Denialism.com

We're moving to Science Blogs!

2007-04-30T07:23:00.000-05:00

We have gone live, as of this morning at the scienceblogs as "denialism blog" at http://scienceblogs.com/denialism.

We'll see you there. It may take a couple days to get the RSS feeds and stuff worked out, but in the meantime we'll be doing an overview of the denialism problem for our new readers.

(also please everybody update links to point at our scienceblogs page rather than here)

Anti-Coal Astroturf Abandoned

2007-04-27T12:31:00.000-05:00

There is a very interesting article in today's Journal discussing how a public relations campaign sponsored by the natural gas industry attacked coal as unclean. This is sometimes referred to as "astroturf lobbying," and is represented in the Deck of Cards as the 10 of Clubs.

There's nothing new under the sun, but this campaign is peculiar, because the coal industry, with support of some Members of Congress, was able to stop it. John J. Fialka reports:

The founder of a group that ran a series of newspaper ads attacking the coal industry for selling a product that they called "filthy" says the campaign is ending.

The effort, promoted as pro-environment, was sponsored by a rival energy company, a natural-gas-production company, and sparked a round of protests from members of Congress and trade associations.

[…]

Rep. Nick J. Rahall (D., W.Va.), chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources, called the ads an "absolute insult" to coal miners. He said the Clean Sky Coalition, which ran the ads, was set up by the chairman of Chesapeake Energy Corp., an Oklahoma City natural-gas-production company. Mr. Rahall said the ads amounted to "one segment of the energy industry trying to bamboozle the general public and policy makers to sell more of its product."

Public relations groups are always trying to bamboozle the general public. What makes this different? I would submit that many industries don't care much about false advertising and PR, so long as the claims are limited to the company's own products. But they start to care when representations start to attack other company's products. And they'll do something about it.

And check out the use of selectivity. Actually, it goes beyond selectivity to, what I'd call as a lawyer, something that looks like "false light." Again, Fialka reports:

The coalition's Web site quotes a Harvard University professor, John Holden, as saying 150 new coal-fired power plants being planned by U.S. utilities would create more carbon dioxide than all of the emissions from coal burning in human history. According to Harvard, there is no John Holden, but John P. Holdren, professor of environmental science at Harvard, called the statement "outrageous."

Dr. Holdren said it was a distorted version of a statement he has made, saying that if 900 coal-fired power plants being planned by various nations in the world were allowed to run for 50 years without emissions controls, the pollution would reach historic levels. Most of these plants, he said, are being planned in China and India, and some new plants will have controls that cut pollution.

Selectivity from FRC

2007-04-27T01:19:00.000-05:00

Some might wonder why I include some right-wing "family" organizations on the list of denialists. It's simple. In their efforts to oppose all forms of contraception, they routinely lie about the science behind the efficacy of condoms for STD-prevention (just like HIV/AIDS denialists), the efficacy of contraception, as well as social effects of contraception like the falsehood that contraceptive availability leads to promiscuity and higher STD transmission.

Take for instance, the Family Research Council's blog entry on emergency contraception today.

According to a new study, emergency contraception is delivering. But unfortunately, that's the problem. The study, by Cochrane Collaboration, found that instead of reducing pregnancies, women who received the so-called "morning-after pills" pills were just as likely to conceive. The research combines eight studies of over 6,000 women in the U.S., India, and China, where the results were all the same. It turns out that the morning-after pill is no cure for morning sickness. That's hardly good news for the 21 states basing legislation on it. "We expected that easier access to contraception could help women use the pills more quickly when they needed them," said Chelsea Polis, the lead researcher. But increasing its availability didn't increase its effectiveness. Instead, the women who had Plan B didn't use it—and if they did, they took it too late for the pills to work. We can add this to the long list of reasons why the FDA should not have approved the pills in the first place. Instead of fast-tracking the bills on Plan B, state leaders would be wise to take a long pregnant pause to consider all the facts.

The link in the post takes you to a lay article on the study which is actually a lot more informative than I expected, and just from reading the info in the link you see the selective message that the FRC denialists have adopted. I'm afraid the real article from Cochran is subscription only, so not everyone can actually read it, but I'll give you some info from the front-matter.

For one, this is what is called a "systematic review". It's funny that today I was in a class for med students describing how great systematic reviews are and how they should use these whenever possible. They really are an excellent resource, and the Cochran collaboration exists to determine the consensus of health care science's findings on various issues of clinical relevance help doctors make informed decisions about the the current state of knowledge on a clinical topic (I told you consensus science was valuable).

Let me first describe some terms. An ordinary review paper usually has one or more authors, usually a student or fellow working for an expert in a field writes them, and they represent that expert's analysis of the state of a field. It is essentially their argued opinion of what the consensus is on a given field of scientific inquiry.

