denialism | September 27, 2007This week it's our friend Factition at Conspiracy Factory. However, he makes the poor decision to let the world know about our contacts with the Illuminati as part of our anti-conspiracy disinformation campaign.
Traitor!
denialism | September 26, 2007This is seriously disturbing. Archbishop Francisco Chimoio, who is head of the Catholic Church in Mozambique, is telling people that condoms are laced with HIV and HAART therapy is designed to finish you off. This is in a country with double-digit HIV infection rates.
Archbishop Chimoio told our reporter that abstention, not condoms, was the best way to fight HIV/Aids.
"Condoms are not sure because I know that there are two countries in Europe, they are making condoms with the virus on purpose," he alleged, refusing to name the countries.
"They want to finish with the African people. This…
denialism | September 26, 2007Here's what I'm reading this morning.
An Orangutan stole a womans pants in Malaysia. That's got to be embarrassing, but at the very least, you'd have a story to tell people for the rest of your life that is sure to entertain.
Congress, having solved all other problems is looking into the language of hip-hop. Someone needs to find the youtube of this testimony.
But rapper and record producer Levell Crump, known as David Banner, was defiant as lawmakers pressed him on his use of offensive language. ''I'm like Stephen King: horror music is what I do,'' he said in testimony laced with swear…
denialism | September 26, 2007I've largely been ignoring their stupid lately. But the sheer idiocy of a ID "mathematician" Granville Sewell takes the cake for this truly idiotic straw-man argument.
It starts with an interesting question though:
I speculated on what would happen if we constructed a gigantic computer model which starts with the initial conditions on Earth 4 billion years ago and tries to simulate the effects that the four known forces of physics (the gravitational and electromagnetic forces and the strong and weak nuclear forces) would have on every atom and every subatomic particle on our planet. If we…
denialism | September 26, 2007I have trouble believing this, but animal rights extremists have apparently stolen a kindergarten bunny.
Students at the Community Building Children's Center arrived at their downtown preschool Monday morning to discover that their pet rabbit Sugar Bunny had been kidnapped over the weekend. Teachers found anti-circus flyers in his hutch.
"Somebody stoled him," said five-year-old Zion. "I'm sad."
How do they know it was them? Apparently they left their calling card - anti-circus literature:
The half-dozen flyers left behind advertised protests against the Ringling Brothers Circus, which was…
choofnagle | September 25, 2007The ads work, that is. HeadOn, that homeopathic (and therefore completely ineffective) head rub for head pain isn't effective. But it's still selling, because advertising and propaganda often trumps evidence! Mya Frazier of AdAge reports:
Those rapid-fire "HeadOn, apply directly to the forehead" spots are arguably among the worst commercials ever from a creative standpoint. They're annoying, repetitive, obnoxious -- and effective.
Clutter buster: HeadOn ads seem amateurish and mindnumbing, but the company's marketing chief said consumers remember them.
[...]
HeadOn is logging some heady…
denialism | September 23, 2007Chris Mooney has been nice enough to help promote our effort, and points us to some more helpful information about the Office of Technology Assessment. Now would be a good time to go over what the OTA did, how it was set up, and why I think it would be rather easy to set it up again as a non-partisan scientific body. To help people understand why this office was important, let's go through a history of the body, much of which I've culled from Bruce Bimber's "The Politics of Expertise in Congress".
Founding and Mission of the OTA
The OTA was founded in 1972 to counter more political bodies…
denialism | September 21, 2007They're fighting for our freedoms. And in order to fight for our freedoms, thousands of miles away from home, thousands of miles from their sweethearts and husbands/wives, they must be kept pure and without sin. Therefore, Christian groups demand the military not allow PX stores to sell porn (aka Playboy).
A Christian advocacy group is encouraging military families, and other concerned citizens, to write letters to the Defense Department expressing concern over the recent decision by the Pentagon that allows the sale of certain adult magazines at military exchanges.
...
Trueman says the…
denialism | September 21, 2007I am always amused by this statement at the bottom of the Evolution News and Views website. It says:
The misreporting of the evolution issue is one key reason for this site. Unfortunately, much of the news coverage has been sloppy, inaccurate, and in some cases, overtly biased. Evolution News & Views presents analysis of that coverage, as well as original reporting that accurately delivers information about the current state of the debate over Darwinian evolution. Click here to read more.
That being said, Casey Luskin shows just how accurate and unbiased his little news service can be,…
denialism | September 20, 2007DeSmogBlog has the details. Apparently, "cut-and-paste" Schulte didn't have anything new to say, not even enough for a journal like Energy and Environment to take it. Although, Richard Littlemore's letter discussing his loose use of other researchers contributions might have helped.
