oracknows | December 14, 2009When the USPSTF issued new guidelines for who should undergo screening mammography, at what ages, and how often, it set off a firestorm of negative reactions. Some of this is not surprising, given that the reevaluation of the evidence for screening mammography led the USPSTF to recommend against its routine use in women between the ages of 40 and 50 who lack strong risk factors for breast cancer; i.e., who are at "average" risk. Add to that the recommendation that screening for women age 50 and older should only be every two years instead of every year plus the recommendation that women…
oracknows | December 12, 2009I've decided to chill this weekend after five years of insanity. However, while you anxiously await yet another hemidecade of Insolence, both Respectful and not-so-Respectful, what better way to do so than checking out the awesome Tim Minchin and his most excellent nine minute beat poem "Storm":
Who says skepticism and art don't mix?
oracknows | December 11, 2009
Has it really been that long?
It was a dismally overcast Saturday five years ago when, on a whim after having read a TIME Magazine article about how 2004 was supposedly the Year of the Blogger, I sat down in front of my computer, found Blogspot, and the first incarnation of Respectful Insolence was born. If anyone is curious, this was my first test post, and this was my first substantive post (well, sort of). Every year (at least the ones where I remember my blogiversary, I find it particularly interesting to go back to the beginning and see how true to my original vision for this blog I've…
oracknows | December 10, 2009Arguably, the genesis of the most recent iteration of the anti-vaccine movement dates back to 1998, when a remarkably incompetent researcher named Andrew Wakefield published a trial lawyer-funded "study" in the Lancet that purported to find a link between "autistic enterocolitis" and measles vaccination with the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) trivalent vaccine. In the wake of that publication was born a scare over the MMR that persists to this day, 11 years later. Although peer reviewers forced the actual contents of the paper to be more circumspect, in the press Wakefield promoted the idea that…
oracknows | December 9, 2009A while back I wrote about really rethinking how we screen for breast cancer using mammography. Basically, the USPSTF, an independent panel of physicians and health experts that makes nonbinding recommendations for the government on various health issues, reevaluated the evidence for routine screening mammography and concluded that for women at normal risk for breast cancer, mammography before age 50 should not be recommended routinely and should be ordered on an individualized basis, and that routine formalized breast self-examination (BSE) should also not be routinely recommended. In…
oracknows | December 8, 2009My irony meter exploded in a near-nuclear conflagration, leaving nothing but a sputtering, molten puff of plasma when I was referred to this gem from Kim Stagliano over at Age of Autism directed at the enemy of all anti-vaccine pseudoscience, that Dark Lord of Vaccination (to anti-vaccine loons) himself, Paul Offit:
You'll blame the "anti-vaxxers" for the public refusal of this vaccine. Spare me. We are a cap gun compared to your nuclear bomb when it comes to the media. We're ragtag colonials hiding behind trees as you Red Coats march in military precision with fine weapons. How much money…
oracknows | December 7, 2009Well, well, well, well.
What is this I found forwarded to me in my in box? It's from the anti-vaccine group Generation Rescue, and it is most interesting:
Generation Rescue is in the final stages of receiving grant funding for a vaccine research study on the long term effects of the current U.S. recommended schedule. The last thing we need are declarations of support from our community who purchased Airborne Health.
Did you purchase Airborne during May 1, 2001 - November 29, 2007?
Do you support a vaccine research study on the long term effects of the current U.S. schedule?
Do you…
oracknows | December 7, 2009
...the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, thus finally sucking the United States into the conflagration that had been raging for two years in Europe and even longer in Asia.
Stories like this one from the AP remind us that the generation who fought and died to defeat Nazi-ism and Japan's imperialism is very old and won't be with us much longer. Ed Johann, the subject of the story, was a 17-year-old apprentice seaman on that fateful Sunday morning. He is going back for the first time since the attack because at age 86 he may not have many more chances:
For years, Johann said he wouldn't go to…
oracknows | December 7, 2009The new UPSTF recommended guidelines for screening mammography of healthy women have opened up a can of worms whose consequences have not played out yet, indeed, likely will not play out for a long time. Coming in rapid succession after the announcement of the UPSTF guidelines was a study that suggested that low dose radiation from mammography may put young women with breast cancer-predisposing BRCA mutations at a higher risk for breast cancer. A consequence of the USPSTF recommendations is that politicians have pounced on it as "proof" that President Obama really is preparing death panels…
oracknows | December 5, 2009My benevolent overlords at Seed Media Group yesterday announced (to me at least) a surprise new initiative. But, then, I'm always one of the last to find out about these things. In any case, it would appear that we're teaming up with National Geographic to share blog content and various other initiatives. The press release describes what's going on:
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC DIGITAL MEDIA AND SCIENCEBLOGS.COM FORM STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP
WASHINGTON / NEW YORK (Dec. 3, 2009)--National Geographic Digital Media (NGDM) and ScienceBlogs.com today announced that they have formed a strategic partnership…
oracknows | December 5, 2009Bloggers love it when other bloggers cite them to support their arguments. I'm no different, as even a blinking Plexiglass box of lights likes to have its arguments appreciated. I particularly love it when a skeptical blogger uses some small thing I've written to refute particularly egregious nonsense. Unfortunately, there's the flip side to this. There are times when I'd prefer I wasn't cited. No, I'm not talking about anti-vaccinationists like J.B. Handley launching broadsides against me when I hit a particular nerve, various quacks or boosters of quackery going after me when, well, I hit a…
oracknows | December 4, 2009The 125th Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle has been posted at Effort Sisyphus. This time around, you have a choice, either the predigested and linear or the more difficult but potentially more satisfying trip down the rabbit hole, never knowing what might pop up. Choose wisely.
