Skepticism
sb admin | March 26, 2008Hat-tip to PZ for shining some light onto local idiocy. The basic story is an old one---family kills kid by refusing medical care for a curable condition. In this case, it's a child with type I diabetes. This hits close to home for two reasons: I'm an internist, and my nephew is a type I diabetic, diagnosed at four years of age.
In the case above, an innocent child was killed by ignorance. Perhaps there is a preacher somewhere behind this murder. I'd like to know. The parents prayed for their ailing daughter, but "apparently didn't have enough faith." The child died of diabetic…
sb admin | March 24, 2008This idea is so bad that I might even agree with a Scientologist about it (OK, not really). A company I will not name or link to has developed a home genetic test for bipolar disorder. What could be so horrible about making it easier for people to diagnose diseases?
Well, first there is a problem of "begging the question": does the test do what it is purported to do?
(Test X)⢠- tests for two mutations in the GRK3 gene that are associated with bipolar disorder. Patients who have either of these two mutations, are Caucasian, of Northern European ancestry and have a family history of…
pharyngula | March 23, 2008There's going to be a meeting of Skeptics in the Pub tomorrow, 7:00, at the Asgard on 350 Massachusetts Ave in Cambridge, starring Mike the Mad Biologist. You don't want to miss it. He's mad, you know.
pharyngula | March 23, 2008This is Easter, the day Christians everywhere set aside to celebrate the day they were hoaxed by a gang of Middle Eastern charlatans into believing a local mystic rose from the dead. Zeno finds that this year it's also a day to remember another flop: the cold fusion debacle.
It's been 19 years since Pons and Fleischmann announced their purported discovery of a mechanism for generating energy from a room-temperature fusion cell. Unlike the resurrection, I was actually there for that one. I was a post-doc at the University of Utah at that time, in the building right next door to where Pons and…
aardvarchaeology | March 21, 2008A reader has pointed out that a propaganda website friendly with the Chinese government and hostile to Falun Gong is quoting a recent blog entry of mine. She suggests that this means that I am aiding the government in its harsh persecution of the cult.
I, of course, don't see it that way. Two crooks are wrestling here, and I've made my opinion known that both combatants are crooks, period. I find it really funny that the propaganda site is blithely repeating my words, "Most people with democratic opinions see the Chinese government as a group of autocratic villains with a history of…
sb admin | March 21, 2008Most of us around here know about internet memes, hoax emails, and other sources of scientific and medical rumor. After all, we're geeks (or at least, I am). My wife, however, is not. She is a typical (and wonderful) woman, from a particular ethnic group, and particular part of town (and well-educated). I'm a fairly well-known physician, but when we go out to dinner, everyone stops to say "hi" to her---and is introduced to "her husband" for the third time.
So it isn't really a surprise that she knows more about the "real world" than I do. I was sitting on the couch reading my feeds,…
aardvarchaeology | March 14, 2008
Locksmith Patrick Stübing and Susan Karolewski are a German couple with four children. They are also full biological siblings. "Eeeeewww", I hear you say. And I agree. Eeeeewww. But why do we feel that way?
The incest taboo is as close to a cultural universal as you can get, and is most likely genetically determined. It is counteradaptive to want to bonk your siblings, as this may lead to the accumulation of harmful recessive alleles in the offspring. But how is this implemented from a practical evolutionary perspective? Humans have no physical way of identifying their biological siblings,…
pharyngula | March 12, 2008
Who needs church if you can get together and reason together? First it was Boston; now other cities are joining in with gatherings of fans of skepticism and science. Here are your opportunities:
London, England: Saturday, 15 March, 7:00pm, at the Doric Ach near Euston station.
Anchorage, Alaska: Thursday, 20 March, 7:00pm, at the cafe in the Barnes and Noble on Northern Lights Blvd.
We shall take over!
aardvarchaeology | March 11, 2008I've discovered that the Wikipedia entry about Falun Gong is heavily biased. Indeed, before I took it upon myself to insert a few words about the criticism the organisation has met with, the article was entirely about a) how good FG is (and I disagree), b) how nasty the Chinese government is (and I agree).
Now, this article is guarded by a bunch of FG devotees who undo all attempts to introduce a more balanced view into the text. Their antics on the discussion page are quite a sight. I think it would be good if some of Aard's readers joined me in making improvements to the article.…
aardvarchaeology | March 7, 2008In every story there is a villain, and his adversary is either a hero or a hapless victim. But we don't live in a story.
