Denialism

Author: MarkH

  • Why most published research findings are false

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    MarkH
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    Seed magazine profiles the recent work from John Ioannidis, author of the groundbreaking article “Why most published research findings are false”. I’ve written about him before in several contexts and the importance of understanding this research. The counter-intuitive thing is how much his research redeems science as an enterprise and emphasizes how denialists can abuse…

  • I was right!

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    MarkH
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    People with good reasoning skills don’t fall for stupid things like spun arguments and advertising. I always suspected that if we taught a basic reasoning class in public schools in which kids were taught about logic and critical thinking it might lead to a decrease in the efficacy of advertisement. Reasoning abilities are influenced by…

  • Promising Embryonic Stem Cell News

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    MarkH
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    This new paper from Stem Cells is a wonderful example of the potential of human embryonic stem cells (hESC) to treat diseases like Type I diabetes. The reason type I diabetes is such an obvious target for hESC therapy get a little complicated, but I’ll walk you guys through this paper, and recent results in…

  • If you’re going to cherry pick, don’t provide a link

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    MarkH
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    It just makes it too easy to show your dishonesty. UD continues to harp endlessly about Gonzalez’ tenure case as they have nothing else to do, like original research. But I have to give them a piece of advice. If you’re going to cherry pick, either don’t cherry pick the first line of an article,…

  • They found the bees!

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    MarkH
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    They were just at a charity walkathon. They left you a message. Didn’t you get it?

  • Al Jazeera’s conspiracy-mongering

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    MarkH
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    Has anyone else seen that Al Jazeera’s mainpage has a section devoted to conspiracy theories? It prominently features 9/11 conspiracy garbage about WTC7 which has been debunked. This is something that is neglected about 9/11 conspiracy mongering. When 9/11 denialists like William Rodriguez encourage anti-American sentiments in foreign countries by suggesting Islamic radicals weren’t behind…

  • My question for Luskin again

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    MarkH
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    With nothing of any substance to actually talk about, like bench research, original ideas etc., the evolution denialists continue to harp on Guillermo Gonzalez, the ISU professor who failed to get tenure. However, my question for Casey Luskin remains unanswered. They have accused science of a conspiracy (surprise surprise) because we don’t accept ID as…

  • Who are the denialists? (Part III)

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    MarkH
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    Who are the global Warming Denialists? A tougher question is, in a discipline as complex as climate science, how do you tell who the legitimate skeptics (those that ignore the reporting at the Independent for instance) are versus who are the denialists? Again, it’s simple, because denialism is about tactics. Which global warming critics are…

  • I guess this was inevitable

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    MarkH
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    “Heliocentrism is an Atheist Doctrine”. I’ve just got to say, wow. I read it at first thinking, “hey, this is hysterical satire”, then I read the comments and thought, “wow, these guys are dedicated – this is pure performance art!” Finally, I started going through the archives with a sinking feeling, “holy crap, these guys…

  • How to write consistently boring scientific literature

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    MarkH
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    As I sit here, trying to write a paper, I found this article entitled “How to write consistently boring scientific literature” very interesting. (via The Annals of Improbably Research” I’m afraid it’s behind a paywall, so I’ll summarize their findings.