denialism | August 22, 2008A fellow medical student once asked me why I thought people become hostile to science-based medicine. Certainly our own failures contribute. When we have no treatments for a disease, or if the treatments themselves may also incur significant morbidity, it is understandable that patients will become disillusioned with what doctors have to offer.
However there is another cause for this hostility towards medicine, and it isn't the occasional crank scibling with an axe to grind against MDs. It's the constant anti-science propaganda being spouted out by the hawkers of alternative medicine.…
denialism | August 22, 2008Prometheus brings us the best article I've seen to date on why the new push for a mitochondrial basis for autism is total nonsense.
Once I saw this push from denialists like David Kirby towards a link between mitochondria and autism I knew we were in for a world of trouble. If only because mitochondrial diseases are a relatively new area of study and there are enough unknowns that they'll be able to milk this nonsense for a decade at least.
Prometheus, however, does an excellent job showing how the likelihood of a mitochondrial explanation for autism is prima facie absurd. This is not…
denialism | August 21, 2008I agree with our buddy Ben Goldacre when he says Bill Nelson wins the internet. I can not begin to describe the hilarity of this video but first a bit of background.
Bill Nelson is a quack who's been running a Rife-machine scam. That is, for many thousands of dollars you can purchase and use his quantum-mechanical machine (read box with blinking lights) to destroy whatever ails you. Fortunately, the FDA has banned its sale in the US, and made this guy:
Bill Nelson (yes that's him) a fugitive who has since fled our country. Unfortunately, other countries, including poor Ben's, have been…
choofnagle | August 21, 2008by the San Francisco Chronicle for giving a lot of uncritical coverage to a pet psychic in "Marla Steele makes pet talk a two-way street." This "psychic" discusses Reiki (and the ability to do it from a distance--"energy broadcasting"), among other thing. And here's the reporter's hardball question:
What do you say to skeptics? I completely appreciate people's skepticism. I first heard about animal communication from a coworker at Nordstrom's who was paying $100 to talk to a pet psychic in Oregon about her German Shepherd. I always listened politely to her stories, but secretly thought she…
choofnagle | August 19, 2008Today's Journal is worth a read for this important development: something reasonable actually appeared in the Opinions section! Scott Gottlieb, one of the AEI's ogres, penned a review of Trick or Treatment, a book on America's obsession with alternative medicines, by Simon Singh and Edzard Ernst. This apparently is not your typical rant against alternative medicines. Gottlieb notes:
...Based at the University of Exeter in England, [Dr. Ernst] leads a research group that has spent 15 years studying alternative remedies, trying to separate snake oil from science. Mr. Singh, his co-author, is…
choofnagle | August 14, 2008The FTC has piled on Airborne, one of the most annoying consumer scams in the market. The vitamin pill was advertised to prevent colds. And it was created by a teacher! But the FTC concluded:
...there is no competent and reliable scientific evidence to support the claims made by the defendants that Airborne tablets can prevent or reduce the risk of colds, sickness, or infection; protect against or help fight germs; reduce the severity or duration of a cold; and protect against colds, sickness, or infection in crowded places such as airplanes, offices, or schools.
If you've ever bought…
denialism | August 8, 2008This is meetup weekend for the sciencebloggers and remember, we're planning to hang out with readers at 2:00 pm on Saturday, August 9, at Social (795 8th Ave).
Drop by, say hello, and meet the scibs!
choofnagle | August 8, 2008Is Obama the Antichrist? No, according to Tim LaHaye, co-author of the Left Behind series, who told the Journal that:
"The antichrist isn't going to be an American, so it can't possibly be Obama. The Bible makes it clear he will be from an obscure place, like Romania," the 82-year-old author said.
Phew! Maybe it's George Soros, then? He's from Hungary. Here's a list of Romanian candidates.
denialism | August 1, 2008The archived reports of the OTA are on a new site hosted by the Federation of American Scientists.
You may remember that we're big fans of the OTA as we feel that scientific assessment of government policy and guidance of legislation is key to having an efficacious, informed congress. In our initial post on the OTA we said:
It used to be, for about 20 years (from 1974 to 1995), there was an office on the Hill, named the Office of Technology Assessment, which worked for the legislative branch and provided non-partisan scientific reports relevant to policy discussions. It was a critical…
denialism | July 28, 2008Everyone this morning should check out a new favorite website of mine the International Journal of Inactivism. Frank Bi has created a wonderful little catalog of global warming conspiracy theories that nicely illustrate the fundamental defects of reasoning used by the denialists. In particular, I enjoyed his genealogy of climate conspiracy theories.