A systematic review, as opposed to an ordinary review, has well-defined inclusion and exclusion criteria for the science that they evaluate to determine what the field's consensus is. In other words, it isn't just what one expert thinks of the field, as they almost always have some bias or another, and may exclude papers or hypotheses that piss them off or conflicts with their line of study. That's not to say all reviews are like this, but clinicians simply don't have the time to parse every damn paper in a field when they're trying to answer a specific question to make sure. So a systematic review, by using pre-defined inclusion criteria evaluates the best science in a reproducible and unbiased way to determine the current scientific consensus. As such they are quite valuable. The downside, of course, is that sometimes the experts have good reasons for their biases and don't include crummy research in their reviews. Ideally a systematic review's criteria will accomplish this, but probably not always.

So this systematic review sought to evaluate all the data on efficacy of emergency contraception - plan B - and determine what effects giving women ready access to the pills had on birth rates. Here's the plain language summary:

Easier access to emergency contraception to help women prevent unwanted pregnancy

Emergency contraception is an increased dose of the hormones found in ordinary birth control pills. This medication can prevent unwanted pregnancy if taken soon after unprotected sex. Getting a prescription for emergency contraception can be difficult and time-consuming. Giving emergency contraception to women in advance could ensure that women have it on hand in case they need it. We searched for studies comparing women who got emergency contraception in advance to women who got emergency contraception in standard ways. We examined whether these groups had different rates of pregnancy or sexually transmitted infections. We also studied how often and how quickly both groups used emergency contraception. Finally, we looked at whether advance provision of emergency contraception changed sexual behavior. Studies showed that the chance of pregnancy was similar regardless of whether or not women have emergency contraception on hand before unprotected sex. Women who had emergency contraception in advance were more likely to use the medication, and to use it sooner after sex. Having emergency contraception on hand did not change use of other kinds of contraception or change sexual behavior.

(emphasis mine)

First of all notice that FRC doesn't mention anything about how emergency contraception doesn't increase risky sexual behavior, STD transmission or change people's sexual practices, which are their standard arguments for why plan B shouldn't be legalized. Now the way FRC presented this they made it sound like plan B just doesn't work, but actually it works quite well to prevent conception.

Let me quote the relevant passage from the abstract, "Advance provision of emergency contraception did not reduce pregnancy rates when compared to conventional provision." (Emphasis mine).

Plan B works! The control group is conventional provision, not people who have unprotected sex and do nothing! Nothing in this article challenges the well-established fact that Plan B can prevent an unwanted pregnancy. Here's the plain language summary of the linked Cochran review that refutes the FRC's lie.

Emergency contraception is using a drug or intrauterine device (IUD) to prevent pregnancy after unprotected sex. This is for backup, not regular contraception. Levonorgestrel and mifepristone are very effective with few adverse effects, and are preferred to oestrogen and progestogen combined. Levonorgestrel could be used in a single dose (1.5 mg) instead of two split doses (0.75 mg) 12 hours apart. Mifepristone might delay the following menstruation. Women need to be informed about this to avoid anxiety. Another effective method for emergency contraception is the IUD and it can be kept for ongoing contraception.

It's certainly not the best form of contraception, hell, its name is "plan B", but it does work. It also should be easily accessible without a prescription, not just because women deserve reproductive choice, but because of all the obvious problems obtaining this drug specifically in rape and incest. It hasn't been shown that easier access will decrease pregnancy rates, fine, so what? Why make it more difficult for women to get contraception that's been proven safe and effective? Oh yeah, I forgot, if women get the idea they control their own uterus it will bring down Western civilization.

FRC is a denialist group, plain and simple. This is classic selectivity.

Mercury is only OK from coal-fired plants

2007-04-27T00:30:00.000-05:00

I think Steven Milloy has figured out a new way to create anti-environmentalist fear - panic mongering about compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs). Turns out that CFLs, like all fluorescent lights, have small amounts of mercury (in this case about 5mg or about 1/100th the amount in an old mercury thermometer).

How much money does it take to screw in a compact fluorescent lightbulb? About $4.28 for the bulb and labor - unless you break the bulb. Then you, like Brandy Bridges of Ellsworth, Maine, could be looking at a cost of about $2,004.28, which doesn't include the costs of frayed nerves and risks to health.

Sound crazy? Perhaps no more than the stampede to ban the incandescent light bulb in favor of compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs) - a move already either adopted or being considered in California, Canada, the European Union and Australia.

According to an April 12 article in The Ellsworth American, Bridges had the misfortune of breaking a CFL during installation in her daughter's bedroom: It dropped and shattered on the carpeted floor.

Aware that CFLs contain potentially hazardous substances, Bridges called her local Home Depot for advice. The store told her that the CFL contained mercury and that she should call the Poison Control hotline, which in turn directed her to the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.

