Search Content

Displaying results 701 - 750 of 895

Tom DeRosa in Morris

As promised, I attended Tom DeRosa's creationism talk this evening, and as expected, it wasn't very informative but it was mildly entertaining. He's a good, enthusiastic speaker — he's just unbelievably wrong. We might have a recording later on; Skatje was taping it, but it was just with our little home digital video recorder, and we don't have any idea what the quality will be like, yet. I'm letting her handle the A/V stuff on this one. Anyway, it wasn't quite what I expected. I was thinking it might be based on his recent book, Evolution's Fatal Fruit, which blames every social ill of the…

Attempted TfK Smackdown watch

Stephen Suh responds to the discussion of Stephen Johnson, the creationist EPA administrator: Stephen Johnson, Bush's EPA Administrator, doesn't see a "clean-cut division" between religion and science. This is actually not quite right. He doesn't, according to the original article, see a division between "creation" and "evolution." He told the Inquirer that "If you have studied at all creationism vs. evolution, there's theistic or God-controlled evolution and there's variations on all those themes." Which is true, but since he "declined to elaborate" on his own views, we don't really know…

None dare call it eugenics!

There is some buzz recently about a lawmaker in Louisiana, John LaBruzzo, who is proposing to pay poor women to be sterilized. His logic seems naively reminiscent of Thomas Malthus. It any case, I will admit that I'm generally skeptical of the efficacy of these sorts of programs. But I think government sponsored eugenical projects are I think besides the point and miss the bigger picture. 2 years ago I reviewed a paper by Armand Leroi, The future of neo-eugenics. 2 years is ages in genome-time; it keeps getting cheaper. Notwithstanding the current low returns on investment in the…

The antivaccine movement wins in Oregon: Senate Bill 442 is dead

How quickly things change. If there's one thing I always feel obligated to warn my fellow pro-science advocates about vaccines and the antivaccine movement, it's that we can never rest on our laurels or assume that the tide is turning in our direction. The reason is simple: Antivaccinationism is a powerful belief system, every bit as powerful as religion and political ideology. It's powerful not just among antivaccinationists, but also because it taps into belief systems that are very much part and parcel of being an American. In fact, depressingly, yesterday I learned of a perfect example of…

Does combatting quackery and pseudoscience through rational argument and ridicule work?

As hard as it is to believe, I've been at this blogging thing for 12 years now. In fact, it's been so long that this year I didn't even remember to mention it when it happened nearly two weeks ago. Over that time period, I've dealt with a large number of conspiracy theories. Indeed, skeptics can't help but avoid it. After all, conspiracy theories are at the heart of a lot of pseudoscience, quackery, and crankery. For instance, the very first bit of pseudohistory that served as my "gateway drug" into skepticism, Holocaust denial, is based upon a massive conspiracy theory that the Jews made up…

IBM Watson: Not living up to hype as a tool to fight cancer?

For nearly as long as I can remember, I've been a fan of Jeopardy! Indeed, if I'm at home at 7:30 PM on a weeknight, Jeopardy! will usually be on the television. Given that, I remember what was basically a bit of stunt programming in 2011, when Jeopardy! producers had IBM's artificial intelligence supercomputer Watson face off against two of the most winning champions in the history of the show, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. Watson won, leading Jenning's to add to his Final Jeopardy answer, "I, for one, welcome our new computer overlords." Watson's next challenge was similarly highly hyped:…

200 People Per Shoe - Making Nike footwear in Tangerang, Indonesia

by Elizabeth Grossman "We Trust You," says the sign over the entrance to a factory in the Pratama Abadi manufacturing complex that produces Nike footwear in Tangerang, Indonesia, a city of 1.4 million about 12 miles west of Jakarta. Just inside "Factory 1" hangs an enormous banner that reads (in English) "Craftsmanship - No Quality, No Work." It pictures an older man kneeling as he works with a hand tool. Below him, in Indonesian, is the phrase, "There is no work without quality." An image of Winged Victory - the original Nike - hovers above. The first impressions upon entering Factory 1, a…

More voices against ACA repeal: Republican governors and The 27 Percent

As Congressional Republicans continue taking steps toward repealing the Affordable Care Act without providing a detailed, workable plan to replace it, more people are speaking out against ACA repeal. GOP Governors John Kasich of Ohio and Rick Snyder of Michigan are speaking to journalists about how the ACA’s Medicaid expansion has helped their states. Governor Snyder explained to The Detroit News that the state accepted the Medicaid expansion but added requirements for recipients earning between 100% and 133% of the federal poverty level, and that the program is working and has the potential…

