Denialism

Author: MarkH

  • Victory over a parasite – the global eradication of Guinea Worm

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    Hooray for science! The New England Journal reports on the imminent eradication of the Guinea worm. For those who haven’t heard of this nasty little parasite, it is a really horrible infection to get. It starts with the ingestion of Dracunculus medinensis infected water. The larvae, when freed from their copepod carriers, migrate from the…

  • Update on the Bees from PloS

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    Those who are interested in the Colony-Collapse Disorder phenomenon will probably enjoy this paper from PLoS entitled “What’s Killing American Honey Bees?” It lays out the history of mass bee die-offs – which have been recorded extensively by apiarists, and discusses whether or not major concern needs to be paid to the problem. I still…

  • Tangled bank #82

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    Greg Laden writes a very nice tangled bank. It’s a model for what a good carnival post should look like I think. And he was kind enough to link our discussion of Uncommon Descent’s remarkable ability to predict the past. Definitely worth a click.

  • How long before Sal Cordova quote mines this one?

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    Nature reports on this new paper that shows a major conflict resolving the fossil and molecular records of mammalian evolution. It’s entitled, “Cretaceous eutherians and Laurasian origin for placental mammals near the K/T boundary” and the major finding is that mammals seem to have evolved largely after this boundary based on their discovery of fossil…

  • Only the best 5 second internet video ever

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    It lives up to it’s title. H/T boingboing

  • Autism Crankery at Huffpo – Again

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    RFK Jr. writes the standard crank screed in Huffpo, and it’s like a mirror reflection of the CBS news crankery that Orac takes on. Let’s see, it’s a crank screed so it at a very minimum has to have four elements. The wacky idea, a bunch of inflated non-evidence, conspiracy theories to deflect criticism, and…

  • Seed Schwag – and Banner design time

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    I don’t know how many people knew about this – the sciencebloggers were informed a little bit late, but Seed had a competition on threadless to design a t-shirt in honor of our benevolent overlords, Seed publishing. Here’s the winner Also, you guys may have noticed our rotating masthead. Well, I’m announcing our own little…

  • Speak of the devil

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    David Kirby seems to be planning his escape from the autism debate. At Huffington post, he demands that science perform epidemiological studies that compare the healthiness or autism rates of unvaccinated versus vaccinated children. Most people (save for a handful of fringe parents who believe that autism is some altered state of being, worthy of…

  • Who are the denialists? (Part IV)

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    It’s time to talk about the anti-vaccine (or anti-vax) denialists. Considering the Autism Omnibus trial is underway to decide whether or not parents of autistic children can benefit from the vaccine-compensation program, a fund designed to compensate those who have had reactions to vaccines and shield vaccine makers from the civil suits which drove them…

  • A confluence of idiocy

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    You know how dumb Egnor sounds with his mind outside the brain cell-phone silliness? He sounds as dumb as Deepak Chopra writing more brain-dead new agey nonsense for the Huffington Post. To gain credibility, the mind outside the brain must also be mirrored inside the brain. If your brain didn’t register what the mind is…