The DEP sent a specialist to Bridges' house to test for mercury contamination. The specialist found mercury levels in the bedroom in excess of six times the state's "safe" level for mercury contamination of 300 billionths of a gram per cubic meter.

Notice the fear quotes around "safe"? Makes it sound like Milloy is suggesting there is no safe level of mercury, but back to this in a moment.

The DEP specialist recommended that Bridges call an environmental cleanup firm, which reportedly gave her a "low-ball" estimate of $2,000 to clean up the room. The room then was sealed off with plastic and Bridges began "gathering finances" to pay for the $2,000 cleaning. Reportedly, her insurance company wouldn’t cover the cleanup costs because mercury is a pollutant.

Given that the replacement of incandescent bulbs with CFLs in the average U.S. household is touted as saving as much as $180 annually in energy costs - and assuming that Bridges doesn't break any more CFLs - it will take her more than 11 years to recoup the cleanup costs in the form of energy savings.

See that? Install CFLs and if you break one your house becomes a toxic waste dump! Panic! Mercury!

This is very interesting. For one, people have dealt with household mercury use for a long time in the form of thermometers, and while it's definitely a good thing that those have been phased-out for alcohol thermometers, it's simply not true that mercury spills from fluorescent lights are going to bring about end-times. It's certainly toxic stuff - so are a lot of things you have about the house - but Steven Milloy, purely out of concern for your well-being, simply won't stand for any amount of toxic mercury exposure.

He's also desperately concerned for the environment, unlike Greenpeace.

Greenpeace also recommends CFLs while simultaneously bemoaning contamination caused by a mercury thermometer factory in India. But where are mercury-containing CFLs made? Not in the U.S., under strict environmental regulation. CFLs are made in India and China, where environmental standards are virtually non-existent.

And let's not forget about the regulatory nightmare known as the Superfund law, the EPA regulatory program best known for requiring expensive but often needless cleanup of toxic waste sites, along with endless litigation over such cleanups.

We'll eventually be disposing billions and billions of CFL mercury bombs. Much of the mercury from discarded and/or broken CFLs is bound to make its way into the environment and give rise to Superfund liability, which in the past has needlessly disrupted many lives, cost tens of billions of dollars and sent many businesses into bankruptcy.

...

Not only are CFLs much more expensive than incandescent bulbs and emit light that many regard as inferior to incandescent bulbs, they pose a nightmare if they break and require special disposal procedures. Should government (egged on by environmentalists and the Wal-Marts of the world) impose on us such higher costs, denial of lighting choice, disposal hassles and breakage risks in the name of saving a few dollars every year on the electric bill?

It's true, you shouldn't throw away CFLs if you can avoid it. To recycle CFLs determine the nearest depo by going to earth911 or energystar.gov. But let's think about whether Milloy is being fully honest with us here (haha).

For one, it's very interesting how concerned Milloy is about mercury contamination of the environment when he's consistently taken the position it's harmless when it comes from coal-fired plants. Interesting, but still not a true example of selectivity or deception, just hypocrisy (hypocrisy is ok if you're telling the truth). But is he? Well, no.

Simply go to the GE site on CFLs and they'll give you a nice little discussion about the real risk of mercury exposure:

CFLs contain a very small amount of mercury sealed within the glass tubing - an average of 5 milligrams (roughly equivalent to the tip of a ball-point pen). Mercury is an essential, irreplaceable element in CFLs and is what allows the bulb to be an efficient light source. By comparison, older home thermometers contain 500 milligrams of mercury and many manual thermostats contain up to 3000 milligrams. It would take between 100 and 600 CFLs to equal those amounts.

Note every bulb broken doesn't result in a 2000 dollar clean-up bill unless you're just a total idiot. They also are nice enough to tell us the actual decrease in mercury in the environment as a result of using CFLs:

Mercury is an element (Hg on the periodic table) found naturally in the environment. Mercury emissions in the air can come from both natural and man-made sources. Utility power plants (mainly coal-fired) are the primary man-made source, as mercury that naturally exists in coal is released into the air when coal is burned to make electricity. Coal-fired power generation accounts for roughly 40% of the mercury emissions in the U.S. EPA is implementing policies to reduce airborne mercury emissions. Under regulations issued in 2005, coal-fired power plants will need to reduce their emissions by 70 percent by 2018.

CFLs present an opportunity to prevent mercury emissions from entering the environment because they help to reduce emissions from coal-fired power plants. A coal-fired power plant will emit 13.6 milligrams of mercury to produce electricity required to use an incandescent light bulb, compared to 3.3 milligrams for a CFL.

Even in areas without significant coal-fired power generation as part of the electricity mix (e.g., Alaska and the Pacific Northwest), there are other, equally positive environmental impacts from saving energy through the use of CFLs: reduction of nitrogen oxides (which cause smog), and prevention of substantial quantities of CO2, a greenhouse gas (which is linked to global warming), as well as other air pollutants.