The Strong Force for Beginners

"I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way -- things I had no words for." -Georgia O'Keeffe When it comes to the Universe, it isn't just the stuff that's in it that's important. Image credit: 2MASS Extended Source Catalog (XSC). It's also how all that stuff interacts with itself and everything else. To the best of our knowledge, there are four fundamental forces in the Universe, and they're all essential to our existence. Image credit: Stichting Maharishi University of Management, the Netherlands. Some of them are familiar, like gravitation. On the…

Are Children "Natural Scientists" or not?

Neil deGrasse Tyson if famous for telling us that children are natural scientists, and cautioning us to be careful not to ruin that thing about them. He makes a good case. No one ever thought, I think, that he meant that children were born resistant to the sorts of biases that scientists actively eschew, or with a developed sense of probability theory that all scientists need to evaluate their work and the work of others, and those other tools that scientists get trained in for several years before they can really call themselves scientists. He mean, rather ... how shall I put this. Oh hell…

Ewert Explains “Specified Complexity,” Part One

Over at the Discovery Institute's blog, Winston Ewert has a post up explaining, one more time, what specified complexity is. Since I am given a mention near the end, perhaps it's worth a look. For those not steeped in ID rhetoric, “specified complexity” is a term coined by William Dembski. It is an attribute that a given event or object may or may not possess. “Complexity” just means “low probability,” while “specified” indicates the event or object conforms to an independently describable pattern. Where specified complexity is found, it is claimed, design is in some way implicated in the…

Rusty Lopez on Morality

Rusty Lopez at New Covenant has responded to my post on the evolution of morality. Well, he's kind of responded, by which I mean his response doesn't actually engage what I said very much at all. He doesn't deny the fact that today's common moral precepts are significantly different from those found in the bible as it regards either the conduct of war or the institution of slavery (the claim that morality has evolved) or that today's outrage at slavery is better than the bible's acceptance of it (that it has evolved for the better). And those were, after all, the central claims of my essay on…

Reading List for Course on "Communication & Society" Posted; Blog Debate on the Internet's Impact on Community Scheduled to Take Place Between April 26 and May 3

Back in the fall, after hosting a class "blog" debate on the Internet and community, more than a few readers asked me whether I would post the reading list for the undergrad course I teach here at American University. Below is the schedule of readings assigned for the spring semester, along with a course description. As of right now, this spring semester's blog debate is scheduled to take place between April 26 and May 3. COURSE DESCRIPTION This course is an introduction to research exploring the many dimensions of "communication and society." As we will review, mass communication and…

Gene Genie 33

Logo by Ricardo at My Biotech Life Welcome to the 33rd edition of Gene Genie, the blog carnival devoted to genes and genetic diseases. In this edition, there is a strong emphasis on cancer. There's also a focus on leukodystrophy, and a special section on personalized genetics. Spotlight on Leukodystrophy The term leukodystrophy refers to a group of diseases characterized by progressive degeneration of the white matter in the brain. The conditions are normally inherited, and are associated with mutations in the genes encoding components of the myelin sheath. Leukodystrophy came under the…

Alternative medicine: Changing the rules after the game has started

Damn Steve Novella. Well, not really, but I always get annoyed when someone comes up with an analogy or description of a phenomenon that I should have thought of first. I don't really get annoyed at the person who came up with such ideas, but rather at myself for not thinking of something so obvious or precious first. Whether this self-criticism is a symptom of the megalomania or massive ego that I have been accused of having by some of my less--shall we say?--enamored readers or simply a personality quirk, I'll leave to the reader to decide. Whatever the case, writing for Science-Based…

Chapter 11: Geographical Distribution

When the Origin was published, the idea that species were not fixed entities had been in the air for some time, thanks to Lamarck, Robert Chambers, anonymous author of the best-selling Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, and Darwin's own grandfather, Erasmus. But unlike those men, Darwin put all the different pieces together into a coherent whole. How was that? Chapter 11 of the Origin, 'Geographical distribution', gives some hints. First there's the nurture. In the age of long-haul flights and wildlife documentaries, it's easy to forget how difficult it was to see different…

