General Discussion
denialism | September 19, 2007The NYT had a piece on the life and times of Ayn Rand yesterday, and I just couldn't get over these two paragraphs.
For years, Rand's message was attacked by intellectuals whom her circle labeled "do-gooders," who argued that individuals should also work in the service of others. Her book was dismissed as an homage to greed. Gore Vidal described its philosophy as "nearly perfect in its immorality."
But the book attracted a coterie of fans, some of them top corporate executives, who dared not speak of its impact except in private. When they read the book, often as college students, they now…
denialism | September 13, 2007So I was thinking. It isn't really enough to merely react constantly to anti-scientific behavior which seems to permeate the media, the interwebs, and policy discussions on Capitol Hill these days.
It used to be, for about 20 years (from 1974 to 1995), there was an office on the Hill, named the Office of Technology Assessment, which worked for the legislative branch and provided non-partisan scientific reports relevant to policy discussions. It was a critical office, one that through thorough and complete analysis of the scientific literature gave politicians common facts from which to…
denialism | September 13, 2007I thought I'd survey the readership for some ideas on how to make Denialism Blog more interesting and accessible to an international readership. One of the goals of the Scienceblogs' mothership Seed is to expand and get the whole world interested in scientific literacy as well as our little community and I realize that my topic is a little US-centric. However, I doubt that denialism is necessarily more prevalent in the US. For instance, the recent influence of HIV/AIDS denialism in Thabo Mbeki's South African government is of particular concern (see Nick's excellent overview of the problem…
denialism | September 6, 2007The Washington Post reports on research that correcting mythical beliefs is more difficult than you'd think. The interesting finding seems to be that if you repeat the myth in the course of correcting it, people are more likely to forget the correct information and remember the myth!
When University of Michigan social psychologist Norbert Schwarz had volunteers read the CDC flier, however, he found that within 30 minutes, older people misremembered 28 percent of the false statements as true. Three days later, they remembered 40 percent of the myths as factual.
Younger people did better at…
denialism | September 4, 2007Genomicron has an excellent description for how to write a terrible popular science story. I agree 100%. And when he hit #10, I had to cheer.
10. Don't provide any links to the original paper.
If possible, avoid providing any easy way for readers (in particular, scientists) to access the original peer-reviewed article on which your story is based. Some techniques to delay reading of the primary paper are to not provide the title or to have your press release come out months before the article is set to appear.
Damn right. It's the internet age, it's not only possible, but easy to include…
denialism | August 30, 2007Ed Brayton's discussion of the historical validity of claims of Thomas Jefferson's support of a "Christian Nation" is illuminating.
Turns out, it's a myth. A story passed down third-hand to a pair of people who were under 10 years old when it happened (and substantial cause to misremember), and inconsistent with Jefferson's writings and known activities.
Further, the cherry-picking to suggest he attended services in Capitol each Sabbath day is downright hysterical. Read it, it's golden.
choofnagle | August 22, 2007Peter Baker of the Post reports on a White House policy manual (PDF) detailing how President Bush's advance team should prevent anyone from saying or doing anything that might not be in total agreement with our President's policies:
The manual offers advance staffers and volunteers who help set up presidential events guidelines for assembling crowds. Those invited into a VIP section on or near the stage, for instance, must be " extremely supportive of the Administration," it says. While the Secret Service screens audiences only for possible threats, the manual says, volunteers should examine…
choofnagle | August 16, 2007Reading about the anger stoked by Karl Rove's plan to go dove hunting reminded me of a recent oped by Vicki Haddock in the Chronicle, where she explores why animals sometimes receive more sympathy than people. A few anecdotes from the story are telling, and so totally California:
...football star Michael Vick pleaded not guilty to criminal charges after authorities raiding his home found 66 angry dogs, a dog-fighting pit and bloodstained carpets. An indictment claims that losing dogs were drowned, hanged and shot, or soaked and electrocuted.
Also last week, an 8-week-old rescued kitten named…
denialism | August 15, 2007Remember how I said you shouldn't source Wikipedia? Well here's another reason. Fox News likes to edit it.
Ha!
choofnagle | August 13, 2007Our friends from the WSJ recently endowed us with this bit of wisdom:
Unsafe products are a fact of life. The U.S. has created its own share of food- and product-safety scares over the years, from E. coli-tainted spinach to faulty Bridgestone Firestone tires. Even the best inspection regime, whether government or private, will miss serious problems from time to time. But at the end of the day, the private market stands a better chance of protecting consumers than an army of government inspectors ever will.
O RLY? Here's the type of product produced by the private market in China, where the…
denialism | August 13, 2007The Washington Post had a fascinating article over the weekend entitled The Sacrifices of Albania's 'Sworn Virgins'. It turns out that in the rural and mountainous regions of Albania, there developed a custom several hundred years ago by which women could assume all the rights of men, but in return had to sear to never marry, never have children, and dress and act like men for the rest of their lives.
