Author: MarkH
-
What happens when you study conspiracy theories? The conspiracy theorists make up conspiracy theories about you!
I’ve known about this effect for a while as I’ve been variously accused of being in the pocket of big pharma, big ag, big science, democrats and republicans etc. Now Stephan Lewandowsky, in follow up to his “NASA Faked the Moon Landings – Therefore (Climate) Science is a Hoax.” paper, has used these conspiratorial responses…
-
What is the cause of excess costs in health care Part 4 – Time's "Bitter Pill", CEO compensation and the Kafkaesque chargemaster
Steven Brill’s extensive piece in Time has generated a good discussion once again on why Americans pay so much more for health care than other countries, and while I agree with most of his critiques, he seems to have gotten overly hung-up on the hospital chargemaster. Readers of this blog know I’ve also discussed reform…
-
Denialism From Forbes Courtesy of Heartland Hack James Taylor
It’s fascinating when you catch the start of a new bogus claim enter the denialsphere, bounce from site to site, and echo about without any evidence of critical analysis or intelligence on the part of the denialists. A good example of this was an article by Heartland Institute’s contributor to Forbes, James Taylor, falsely claiming…
-
Gun control Part III – Some final questions for Matt and closing remarks
Go by and check out Matt’s second response on gun control. I think this response is a good argument. After all, my arguments are correlative. It is impossible to do randomized controlled trials on whole countries after all. I would ask a few questions in response to this rebuttal, however. Matt, what do you think…
-
Anti-Gay Marriage Argument makes no sense
I was bewildered by this LA times article over the weekend describing the latest tactic of the DOMA defenders planning to argue before the Supreme Court, that is, that marriage is necessary for heterosexuals only because of the possibility of accidental child bearing. Marriage should be limited to unions of a man and a woman…
-
Chris Discusses Google's New Privacy Disclosures on NPR this Morning
For shameless self promotion this morning I present Chris on NPR discussing Google’s new disclosure of the rules it uses to share information with government authorities.
-
Gun Control Part II: My response to Matt Springer
I was curious to see what kind of defense Matt would put on against my suggestion of additional regulations to address the problem of gun violence and homicide in the US, and I was a bit disappointed to see that the response is largely a “no problem” argument. I had actually come into this debate…
-
Matt's Response On Gun Control part I
Matt has posted his first response in the gun control debate, expect my rejoinder by Thursday or Friday after we have time to process the President’s announcement this morning on gun control.
-
A gun control debate with Matt Springer
Given that Matt and I are both gun enthusiasts, scientists, and bloggers, and we’re both interested in something being done to prevent mass shootings such as in Newtown, Aurora, and almost one dozen other locations in just the last few years, we decided to host a more formal debate on the issue. I’m taking the…
-
A week without denialism blog
Sorry, things will be quiet for a week. Cranks, please don’t start crying censorship. I’m just not going to be available to moderate comments until the 6th.