Next up to host the Skeptics' Circle two weeks hence is Weird Things. Be sure to join us if you're a regular reader (or even if you're not), and if you're a blogger be sure to submit your best skepticism and critical thinking to the next host!
The 125 Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle has been posted over at Effort…
oracknows | December 3, 2009Remember the truly despicable and disgusting post by Age of Autism, in which its enemies were portrayed in a crudely Photoshopped picture as preparing to eat a dead baby for their Thanksgiving feast? It was an image that I likened to the blood libel against the Jews, as did Rene at EpiRen in a much more detailed post.
It's gone now. If you go to the link, earlier this evening you'd get a message "Nothing to see, move along now." Now, if you go to the link, it's a blank page. Fortunately, for now at least, the it's stlll cached in Google, and I, of course, have saved web archives, a screen…
oracknows | December 3, 2009I'm beginning to understand why evolutionary biologists are so sensitive about how creationists abuse and twist any research that they think can be used to cast doubt upon evolution. Whenever there is research that changes the way we look at evolution or suggest aspects of it that we didn't appreciate before, where scientists get excited because they see an opportunity for better understanding of evolution, creationists see a chance to use it to launch specious and fallacious attacks against evolution. Sadly, there is no shortage of creationists willing to make fools of themselves to try to…
oracknows | December 2, 2009Alright, I'm officially tired of the latest Age of Autism outrage. So, while I wait for J.B. Handley to strike back (or not), let's move on to lighter subjects for a moment. And what better to cleanse the palate of the vision of cannibals eating babies as a metaphor for those who standup for science than a little pareidolia?
Yes, it's another Virgin Mary sighting, this time in a pancake:
Now, I've seen Jesus on a pancake. Heck, there's even a site dedicated to Jesus on pancakes. Besides, others have beaten this woman to seeing Mary on a pancake. This is actually a pretty lame Virgin Mary…
Deepak Chopra and his Choprawoo translated: "Skeptics, take my ill-informed speculations seriously!"
oracknows | December 1, 2009He's baaaack.
Deepak Chopra. Remember him? It's been a while since I've said much about him and him alone. True, I've gone after him this year when he joined up with three other major league woo-meisters Dean Ornish, Rustum Roy, and Andrew Weil to try to try to help Senator Tom Harkin hijack the health care overhaul bill currently before Congress. However, given that a couple of years ago, Chopra was the man for whose abuses of quantum theory, evolution, and "universal consciousness" ideas I coined the term "Choprawoo" and the only response ever needed to Choprawoo, it's been a while since I…
oracknows | December 1, 2009I debated whether or not to blog about this. The reason is that I suspect that gathering a lot of attention and controversy is exactly what Generation Rescue wanted when it posted what I'm about to blog about. On the other hand, no matter how low my opinion is of the principals who run Generation Rescue's anti-vaccine propaganda blog Age of Autism, there were limits below which they wouldn't go. Oh, sure, AoA has launched at least three broadsides at me over the last year and a half, all penned by the ever-offensive blowhard J.B. Handley, the founder of Generation Rescue who's allowed himself…
oracknows | November 30, 2009Well, now. With the long four day weekend that many of us here in the U.S. have enjoyed finally over, it's time to get back to serious business. Serious, but fun. I'm referring to the upcoming 125th Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle, which will be held at Effort Sisyphus on Thursday, December 3. That means there are less than three days for you to get your submissions of skepticism, science, and critical thinking over to Techskeptic according to his instructions here.
For more specific guidelines of what we're looking for in the Skeptics' Circle, go here.
And don't let Techskeptic down!…
oracknows | November 30, 2009I've been writing about the attempts of proponents of various pseudoscience, quackery, and faith-based religious "healing" modalities to slip provisions friendly to their interests into the health care reform bill that will be debated in the Senate beginning today. If you want to know what's at stake, check out the first press release of a newly formed institute designed to promote science-based medicine in academia and public policy, the Institute for Science in Medicine.
It's an embryonic institute, only recently formed by 42 physicians and scientists, but it's jumping right into the fray.…
oracknows | November 30, 2009A couple of years ago, fellow ScienceBlogger Mark Hoofnagle over at Denialism Blog coined a most excellent term to describe all manners of pseuodscience, quackery, and crankery. The term, "crank magnetism," describes the tendency of cranks not to mind it when they see crankery in others. More specifically, it describes how cranks of one variety (for instance, HIV/AIDS denialists, will be attracted to another form of crankery (for instance, anti-vaccinationism or the 9/11 Truth movement) because, as Mark put it, cranks and pseudoscientists see themselves as iconoclasts, brave mavericks opposed…