denialism | June 6, 2007I'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 to be the basis of a film script I want to option - Weekend at Castro's - which centers around the hi-jinks of a pair of ne'er do well party members assigned to keep evidence of Castro's death a secret during an important state visit. Hilarity ensues.
Doesn't that sound like a good movie? Oh well…
choofnagle | June 6, 2007
Almost any proposal can be styled as "Un-American." Typically this is bundled with wild, inaccurate claims about European regulations (i.e., you can't do business in Europe at all). You'll wonder if the denialist has even been to Europe!
Update: Mark H provides this article as an example of "Unamerican" in today's Wall Street Journal. It contains, among others, this great example:
The German took the floor first. His was a bold thesis: The economic transformation required to address global warming will bring huge energy efficiencies--and hence huge economic benefits--even if there is…
denialism | June 6, 2007Fox 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 congressmen?
Honestly, they couldn't tell the difference between this guy
and this guy?
If I were a conspiracy theorist I'd say it's because the right-wing Fox news doesn't like Conyers investigating Republicans. Luckily I'm not, so I'll just settle for calling them ignorant morons.
choofnagle | June 5, 2007
The denialist can almost always argue that a proposal is unconstitutional. After all, businesses were afforded many civil rights before women achieved suffrage.
denialism | June 5, 2007The 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 credit to hucksters Tony Robbins (he'll hypnotize you with his teeth) and Deepak Chopra, king of woo. You know where it's going with the first post "Healing Is Individual, Not One-Size-Fits-All" and early statements such as this:
But Tony knew that the bottom line is that healing is individual, it's not…
denialism | June 5, 2007We'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 hilarious rejection of "helioleftism.
I've subscribed to their feed and really, I love it better than fafblog. This is just the best satire I've ever seen.
Today really took the cake though. Here's their latest justification for rejection of Mitt Romney:
He makes himself out to be a family values…
choofnagle | June 5, 2007
This is a very powerful argument in the post-9/11 environment. And if you're a denialist worth your salt, you can figure out a way to claim that your industry is a potential target for terrorism.
Danger! can be used to get things done quickly, as Verisign realized when it wanted to move a "root server" without following normal process. In Department of Commerce officials' emails, Verisign made pleas to declare an emergency to get their way: The company wants "to push us to declare some kind of national security threat and blow past the process," one e-mail said. The subject line of…
denialism | 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 already-wealthy right-wing friends of the administration who use their money to attack abortion and fund denialist groups like the Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America.
Following the money swirling around Ruddy offers an eye-opening glimpse into the squalor at the heart of the…
choofnagle | June 4, 2007
"Can't be enforced" is a different argument than "it won't work" (the Jack of Diamonds). Here, the denialist is usually threatening to operate an offending practice overseas, or oddly enough, arguing that because a proposal doesn't give someone a right to sue, it isn't worth passing.
Of course, if the proposal gives one a right to sue, the denialist uses the opposite argument: the proposal is enforceable, and the denialist will complain of frivolous lawsuits.
denialism | June 4, 2007The 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 that's strikes me as the dumbest thing I've heard yet. No material link between our ideas and our brains? So I guess when we take a hallucinogen like LSD it works by magic? How could it be that thinking
is separate from "material" as he puts it, when we can ingest material substances that alter our…
denialism | June 4, 2007I'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. Normal or abnormal sensations of itching are interpreted by the patient as being bug bites, or bugs traveling under the skin despite the absence of histological evidence of a parasitic infection. This is what is known as a "fixed delusion" and it becomes an obsession for the patient. The…
denialism | June 3, 2007I 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 global warming remarked, "Climate modelers have been 'cheating' for so long it's become almost respectable."
Tim Lambert catches Cockburn in this dishonesty and it's a pretty bad behavior. It reminds me of the HOWTO again, in that people that become cranks really see only what they want to see in a…
choofnagle | June 2, 2007
Giving money to the leadership of the Senate and House is a great strategy, because no proposals will be considered at all if the leadership blocks them. The leadership is rarefied; one only taps them in desperate situations
choofnagle | June 1, 2007
Believe it or not, I've heard industry lobbyists say that they'd stop doing business in California/America if certain consumer protection regulations passed. It's totally implausible, but still a high-value card.
choofnagle | June 1, 2007As Paris Hilton gets ready for her short stay in jail, she increasingly is photographed carrying Jesus books. And today, she appears on my favorite blog wearing a "Faith" hoodie, and carrying Count Your Blessings, Spiritual Warrior, and some others.
Her behavior recalls Machiavelli's advice:
...a prince ought to take care that he never lets anything slip from his lips that is not replete with the...five qualities, that he may appear to him who sees and hears him altogether merciful, faithful, humane, upright, and religious. There is nothing more necessary to appear to have than this last…
choofnagle | June 1, 2007
The denialist can always raise the specter of "big government." As in, the proposal at issue will create bigger government, complete with appeals to fears of world government and stuff like satan. This is a high-risk card because big business loves big government.
denialism | June 1, 2007Readers 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 unusual to see a left-winger become a crank on global warming. The history of this mess is interesting. It started with this first post from Cockburn, in which he declares global warming a scam.
What evolves is a fascinating picture into the formation of a crank, and the change in global warming…
denialism | May 31, 2007In 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 are present. He, of course, uses many of the classic denialist arguments.
For instance:
We have a classic divide-and-conquer tactic of asserting that because there is some dispute over different evolutionary theories, there is room for doubt. I consider this a goal-post moving argument - you can'…
denialism | May 31, 2007Apparently, 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 results in a condition known as "electrosensitivity", which I think is a synonym for "nuts" or "wants attention" or "you have a dumb doctor".
If you want your eyes to fall out, you can read the Independent article yourself.
The problem, and the real sad part of this is that we are watching the…
denialism | May 31, 2007Who 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 you do it:
Step one: Develop a wacky idea.
It is critical that your wacky idea must be something pretty extraordinary. A good crank shoots for the stars. You don't defend to the death some simple opinion, like Coke is better than Pepsi. You've got to think big! You've got to do something like…