Denialism

Month: October 2012

  • Dr. Amy Tuteur calls out the homebirth movement for denialism

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    MarkH
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    I’ve been lurking at the Skeptical OB for a while and enjoying Amy Tuteur’s very effective criticism of some of the extremes of the homebirth movement. I had noticed that among some advocates of homebirth that were proposing risky behavior for pregnant mom’s that conflict with the literature that it appears to be a movement…

  • Holy cow, yet another conspiracy theory!

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    MarkH
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    This has been a year of some wonderfully crazy new conspiracies. Birtherism is actually looking pretty banal next to the “Obama is gay-married to a Pakistani” conspiracy, the “Obama is a Jihadist sleeper agent conspiracy, the Aurora conspiracies, job numbers conspiracies, polling conspiracy theories from America’s least-accurate pollster Dick Morris, and, my former favorite, the…

  • Scientific American addresses denialism in politics – says it jeopardizes democracy

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    MarkH
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    Scientific American evaluates the candidates on their answers to Sciencedebate 2012 and evaluates ideology-based denialism as a whole: Today’s denial of inconvenient science comes from partisans on both ends of the political spectrum. Science denialism among Democrats tends to be motivated by unsupported suspicions of hidden dangers to health and the environment. Common examples include…

  • Ken Ham Meets Everything is Terrible

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    MarkH
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    Every once in a while Everything is Terrible has a fun denialism-overlap as they show some ad for a terrible piece of quackery, or in this case a great cut of Ken Ham speaking nonsense to a group of very unfortunate children. This is child abuse. Not the creationism bit, but the embarrassingly-shoddy job he…

  • Mitt Romney is the wrong choice for healthcare

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    MarkH
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    It 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.…

  • The New York Times doesn't know how to write a headline

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    MarkH
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    I 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…

  • Monckton goes birther – demonstrates crank magnetism

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    MarkH
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    Via Ed I see that Christopher Monckton is expanding his crankery from denying global warming, claiming to be and MP despite cease and desist letters from parliament asking him to stop, curing HIV, the flu, MS and the common cold to now engaging in Birtherism. It’s pathetic when you’ve been pre-debunked by snopes, but there’s…

  • Conspiracy-targeted Campaigning from Romney

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    MarkH
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    Slate 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.…

  • AEI writes an honest article about ObamaCare

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    MarkH
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    This 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…