When we first started here, our first post after the introduction was on the non-parsimonious conspiracy as one of the primary indicators of pseudoscientific argument. Frank Bi has done a wonderful job showing just how dependent the global…
choofnagle | July 25, 2008Okay, as Denialism's lawyer, let me get to the issue of the rose tattoo.
A medical procedure is a battery. Patients consent to it, thus allowing the doctor to engage in even invasive touching without liability for the battery. The scope of consent is key, however. Many individuals have a rough sense of consent; they think that if consent is given to one thing, anything goes. But, the law takes a much more nuanced approach to consent. Thus, a patient does not consent to all forms of touching, just ones that are consistent with the procedure authorized.
Was applying a rose tattoo within…
denialism | July 24, 2008Who wrote this?
As someone who spends a substantial portion of his professional time teaching medical students, I can tell you that this kind of attitude-that physicians are gods, not mere mortals, and wield power over other human beings that no one dare question-is inculcated in them from the very beginning of medical training. It is an ugly secret of our medical training system. And the more prestigious the institutions where physicians receive their training, the more overweening is this attitude.
Anything that a physician calls a "joke" or "for the patient's benefit" simply is that, and…
choofnagle | July 22, 2008I just returned from a wonderful trip to Turkey and London, and the flight gave me the opportunity to spend hours with one of my favorite diversions, the Skymall Catalog. Admit it! You look at this thing full of wonders, and wonder who in the world buys them!
Check out this whopper: the "Aculife Therapist Deluxe." For a mere $179.95 you can "Help strengthen your health with the latest ancient technology." Yes, the latest ancient technology!
It continues: "Otzi, a 5,000 year old mummy found in the Alps during 1991, has spurred a whole new vigor into modern research of the Ancient Chinese…
denialism | July 21, 2008Any native New Yorkers out there that read denialism blog? If so, I'll be in town for the Sb meetup in NYC on August 9th. If anyone would like to meet me or the other sciencebloggers, let us know. And if you have a good idea where a bunch of people could find an air-conditioned space to do it, feel free to suggest away.
denialism | July 21, 2008Those reading Deltoid's coverage of the APS fiasco are probably up to date on this issue, but I feel like we need to discuss the APS failure in more detail. For those unaware of the latest in global warming denialist nonsense, the American Physical Society made the foolish mistake of entertaining global warming denialists by giving Christopher Monckton space in their newsletter to "challenge" global warming. As Lambert demonstrates in his post, the factual and calculation errors are a joke, but the strategy error is demonstrated by the fact that every global warming crank from tobacco…
denialism | July 8, 2008Complementing Pal's essay on Gardasil yesterday is our buddy la Pobre Habladora guest blogging on Feministe.
Which, I think, brings us to a new angle on anti-vax denialism because as Pal mentions, the motivations behind harping on Gardasil are different than the usual nonsense. Gardasil, to everyone's dismay, has become intertwined with sexual politics in this country. As the only vaccine that has been identified as preventing a sexually-transmitted disease (the HepB vaccine managed to avoid this, not to mention an association with IV-drug use) there has been a clear impetus among the anti-…
choofnagle | June 27, 2008I wonder whether the Heller decision is broad enough to give me an individual right to own a poop gun, AKA, the "Brown Note."
choofnagle | June 27, 2008Mark, I find your post on DC v. Heller lacking in enthusiasm. It is not often that our Supreme Court finds a new constitutional right (except when big business wants more rights). We should celebrate this, thing--the Second Amendment. It must be important, right, since it becomes before the Third and Fourth!
We should exercise it too. I'm a fan of the old school Colt 45 Auto:
What handcannon are you going to buy?
denialism | June 27, 2008I must admit I'm a bit surprised to see the Supreme Court overturning the handgun ban (full ruling - PDF). I thought the court would have to take the position that gun ownership may be a right but one in which the state had enough of a compelling interest to regulate that bans like DC's could stand. Any other decision would seem to suggest that the state couldn't regulate weapons at all, thus overturning the 1934 automatic weapons ban and other restrictions on ownership of highly dangerous equipment for the hunting of today's super deer.
However, as Ed Brayton discusses, they overturned…