Politics
jdupuis | October 15, 2012C. Scott Findlay, associate professor of biology at the University of Ottawa and a visiting research scientist at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, had a sobering article in the Toronto Star a few days ago.
It's titled Governing in the dark: Ottawa’s dangerous unscientific revolution and it fits right in with my recent seemingly endless catalogue of how the current Canadian Conservative government is systematically undermining the free inquiry in Canada, scientific and otherwise. In the article Findlay first lays out some of the recent abuses and then gives four reasons why Canadians…
denialism | October 12, 2012It seems every day brings a new, glaring falsehood about medical care from Romney, who has bizarrely decided to run against his own healthcare plan in order to appease right wing voters. Now he's claiming Americans don't die from lack of healthcare coverage. His reasoning? The unfunded mandate and healthcare-of-last resort stopgap that is EMTALA. For those of you who don't know the function of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, it's law passed in the Reagan era to stop hospitals from dumping patients who were acutely ill and needed emergency care. It prevents hospitals…
sastyk | October 11, 2012I gather from the polls that there's a tight race for which of two violent, torturing, mass-murdering or potentially mass-murdering (Romney has had no opportunity to send out automated killer drones over civilian populations yet, but since he has every intention of doing so, the difference really is no difference) war criminals will lead the US. If the last sentence sounds cynical, well it is and it isn't. Since every president in my life time (born during the Nixon administration) has been either a mass murderer or a wanna-be mass murderer (don't talk Jimmy Carter to me - there's a reason…
oracknows | October 8, 2012One of the hazards of standing up for science and science-based medicine (and against cranks) is that some of these cranks will try to contact you at work. That's why I have a policy about blog-related e-mails sent to me work address, and that policy is that I usually ignore them, whereas I might actually respond if it's sent to my blog e-mail address. Well, it's not an absolute policy. If it's a reporter or fellow skeptic who contacts me at work, I might well respond from my blog address, but crank e-mails sent to my work address are 100% guaranteed to be sent straight to the metaphorical…
denialism | October 6, 2012I don't understand how they could write the headline,"On Health Care, Two Visions With Their Own Set of Facts" in regards to the debate between Obama and Romney last week. The appropriate headline should have been "On Health Care, Two Visions With Romney Telling Falsehoods".
It's another example of the NYT's false-parity reporting. Every single instance described in the article describes Romney lying about Obama's law, lying about his own proposals, and lying about other facts.
For instance:
Mr. Romney made a similar claim in an appearance last month on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” At the time…
esiegel | October 4, 2012“One life is all we have and we live it as we believe in living it. But to sacrifice what you are and to live without belief, that is a fate more terrible than dying.” -Joan of Arc
Regardless of what intrinsic differences any person or group of people have from another, everyone deserves to be treated as an individual, afforded the same opportunities to pursue their passions, goals and dreams, and evaluated on the merits of their performance. Although this is not yet the way the world works, I am confident that many strides are consistently being made in the right direction, and I was…
oracknows | October 2, 2012About a week ago, I wrote one of my usual meandering posts in which I pointed out the similarities between two different anti-science movements. On the one hand, there are anti-vaccinationists, who fetishize the naturalistic fallacy (i.e., the belief that anything "natural" is better and that anything human made or altered by science is dangerous) and use misinformation, pseudoscience, and bad science to demonize vaccines. On the other hand, we have the movement that is opposed to "genetically modified organisms" (GMOs), who fetishize the naturalistic fallacy, and frequently use…
oracknows | October 2, 2012I suppose it's possible that there might be doubt that Rob Schneider has become a complete and total antivaccine wingnut. Possible, but not reasonable. After all, he's shown his cards and risen to prominence with his attacks on vaccine science made as part of his effort to oppose the passage of California Bill AB 2109, which was finally passed and signed by Governor Jerry Brown, but not without an attempt to water it down by adding a pointless (and probably unconstitutional) set of instructions for implementation in a signing statement. Leading up to this, Schneider had "made a name for…
denialism | October 1, 2012Slate has an interesting article about Romney campaign mailings that appear to contain buzzwords for chronic Lyme disease advocates in Virginia. Romney's plan for Lyme disease includes these two points:
IMPROVE SYNERGY
Ensure that government agencies have an open line of communication and work with patients, researchers, doctors, and businesses in an objective, comprehensive manner.