Here is the email that I sent to Boehmer-Christiansen"
...
Dr. Schulte's analysis has engendered both enthusiasm and controversy, but at least one arm's length "reviewer," Dr. Tim Lambert, has noted that Dr.Schulte's draft draws heavily from a document that it does not credit, an earlier letter on this topic…
denialism | September 20, 2007It looks like it will be two announcements of new sciblings today. We have A Few Things Ill Considered joining us at Scienceblogs. It's a climate science/debunking blog I've been familiar with for a while, and author of the excellent Howto talk to a climate skeptic.
Welcome!
denialism | September 20, 2007Welcome Sciencewoman to the block, as she starts up her new blog here. I'm continually impressed with our Sb overlords and their ability to acquire a diverse set of talented individuals. It seems they're doing a better job the The Scientist as some of my sciblings have pointed out.
choofnagle | September 20, 2007Brian Krebs reports good news: Trans Union, one of the three major consumer reporting agencies, will offer all consumers the option to freeze their credit files in order to prevent identity theft:
A credit freeze directs the credit bureaus to block access to a consumer's credit report and credit score. At present, at least 39 states and the District of Columbia allow consumers to freeze their credit files, but many of those laws do not take effect until 2008 or 2009. TransUnion would be the first bureau to voluntarily offer freezes to consumers in all 50 states (and D.C.).
There's a lot to…
denialism | September 20, 2007For anyone curious about complexity, genome size, and non-coding or "junk" DNA, there are a number of good posts on the topic at Genomicron.
See in particular Junk DNA: let me say it one more time fand Function, non-function, some function: a brief history of junk DNA for a discussion of what junk DNA is, what it means for biology, and why creationists that have made hay out of it are purposefully misunderstanding and misrepresenting it.
And What's wrong with this figure? for a discussion on a common mistake in assuming that genome size automatically means increasingly complex organisms.
Good…
choofnagle | September 20, 2007Apparently lacking sufficiently homophobic leadership in the US, some American churches are turning elsewhere for their fire and brimstone. The Journal's Andrew Higgins reports:
MBARARA, Uganda -- The Rev. John Guernsey, rector of a church in a middle-class Virginia suburb, stood early this month before thousands of Africans here on a rickety, ribbon-bedecked podium. Clutching a wooden staff in his left hand, he shouted in Runyankole, a local tribal language: "Mukama Asimwe!" -- Praise the Lord!
Mr. Guernsey, 54 years old, had reason to rejoice. A defector from America's Episcopal Church, he…
denialism | September 19, 2007This time it's Steve McIntyre representing for the anti-global warming cranks following the HIV/AIDS denialist lead and using John Ioannidis' study to suggest science is bunk. Never mind that this research is primarily focused on medical studies. Never mind that the study wouldn't even exist if replication in science didn't identify in the first place. Cranks like to latch onto anything that they think is embarrassing to science out of the mistaken belief that it makes their nonsense more believable.
It's funny, I was sure they would have picked up on this stuff years ago, but the…
denialism | September 19, 2007Second Innocence has gone and shown me up on my own issue. They've started a petition to reinstate the OTA.
Please, show your support.
denialism | September 19, 2007The NYT had a piece on the life and times of Ayn Rand yesterday, and I just couldn't get over these two paragraphs.
For years, Rand's message was attacked by intellectuals whom her circle labeled "do-gooders," who argued that individuals should also work in the service of others. Her book was dismissed as an homage to greed. Gore Vidal described its philosophy as "nearly perfect in its immorality."
But the book attracted a coterie of fans, some of them top corporate executives, who dared not speak of its impact except in private. When they read the book, often as college students, they now…
denialism | September 19, 2007
Nature has a review this week on the Impact of regional climate change on human health(1) that is an interesting read.
Contrary to the previous article we discussed which suggested what I think is a non-existent link between climate change and chronic disease, this article discusses the very real likelihood of increased acute mortality from respiratory and cardiovascular disease with extreme weather.
Exposure to both extreme hot and cold weather is associated with increased morbidity and mortality, compared to an intermediate 'comfortable' temperature range15. Heat mortality follows a J-…
denialism | September 18, 2007Why can't people just be bigots and not demand science reinforce their bigotry? James Dobson is promoting the Exodus Ex-Gay study (reviewed by Jim Burroway here). You remember the study? The one where they ignore all the people that dropped out? The one where success also included chastity, or merely staying with the program despite not changing sexuality? The one where "conversion" left participants still sexually conflicted? Yeah, that one, is being promoted as proof that Dobson is right.
Focus on the Family, the Colorado Springs-based Christian media ministry, on Monday endorsed a…