible piece of quackery, or in this case a great cut of Ken Ham speaking nonsense to a group of very unfortunate children. This is child abuse. Not the creationism bit, but the embarrassingly-shoddy job he does presenting his evidence which seems to consist of poorly-drawn cartoons of men standing next to dinosaurs and an overhead projector.
denialism | October 12, 2012It seems every day brings a new, glaring falsehood about medical care from Romney, who has bizarrely decided to run against his own healthcare plan in order to appease right wing voters. Now he's claiming Americans don't die from lack of healthcare coverage. His reasoning? The unfunded mandate and healthcare-of-last resort stopgap that is EMTALA. For those of you who don't know the function of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, it's law passed in the Reagan era to stop hospitals from dumping patients who were acutely ill and needed emergency care. It prevents hospitals…
denialism | October 6, 2012I don't understand how they could write the headline,"On Health Care, Two Visions With Their Own Set of Facts" in regards to the debate between Obama and Romney last week. The appropriate headline should have been "On Health Care, Two Visions With Romney Telling Falsehoods".
It's another example of the NYT's false-parity reporting. Every single instance described in the article describes Romney lying about Obama's law, lying about his own proposals, and lying about other facts.
For instance:
Mr. Romney made a similar claim in an appearance last month on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” At the time…
denialism | October 2, 2012Via Ed I see that Christopher Monckton is expanding his crankery from denying global warming, claiming to be and MP despite cease and desist letters from parliament asking him to stop, curing HIV, the flu, MS and the common cold to now engaging in Birtherism. It's pathetic when you've been pre-debunked by snopes, but there's no stopping a crank like Monckton.
This reminds me of all the fuss last month over Lewandowsky's study that basically demonstrated crank magnetism, that is, the tendency of those who believe in one kind of conspiratorial nonsense to believe all sorts of other…
denialism | October 1, 2012Slate has an interesting article about Romney campaign mailings that appear to contain buzzwords for chronic Lyme disease advocates in Virginia. Romney's plan for Lyme disease includes these two points:
IMPROVE SYNERGY
Ensure that government agencies have an open line of communication and work with patients, researchers, doctors, and businesses in an objective, comprehensive manner.
SUPPORT TREATMENT
Encourage increased options for the treatment of Lyme Disease and provide local physicians with protection from lawsuits to ensure they can treat the disease with the aggressive antibiotics…
denialism | October 1, 2012This article from the Sunday Times by AEI fellow J.D. Kleinke is exceptional for two reasons. For one, it's an excellent explanation for why conservatives should agree with Obamacare. Second, despite coming from the American Enterprise Institute, an organization that regularly contributes global warming and other conspiratorial nonsense to the WSJ editorial page, it appears to contain nothing but factual information. It's a good reminder of why liberals have been weak in their defense of the law - it's really just Federal Romney/Bob Dole care, but also provides a very striking critique of…
denialism | September 24, 2012The anti-GMO study released late last week has raised so many bad science red flags that I'm losing count. Orac and Steve Novella have both discussed fatal flaws in the research, the New Scientist discussed the researchers' historical behavior of inflating insignificant results to hysterical headlines. And all this new paper seems to be proof of is that these researchers have become more savvy at manipulating press coverage. The result of this clever manipulation of the press embargo and news-release stenography by the press is predictable. The internet food crackpot army has a bogus…
choofnagle | September 12, 2012Gawker reports that on the first day of Katie Couric's new show, Sheryl Crow discusses her theory that cell phone use caused her to have a brain tumor.
Update: The Chronicle reports that the show is just a celebrity infomercial, with softball questions, and no critical discussion:
You would be forgiven for mistakenly thinking you'd tuned in to an infomercial for Weight Watchers in the first half hour of Katie Couric's new syndicated talk show, "Katie," which premiered Monday afternoon...
choofnagle | September 9, 2012With the announcement of the Kindle Fire HD, some users were upset to learn that Amazon was going to stuff "special offers" on the device. But the company quickly retreated, and now is offering the option to turn of the ads for a mere $15.
This is a good development for consumers. We should have the choice to move away from ad-supported business models. As I explain with my co-author Jan Whittington, there is a cost to free business models. "Free," ad-supported services are packed with hidden costs to privacy and other consumer interests.
While the ads are gone, there is still no word…
choofnagle | August 31, 2012Facebook watchers are reporting that the service is about to launch a new feature for merchants that will allow merchants to target ads to users based upon users' email and phone numbers. That's a little confusing. Let me explain with a hypo--
As I understand it, it might work like this: ABC Corp. has an extensive database of consumer email addresses, but is concerned that no one is reading the company's spam. So ABC uploads its consumer email database to Facebook, which identifies Facebook members who are customers of ABC. ABC Corp can then send its marketing through Facebook so that it…
denialism | August 24, 2012Timothy Egan nails it, the Republican caucus is composed of crackpots and cranks.
Take a look around key committees of the House and you’ll find a governing body stocked with crackpots whose views on major issues are as removed from reality as Missouri’s Representative Todd Akin’s take on the sperm-killing powers of a woman who’s been raped.
On matters of basic science and peer-reviewed knowledge, from evolution to climate change to elementary fiscal math, many Republicans in power cling to a level of ignorance that would get their ears boxed even in a medieval classroom. Congress incubates…