denialism | August 9, 2007Some readers have been emailing me about the Utah mine disaster saying the mine owners are using some seriously fishy arguments. I am in no way shape or form a geologist, but after reading the coverage of the Utah mine collapse I can't help thinking the CEO saying it was an earthquake - not a mine collapse caused by unsafe practices - comes across as someone being deceptive.
Scientists believe the seismic waves in the area of the Crandall Canyon mine were "the signature of the collapse and that the collapse was not caused by an earthquake," said James W. Dewey, a seismologist at the…
denialism | August 8, 2007Responding to a commentor on a thread about animal rights, I again encountered this funny view of nature that some people have. Two sentences in particular just struck me as being out of touch with reality.
The alternative may be to try to live in harmony with nature.
...
Trying to dominate nature has only caused suffering. There are alternatives.
Where do people get this idea that nature is our friend? Hippies drive me nuts. Not only is this just totally unrealistic, but I think it also reflects a fundamental ignorance of biology, history, and the basic infrastructure of our society. I…
denialism | August 8, 2007No.
However, there is never a shortage of crankery from Mike Adams who asserts Microwave ovens destroy the nutritional value of your food. There may be too much idiocy here to address but let's get started.
The rise of widespread nutritional deficiencies in the western world correlates almost perfectly with the introduction of the microwave oven. This is no coincidence. Microwave ovens heat food through a process of creating molecular friction, but this same molecular friction quickly destroys the delicate molecules of vitamins and phytonutrients (plant medicines) naturally found in foods.…
denialism | August 6, 2007Ah Egnor. The chief purveyor of foot-in-mouth disease at Evolution News and Views takes on Dunford's recent post on the intellectual dishonesty of the intelligent design creationist movement and shows exactly why Dunford has a point.
Intelligent design is a cheesy attempt to smear a patina of scientific legitimacy on creationist ideas. Dunford quite reasonably points out that at least the creationists are honest about their objectives, while the ID cranks play a game of hiding their creationist dogma behind psuedoscientific nonsense. Egnor takes offense, and suggests that Dunford is…
denialism | August 6, 2007Alert readers have brought to my attention two articles of interest to the study of denialism. First a big fat article in Newsweek entitled The Truth About Denial is a good overview of the anti-scientific crusade of conservative crank tanks to dispute global warming. It has a nice timeline of the development of the denialist movement in response to the unwanted science, examples of the cranks in congress that have latched onto and internalized the arguments that confirm what they want to hear, and their classic tactics of cherry-picking and confusing climate with weather.
The second, and I'…
denialism | August 6, 2007How will the homophobes greet this latest article in Nature describing a pheromone "switch" in mice that when inactivated - even in adult mice - appears to change their sexual orientation?
Briefly let's go over what the researchers found.
Mice that lacked a gene named Trpc, responsible for encoding an ion channel in the vomeronasal organ, were previously discovered to have indiscriminant mating patterns among males. In other words, the boys would try to mount anything that moved, male or female. It was thought that mice, which don't exactly look at girly mags, can probably only distinguish…
denialism | August 5, 2007Fighting the "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance seemed like such a folly a year or so ago, but then Texas reminds us of just how pushy the religious can be.
Texas students will have four more words to remember when they head back to class this month and begin reciting the state's pledge of allegiance.
This year's Legislature added the phrase "one state under God" to the pledge, which is part of a required morning ritual in Texas public schools along with the pledge to the U.S. flag and a moment of silence.
State Rep. Debbie Riddle, who sponsored the bill, said it had always bothered her…
denialism | August 5, 2007Democrats, empowered by their victories last November and in response by a nation-wide desire to hold the presidency accountable vote to expand warrantless wiretapping.
Wait, what?
choofnagle | August 5, 2007For all the encomia made by banking industry lobbyists to the value of the "free flow of information," one finds examples where the industry restricts information sharing when it benefits them.
Capital One was one of the worst offenders. It's complex, but the company was restricting information flow in such a way that it lowered cardholders' credit scores. How? Capital One reported cardholders' balances, not their credit limit. This practice makes a cardholder appear to have maxed out their credit card. Why? Because if your credit score is lower, it will be harder to get other credit…
denialism | August 3, 2007Slate has a story by John Dickerson about how Obama has rejected the weasel tactic invented, or at least perfected, by Bush for avoiding questions.
