denialism | February 9, 2012 The states in Green have gone for Rick Santorum, who besides having a a Google problem also believes in one of the wackiest conspiracy theories there is - the climate change hoax. That is, the belief that there is a shady group of Illuminati that have power over thousands of climate scientists from all over the world, and in their greed for sweet sweet grant money scientists uniformly falsify all their data to serve this power-hungry cabal. Is that an exaggeration? Nope, that's what people who believe in the "hoax" ascribe to (see skeptical science's thorough debunking of Evans here).…
denialism | February 7, 2012You heard me. There is a shocking conspiracy, directly from the nefarious leaders of the one world government at the UN and their pawn, Barack Obama to add more public transportation and green space to your neighborhood.
Across the country, activists with ties to the Tea Party are railing against all sorts of local and state efforts to control sprawl and conserve energy. They brand government action for things like expanding public transportation routes and preserving open space as part of a United Nations-led conspiracy to deny property rights and herd citizens toward cities.
...
In Maine…
denialism | February 6, 2012Eisen writes
Thus, people joining in the new boycott have no excuses not to follow through. There are plenty of viable OA options and it is simply unacceptable for any scientist who decries Elsevier's actions and believes that the subscription based model is no longer serving science to send a single additional paper to journals that do not provide full OA to every paper they publish. So, come on people! If we do this now, paywalls will crumble, and we all be better off. So, come on! Let's do it!
This sounds great. If you remember we were similarly disgusted since Eisen brought the…
denialism | February 5, 2012No one likes occupiers. They're like fish and houseguests, they start to stink after a short period of time. And I worry that as time goes on the movement will only have a more and more destructive impact on progressive politics and political discourse. This isn't to say they can't be effective, or haven't been effective at at least one goal, that is bringing the topic of economic inequality back into the spotlight. However, as time goes on their leaderless, agenda-less actions are becoming more random, and less likely to result in a good outcome in the coming political fight. In fact,…
choofnagle | January 29, 2012In case you missed it, here's a pointer to a recent Times story concerning baked reviews on Amazon and the like. In it, David Streitfeld describes how one company gave rebates to customers in exchange for five star reviews. They even seem to have a claque to address detractors--
Even a few grouches could not spoil the party. "This is an egregious violation of the ratings and review system used by Amazon," a customer named Robert S. Pollock wrote in a review he titled "scam."
He was promptly chastised by another customer. This fellow, himself a seller on Amazon, argued that he had both given…
choofnagle | January 29, 2012Evgeny Morozov argued in Slate last week that search engines could do more to warn readers about kooks online. Among other things, he cites to a recent article in Vaccine that details the tactics of anti-vaccine denialists. Morozov points to Google's special treatment of certain searches, such as "ways to die." Perhaps an alert can appear when one searches, "should I vaccinate..."
denialism | January 23, 2012Today's NYT has Thomas Edsall's What the Left Get's Right, the follow up piece to last week's What the Right Get's Right, and what's fascinating is how even conservative commentators think liberals get science right more often than conservatives. Or at least they are less likely to view it ideologically:
A few conservative concessions to liberalism's strengths were made without qualification; others were begrudging. Nonetheless, in the conservative assessment, common themes emerge:
Liberals recognize the real problems facing the poor, the hardships resulting from economic globalization and…
denialism | January 18, 2012A few weeks ago Tara Parker Pope wrote The Fat Trap for the NYT and once I read it I started sending it to other doctors I know. It is a great summary on the current knowledge of why we get fat, and more importantly for those of us that already are tipping the scales, why is it so damn hard to take that weight back off. (I'll discuss Young, Obese and Getting Weight Loss Surgery nearer the end)
Beginning in 2009, he and his team recruited 50 obese men and women. The men weighed an average of 233 pounds; the women weighed about 200 pounds. Although some people dropped out of the study, most…
denialism | January 17, 2012Zite has failed me. For some reason under the "science" heading it referred me to thisold hpathy article on homeopathic treatment of burns. I realize this site has been a source of idiocy for years but I think this is a true gem. It makes me want to cry for humanity. Orac, don't look, it will make your brain explode. The question is, how should you treat burns? Most normal, sane people, in the treatment of the acute burn would suggest cooling the tissue, thus ending the process of damage from the exposure to heat, as well as adding the secondary benefit of soothing the injury. What do…
denialism | January 14, 2012Being inactive for the last couple of years I still read about denialism being mentioned in some interesting places. Two in particular I thought I share.
