Denialism

Month: September 2008

  • The Times doesn’t know Bayes

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    MarkH
    in

    If you’ve spent any time at all reading science and medicine blogs, you know that many of us are quite critical of the way the traditional media covers science. The economics of the business allows for fewer and fewer dedicated science and medical journalists. In the blogosphere, writers have a certain freedom—-the freedom not to…

  • The Times on Woo: Covering the Basics

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    Chris
    in

    The Times is running a series of articles today that cover the basics on woo, wooish thought, and one of my favorite subjects, pre-pure-food regulation impure food. Not much new here for Sciencebloggers, but these are good resources to help individuals think through the bogus claims we see so often in the marketing of woo.…

  • Open Lab 08

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    MarkH
    in

    Bora and his crack team of editors are working on Open Laboratory 08, a collection of the year’s best writing on ScienceBlogs. Head over there and nominate some stuff, from this blog and others. That is all.

  • Profiting from others’ suffering—the difference between skeptical doctors and crooks

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    MarkH
    in

    Morgellons “disease” is not a disease in any classic sense. There are no agreed-upon definitions of a case, so all else is meaningless. That being said, people are suffering. Since they feel ignored by doctors, they seek help elsewhere. It’s a problem in thinking, in some ways. When you don’t feel well, you should seek…

  • Were the ancients fools?

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    by

    MarkH
    in

    I’m off to the west coast (of Michigan) for a few days, and if I don’t blog, I shall die…or something. So I have a few posts from my old blog to share with you. Often in the discussion of cult medicines such as homeopathy, acupuncture, and reiki, supporters fall back on “the wisdom of…

  • I Love the French

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    by

    Chris
    in

    Why? Well, among other things, for hating billboards. Max Colchester of the Wall Street Journal reports: On Friday, Alex Baret plans to board a train to central Paris, pull out a can of spray paint and deface a billboard, as he has done every last Friday of the month for more than two years. The…

  • The Business of Green

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    Chris
    in

    I had the opportunity to see Felicity Barringer, the New York Times correspondent, speak on the “The Dangers of Environmental Parables” at University of Wyoming’s Consumer Issues Conference. Barringer argued that simple parables, such as the greed-versus-good stories present in the seminal Silent Spring no longer capture the complex landscape of environmental issues presented today.…

  • Immune to reality

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    by

    MarkH
    in

    I’m off to the west coast (of Michigan) for a few days, and if I don’t blog, I shall die…or something. So I have a few posts from my old blog to share with you. Sure, we all have our biases about food and health. I think chicken soup is great when you’re sick—but not…

  • False equality

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    by

    MarkH
    in

    I’m off to the west coast (of Michigan) for a few days, and if I don’t blog, I shall die…or something. So I have a few posts from my old blog to share with you. As my child approaches school age, I worry about school board battles a little bit more. I hate politics, but…

  • Debate!

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    MarkH
    in

    I’m liveblogging and leaving an open thread…go to it.