Category: Denialism
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Are liberals really more likely to accept science than conservatives?
Today’s NYT has Thomas Edsall’s What the Left Get’s Right, the follow up piece to last week’s What the Right Get’s Right, and what’s fascinating is how even conservative commentators think liberals get science right more often than conservatives. Or at least they are less likely to view it ideologically: A few conservative concessions to…
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The New Scientist Debates Denialism
Luckily they don’t make the mistake of actually debating denialists. The feature of last weeks issue, “Age of Denial” is a series of articles by skeptics and one laughable rebuttal, discussing the nature of denialism and tactics to use against it. They do quite a good job covering the basics, starting with Deborah MacKenzie and…
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Denialism in the Literature
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…
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Obama Meets With Gore, Rejects Denial
It seems Obama didn’t get Nisbet’s memo. Just watching on CNN, future president Obama says: The time for delay is over, the time for denial is over. We all believe what the scientists have been telling us for years now, that this is a matter of urgency and national security and it has to be…
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Denialists’ harvest—the AIDS body count in South Africa
As a physician, few things frustrate and sadden me as much as preventable deaths. I see it all the time—the guy who kept putting off his colonoscopy and was later diagnosed with metastatic colon cancer, the woman who put off coming to the doctor with her breast lump until it broke through her skin, the…
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In the Bush World, Regulation is Deregulatory
In the last days of the Bush Administration, expect it to engage in lots of rulemaking. Many businesses will seek new rules for their industries now, fearing that less favorable outcomes will occur if they chance it with the Obama Administration. This business-initiated regulation will seek “ceiling preemption,” meaning that the federal rules will supersede…
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On the Nature of the Cyberselfish
In reading a law review last week, I saw a footnote to a booked called Cyberselfish, A Critical Romp Through the Terribly Libertarian Culture of High-Tech. Intrigued, I purchased it immediately and have been reading it the law few nights. The author, Paulina Borsook, wrote for Wired and yet was shocked by some of the…
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The Miracle that Failed
Yesterday, I posted about the rabid, pro-free-market rhetoric present in Washington, DC over the past decade. When Congress had the opportunity to consider privacy laws that would limit marketing of financial products, it chose to side with bank lobbyists, who invoked the idea of the “miracle of instant credit.” Basically, they argued that any incursion…
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Galileo, Semmelweis, and YOU!
To wear the mantle of Galileo, it is not enough to be persecuted: you must also be right. –Robert Park I used to spend a lot of time on the websites of Joe Mercola and Gary Null, the most influential medical cranks of the internets (to call them “quacks” would imply that they are real…
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The economy, denialism, and perception
How bad is the economy? Really fucking bad. My patients are losing their jobs, the restaurants are empty, businesses are shuttered, houses empty. Really, really fucking bad. What does the government have to say about it? Not so bad. Chill. There are some good reasons for this. As the recent Indymac debacle shows, a statement…