Denialism

Author: MarkH

  • Abortion can be lifesaving

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    MarkH
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    While I realize Joe Walsh lost his election bid, it is still worth emphasizing that his infamous statements about abortion are false, especially considering efforts like those in Ohio to pass a “heartbeat bill”. Abortion is sometimes necessary to save the life of the mother. Via the Irish Times we hear the sad story of…

  • Maryland how I love thee

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    MarkH
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    I’m so proud of my home state for affirming equality for all in the ballot box rather than in the courts. I was born and raised in Maryland, although I’ve spent more of my adult life in Virginia, one of the big things I’ve noticed in the divide between the two states (and I love…

  • Tribalism, Cultural Cognition, Ideology, we're all talking about the same thing here

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    MarkH
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    From Revkin I see yet another attempt to misunderstand the problem of communicating science vs anti-science. The author, Dan Kahan, summarizes his explanation for the science communication problem, as well as 4 other “not so good” explanations in this slide: He then describes “Identity-protective cognition” thus: Identity-protective cognition (a species of motivated reasoning) reflects the…

  • 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…