Most people with democratic opinions see the Chinese government as a group of autocratic villains with a history of persecuting good people. When such a government persecutes a religious movement, it's easy to assume that this movement must be quite nice. This not necessarily the case.
The much-publicised and long-standing conflict between the Chinese authorities and Falun Gong is an example of a nasty autocratic regime persecuting a nasty manipulative cult. Falun Gong's…
aardvarchaeology | March 6, 2008
Sweden's first town was a place called Birka, frequently mentioned in Viking Period written sources such as Rimbert's book about Bishop Ansgar. The town was on an island in Lake Mälaren near Stockholm. Its remains are extensive and highly visible, and have been the object of constant archaeological attention since the birth of the discipline. Nevertheless, there's a tendency among local-patriotic amateur scholars all around the Baltic to try to argue that Birka was in fact located in their favourite spot on Earth. This is so common that it's a running joke in the trade. In the following, my…
denialism | February 28, 2008At Conspiracy Factory.
In particular I like Skepchik's take on a pretty horrifically sexist Oprah poll which seems to present the only options for women in a stressful situation are to cry now or cry later or act like a big strong man. Hmm.
PalMD has really been fighting the good fight lately with this piece on antivax, but really it's worth your time to explore his other stuff on Morgellon's and other crankery.
Good stuff as always, check it out.
pharyngula | February 27, 2008I'm the wrong person to scrutinize this one, but maybe some bored physicist out there can tell us someting about this book, Our Undiscovered Universe, which claims to describe a new version of physics called "Null Physics".
Let me know if there's anything there.
aardvarchaeology | February 27, 2008My involvement in the skeptical movement and science blogging has caused me to think about my professional relationship to the concept of science. Archaeology is a social science in the US and one of the humanities in Europe: in neither case is it seen as a natural science, the kind that gets to call itself "science" without any qualifier. Archaeology is dependent on the methods of natural science, but its object is to learn about culture, not nature, a distinction that many including myself find useful.
In Swedish and many other languages, the word for science doesn't denote the natural…
pharyngula | February 27, 2008The Colorado NPR station KUNC recently ran a credulous fluff piece by some guy named Marc Ringel, touting "healing at a distance", some sort of magic handwaving that he claims is "scientifically" supported. The Colorado skeptical community, of course, has expressed their scorn in email to the station, and also brought it to my attention. They also mentioned an excellent website reviewing the evidence for intercessory prayer.
The most interesting revelation to me: I've heard of tests of intercessory prayer, where people pray or don't pray for a patient and then the outcomes are evaluated to…
aardvarchaeology | February 20, 2008I've just agreed to a flattering request from real.girl at Skepchick. This means that chances are you will find a skeptical archaeologist in partial deshabillé in the 2009 edition of the Skepchick skin calendar. And I'm train blogging again. And I'm on my way to Lund where historians of religion have invited me to comment on a PhD thesis manuscript about the Migration Period. Life is good!
pharyngula | February 16, 2008Hey, there I am — I got interviewed by Steve Novella for the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, and it's now available as a podcast.
aardvarchaeology | February 11, 2008Post-modernist hyper-relativism unexpectedly rears its ugly dying head in the form of a call for papers from one Tera Pruitt for the otherwise respectable Archaeological Review from Cambridge. Note the scare quotes around the words truth and valid claims.
Call for Papers (April 2009 Issue)
Beyond the Facts: Invention and Reinvention in Archaeological Practice
The Archaeological Review from Cambridge invites papers on the theme of invention and re-invention in archaeology. The past quarter century has seen a rich academic debate about the nature of archaeological interpretation. Post-modern…
pharyngula | February 5, 2008The speakers for The Amaz!ng Meeting 6 have been announced. Uh, wow. What am I going to do up there? I don't do card tricks, nor do I blow stuff up. I'm not going to be the most acerbic speaker in that crowd, either.
I also have to be worth some fraction of the $450 registration cost. The pressure is on!
choofnagle | February 2, 2008Check it out--for a mere 12 Euro, you can buy, Wo bitte geht's zu Gott?, fragte das kleine Ferkel, a book that is reportedly causing a stir for its depiction of the world's major religions. This children's book is pitched to atheists who wish to indoctrinate/inoculate their children against religion:
The book tells the story of a piglet and a hedgehog, who discover a poster attached to their house that says: "If you do not know God, you are missing something!"
This frightens them because they had never suspected at all that anything was missing in their lives. Thus they set out to look for…