And you thought that only creationists denied a well established theory? Think again. Tara has attracted the attention of someone who denies the germ theory of disease:
Do some research Tara. Then you will be ready to start from scratch again, forget the germ theory nonsense and become a real scientist.
Read the thread. Anti-germ theorists even have their own fake deathbed conversion story, but from Pasteur instead of Darwin. She has a follow up, which will sound familiar to anyone who has dealt with creationists.
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Evolutionary biologists sometimes think we microbiology people have it easy. "No one doubts the germ theory!," they claim.
Au contraire, mes amis:
Do some research Tara. Then you will be ready to start from scratch again, forget the germ theory nonsense and become a real scientist.
And I bet…
Work and a conference intervene to prevent a fresh dose of Respectful Insolence today. Fortunately, there's still classic Insolence from the archives that hasn't been moved over to the new blog. This one originally appeared on March 7, 2005.
The short answer is: Yes. The long answer is below.
When…
Last week, I expressed my surprise and dismay that the Atheist Alliance International chose Bill Maher for the Richard Dawkins Award. I was dismayed because Maher has championed pseudoscience, including dangerous antivaccine nonsense, germ theory denialism complete with repeating myths about Louis…
Does this story sound familiar?
The narrative goes like this:
The famous, brilliant scientist So-and-so hypothesized that X was true.
X, forever after, became dogma among scientists, simply by virtue of the brilliance and fame of Dr. So-and-so.
This dogmatic assent continues unchallenged until an…
The comments on the follow up are migraine inducingly absurd. There's one that even denies that gravity is truly a force.
Dr. Smith is too kind.
I can't think of anything more insulting than being told by an ignoramus to "Do some research" into a field I've devoted my life to.
I would have told him/her off.
If only science had some sort of method that allowed one to sort out bad theories from better ones. Then all these political debates wouldn't be needed.
Astounding that the germ theory denialists were never able to marshall anything other than a criticism of germ theory. One would have thought they had their own logical and evidentially-based explanations for the spread of disease. You know, like the creationists have for the development of life.