SUPPORT TREATMENT
Encourage increased options for the treatment of Lyme Disease and provide local physicians with protection from lawsuits to ensure they can treat the disease with the aggressive antibiotics…
denialism | October 1, 2012This article from the Sunday Times by AEI fellow J.D. Kleinke is exceptional for two reasons. For one, it's an excellent explanation for why conservatives should agree with Obamacare. Second, despite coming from the American Enterprise Institute, an organization that regularly contributes global warming and other conspiratorial nonsense to the WSJ editorial page, it appears to contain nothing but factual information. It's a good reminder of why liberals have been weak in their defense of the law - it's really just Federal Romney/Bob Dole care, but also provides a very striking critique of…
oracknows | September 30, 2012I've been blogging a lot about California Bill AB 2109. Basically, it's a bill that was proposed as a means of addressing the increasing problem of non-medical exemptions to school vaccine mandates because religious and philosophical exemptions are too easy to obtain. Boiled down to its essence, AB 2109 would require parents to see a pediatrician or health care practitioner for a discussion of the benefits and risks of vaccines and, more importantly, the risks of not vaccinating. You'd think that the antivaccine movement wouldn't have a problem with a bill that in essence requires informed…
jdupuis | September 27, 2012The current Conservative government of Canada isn't too fond of Canadians having access to information. It's inconvenient for them because I guess a well-informed citizenry would be more likely to call them on the various shenanigans they've been indulging in.
A good general take on the situation is Allan Gregg's recent speech, 1984 in 2012 – The Assault on Reason:
I have spent my entire professional life as a researcher, dedicated to understanding the relationship between cause and effect. And I have to tell you, I’ve begun to see some troubling trends. It seems as though our government’s…
oracknows | September 27, 2012Every so often, I think it's worthwhile to try to use my powers (such as they are) for good. Actually, I like to think that I'm using my powers for good each and every day, but obviously there are some who disagree. In general, these people are cranks. We're talking quacks, pseudoscientists, antivaccinationists, and various antiscience types. But I repeat myself. Right now, I see two things going on right now that could use some help from pro-science, pro-skepticism types.
First up, I found out a couple of days ago that Brian Deer will be in the U.S. next week. Specifically, he'll be at the…
jrosenhouse | September 25, 2012Update: Well, it seems I got Onioned on this one. That is, I mistook a satirical article for one that was meant as serious reporting. I have left this post up simply because I think the essay mentioned here is actually pretty funny. And while the specifics were made up, I suspect the sentiments expressed there in are correct!
From Politico:
Paul Ryan has gone rogue. He is unleashed, unchained, off the hook.
“I hate to say this, but if Ryan wants to run for national office again, he’ll probably have to wash the stench of Romney off of him,” Craig Robinson, a former political director of…
drorzel | September 25, 2012There's been a lot of bloggage recently about a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences indicating bias toward male students on the part of faculty who thought they were evaluating an application for a laboratory manager. Half of the faculty in the study were given an application with "Jennifer" at the top, the other half one with "John" as the first name, and both male and female faculty rated the male student more highly, and would offer the male student a higher salary. Sean Carroll and Ilana Yurkiewicz talk about the study and the results in more detail.
So,…
oracknows | September 23, 2012Ideologically motivated bad science, pseudoscience, misinformation, and lies irritate me. In fact, arguably, they are the very reason I started this blog. True, over time my focus has narrowed. I used to write a lot more about creationism, more general skeptical topics, Holocaust denial, 9/11 Trutherism, and the like, but these days I rarely write about topics that don't have anything to do with medicine. Sometimes, it even seems that I've narrowed my focus to the point that all I write about is antivaccine nonsense. That doesn't mean that I've lost interest; rather it's that over time I've…
illconsidered | September 19, 2012Deep Climate has a great run down of Richard Muller's recent public appearances and some details on his ties to the Koch brothers, it is well worth a careful read. And while we're talking about Richard Muller, check out NPR's shameful decision to "balance" Muller's converted-to-mainstream scientific views with the provision of a soap box to Anthony Watts, master of BS (aka Blog Science). Video interview is below, I have not decided if I want to expose myself to that or not....
This was also discussed on P3.
jrosenhouse | September 17, 2012These are hard times to be a supporter of Israel. Bibi Netanyahu is a lunatic who is now actively trying to mess with the American election. You see, President Obama, early in his term, politely suggested that if Israel seriously wants to make peace with its neighbors they might want to consider not expanding settlements in the West Bank. For this transgression, Netanyahu, and his lackeys on the American Right, have decided that Obama is morbidly anti-Israel. Their relentless vitriol has convinced some of the dimmer segments of the American Jewish population that they should vote for…
gregladen | September 17, 2012In March, 2012, I attended a conference called Moving Secularism Forward run by the Council for Secular Humanism and the Center for Inquiry. I spoke as part of a panel called Does Secular Humanism Have A Political Agenda? along with Ronald Bailey of Reason.com, Razib Khan of Secular Right, and former Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder. This panel was assembled and moderated by Lauren Becker of the Center for Inquiry. Tom Flynn, executive director of the Council for Secular Humanism and editor of Free Inquiry, the Council for Secular Humanism’s bi-monthly journal liked our session (for good…
gregladen | September 17, 2012Yeah, I'm bringing back the term "Sea Change" which was briefly popular a few years ago, in reference to the perception of party difference, the difference between Democrats and Republicans, in handling foreign policy. Let me say first that it has never been true that the Republicans were better at handling foreign policy than the Democrats. Individual presidents and individual congresses (if that term is appropriate) have varied a lot, and it could be that one party is not better than another. Having said that, I think Democrats have been better over recent decades, more or less. Imagine,…