Another antivaccine-sympathetic pediatrician "reassures" his patients about the southern California measles outbreak

As hard as it is to believe, I've actually "known" pediatrician to the antivaccine stars (such as Jenny McCarthy), "Dr. Jay" Gordon, for nearly nine years now. It began back in 2005 when I first noticed him writing blogs full of antivaccine nonsense at the then-new group blog, The Huffington Post, where I noted antivaccine rhetoric running rampant, complete with amazing examples of what I like to call the "pharma shill" gambit. Since then, he's periodically come to my attention, be it for nonsense equating vaccine manufacturers to tobacco companies, falling headlong for the bogus "toxins"…

What makes a physician become an antivaxer? (Part 2)

Yesterday, I discussed a topic that has vexed me ever since long before I started this blog, namely the topic of how physicians are seduced by pseudoscience and ultimately embrace it whole-heartedly. The kinds of pseudoscience I've seen physicians embracing are many, including climate science denialism and creationism, but the ones that most interest me are ones that physicians should know better than to embrace. I'm referring, of course, to pseudoscience related to the medical profession, such as various forms of medical quackery (which, alas, have found all too cozy a home in medicine to…

Action paleontologists, to the rescue!

In nearly any film that involves dinosaurs, the main problem facing the people making the movie is determining how to get humans and dinosaurs together in the first place. Some films have opted for genetic experiments, others hidden refugia, and still others nuclear tests (although these films usually feature mutated dinosaurs rather than the animals themselves), but a solution is usually found through time travel, the existence of the lost world, or (more recently) fiddling around with DNA. Once the monsters have been securely brought into contact with humans, though, a hero needs to…

Comments of the Week #144: from the Big Bounce to Hubble's Universe

“Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering.” -Saint Augustine Well, another week has gone by -- the second of the year -- here at Starts With A Bang! Hopefully, none of you noticed a drop in the quality or frequency of the science I've been bringing you, because I've had the flu, but I've been working hard to make sure you get all the science you've come to expect. And it's been a tremendous week, with…

COVID-19: The Downside To More Testing Could Be Overflowing Hospitals

"You can’t fight a virus if you don’t know where it is." These were the words of Director General of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, at his briefing on the COVID-19 pandemic in mid-March. He made the statement in a bid to underscore the need to test many more people as key to containing the spread of the disease. Ordinarily, that makes sense and I would agree with it. It is the right thing to do in the face of a disease which would show mild to no symptoms in the majority of those that are infected but does not inhibit their ability to infect others.…

More on sleep in adolescents

This is the third part of the series on the topic, from April 01, 2006... This being the National Sleep Awareness Week and in the heels of the recent study on sleep of adolescents, it is not surprising that this issue is all over the media, including blogs, these days. I have covered this issue a couple of times last week, e.g., here, here and here. Recently, Lance Mannion wrote an interesting post on the topic, which reminded me also of an older post by Ezra Klein in which the commenters voiced all the usual arguments heard in this debate. There are a couple of more details that I have not…

More on sleep in adolescents

This is the third part of the series on the topic, from April 01, 2006... This being the National Sleep Awareness Week and in the heels of the recent study on sleep of adolescents, it is not surprising that this issue is all over the media, including blogs, these days. I have covered this issue a couple of times last week, e.g., here, here and here. Recently, Lance Mannion wrote an interesting post on the topic, which reminded me also of an older post by Ezra Klein in which the commenters voiced all the usual arguments heard in this debate. There are a couple of more details that I have not…

Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future

Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum were right about one thing. They sent me a copy of their new book, Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), with a strange request: "We hope that like Dr. Coyne, you will suspend judgment until reading the book, at which point we'll be interested to hear what you think." I was a bit offended; of course I was going to read it with an open mind. Why would they think it necessary to ask me to do so? That was before I got to chapters 8 and 9, however, which open with very direct and personal attacks on me and…

Something important, something troubling, and something dangerous

The important thing first. I predicted who would win the Wisconsin primary, although my prediction suggested that Sanders would do better than he did. (He underperformed.) I predicted the outcome of the Wyoming primary exactly. These are the most recent two in a long series of mostly correct predictions of which Democratic candidate will win each of the contests in this long presidential primary season. My predictions of which candidate would win have been mostly accurate, but also, fairly accurate with respect to how many delegates each candidate would pick up. Several primaries back, for…

Dawkins' New Book

There is something about Richard Dawkins that seems to drive otherwise intelligent people completely out of their minds. Dawkins writes a book called The Selfish Gene, and some scholarly critics actually go after him on the grounds that genes can not be selfish. Then he wrote The God Delusion, a badly needed bit of pushback against the seemingly endless flood of religious ignorance, bigotry and violence, and some critics thought the really important thing to note was Dawkins' lack of respect for the ontological argument, or the fact that he did not discuss the views of Wittgenstein. Now…

Does Theology Progress?