Dones, who lives in Rockville, had just met an adherent of an ancient northern Albanian tradition in which women take an oath of lifelong virginity in exchange for the right to live as men. The…
denialism | August 8, 2007Responding to a commentor on a thread about animal rights, I again encountered this funny view of nature that some people have. Two sentences in particular just struck me as being out of touch with reality.
The alternative may be to try to live in harmony with nature.
...
Trying to dominate nature has only caused suffering. There are alternatives.
Where do people get this idea that nature is our friend? Hippies drive me nuts. Not only is this just totally unrealistic, but I think it also reflects a fundamental ignorance of biology, history, and the basic infrastructure of our society. I…
choofnagle | August 5, 2007For all the encomia made by banking industry lobbyists to the value of the "free flow of information," one finds examples where the industry restricts information sharing when it benefits them.
Capital One was one of the worst offenders. It's complex, but the company was restricting information flow in such a way that it lowered cardholders' credit scores. How? Capital One reported cardholders' balances, not their credit limit. This practice makes a cardholder appear to have maxed out their credit card. Why? Because if your credit score is lower, it will be harder to get other credit…
choofnagle | August 2, 2007In the bogus legal claims department, one finds this blub from Consumerist. What's the deal here? A pretty aggressive consumer group, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, created model menu for Wendy's that demonstrates how the "restaurant" can display calorie information. It's pretty clear, and very useful.
Of course, Wendy's hates this stuff. And their lawyers at Akin Gump are arguing that the sample menu is a misuse of Wendy's trademark. Sorry Wendy's and Akin Gump, generally speaking, trademark is a type of consumer protection intended to help consumers distinguish…
choofnagle | July 26, 2007Jesse McKinley reports in the Times:
It was a good day for the Devil in San Francisco on Tuesday, as the Taxicab Commission voted to keep the Dark Lord's favorite number -- 666 -- affixed to an allegedly cursed cab.
The vote, which came after an amused period of public comment and annoyed looks from the commissioners, extended the satanic reign of Taxi No. 666, which is driven by one Michael Byrne (pronounced burn).
Mr. Byrne, who did not appear at the hearing on Tuesday night and was not reachable for comment, had lobbied -- out of superstition -- to have his medallion number changed, and…
choofnagle | July 25, 2007Seth Stevenson over at Slate describes all 12 types of ads in the world and urges us to resist them all:
To me, the 12 formats serve...well as a weapon of defense for the consumer under assault from endless advertising messages. It's like learning how a magic trick works: Once the secret's revealed, the trick loses all its power.
Hat tip: Consumerist.
denialism | July 25, 2007Steven Novella at Neurologica has written a thoughtful essay on where the limits of academic freedom should lie in light of the firing of Ward Churchill based on allegations of plagiarism and research falsification. Of course, many believe that calling 9/11 victims "little Eichmanns" might have had something to do with it as well.
Novella considers the current standards for protection of academic speech and brings up a good point. Academic freedom is not meant to protect professors from the consequences of lying and incompetence.
The purpose of tenure is to protect academics from being…
denialism | July 24, 2007Gene Sperling in the WaPo points out that holding the NIH budget flat is like a cutting our budgets as inflation forces budget cutbacks. He forgets to mention the wasted expense of the NIH roadmap and the significant portion of the intramural budget devoted to security, but otherwise he's dead-on. The steady ramping of funding led to a lot of people being trained, and the sudden cut-off has led to a lot of people abandoning science.
And I don't usually link Kos, but seeing this quote from Bill Kristol:
There's been a certain amount of pop sociology in America ... that the Shia can't get…
choofnagle | July 20, 2007I know that my earlier post on Gen Y kids was a bit bogus. There are huge generalizations and no real data in the argument. But I'm going to stir the pot more by posting portions of an earlier column by Jeffrey Zaslow on Generation Y that has a bit more anecdote and information about how the business community is dealing with younger workers:
...as this greatest generation grows up, the culture of praise is reaching deeply into the adult world. Bosses, professors and mates are feeling the need to lavish praise on young adults, particularly twentysomethings, or else see them wither under an…
choofnagle | July 19, 2007The Wall Street Journal continues its campaign against Generation Y with an article by Jeff Zaslow that tries to explain why so many young people act with such a sense of entitlement. It pins the blame on, among other things, California, indulgent parenting, and consumer culture. But I suspect that the culprit is the last one listed: the self-esteem movement.
The self-esteem movement. In 1986, California created a state task force on self-esteem. Schools nationwide later adopted "everybody's a winner" philosophies. One teacher told me that her superiors advised her to tell students that…