Denialism

Author: MarkH

  • To Fox News they all look alike

    —

    by

    MarkH
    in

    Fox news is pathetic. When discussing footage of Congressman Jefferson, the crook with the 90k in his freezer, Fox news chose to show John Conyers. Now could this be a simple mistake of showing the wrong footage? Or did are they really incapable of telling the difference between two black congressmen? Honestly, they couldn’t tell…

  • Left wing woo from HuffPo

    —

    by

    MarkH
    in , ,

    The last day or so of posts on HuffPo is a perfect example of why I’ll never take that site seriously, and why in the end, lefties are just as susceptible to anti-science nonsense as the right. We start with Donna Karen promoting her new health-care initiative, the Well-Being Forum with much credit to hucksters…

  • Funniest Blogs for Brownback post yet

    —

    by

    MarkH
    in

    We’ve had fun reading blogs 4 Brownback with their recent rejection of heliocentrism based on biblical literalism. Their science tag is a real joy to read including the aerospace conspiracy, their love of the science fair stalactite experiment that PZ trashed so thoroughly, and of course their hilarious rejection of “helioleftism. I’ve subscribed to their…

  • Blogging for Sex Education

    —

    by

    MarkH
    in

    Renegade Evolution encourages us to spend some time today blogging for sex education (she has a great feminist blog by the way). I thought to further this aim I’d talk about this recent Nation article about the scam that is the abstinence education industry. Basically, it’s just pork for the already-wealthy right-wing friends of the…

  • This guy is a brain surgeon?

    —

    by

    MarkH
    in ,

    The latest gem from Egnor: Clearly the brain, as a material substance, causes movement of the body, which is also a material substance. The links are nerves and muscles. But there is no material link between our ideas and our brains, because ideas aren’t material. I’m not a neuroscientist, but that’s strikes me as the…

  • Folie a news

    —

    by

    MarkH
    in

    I’ve decided to describe a largely unacknowledged process of disease pathogenesis that I will call folie a news. To explain though, I’ll have to first discuss a disease called delusional parasitosis. Delusional parasitosis (DP – sometimes called Ekbom’s disease) is a lot like what it sounds like. Normal or abnormal sensations of itching are interpreted…

  • Lambert catches Cockburn in a big fat cherry-pick

    —

    by

    MarkH
    in

    I should have known better than to trust a single quote cited by a denialist or crank. In our Case Study of Alexander Cockburn we pointed out his selective use of data but we missed a big fat cherry-pick. It’s based on this quote from Cockburns article: As Richard Kerr, Science magazine’s man on global…

  • Formation of a crank: A case study

    —

    by

    MarkH
    in

    Readers of the Nation are probably by now familiar with the lunatic ravings of Alexander Cockburn on global warming. What is bizarre, is that, before he traveled down this road, he seemed able to identify other crank ideas – like 9/11 conspiracy theories, and criticized them. Further, it’s unusual to see a left-winger become a…

  • What Sam Brownback thinks about evolution

    —

    by

    MarkH
    in

    In today’s NYT It’s softer than the outright denial of evolution that was assumed when he raised his hand at the debate, and certainly doesn’t sound like young-earth creationism. It seems to be intelligent design creationism without explicitly mentioning intelligent design – although some keywords are present. He, of course, uses many of the classic…

  • Badscience takes on the Independent

    —

    by

    MarkH
    in

    Apparently, I’m not the only one who thinks the Independent is a joke when it comes to science reporting. The latest idiocy is the idea of “electrosmog”, which I think results from having watched The Ring too many times (just that first scene with the two girls talking about radio signals). It results in a…