Karl Giberson has a new column up at the Huffington Post. Jerry Coyne and I had an interesting exchange yesterday that will appear in a brief video on USA Today's website at some point. The question related to the compatibility of science and religion. Can one accept the modern scientific view of the world and still hold to anything resembling a traditional belief in God? My answer to this question is “yes, of course,” for I cannot see my way to clear to embrace either of the two alternatives -- a fundamentalist religion prepared to reject science, or a pure scientism that denies the reality…

My last word on RFK, Jr...for now

Seen on the discussion boards of that other repository of antivaccinationist wingnuttery (other than The Huffington Post), Mothering.com, a commenter by the 'nym of naupakamama exults over the possible appointment of antivaccine wingnut Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to run the Environmental Protection Agency: We could have a strong anti-vaccine voice leading the EPA! I am so excited! If anyone doubts that the antivaccine fringe views RFK, Jr. as one of their own, the rejoicing going on in antivaccine circles should put those doubts to rest. In more reality-based circles, including very liberal ones…

I'm proud to be non-human

Here's a dilemma: I think Ron Numbers, the philosopher and historian of science, is a smart fellow and a net asset to the opposition to creationism, and I agree with him that a diversity of approaches to the issue is a good thing. My opinion could change, though, because I am experiencing considerable exasperation with the apologists for religion on the evolution side, and this interview with Numbers isn't helping things. Here's an example of the kind of nonsense that drives me nuts. QUESTION: Are scientists in general atheistic? MR. NUMBERS: The public often gets the impression that most…

Patient empowerment: Who should call the shots?

"Empowerment." What a grand word! After all, who doesn't want to be "empowered"? Certainly not me. Perhaps that's the reason why it's become the new buzzword in a movement known as "patient-centered" care. Old fart that I am, I'm a bit puzzled by exactly what that term means. After all, I've always thought I have been practicing patient-centered care, ever since my first days in medical school, but apparently these days it means something different, at least if this article from a few days ago in the New York Times is any indication. It's an interview with Dr. Donald Berwick, who advocates…

Environmentalists Must Face Down the Anti-Science in Their Own House

How can environmental groups and media outlets maintain that they are advocates of science, and not ideology, when they engage in the anti-science Luddism of GMO fearmongering? The potential of this anti-science behavior to poison their credibility on global climate change is real, as there is an obvious comparison between their flawed risk assessment on GM foods being compared to their legitimate risk assessments on issues of global climate change and pollution. One of the major arguments of environmental groups on global warming is that there is overwhelming scientific consensus on…

Soapbox for Puzzle-Solving: Interview with Tom Levenson

Tom Levenson is the author of three cool books so far: Measure for Measure: A Musical History of Science, Einstein in Berlin and Ice Time: Climate, Science, and Life on Earth and has recently taken the science blogging world by storm with his new blog, the Inverse Square. We finally got to meet at the second Science Blogging Conference four weeks ago. Welcome to A Blog Around The Clock. Would you, please, tell my readers a little bit more about yourself? Who are you? What is your scientific background? What is your Real Life job? I'm Tom Levenson - and my career feels to me much more as a…

Strongest NWS Hurricane Ever Recorded: Patricia (UPDATED)

Update, Saturday AM: On Twitter, people are shocked and amazed that Hurricane Patricia turned into a tropical storm. Some had prayed to god and now claim those prayers were answered. There is at least one claim of a death on Twitter, but The Twitter Lies, and this is probably someone's sick idea of a joke. Naturally, what happened is Patricia made landfall as a very compact hurricane in a region with very few people, but as a strong category five hurricane. It had the highest sustained winds, and the lowest pressure ever observed for a hurricane, but again, Patricia was a small hurricane,…

