Denialism

Category: Science

  • Lifting the stem cell ban – was there any point?

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    MarkH
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    President Obama has lifted the ban on embryonic stem cell research enacted by Bush, but I’m left feeling that this intervention came many years too late. Pledging that his administration will “make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology,” President Obama on Monday lifted the Bush administration’s strict limits on human embryonic stem cell research.…

  • Rating your doctor online – is this a good idea?

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    MarkH
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    I have just finished taking my last major exam of medical school – Step 2 of the boards (including Step 2 Clinical Skills, or CS, which costs 1200 bucks, requires you to travel to one of a few cities in the country hosting it, and is sealed by a EULA that forbids me from talking…

  • The editors of PLoS should read PLoS

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    MarkH
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    What do this cartoon and the latest edition of PLoS One have in common? Well, reading Bora’s blog this week I saw an article entitled, Risks for Central Nervous System Diseases among Mobile Phone Subscribers: A Danish Retrospective Cohort Study and my ears perked up. We have been mocking the idea that cell phones cause…

  • Rejecting Homosexual Children Results in Disastrous Health Outcomes – An Appeal to Parents

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    MarkH
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    Not infrequently, science butts heads with culture as the data scientists collect about issues of the day may conflict with cultural perceptions and deeply-held beliefs. Attitudes and perceptions about homosexuality are, not surprisingly, a source of denialism as certain overvalued ideas about sexuality are being challenged with our deeper understanding of human sexual desire. For…

  • Hi, Mom!

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    MarkH
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    It’s another cold, snowy day in Michigan, and while I was busy stamping out disease, PalMom was looking out her window at the snow. Perching on a branch was this beauty, which I believe to be a red-tailed hawk. Please correct me if I’m wrong. This raptor is no dummy. There’s a bird feeder a…

  • The stupidest internal NIH memo ever – or why I can’t wait for the new administration

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    MarkH
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    One of the great things about science is that it is open, international, and celebrates the free exchange of ideas. However, during the last 8 years we’ve seen some odd things at the National Institutes of Health – the premier governmental scientific institution in the world. The paranoia of the current administration has filtered down…

  • Stop the RFK Jr. appointment NOW

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    MarkH
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    I would beg everyone who reads the scienceblogs and cares about science to contact the transition team in the Obama administration as Orac has requested. It should be clear by now to readers of this blog that pseudoscience is not a problem of just the right. The left wing areas of pseudoscience are just as…

  • Science is politics

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    MarkH
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    No, this isn’t some post-modernist rant on the inherent non-objectivity of science. On the contrary—this is a much simpler, grittier point, that science actually is the most accurate way of describing reality, and because of this, politics (the job of manipulating and controlling group’s social reality) and science will always be roommates. This comes up…

  • Autism and Mitochondria

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    MarkH
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    Prometheus brings us the best article I’ve seen to date on why the new push for a mitochondrial basis for autism is total nonsense. Once I saw this push from denialists like David Kirby towards a link between mitochondria and autism I knew we were in for a world of trouble. If only because mitochondrial…

  • DrPal, tell us more about HPV and cancer

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    MarkH
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    OK, if you insist. This comes with the usual caveat directed at scientists that I know this is oversimplified, but I wish to reach the largest audience possible. Feel free to correct my mistakes, but please don’t bother me about oversimplification. So here’s the deal. Several decades ago, it became scientifically fashionable to believe that…