Denialism

Author: MarkH

  • Nerds once again in control of government

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    MarkH
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    And I breathe a sigh of relief. Working nights my schedule is a tad goofy, but I wake up today to see this guy describing the changes in the new budget: This is Peter Orszag the new director of the Office of Management and Budget. He is a nerd and I instantly like him. I…

  • Tumors in a (quack) human stem cell therapy

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    MarkH
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    It’s almost like a bad Yakov Smirnoff joke, “In America you test therapies in animals before giving them to humans, in Russia…” All I can do is wonder, what were they thinking? Injecting stem cells into a kid’s spinal fluid to correct a genetic disorder? Are they insane? Stem cells, in particular embryonic and fetal…

  • George Will – We must not allow his dishonesty to be ignored

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    MarkH
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    I’m heartened to see a broad disgust with George Will’s lies about climate science. After all it’s pretty extraordinary when a major syndicated columnist repeats a lie about science, not once, not twice but three times despite being corrected. PZ wishes he too could just make up his own facts, and Mike too is pleased…

  • Psychiatry

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    MarkH
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    What to say about psychiatry that isn’t already completely covered by television and movies? It’s unique among the specialties for its coverage in the media. Maybe because we’re such social animals, or maybe because such shows about psychiatry or therapy appeal to a voyeuristic impulse in us to peer into people’s most private thoughts and…

  • Should IQ and Race be studied and what is Lysenkoism anyway?

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    MarkH
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    Dan MacArthur has started a big discussion on whether or not the relationship between IQ and race should be studied. Inspired by a pair of essays for and against the idea it has created a pretty healthy debate among the sciencebloggers including Razib with whom I will likely never agree on this issue. For the…

  • Scientologists blame psychiatry for 9/11

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    MarkH
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    We’ll have to add Scientology to Pal’s list of disease-promoting groups. Via Screw Loose Change I learn that as part of their bizarre hatred of psychiatry, they’ve now taken to saying that 9/11 was caused by psychiatrists in addition to the holocaust. Apparently, Osama was just a regular guy until al-Zawahiri, a psychiatrist, got to…

  • The Global Warming Cranks – George Will officially in their ranks

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    MarkH
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    One would think given recent findings that antarctic warming is robust for instance, that the canard of antarctic cooling would go away. Or, that based on the round dismissal of the myth of 1970s global cooling warnings we’d stop hearing about that in the media too. But instead I’m watching TV last night and there’s…

  • Create Evolution-themed Art, get a grant from Burning Man!

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    MarkH
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    For those artistic evilutionists out there, Burning Man, the yearly festival celebrating freedom, expression, and self-reliance, is sponsoring art based on this year’s theme of Evolution. The details for getting a grant to support your artwork are here. So, come up with some ideas for interactive, creative expressions of what evolution means, where humans have…

  • The Autism/Vaccines Fraud

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    MarkH
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    I have to admit I’m somewhat surprised (even if Orac isn’t). We all knew that Andrew Wakefield’s research was bogus and the link between vaccines and autism was engineered by ideologues who fear vaccines irrationally. But fabrication of data? Sloppy research is one thing, but the need for cranks to be correct, no matter what…

  • The editors of PLoS should read PLoS

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    MarkH
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    What do this cartoon and the latest edition of PLoS One have in common? Well, reading Bora’s blog this week I saw an article entitled, Risks for Central Nervous System Diseases among Mobile Phone Subscribers: A Danish Retrospective Cohort Study and my ears perked up. We have been mocking the idea that cell phones cause…