An Evangelical Christian Republican View of Climate Change

Trending wetter with time: weather never moves in a straight line, but data from NOAA NCDC shows a steady increase in the percentage of the USA experiencing extreme 1-day rainfall amounts since the first half of the 20th century. Photograph: NOAA NCDC My Apology to Paul Douglas I admit that I do a lot of Republican bashing. I'm a Democrat, and more than that, I'm a partisan. I understand that a political party is a tool for grass roots influence on policy, if you care to use it. The Democratic party platform, at the state and national level, reflects my policy-related values reasonably…

Hammering Rusty Nails

Rusty Lopez has reacted to my post about Bush backing away from the Federal Marriage Amendment with this strangely myopic post. He says: Speaking of venturing out of the "ghetto," Ed Brayton, over at Dispatches from the Culture Wars, seems to think that because President Bush is now not pushing for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, that he has somehow taken conservative Christians for a ride. Has the fact that constitutional amendments are extremely costly and time consuming evaded Ed's notice? If one can achieve a similar goal, without the expense involved in amending the…

Eureka: Bridge to Dark Matter

The first time you hear about dark matter, it sounds kind of crazy-- asserting that we're surrounded by tons of invisible stuff is usually a good way to get locked up. But the process of its discovery is surprisingly ordinary: it's just what you do when you play cards. Here's the second green-screen video I've done to promote Eureka: Discovering Your Inner Scientist, which comes out three weeks from tomorrow (but can be pre-ordered today!). This one is about card games, modern astrophysics, and why you probbaly shouldn't play bridge against Vera Rubin: For those who dislike video, I'll put…

Winning antivaccine hearts and minds

I've been writing about the antivaccine movement for a long time. The reasons are many, but they boil down to a handful. First of all, it interests me. It interests me as an example of pseudoscience and quackery, how it spreads, and how antiscience cranks attack science. More importantly, it's dangerous. The antivaccine movement is a threat to public health, which is why it's important to study its origins, the methods its members use to attack vaccines, the misinformation it spreads, and how it spreads that misinformation. As a result, I've been consistently vilified and attacked by…

Separation of Science and State?

Silly human nature, getting scientists into trouble. Until the robots are ready to take the reins of the scientific enterprise (and personally, I have my doubts that this is first item on the robots' to-do list), we're faced with the practical problem of figuring out how to keep human scientists honest. Among the broad strategies to accomplish this is reducing the potential payoff for dishonesty compared to honesty (where, as we know, doing honest science is generally more labor-intensive than just making stuff up). I take it that this piece by David S. Oderberg is a variation on the theme…

Evolution wins in Texas

Sorry for not posting an update last Friday, but I was in the Board meeting and then on a plane. I gather most of you found the news update at NCSE's website, where traffic hit record levels. As you recall, the Texas State Board of Education met on Thursday as the Committee of the Full Board to hear public testimony and to debate among themselves as much as was feasible. Friday was the official board meeting, when the final votes on new science supplements were taken. In the end, all of the good supplements were approved (some with minor tweaks still to be made) and the creationist…

Katherine Kersten, Minnesota's little pillock

Minnesota has more than a few local conservative wingnuts; there are a few very popular blogs emanating from these parts to testify that, and in addition, the major metropolitan newspaper, the Star Tribune, has a shrill blitherer they regularly put front and center who has most of us scratching our heads in wonder that they keep such an incompetent hack on the staff. All the Minnesotan readers here know already who I'm talking about, and I don't even need to mention her name…but for all of you lucky out-of-staters, I'll fill you in: it's Katherine Kersten. "Who?", you all say, and that's…

Linking Weather Extremes to Global Warming

Global Warming is the increase in the Earth's temperature owing to the greenhouse effects of the release of CO2 and other gasses into the atmosphere, mainly by humans burning fossil fuel, but also by the release of Methane from oil wells and melting of Arctic permafrost, natural gas from leaky pipes, and so on. This increase in temperature occurs in both the atmosphere and the oceans, as well as the land surface itself. During some periods of time most of the increase seems to happen in the atmosphere, while during other times it seems to occur more in the oceans. (As an aside: when you…

Dyson as Sociologist? Death Trains, Values, & Climate Action

This week's NY Times magazine runs a cover story by Nicholas Dawidoff on Freeman Dyson and his doubts about the urgency of climate change. Many critics have decried the article as another leading example of false journalistic balance. Yet I think there are much deeper issues at play here. On one hand, the social scientist in me views Dawidoff's journalistic narrative as a sociologically nuanced take on what happens when policy debates are simplistically reduced down to a matter of "sound science" and "inconvenient truths" rather than decisions involving values and trade-offs. On the other…