To hide the fact that they're hiding something, candidates elevate their refusal to a virtue. "One of the jobs of a president is being very reasoned in approaching these issues," Hillary Clinton said to a hypothetical question about sending ground troops to Darfur. "And I don't think it's useful to be talking in these kinds of abstract hypothetical terms." Two days later, Mitt Romney cried hypothetical when asked in a debate whether, in…
choofnagle | August 2, 2007In the bogus legal claims department, one finds this blub from Consumerist. What's the deal here? A pretty aggressive consumer group, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, created model menu for Wendy's that demonstrates how the "restaurant" can display calorie information. It's pretty clear, and very useful.
Of course, Wendy's hates this stuff. And their lawyers at Akin Gump are arguing that the sample menu is a misuse of Wendy's trademark. Sorry Wendy's and Akin Gump, generally speaking, trademark is a type of consumer protection intended to help consumers distinguish…
denialism | August 1, 2007Welcome to the 66th meeting of the International Society of Skeptics.
Abstracts from attendees:
Straw Men and Circular Reasoning
Author: Skeptico
Introduction The problem of debunking crop circles persists despite many previous valiant efforts (See Sagan, C.S. Demon Haunted World).
Results In this study the author evaluates current research into the formation of crop circles. Relying on faulty evidence and circular reasoning, current proponents fail to elevate crop circle formation from hoax to alien conspiracy.
Conclusions Crop circles remain convincing evidence of extraterrestrial life…
denialism | August 1, 2007Janet points us to this AP article about how the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine -aka PETA pretending to be doctors (less than 5% of them are actually doctors) - is now suing UCSF over reported violations of the animal welfare act.
I'm sure this is as noble as their attempts to smear McDonalds, or sue the dairy industry or their lawsuits against fastfood chains for serving "carcinogenic" grilled foods, or calling school lunches weapons of mass destruction for containing meat, and on and on.
Does anyone think this is a legitimate attempt to foster reform at UCSF (which was…
denialism | July 31, 2007
What is it about reporting on pot that makes people so Puritanical? Today I read in the Guardian Cannabis joints damage lungs more than tobacco - study.
A single cannabis joint may cause as much damage to the lungs as five chain-smoked cigarettes, research has found.
Is that so? Let's take a look at the data.
The authors of the article compared smokers to fairly heavy marijuana users - based on the mean smoking exposure of the groups (54.2 joint years compared to 23 pack-years for the smokers both with a mean age ~42-46) the group was clearly smoking multiple joints a day over decades…
denialism | July 31, 2007Just a reminder, I would like all submissions to the 66th Skeptics Circle by today.
denialism | July 30, 2007
A lot of people are talking about a new study showing a 40% increase risk of "psychosis", which I first heard news of in this story, from the Daily Mail:
A single joint of cannabis raises the risk of schizophrenia by more than 40 percent, a disturbing study warns.
The Government-commissioned report has also found that taking the drug regularly more than doubles the risk of serious mental illness.
Overall, cannabis could be to blame for one in seven cases of schizophrenia and other life-shattering mental illness, the Lancet reports.
Something sounds a little off. Let's see what this Lancet…
denialism | July 29, 2007We already knew from former Surgeon General Carmona's testimony that this was happening, but now the WaPo brings us
a specific example of science being squelched by a political appointee. It's not only inappropriate, but just despicable.
A surgeon general's report in 2006 that called on Americans to help tackle global health problems has been kept from the public by a Bush political appointee without any background or expertise in medicine or public health, chiefly because the report did not promote the administration's policy accomplishments, according to current and former public health…
denialism | July 27, 2007I can't quite come up with a good reason to see it, considering seeing movies in C-ville is usually a desultory experience. Our local chains, Regal and Carmike, typically play 10-20 minutes of advertisements before the trailers. Being a Tivo fan, my tolerance for commercials has decreased dramatically over the years, and the insipidity of the movie commercials is horrific.
So I find I really have to want to see a movie in order to justify suppressing the rage at being forced to watch bad commercials for 20 minutes for a movie that I've already paid 10 bucks for. With the Simpsons, the best…
denialism | July 26, 2007I couldn't resist when I read this Guardian story about Oscar, the death predicting cat.
When the two-year-old grey and white cat curls up next to an elderly resident, staff now realise, this means they are likely to die in the next few hours.
Such is Oscar's apparent accuracy - 25 consecutive cases so far - that nurses at the US home now warn family members to rush to a patient's beside as soon as the cat takes up residence there.