Airborne mercury poses a very low risk of exposure. However, when mercury emissions deposit into lakes and oceans, they can transform into methyl mercury that builds up in fish. Fish consumption is the most common pathway for human exposure to mercury. Pregnant women and young children are most vulnerable to the effects of this type of mercury exposure. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) estimates that most people are not exposed to harmful levels of mercury through fish consumption. However, the FDA and state agencies do issue public health advisories.

Finally the correct way to clean up a home mercury spill without calling in a SWAT team.

Because there is such a small amount of mercury in CFLs, your greatest risk if a bulb breaks is getting cut from glass shards. Research indicates that there is no immediate health risk to you or your family should a bulb break and it's cleaned up properly. You can minimize any risks by following these proper clean-up and disposal guidelines:

Sweep up—don't vacuum—all of the glass fragments and fine particles.
Place broken pieces in a sealed plastic bag and wipe the area with a damp paper towel to pick up any stray shards of glass or fine particles. Put the used towel in the plastic bag as well.
If weather permits, open windows to allow the room to ventilate.

These are the same precautions one takes for any fluorescent lighting, which has been around for quite a while without causing end-times from mercury contamination. It's funny that Milloy who has always accused environmentalists of panic-mongering (which they do) is so willing to do the same to deflect anything that represents societal environmental reform or efforts to prevent global warming. He also will selectively use information to try to create fear of safe and long-implemented technologies such as fluorescent lighting.

59th Skeptics Circle

2007-04-26T11:46:00.000-05:00

It's at Pooflingers anonymous.

I found some neat new blogs I didn't know about there. You should check it out.

Denialist busting of the day

2007-04-25T01:56:00.000-05:00

Once again Egnor proves he's more of a liability than an asset to the cause. Ooblog exchanges some emails with Egnor asking him to define "biological information.

The problem? Egnor can't do it.

No one knows how to measure biological information in a meaningful way. The current ways of measuring information (Shannon, KC, etc) are relevant to sending signals, and are not of much help in biology.

Gene duplication is not a source of significant new information. It obviously changes the way things work in the cell, to some extent, but it can only copy what's there, and we're asking how it got there to begin with.

Even though we can't measure it (and serious investigators like Dembsky are trying to figure this out), we know biological information when we see it. The genetic code, molecular machines, seamless integration of physiology are all obviously the kind of biological information that we are trying to understand. The only source of such information (or functional complexity or whatever) that we know of in human experience is intelligent design. There are no 'natural' codes, aside from biology, which is the topic at issue.

Darwinists have a responsibility to show that undesigned mechanisms can produce sufficient biological information to account for living things. If they don't even know how to measure it, how can they assert that random variation and natural selection can account for it, and why is the design inference ruled out?

Actually, biologists can measure biological information, Evolutionblog has a good post on this aspect, but that's beside the point.

Egnor argues the invalidity of "Darwinism" based on it's inability to measure a metric he can't define better than "he knows it when he sees it".

This is a wonderful new technique. I say that ID creationism shouldn't be given any validity until they adequately explain biologic "godism". I don't know how to define or measure biologic godism, but it's the presence of godliness in biological systems. Until they quantify biologic godism to my satisfaction in a reproducible and systematic way, I don't think we can trust what they say. Biologic godism needs to be measured, mathematically modeled, and fit into a new biological framework before we can trust this new hypothesis of theirs.

Isn't it so much easier to argue with people when you're just allowed to make things up?

How not to reform the FDA

2007-04-25T01:02:00.000-05:00

First of all, don't take advice from people who don't believe in regulation in the first place. Yes I realize that means we have to totally ignore the WSJ editorial page as well as much of the faculty of the University of Chicago (possibly excluding Richard Thaler). But the fact is they're operating on a dangerous and repeatedly rejected economic model of how the market acts. Whether or not you agree with Richard Epstein in specific cases like creating incentives to report adverse events (I don't really see that helping but it won't hurt), we should all be able to see the giant flaw in his concluding paragraph.

But neither Congress nor the FDA has mastered the fundamental lesson of risk analysis. Keeping drugs off the market deprives all informed patients the opportunity to correct FDA errors. Letting new drugs on the market leaves individual patients the option to decline their use. In the long term, Congress must wean the FDA from its misapplied "first, do no harm" principle, which causes far more harm than it prevents.

Umm, wait a minute. First of all, what kind of complete ignorance does one need of pharmacological regulation to not know that this is an impossible expectation for consumers and the market? Even lay readers should remember Vioxx. How would the market or consumers have detected a 1% increase in cardiac side effects? Even if people were given this information, does anyone seriously believe that scientific information provided at high speed or in tiny text will affect consumers more than the irrational advertisements they see of happy old people getting out of their wheelchairs and dancing?

