Skepticism
tsmith | February 8, 2009Last fall, I wrote about a new research paper which tried to replicate some of Andrew Wakefield's original results, which not only claimed a correlation between MMR vaccination and autism, but also the presence of measles virus in intestinal tissue. Wakefield had suggested that an inappropriate response to the presence of measles virus in this tissue may trigger conditions such as bowel disease and autism. The more recent study was unable to replicate any of Wakefield's findings--not surprising, since so many papers in the last decade have found no connection between vaccination and autism…
pharyngula | February 6, 2009I've always considered Doctors Without Borders to be a commendable, even noble, organization. So I'm a little bit shocked to see this new group capitalizing on their good name: Homeopaths Without Borders. They've got to be joking.
It is our main aim to transfer homeopathy to those countries, where public health care and medical supply of the people is sub-standard, for whatever reasons. Homeopathy also proves very effective in healing physical and mental injury in situations of war or political crisis.
If their health care is substandard, isn't it rather cruel to charge in and make it worse?
pharyngula | February 6, 2009Lawyers must love Ben. All he has to do is speak the truth, and wham, the kooks charge in. He recently posted a clip from a radio program in which lunatic anti-vaccination nut Jeni Barnett said many stupid things, so she rushed to silence her own words. Can't have the fact that she's spluttering nonsense made public, of course!
It is my view that in this extended broadcast Jeni exemplifies every single canard ever uttered by the antivaccination movement. "It's a conspiracy by the pharmaceutical industry." "Science always changes so you can believe what you like." "It's a debate and a…
pharyngula | February 2, 2009The climate change denialists have been whooping it up in my email lately, crowing in triumph over the fact that James Hansen's former "supervisor" has disavowed his work and claims there were no political efforts to suppress the scientific facts. I haven't really cared — it's an argument from imaginary authority, nothing more — but I was very amused to learn that this "fact" is in the same category as other denialist "facts": it isn't. This fellow, John Theron, is a cranky old gomer who retired 15 years ago, and was thus not even present in the oppressive Bush administration, and never had…
aardvarchaeology | January 30, 2009I entered into organised skepticism because of anti-science tendencies in academe. Though a member of the Swedish Skeptics since 1997 and co-editor of the society's journal since 2002, I've never been much of a skeptical activist outside academic archaeology. I've written articles and a few letters of protest. But I've visited no spirit mediums, gone to no New Age fairs, crashed no fundie revivals. I have engaged with Teh Woo only in the manner of a sniper. In fact, I hardly ever meet any true believers apart from my New Age mom. But last night I had two such encounters: first one that was…
pharyngula | January 23, 2009Some cheesy medical show on the television recently had a segment on an interesting old technique: cupping. This is a procedure related to bleeding, in which suction is used to draw blood to the surface. It's absolutely useless, an artifact of old, discarded theories about humors, and it's not something I ever thought I'd see practiced.
A modern twist on an ancient procedure promises big results in the treatment of pain. Tracy, 36, suffers from chronic back pain and writes The Doctors for help.
Acupuncturist Dr. Michael Yang performs a cupping procedure on Tracy, which, he explains, works…
aardvarchaeology | January 12, 2009I have just spent a week nursing my family through an onset of the flu. High fever. Bucketfuls of snotty bog roll. Headaches. Stomach aches. Rattling coughs. Shoving innumerable paracetamol suppositories where the sun don't shine. But I was unscathed myself. Dear Reader, come autumn, do what I did and take your flu shot.
I have sometimes met with incredulity, even opposition, from the district nurse when I've popped down for my annual vaccination. "You're a strong healthy young(ish) man, you don't need a flu shot!" Indeed. I do not need a flu shot to survive. But it costs only $20, takes only…
pharyngula | December 30, 2008See—there's an official list and everything.
But wait…what's this? Tied with the Bad Astronomer? What has he done, besides write a book and become president of the JREF and pose naked? I ought to win for keeping my clothes on!
pharyngula | December 28, 2008The sound quality is awful, but the sentiment comes through clearly: Tim Minchin describes a typical evening with a woo artist.
denialism | December 18, 2008Please check out this week's skeptics' circle at Happy Jihad's House of Pancakes.
