Denialism

Author: MarkH

  • Rationality served up hot and fresh

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    MarkH
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    One of my favorite pet websites is RationalWiki, which is slowly transforming into it’s 3.0 iteration. It originated as a parody/rebuttal site to the execrable Conservapedia (and no, Conservapedia is not a parody, just an example of Poe’s Law at work). Eventually, it expanded to developing articles that examined irrationality in general, such as fundamentalism,…

  • The truth is out there…WAY out there

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    MarkH
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    Oh. My. F-ing. God. All the news that’s fit to print??? I know some of my readers don’t think much of the New York Times (yes, PP, I’m talking to you), but despite some of my reservations, it’s still the Paper of Record. That’s why I was, er, um, was nauseated was flabbergasted threw up…

  • I get questions…

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    MarkH
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    I frequently get questions by email or by comment. If it’s simple, I might fire off an answer. If it’s about a personal medical problem, I either don’t answer, or send a standard disclaimer to seek medical care. If it’s a really interesting question, I blog. Today, I blog. The question regarded the ubiquitous commercials…

  • What should smokers be scared of?

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    MarkH
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    This comes up every day. Everyone’s afraid of the big “C”, and they should be. Smoking increases a person’s risk of dying of lung cancer by about 12-20 times (whatever that means, but it’s significant). And while cancer may be scary, other diseases are just as bad. Lung cancers attributable to smoking cause about 125K…

  • A blog recommendation

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    MarkH
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    Everyone this morning should check out a new favorite website of mine the International Journal of Inactivism. Frank Bi has created a wonderful little catalog of global warming conspiracy theories that nicely illustrate the fundamental defects of reasoning used by the denialists. In particular, I enjoyed his genealogy of climate conspiracy theories. When we first…

  • Scene III, wherein we move on to more important things

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    MarkH
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    What could be more important than a good old-fashioned flame war? I’ll get to that in a moment, so please stick with me. The recent imbroglio between some of our doctor bloggers and non-physician scientists got me thinking (so it couldn’t be all bad). As a quick summary, PhysioProf of the DrugMonkey blog used an…

  • Scene II, in which I clarify my previous statement

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    MarkH
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    My Scibling DrugMonkey brought up a half-valid point. The half that was valid was that none of the medical bloggers spoke out about the surgeon who assaulted a patient. The half that was insane was where this is used as further evidence that doctors are arrogant pricks. Based on this comment and those of the…

  • Why am I hearing this nonsense from a scienceblogger?

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    MarkH
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    Who wrote this? As someone who spends a substantial portion of his professional time teaching medical students, I can tell you that this kind of attitude-that physicians are gods, not mere mortals, and wield power over other human beings that no one dare question-is inculcated in them from the very beginning of medical training. It…

  • Scene I, in which I defend my profession

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    MarkH
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    Our Scibling PhysioProf has launched the opening salvo in what may turn out to be a rather bloody flame war. In the interest of actually gaining something from this other than venting my own anger and frustration, I will beg your indulgence here as I explain why my colleague is so utterly misguided.

  • DROP THAT CELL PHONE NOW!!!11!!!

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    MarkH
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    DROP YOUR CELL PHONE NOW!!!!111! (don’t send me the bill for the replacement) I’m sure others will cover more of the scientific details, but science aside, we should examine why today’s statement on cell phones out of Pittsburgh is so ridiculous. Setting aside the lack of data connecting cell phones and health problems, this is…