This is called the myth of the omniscient consumer. It has been disproven, again and again, that the market or consumers as a whole make rational decisions. One of the scienceblogs in particular the Frontal Cortex lately has done a good job at reporting on how neuroeconomics has done a lot better job describing why humans, as individuals or as groups, make decisions than this failed rational actor theory. At the risk of stating the libertarian economics position as a false tautology, it seems to me that they are saying because the market provides something it is good, and it is good because the market provides it.

Now in our personal lives I'm sure we've all encountered things that the market has provided that were decidedly awful. Personally, I find battery-operated turning lollipops to be a sign of end times, a better general example would probably be the total failure of energy deregulation to save consumers money (and instead leading to disasters like the California energy crisis and Enron). But in terms of specifics, when people actually study economic decision making in humans we find people are actually terrible at making rational choices(for a great lecture on this listen to this one by Daniel Gilbert). Take for instance something as simple as the bandwagon effect in music purchases - people can't even figure out what music they personally like rationally. Think of all the products that are exceedingly successful that are on the market that are entirely based on irrational consumers. If people made rational economic decisions why does the gambling industry exist? Are people buying altie meds based on rational choices? Do you think that there is a rational and compelling reason for consumers to buy Enzyte? And these are the people you expect to somehow detect problems as subtle as those of Vioxx? Or rationally determine that drugs like Ketek cause idiosyncratic liver failure? How is it, especially given the desire of the market not to lose products that make money despite being worthless or dangerous, do we expect self-regulation or market forces to detect rare adverse events - by far the most common reasons for pulling drugs these days?

I'm afraid that, as I've said before, the invisible hand of the market is attached to a retarded monkey. I reiterate: don't trust people who don't believe in any regulation to give you advice on how to regulate.

Bees update

2007-04-24T16:27:00.000-05:00

Conspiracy factory points out this NYT article on colony-collapse disorder (the strange phenomenon that seems to be killing off bees world-wide) as an example of excellent science writing.

Not enough is done to point out really good science writing when it does happen. Sensationalism is always going to be more sexy and get more attention, but when a reporter actually does their job they need to get credit and positive feedback from the science community.

Factition is correct, this is an excellent article that presents the science in a very reasonable, accessible, and, importantly, non-sensational way so that you actually come away informed rather than needlessly frightened or paranoid about radiation.

So, let's all give Alexei Barrioneuvo a big thumbs up, and maybe even drop him an email to suggest you appreciate how good a job he did.

The Evolution of a Crank

2007-04-24T07:15:00.000-05:00

I'd rather avoid most political issues with this blog, but reading Christopher Hitchens' column in slate is almost a perfect case study in the evolution of a crank.

You start out with Hitchens pre-9/11. Liberal, strong-minded, but generally acknowledged to be a thorough researcher, and an excellent if eccentric analyst (he probably made no friends with Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice). My favorite was The Trial of Henry Kissinger.

But with 9/11 something happened to Hitch. He started writing about the war in Iraq like it was intimately related to the war on terror, defended the president's rationale, and subsequently has continued to defend the administration's actions long after it has become clear that they created a total disaster. Not only does he defend them though, he seems to have totally lost all perspective, he doesn't seem to be able to accept facts that contradict his opinion, and has essentially become a crank.

His latest column in Slate is another one of these post hoc justifications for the war, now the story is that Iraq would have collapsed into civil war eventually anyway, so it's not really the fault of the invasion and occupation.

Whether or not you think this rationalization is totally crazy, it fits with the generalized pattern of an evolving crank. Remember the story of how he flipped out at a dinner party after someone refused to be critical of Howard Dean? (That link by the way has a compelling argument for this evolution of Hitch). Or these columns in which he says Al Qaeda is desparate and did us a "favor" on 9/11, Abu Ghraib wasn't bad (because Saddam was worse), not to mention flipping off studio audiences and his somewhat insane defense of the administration's outing of Valerie Plame.

Whether or not you agree with the war, it should be possible to agree that Hitch's pattern of behavior has gotten progressively more and more irrational, to the point where there's only one word left to describe him. Hitch has become a crank. How did this happen? Ezra Klein's explanation is that Hitch latched onto this war as a kind of "great moment" in history and he decided he was going to be on the right side of it no matter what. This desire to be "right" no matter what the facts say, might be a critical component of crank formation. As the facts evolve and show that occupying Iraq has been a disaster, Hitch can't let go of his initial hypothesis because he believes fervently that he was right or in the rightness of the war on terror as a whole. In his mind the facts be damned, this is a war for our existence and nothing should stop our execution of it.

