Fake Experts
denialism | November 15, 2012Via Ed I see that Christopher Monckton, the fake expert in climate change who has been repeatedly told by Parliament to stop calling himself an Member of the House of Lords,, claims he's the inventor of a magical disease cure of HIV, MS, flu and the common cold, and recently a birther, has now submitted an affidavit (read here) pushing his bogus birther stats argument. The only problem? I think one could argue he's now opened his factually-questionable statements to legal scrutiny. From his affidavit:
I am over the age of 18 and am a resident of the United Kingdom. The information herein…
denialism | October 18, 2012
Every once in a while Everything is Terrible has a fun denialism-overlap as they show some ad for a terrible piece of quackery, or in this case a great cut of Ken Ham speaking nonsense to a group of very unfortunate children. This is child abuse. Not the creationism bit, but the embarrassingly-shoddy job he does presenting his evidence which seems to consist of poorly-drawn cartoons of men standing next to dinosaurs and an overhead projector.
choofnagle | August 16, 2012In his non-book-review of Garret Keizer's new book, Privacy, "Reason" Magazine correspondent includes this ill-informed quip on privacy:
With regard to modern commerce, Mr. Keizer grumps: "We would do well to ask if the capitalist economy and its obsessions with smart marketing and technological innovation cannot become as intrusive as any authoritarian state." Actually, no. If consumers become sufficiently annoyed with mercantile snooping and excessive marketing, they can take their business to competitors who are more respectful of privacy. Not so with the citizens of an intrusive state.…
choofnagle | July 31, 2012When one spouts disinformation about disinformation, does it make it information? No, it's L. Gordon Crovitz's "Information Age," the weekly poorly informed and poorly reasoned blather about information policy in the Wall Street Journal.
Recall that Crovitz recently wrote about the invention of the Internet and online privacy. I wrote about these last two columns, and this week in the Journal Crovitz tries to backpedal, with the standard trope that his "Who Really Invented the Internet?" article was controversial—"It [became] for a time the most read, emailed and commented upon article on…
choofnagle | July 29, 2012Imagine a newspaper oped with half a dozen fallacies. Such a thing could appear in any newspaper in the US. But now imagine that the author is a Rhodes Scholar and you’re left with the Wall Street Journal’s L. Gordon Crovitz.
For years I’ve followed the bizarre arguments of L. Gordon Crovitz, who has a weekly column on information policy in the Wall Street Journal. It’s part of my daily routine of reading the Journal, which is great for business news but something else for everything else.
Last week, Crovitz wrote a real howler, arguing that the Internet was really created by Xerox, not…
denialism | February 16, 2012Everyone is writing about desmogblog's leak of internal documents from the Heartland Institute. But to me I think leaked documents are nothing compared to their fully public, out-in-the-open history of being openly contemptuous of science, funding cranks with advanced degrees (though not in climate) to disparage the field, and their hosting of denialpalooza.
James rightly points out that much hay is being made of a single sentence that, could "easily be the result of sloppy editing, or at perhaps a Freudian slip." This is of course is a sentence describing a curriculum developed by the HI…
denialism | February 16, 2009One would think given recent findings that antarctic warming is robust for instance, that the canard of antarctic cooling would go away. Or, that based on the round dismissal of the myth of 1970s global cooling warnings we'd stop hearing about that in the media too. But instead I'm watching TV last night and there's all these unbelievable crank ads sponsored by the anti-regulation ideologues the Americans for Prosperity featuring fake expert John Coleman. His senseless rant against the stimulus and the evils of regulation is accompanied by text on the bottom of the screen declaring "global…
denialism | November 27, 2008Well, Nisbet has replied to Mike, Orac and me (not to mention PAL). However his reply leaves something wanting, like, intellectual honesty.
Nowhere in any of these reasoned replies is there "name-calling". What we are arguing is for the preservation of accurate labeling of arguments that fail to meet standards of honesty. There are arguments that are crap, and arguments that are useful and indicate the author is interested in exchange of ideas, fostering discussion, the truth etc. We believe it is useful not to just label these arguments but to teach people how to distinguish between…
sb admin | June 3, 2008Dear Jenny,
Jenny, Jenny, Jenny. Oh, Jenny. Look, I realize I might have been somewhat less than kind in the past, but I'm hoping you haven't written me off. I've been told you catch a lot more flies with honey than with vinegar, so please take this letter in the spirit it was intended---corrective, constructive, and condescending.
I have it on good authority that you are planning on leading a "March on Washington" tomorrow. That's a really interesting idea. Many groups have marched on Washington---the Bonus Army, Dr. Martin Luther King, anti-abortion groups, pro-choice groups, a…
sb admin | April 4, 2008I have a certain amount of sympathy for any parent dealing with a sick kid. I also don't think people should "suffer in silence". If, for instance, your child is injured in an auto accident caused by a drunk driver, speaking out publicly is a public service.
