Denialism

Author: MarkH

  • Sean Carroll Reviews Behe’s “Edge of Evolution”

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    MarkH
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    It’s a good read, also check out MarkCC’s review It’s another example of cranks not recognizing talent – or rather the absence of it. And Sean Carroll hits pretty hard in his review making the point that there are so many basic errors in the book that Behe isn’t doing ID any favors. He ends…

  • Hurricanes and Global Warming

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    MarkH
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    Ever since I heard the link I was hoping for something more solid than the weak associations I was hearing about on NPR and other news sources. It seemed very preliminary, and a bit worrisome that, especially in the foreign press, that they were claiming things like the New Orleans/Katrina disaster was the first example…

  • Profile of a Crank – Julia Stephenson

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    MarkH
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    Ben Goldacre at Bad Science is leading the way on opposing this new absurdity of “electric smog”, and one of it’s leading proponents in Britain, Julia Stephenson. It’s really too easy. Remember the crank HOWTO? Well, she’s just about a perfect example. It all started when she got wifi in her apartment…

  • Tim Blair quote mines me

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    MarkH
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    I see that Tim Blair has decided to quote mine me. As part of my analysis of Cockburn’s crankery I made the following statement. Below the fold I’ll summarize Cockburn’s arguments and how they use the denialist tactics, George Monbiot’s responses (including his amazing crank-fu!) and discuss why in the future we may start seeing…

  • The NYT gets it right on No Child Left Behind

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    MarkH
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    After yesterdays pathetic article from the WaPo suggesting that scores were “up” (whatever that means under the moronic patchwork that evolved under the law) it was nice to see the NYT get it right. Their article exposes the joke of state standardized testing in response to the law, and further demonstrates how meaningless standardized testing…

  • 62nd Skeptic’s Circle is up

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    At Polite Company. My favorite is Reasic’s late but thorough dissection of Michael Crichton in his “Aliens Cause Global Warming” speech.

  • The death of a wedge issue

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    MarkH
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    I hope this time I’m finally right about this. I’ve been hopeful that some strategy of developing stem cells would allow us to bypass the absurd ethical restrictions from those who think one type of destruction of an embryo is worse than another. Particularly promising were spermatogonial stem cells, but they could only be made…

  • A bigot surgeon general nomination?

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    MarkH
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    The Human Rights Campaign is concerned, and I would tend to agree, that Bush’s recent nominee for Surgeon General has the earmarks of an homophobe. In a document titled “Pathophysiology of Male Homosexuality,” Holsinger opined, in his capacity as a physician, that biology and anatomy precluded considering gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender equality in his…

  • The Testing Myth and NCLB

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    MarkH
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    Another credulous article on the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law appears today in the Washington Post. As someone who knows many teachers who have had experience with similar stupid laws in Virginia, and the history of the Bush administration pushing for these kinds of laws based on the “Texas Education Miracle”, I’m far more…

  • I can’t believe he’s still alive

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    MarkH
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    I’m now convinced Castro will outlive us all. He’s apparently going to give his first interview since he got sick and was hospitalized. I was hoping that a conspiracy theory would evolve that Castro was really dead, and they were just hiding the evidence of his death from the press. It was going to be…