At some point we may have to start talking about how defenders of this war have become denialists. There is something fundamentally dishonest about the people who suggest that everything in Iraq is going fine, conditions are improving, or that make patently false claims like Iraq is safer than Detroit to try to diminish the significance of the daily violence in that country. As I've said though, I'd rather avoid have the definition of denialism devolve into one that simply describes those that oppose your ideas which is how people would see an attack on the Iraq war supporters using that label. It really is about how people fudge debates, hide facts and deceptively argue positions that the facts do not support. T

These days, Hitch has started arguing like a denialist though. And his behavior, and his protection of an overvalued idea (that the war was right and good no matter what), have unfortunately turned him into an unreasonable man. It's a case study in the evolution of a crank.

Sissies

2007-04-23T01:21:00.000-05:00

What is this whiny crap? We grew up with the constant threat of thermonuclear destruction.

*Found an ad-free you-tube version*

So people get killed by crazy lunatics, this isn't new, if anything, kids these days are exposed to less senseless killing than any time in history (except on the TV). I don't recall a childrens' crusade anytime in the last couple of centuries. And thanks to modern medicine most kids know their mothers, don't die before they're 2 years old, and actually get to meet their octogenarian grandparents.

I'm not trying to diminish the tragedy of this crime for VT students, but to suggest that nationwide kids are horribly traumatized and are now living in fear of being shot in school is a little too hysterical for my taste. All of us have dealt with crap as we've grown up. Fear of Columbine-like killings has replaced fear of death from the Russians. Idiots now suggest thick textbooks to block bullets, it used to be they told us our desks could protect us from 100 megaton bombs. Maybe I'm complaining about walking to school 10 miles uphill both ways through the snow, but c'mon. The world is as safe a place for our kids as it has probably ever been.

Kids are tough. Stop worrying. We can handle this. And kids, historically, have dealt with a lot worse.

*Update*

USA today has an even whinier piece of drivel on the poor children.

The Millennial Generation has every right to be the Melancholy Generation, and the wonder is that it's not. In fact, the trauma this generation has witnessed may make its members more resilient, according to those who have studied them.

Millennials - also known as Gen Y - are typically described as those born since the early 80s. And the signposts on this generation's road to maturity have been a somber directory of tragedy shared. The Oklahoma City bombing. Columbine. September 11. The space shuttle disasters. Hurricane Katrina. And now Virginia Tech.

And why are we so sorry for this generation? Well, because someone left the TV on.

Previous generations of young people have had their allotment of horrors - two world wars, Vietnam, Kent State, the list is long - but no cohort of American youth has ever endured repeated mass catastrophes in the harsh, inescapable glare of a 24/7 media environment.

The poor dears. That TV has been a real cause of suffering for them. If only there were some charity I could send money to that helps these poor children who have watched bad things on TV.

Now really. What is this whiny crap?

New Category of Crank

2007-04-23T00:00:00.000-05:00

I'm thinking of adding a new "technophobe" type of denialist or crank, and my first nomination will be the Independent, and specifically their environmental editor Geoffrey Lean. His list of articles reads like the newspaper version of the Chicken Little story, and the latest? How WiFi creates "electric smog" that is harmful to children.

Britain's top health protection watchdog is pressing for a formal investigation into the hazards of using wireless communication networks in schools amid mounting concern that they may be damaging children's health, 'The Independent on Sunday' can reveal.

Sir William Stewart, the chairman of the Health Protection Agency, wants pupils to be monitored for ill effects from the networks - known as Wi-Fi - which emit radiation and are being installed in classrooms across the nation.

Sir William - who is a former chief scientific adviser to the Government, and has chaired two official inquiries into the hazards of mobile phones - is adding his weight to growing pressure for a similar examination of Wi-Fi, which some scientists fear could cause cancer and premature senility.
...
This week the Professional Association of Teachers, which represents 35,000 staff across the country, will write to Alan Johnson, Secretary of State for Education, to demand an official inquiry. Virtually no studies have been carried out into Wi-Fi's effects on pupils, but it gives off radiation similar to emissions from mobile phones and phone masts.

Recent research has linked radiation from mobiles to cancer and to brain damage. And many studies have found disturbing symptoms in people near masts.

Oh please. Electronic smog? Radiation? This is some pretty silly fear of radio signals. WiFi and cell phones emit radiation the same way your computer screen emits radiation, that is, it is non-ionizing radiation. How have people become so fearful of any part of the EM spectrum that isn't visible light? Is this a failure of the schools to give people a proper physics education? Read about health issues related to radio frequency radiation here and about cell phones here.

Cell phones have not been proven to cause cancer despite intense study. WiFi, again using a non-interacting part of the EM spectrum is not causing senility or cancer. This is technophobic fear-mongering and the Independent is absolutely full of it.

This guy must be working as a double agent for the global warming denialists, because when you put articles about global warming (and his are pretty shill examples to start with) next to this garbage science it damages the fact that there is a great deal of real research and study of climate change. It is confusing to readers, I'm sure, because there is no credible research that radiowaves from cell phones or WiFi have ill health effects. This is hysteria and undermines the credibility of legitimate environmentalism.