If, however, you are a fuckwit with no relevant education, and are famous only for being famous, leave the bully pulpit to others. Case in point, Jenny McCarthy. Many of us have been following McCarthy's descent into woo-filled madness as she has dealt with her son's growth and development. As a brief primer: Son diagnosed as…
sb admin | April 3, 2008Dear Deirdre,
Hi! How are you? I am sooo proud of you. I mean, when I have a serious personality flaw, I usually try to hide it, but you! You are willing to show the WHOLE WORLD how intellectually challenged you are (that means "stupid" LOL).
Your recent article in the Huffington Post was so brave. Seriously, it's pretty clear to insiders that there are problems at the CDC. But to get it so wrong took real guts.
For example:
These criticisms have been voiced for several decades. An example of how the agency can design a study so that it fails to link disease and pollution can be found…
choofnagle | November 13, 2007Malcolm Gladwell has an interesting piece in this week's New Yorker concerning criminal profilers, individuals who try to determine who a criminal is based on characteristics of the crime. The idea of criminal profiling has become very popular, with many television shows and movies based on the idea that a psychologist could divine the identity and motives of a killer. Gladwell explores whether these profilers really predict anything well, and in the process, compares the basic tricks used by psychics to criminal profilers:
A few years ago, Alison [author of "The Forensic Psychologist's…
denialism | October 29, 2007How do doctors decide what is healthy and unhealthy? Do they arbitrarily decide on risk factors to line their pockets - creating false epidemics as Sandy Szwarc at Junkfood Science suggests? Or, is there actually a science, called epidemiology, that is the basis for health recommendations?
As I've said repeatedly, one of the sure signs you're about to hear total BS is if someone suggests there is some conspiracy by scientists or doctors to hide the truth. In an article challenging the use of serum troponin levels to determine whether myocardial infarction (MI) has occurred (a more…
choofnagle | September 6, 2007In today's Journal, Robert Crandall and Hal Singer argue that America shouldn't drink the corporate average fuel economy standard (CAFE) Kool-Aid. Why? Well why do you think? Because the market is perfect and thus there is no problem! Bring on the Econ 101!
...if there was [sic] fuel-saving technology out there that cost $1,000 but generated $2,500 in the discounted present value of fuel savings over the life of the vehicle, carmakers would surely voluntarily embrace that technology...
No need for regulation there. With large numbers of vehicle producers and well-informed…
denialism | August 31, 2007Leave it to AEI writing for the WSJ editorial page to allege a grand conspiracy of the government against pharmaceutical companies. Their proof? The government wants to compare the efficacy of new drugs to older ones to make sure they're actually better.
The reauthorization of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (Schip), created in 1997 to cover children from lower-income families who make too much to qualify for Medicaid, is up for renewal this fall. Tucked into page 414, section 904 of the House bill is a provision to spend more than $300 million to establish a new federal "…
denialism | August 28, 2007It's that time again. Bora's got the scoop on this new organization PRISM (Partnership for Research Integrity in Science & Medicine). They purport to be the saviors of scientific publishing, protecting us from the evil of open access. But how much do you want to bet they're the same old industry lobbying group, disguising themselves as actors in the public interest? Well, there's an easy way to tell. Let's apply the deck of cards!
There's not a lot to work with yet, but I think we've got some classics to go after right away. After all, we have an industry group - the publishers -…
choofnagle | August 10, 2007Where does one start with this?
Some bald dude who lives in Maui and talks about ancient Chinese texts and gives advice on "The Power of Intention" belongs in a strip mall, not on PBS.
Looks like the PBS Ombudsman has commented on objections to Dr. Wayne Dyer (PBS can't say his name, not once, without prefacing it with Dr.) in the past, in the way that ineffectual ones always do--by simply restating individuals' objections. Yes, I heard you. You said X. Congratulations. Sincerely, the Ombudsman.
What's most annoying about this is that it must work. Loopy Californians must watch this guy…
denialism | June 8, 2007Ben Goldacre at Bad Science is leading the way on opposing this new absurdity of "electric smog", and one of it's leading proponents in Britain, Julia Stephenson.
It's really too easy. Remember the crank HOWTO? Well, she's just about a perfect example.
It all started when she got wifi in her apartment...
Within a couple of weeks she felt tired and fatigued, so she removed it, and then she felt better!
Two years ago I got Wi-Fi. It was convenient, as I could work anywhere in my flat. But within a few weeks began to suffer from a lack of energy and insomnia, and had difficulty…
denialism | May 8, 2007I'd like to hear from some other sciencebloggers and science readers what they think reform of peer-review should look like. I'm not of the opinion that it has any critical flaws, but most people would like to see more accountability for sand-bagging and other bad reviewer habits. Something like a grading system that allows submitters to rate the performance of their reviewers, then editors of magazines would tend to only consult with reviewers that authors felt were doing a fair job of evaluating their paper.
The drawback of course would be that reviewers might start going easier on papers…
denialism | May 2, 2007You know who they are - those organizations that have words like "freedom" and "rights" "choice" and "consumer" in their names but always shill for corporate interests...those occasional MDs or engineers creationists find that will say evolution has nothing to do with science. They are the fake experts.
But how do we tell which experts are fake and which are real?
To figure out who is a fake expert you have to figure out what a real expert is. My definition would be a real expert is someone with a thorough understanding of the field they are discussing, who accurately represents the…