Of note, I liked Dr Austs' post on the human toll of HIV/AIDS denialism, it is stirring. I also found the Skeptic's field guide particularly interesting. I would have two suggestions. One would be to prioritize by frequency of use or rhetorical appeal rather than alphabetical, and second would be to include a section on conspiracy (like the ones the Lay Scientist and Dubito Ergo Sum describe in this issue ), which I believe is the hallmark of all denialist arguments. If you need a non-parsimonious conspiracy…
aardvarchaeology | December 6, 2008My friend of twenty years, retired broadcaster Lars Erik Ãström, died the other day of cancer at age 69. Too soon by far: he has young grandchildren and he was a very good man without whom the world is worse. MaðR harða goðr. I will think of him every time I read of caves and flottholmar, floating islands.
Lars Erik's family posted a lovely secular obit notice headed by a big omega, symbol of caves and the final letter of the Greek alphabet. I translate:
With warmth we remember your wisdom, your high-precision sense of humour and your sonorous radio voice. We had such a good time and got…
aardvarchaeology | November 22, 2008I'm here to tell you there are lots of Christians who aren't anything like the preconceived notions you may have. We're not all into "turning the other cheek." We don't spend our days committing random acts of kindness for no credit. And although we believe that the moral precepts in the Book of Leviticus are the infallible word of God, it doesn't mean we're all obsessed with extremist notions like "righteousness" and "justice."
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choofnagle | November 18, 2008I never thought I'd see this. But here it is in all its glory. When I used to live in Georgia and drive past huge billboards that read "I heard that! -- God," or "You're Welcome --God," I imagined the day when atheist billboards would appear. I always wanted to buy a billboard that simply read, "God is Dead." in part, to see whether Clear Channel would put it up, and in part, to hear the standard rejoinder said in Georgia--"Nietzsche is dead!" How profound!
Today's Journal covers atheists' efforts in reaching out, and concludes with this astute observation:
Still, leading activists say…
clock | November 13, 2008Young Australian Skeptics site is an excellent example of supporting other skeptics' writing. There's essays there by several of the 'regulars' of the Australian Skeptics of Carlos Blog Carnival, including: Karen Stollznow of Bad Language/Skepbitch; Kylie Sturgess of Podblack Blog / Skeptic Zone; Jack Scanlan of Homologous legs and Dr Rachael Dunlop of the Skeptic Zone - and will feature even more essays very soon.
There is a forum board, opportunities to network and is the brainchild of Elliot, a 21 year old student from Melbourne, Australia.
aardvarchaeology | November 7, 2008
[More blog entries about archaeology, astronomy, pseudoscience, skepticism, vondäniken; arkeologi, astronomi, pseudovetenskap, skepticism, vondäniken.]
In this guest entry, German SciBling Florian Freistetter of Astrodicticum Simplex offers a translation of his report from a recent lecture by a spaced-out visionary. Now if only I could say that I've never been fooled by this sort of thing...
A few weeks ago, on 17th October, I had the dubious pleasure of attending a lecture by Erich von Däniken with the title Götterdämmerung, "Twilight of the Gods". The great hall in Jena's Volkshaus…
pharyngula | November 7, 2008So far, rumors of the first two appointments by Obama leave me worried. Rahm? No, please — after campaigning on a slogan of "change", buying into one of the most deeply imbedded beltway insiders is not encouraging. Maybe there's some virtue in working with the Democratic establishment, so I can forgive one concession to the status quo, but let's see some innovative thinking, too.
More worrisome is the idea that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could get a prominent appointment. Orac has torn that one apart, and I agree: we do not need another irrational purveyor of woo and fluffy substanceless hysteria…
pharyngula | November 2, 2008I've gotten a few queries about what happened to the StopSylviaBrowne website; as Blake explains, some sleaze swept in while Robert Lancaster was hospitalized and grabbed the domain name. It's now moved to StopSylvia.com. Update those bookmarks!
pharyngula | October 25, 2008Steven Novella has an excellent critique of the Discovery Institute's pathetic assault on materialism. But then you all read Neurologica already, right?
aardvarchaeology | October 24, 2008Yesterday I gave a talk at a seminar organised by my friends in the Djurhamn project. This was interesting from a scholarly, a professional and a social point of view.
Not least piquant was that I ended up chatting briefly with two ladies whom I have criticised sharply in various media over the Ales stenar sign-post debacle. One was very friendly, telling me that she welcomed my voicing frank opinions, in a way that was too sweet to appear condescending. The other, whom I once offended pretty badly already during the Kristian Berg conflict, had a more restrained demeanour. In her talk she…