I rate these Independent articles accordingly.

In which I salute HuffPo

2007-04-21T21:45:00.000-05:00

Arthur Allen writing for HuffingtonPost rejects the mercury/autism hypothesis and calls for an apology from the mercury activists.

As someone who entered the debate about this theory, in 2002, with an open mind, but h as come to the strong conclusion that there is no basis for blaming vaccines for an "epidemic" that may not even exist, I find some of the individuals in these groups, especially in SafeMinds, to be disingenuous. They are playing at scientific seriousness while refusing to acknowledge the data.

Study after study has shown no link between thimerosal and autism. The rates of autism continue to grow in cohorts of children who received no thimerosal-containing vaccines.

...

After you've spent years shouting at the government, participating in flawed Congressional hearings, writing junky "investigational" books and reports, ginning up gigantic legal claims that cost the courts, the public, and the drug companies hundreds of millions of dollars, and spreading unfounded slander against government scientists on the Web, it's pretty darn hard to step back and say, "Whoops, I was wrong." I just wish I could find someone--anyone--willing to do that.

We demand a lot of our government scientists and public health officials--and we should. But responsibility isn't only a government obligation.

If this keeps up I might take HuffPo off the list of denialism promoters.

Cultural Rorschach

2007-04-21T11:48:00.000-05:00

The VT killings have proven to be a cultural Rorschach test, with everybody pulling out their favorite ax to grind as the "cause" of Cho's homicidal rampage.

One blogger is keeping track. He has it up to 51 things being blamed for VT, pretty much what you'd expect. Everything from Gays, to Kos, to video games, to the military industrial complex etc.

The latest though, is most obnoxious of all. Alan E. Moses writes that it's vaccines that are to blame.

Wow. Just wow. Years after thimerosal has been removed from vaccines and diagnosis of autism is continuing to increase (although actual prevalence has probably remained stable), and these cranks just can't let go of the BS mercury autism hypothesis.

Orac takes him on very effectively. This isn't just the latest example of ghoulishness in the post-VT crusades, I think this is the most irresponsible. If you blame atheists like D'Souza did, you're just an idiot, but this continued denialism about vaccines is harmful to public health, the fraudulent chelation treatments by DAN doctors is dangerous quackery, and this denialism ultimately will result in harm to kids.

Bill Maher and the Bees!

2007-04-21T06:54:00.000-05:00

Bees!

Won't someone please think of the bees! Watching my Tivo this morning and Bill Maher, departing from some really excellent analysis, fell for the cell-phone causes bee death silliness.

Really. People actually are worried that cell phone towers are causing massive bee die-offs. And every article about it has to quote Albert Einstein saying something he never said about how if bees die all humans die too (honeybees aren't the only pollinators people).

Yes there are studies that show if you essentially build a cell phone tower on top of a bee hive the bees get confused. But these studies are torn apart by actual keepers of bees as being poorly designed, and largely irrelevant since apiarists don't keep bees under cell phone towers.

Then there is the problem that this is just the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Really, think about it. If cell phones were the cause of bee die-offs why would the problem suddenly appear this year? Apiarists aren't reporting a long decline that began in the 1990s. They are reporting a sudden die-off, this year.

For some actual data on bees consider this report from the National Academies. Here's what managed colonies have looked like since 1945.

To me this study would indicate a long term decline in the US with, if anything, an anti-correlation with widespread cell phone use (I modified it slightly to correspond to what I think may be influencing bee populations). The study describes the cause of most declines as being due to imported pests and mites which are parasitic to bee populations. Further, take a look at Canada.

Again, an anti-correlation with increased cell phone use.

Environmentalism is not aided by hysterical articles based on weak and non-generalizable science that defy common sense, perpetuate Einstein myths, and are destroyed by about 10 seconds of googling. The authors of these articles need to do a better job of researching the subject before they make total asses of themselves (and Bill Maher) and damage environmental causes through incautious alarmism.

Friday Cartoon fun

2007-04-20T01:00:00.000-05:00

XKCD, illustrating just how easy it is to start conspiracies.

Selectivity alert!

2007-04-20T00:20:00.000-05:00

PZ points out, and the expert agrees, this new paper from PNAS on the evolutionary underpinnings of the bacterial flagellum is a dog.

So, what's the problem? Lots of papers appear in the literature of dubious quality, why should this one be so worrisome?

Well, because it happens to be on the topic of the evolution denialists' favorite example of a "irreducibly complex" biological machine. Now, Matzke, the expert here, has written extensively on why the irreducible complexity argument is absurd, generally and specifically. He also has proposed a model for evolution of the bacterial flagellum.

And it has already occurred with the DI (Behe specifically) quoting Matzke out of context to imply that all understanding of the bacterial flagellum from an evolutionary perspective is somehow flawed.

