Denialism

Category: Cranks

  • This day in Crankery, November 16th

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    MarkH
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    So who here has actually read the health care bill?. I’ve been devoting a bit of time each week to peruse more and more of it, and while there are endless obstacles to a complete understanding of it (including legalese and the annoying tendency of legislation to contain edits to other bills without including the…

  • Reclaiming “Freedom”

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    Chris
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    Thomas Frank’s weekly column in the Journal is one of the few tolerable pieces in the paper’s opinion section. This week, Frank writes, sensibly, in my opinion, that the left needs to recapture “freedom.” There are few things in politics more annoying than the right’s utter conviction that it owns the patent on the word…

  • Holocaust Museum Shooter – Anti-semite and conspiracy theorist

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    MarkH
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    Orac has already pointed out the disgusting hate behind the Holocaust museum shooter and his holocaust denial. Others around the internet, in particular Pat at Screw Loose Change have pointed out he was an example of crank magnetism. Not surprisingly, he was also a 9/11 truther (which as Pat says, “scratch a 9/11 truther and…

  • The psychology of crankery

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    MarkH
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    Our recent discussions of HIV/AIDS denial and in particular Seth Kalichman’s book “Denying AIDS” has got me thinking more about the psychology of those who are susceptible to pseudoscientific belief. It’s an interesting topic, and Kalichman studies it briefly in his book mentioning the “suspicious minds”: At its very core, denialism is deeply embedded in…

  • Oprah is a crank

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    MarkH
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    PZ brings to my attention this article in Newsweek which sums up Oprah’s views on health, and one sadly must come to the conclusion that Oprah is a crank. Based on our definition of crankery, one of the critical aspects is the incompetence of an individual in judging sources of information. How else can you…

  • What’s sad is that this actually works

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    MarkH
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    The onion, as always, nails it: Oh, No! It’s Making Well-Reasoned Arguments Backed With Facts! Run! I…I think it’s finally over. Our reactionary emotional response seems to have stopped it dead in its tracks. If I’m right, all we have to do now is smugly reiterate our half-formed thesis and–oh, no! For the love of…

  • Denialism in the Literature

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    MarkH
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    It’s good news though! A description of the tactics and appropriate response to denialism was published in the European Journal of Public Health by authors Pascal Diethelm and Martin McKee. It’s entitled “Denialism: what is it and how should scientists respond?” and I think it does an excellent job explaining the harms of deniailsm, critical…

  • Happy Blogiversary To Us!

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    MarkH
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    It’s been two years now since we said hello to scienceblogs, and had our introductory posts on Conspiracy, Unified theory of the Crank, and the denialist deck of cards. Lately reading a recent profile of a crank, Marc Morano in the NYT, which was sent to me by the crank himself. I can’t help but…

  • The Global Warming Cranks – George Will officially in their ranks

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    MarkH
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    One would think given recent findings that antarctic warming is robust for instance, that the canard of antarctic cooling would go away. Or, that based on the round dismissal of the myth of 1970s global cooling warnings we’d stop hearing about that in the media too. But instead I’m watching TV last night and there’s…

  • The Ayn Rand Deprogrammer: Submissions Solicited

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    Chris
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    Sciblings, I request your assistance in an important venture. I recently learned that Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead was a top read among UC Berkeley undergrads in 1987 and 1997. This dismaying fact drove me to start assembling a reader, The Ayn Rand Deprogrammer. I’ve spent the last several weeks reviewing possible texts for this important…