The Economic Causes of Monogamy

The occasional 7-dwarf orgy notwithstanding (and you cannot convince me it never happened--I just know there was a night with a full moon and an opportunistic bottle of peach schnapps...), when most Western fairy tales end with "and they all lived happily ever after", they mean a prince and a princess. The ideal of one man and one woman united in marital bliss is so pervasive in the developed world that sometimes it takes an egghead (or a pervert) to question why. That is exactly what three researchers (so eggheads it is) at Hebrew University have done. In a paper in this month's AER, Eric…

When PARADE goes woo

Having been sucked into the blogosphere for over four years now and having gotten the majority of my news online or from newsmagazines or the New York Times, I frequently forget that I'm not like the vast majority of people. Neither, I daresay, are my fellow ScienceBloggers or my readers. We don't get our information from the same sources, and we tend towards a lot more scientific sophistication than the average American. This is not to brag or to claim superiority; it is simply an observation that may help explain to some extent why those of us in the science blogosphere have a hard time…

Quackery at the VA: Our veterans deserve real medicine, not fake medicine

I get e-mail. Often, the e-mail I get consists largely of rants from various cranks about how I am a "pharma shill" and whether I feel any regret over the babies I'm supposedly turning autistic by my advocacy for vaccines. Much less often, I get e-mails praising me for my work. Sometimes, I even get e-mails that tell me that my blogging was the reason someone turned away from the dark side of antivaccine quackery or other pseudoscience. Those e-mails make my day. I also sometimes get e-mails like this: I'm in the VA healthcare system in Los Angeles. I had previously read your article about…

Tell the FDA not to embrace quackery: Write to oppose its proposal on acupuncture and chiropractic for chronic pain

Last week, I wrote about acupuncture, specifically how acupuncturists are unhappy that the UK National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), which provides guidelines for recommended treatments for diseases and conditions, does not recommend acupuncture for the treatment of knee osteoarthritis but does recommend arthroscopic washouts and debridement, for which the evidence is weak. My retort was simple: If this is true, the answer is not for NICE to start recommending quackery like acupuncture, but rather for it to stop recommending conventional medical and surgical treatments with…

Confirmation Bias and Political Groupthink

Michael Shermer writes of a fascinating experiment on how the brain processes statements and claims about which one has a powerful attachment to the truth being a certain way. It may well illuminate the sort of irrational thinking driven by political partisanship. I'll post his description of the experiment below the fold: This surety is called the confirmation bias, whereby we seek and find confirmatory evidence in support of already existing beliefs and ignore or reinterpret disconfirmatory evidence. Now a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study shows where in the brain the…

Framing and ethics (part 1).

If it's spring, it must be time for another round of posts trying to get clear on the framing strategies advocated by Matthew C. Nisbet, and on why these communications seem to be so controversial among scientists and science bloggers. My past attempts to figure out what's up with framing can be found here: Movie screening expulsion: whose hearts and minds are up for grabs? Trying to understand framing. Trying to understand framing (II): draw me a picture. Trying to understand framing (III): the example of stem cell research. Minor epiphany about framing. The present post has been prompted…

A homeopath lectures scientists about anecdotal evidence

If there's one difference between so-called "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM) and science-based medicine (SBM), it's the role of anecdotes in each. CAM and SBM each take a very different view of anecdotes. In SBM, anecdotes are relegated to a very low rung on the evidence ladder. They are a starting point in that, if well-documented enough and convincing enough, they can serve as the basis to suggest that clinical research or clinical trials might be indicated. Sometimes, in the case of rare diseases where numbers of patients are so small that randomized clinical trials are not…

An antivaccine-sympathetic legislator right in my own back yard!

I've written on multiple occasions of what I like to refer to as "antivaccine dog whistles." In politics, the term "dog whistle" refers to things politicians can say to certain groups, usually groups with odious views, that they are with them without actually echoing the views for which the group at which the dog whistle is aimed. The intended target audience gets the message, while those not familiar with the issues either don't get the message or see what is being said as something unobjectionable, even admirable. Think "states' rights" versus civil rights, for example. It turns out that…