Peter Gleick in Forbes write on "The Rise and Fall of Climate Change Denial is interesting largely because it's in Forbes. And predictably, for publishing in a right-wing magazine, the comments are basically 100% against Gleick, a national academy member, accusing him of everything from incompetence to dishonesty. It's actually pretty remarkable. But at least the scientific viewpoint is starting to infiltrate the literature of the right…
denialism | January 13, 2012At It's not junk Michael Eisen continues to expose the shameless actions of Carolyn Maloney to sell out science for the sake of publishers like Elsevier. As we remarked last week, it seems that very little money is required to buy a representatives favor towards your industry, even if that means acting against the public interest. Now, in her defense of the Research Works Act, which undoes the public distribution of research findings paid for by the public, her response appears to have been written by Elsevier itself.
Eisen busts her in the act.
From Maloney's letter:
First, I…
denialism | January 13, 2012Via Zite I found the article How Doctors Die by Ken Murray and was surprised to find it one of the best I've read on the issue of end-of-life care. The context is that of how Doctors typically forgo extreme measures in the face of terminal diagnoses, and often reject the type of care we routinely provide to our patients as "not for us". While the article lacks hard data on the prevalence of these attitudes or behaviors, I have to say this viewpoint is consistent my experience of learning my colleague's beliefs and how I now personally feel about ICU care . And I'm someone who is interested…
denialism | January 9, 2012Via Ed
If you ever wondered what motivated this particular HIV/AIDS denialist this video makes it obvious. Duesberg comes out and blames homosexual promiscuity for AIDS rather than a virus. I think examples like this make it clearer that the ideology responsible for this denialism is plain just plain homophobia after all. This is, of course, appealing to right wing ideologues so where does Duesberg end up? On right wing radio with the American Family Association's Brian Fischer proposing the absurd "AIDS was invented for gays to steal grant-money" conspiracy theory. I think the…
denialism | January 9, 2012As Chris discussed Saturday the WSJ had a silly article in which a woman demands a prescription drug from a flight attendant, asking for the wrong drug to treat her problem acutely, and then shockingly was refused this service. Worse, Nexium is mentioned by name, multiple times, and Nexium is actually a drug which should never have even been approved by the FDA. It really is only prescribed because of intense marketing because, logically, it has no business on the market and is no different than an existing drug, prilosec. Why would doctors irrationally prescribe this drug then? Because…
choofnagle | January 8, 2012Denialism fans, you might enjoy the archive of informercials at my favorite website, Everything is Terrible. It's so much fun to watch all those lame infomercials from the 80s and 90s and realize how little has changed in the marketing world.
Okay, back to Chair Dancing.
choofnagle | January 7, 2012Writing in the Saturday (how to make it look like you're rich edition) of the Wall Street Journal, Marisa Acocella Marchetto mentions an expensive, branded drug--Nexium--eight times. She even mentions its slogan ("the purple pill")!
As Mark has written elsewhere, it's moronic to take Nexium because there are cheaper, efficacious alternatives, such as Prilosec, which is available over the counter. Consumer Reports noted in 2010 that Nexium was the most expensive PPI, at $248 a month, and that cheaper generics and over the counter medicines were available.
In the story, she describes being…
denialism | January 7, 2012And get's it wrong
What's amazing is they rank Newt first at the same time acknowledging he destroyed the Office of Technology Assessment.
Jon Huntsman may have the most rational scientific and technological policies of anyone in the field, but Gingrich, sometimes called Newt Skywalker, has far more passion. As Kelefa Sanneh argues in the current issue, the philosophy of Gingrichism is nothing but a combination of the idiosyncratic views of the man himself--which include his beliefs in the virtues of space exploration and his opposition to regulating the Internet, even when it comes to porn.…
denialism | January 7, 2012I'm never shocked by what Issa can do in a never-ending downward spiral of serving business interests, but it's sad that NY rep Carolyn Maloney has joined him backing a bill to sell out science. Once again the publishers are trying to destroy public access, and make everyone pay to read science you've already paid for with your taxes.
The Research Works Act reads:
No Federal agency may adopt, implement, maintain, continue, or otherwise engage in any policy, program, or other activity that--
(1) causes, permits, or authorizes network dissemination of any private-sector research…
denialism | January 6, 2012For some reason the NYT is all about neck injury lately. In yesterday's discussion of a possible chiropractic induced injury, Russell asked:
But given all the other stresses people put on their necks, from accidents such as headbumps, from purposeful athletics such as whacking soccer balls, and from just craning one's head in odd positions when performing various kinds of mechanical labor, it puzzles me that the risk from a chiropractor would be much greater than the risks from these other kinds of use/abuse. Of course, this is not excuse for the chiropractor, who is imposing that risk,…