The PNAS paper reaches conclusions that other workers find very questionable. Nicholas Matzke of the pro-Darwinian National Center for Science Education and Panda's Thumb blog declares the work to be of "canine quality", that is, "a dog." (2) (Although a geographer by training, Matzke has acquired some skills in the area and earlier published his own sequence comparisons of flagellar proteins in Nature Reviews Microbiology.) The bottom line is that Matzke is quite skeptical that the two dozen kinds of proteins in the flagellum core could be derived from a single protein. His point is well taken. Yet neither of the scientists that Science magazine journalist Jennifer Cutraro called for comments expressed any curiosity concerning that startling claim. (3)

Well, Matzke's writings on this are more than adequate to provide an evolutionary explanation for the origin of the flagellum. Notice how Behe also drags out the tired and debunked mousetrap analogy. Not only is argument from analogy an irrelevant contribution to scientific discussion, the analogy isn't even apt. As it has been pointed out again and again, the component parts of a mousetrap are individually useful, and the correct evolutionary analogy (that also applies to the flagellum) is that it could be composed of parts that were already in use in the cell, and simply recombined in a new way. But this is again a distraction. Note how they selectively use Matzke's pre-emptive criticism of a bad paper and the bad paper itself to generate an argument that would seem to cast doubt on an evolutionary mechanism?

This is the problem with science, we are self-correcting our literature, but the literature never goes away, and a denialist selectively quoting Matzke's criticism, this dog of a paper, and ignoring all the other writing on the topic can make it appear we know nothing about the evolution of this mechanism.

So, I give this latest argument a 3/5 on the denialism index. Behe being a bogus expert on anything, the terrible mousetrap analogy serving for our logical fallacy, and the blatant cherry-picking to misrepresent Matzke's writings serves the selectivity category.

By the way, I was sitting in the bar talking to Peter Griesar (who does great work with the One Campaign) about the blog, and he came up with a great suggestion. A visual depiction of each of the criteria of denialism. For instance, for conspiracy theories we would have to have a little gif of a tinfoil hat like this.

For selectivity a cherry would do nicely (for cherry-picking).

For false experts I really want a picture of a chimp in a white coat or maybe a puppet with strings attached. For now this creative commons chimp "thinker" will have to do.

For impossible expectations/moving goalposts, well, goalposts.

And finally for logical fallacy I was thinking a picture of a old-timey robot waving it's arms with sparks flying out of its head (does not compute). This is what I did quickly.

This argument from Behe would therefore garner the following honors.

Shameless Self-Promotion

2007-04-19T10:46:00.000-05:00

Listen to Chris discuss denialism and the Denialists' Deck of Cards on BBC4:

Have you heard companies insist that "it's not a problem", when confronted with consumer concerns? Chris Hoofnagle is an American academic who's given a name to this public relations strategy - he calls it "denialism". Patrick Barrow, Director General of the Public Relations Consultants Association responds.

Boing Boing gets it right.

2007-04-18T10:18:00.000-05:00

Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing has the most accurate take on the whole VA Tech situation. He posted this reply which, though from after 9/11, is still timely.

Of course the World Trade Center bombings [insert VA Tech here] are a uniquely tragic event, and it is vital that we never lose sight of the human tragedy involved. However, we must also consider if this is not also a lesson to us all; a lesson that my political views are correct. Although what is done can never be undone, the fact remains that if the world were organised according to my political views, this tragedy would never have happened.

Many people will use this terrible tragedy as an excuse to put through a political agenda other than my own. This tawdry abuse of human suffering for political gain sickens me to the core of my being. Those people who have different political views from me ought to be ashamed of themselves for thinking of cheap partisan point-scoring at a time like this. In any case, what this tragedy really shows us is that, so far from putting into practice political views other than my own, it is precisely my political agenda which ought to be advanced.

Not only are my political views vindicated by this terrible tragedy, but also the status of my profession. Furthermore, it is only in the context of a national and international tragedy like this that we are reminded of the very special status of my hobby, and its particular claim to legislative protection. My religious and spiritual views also have much to teach us about the appropriate reaction to these truly terrible events.

Countries which I like seem to never suffer such tragedies, while countries which, for one reason or another, I dislike, suffer them all the time. The one common factor which seems to explain this has to do with my political views, and it suggests that my political views should be implemented as a matter of urgency, even though they are, as a matter of fact, not implemented in the countries which I like.

Of course the World Trade Center [insert VA Tech here] attacks are a uniquely tragic event, and it is vital that we never lose sight of the human tragedy involved. But we must also not lose sight of the fact that I am right on every significant moral and political issue, and everybody ought to agree with me. Please, I ask you as fellow human beings, vote for the political party which I support, and ask your legislators to support policies endorsed by me, as a matter of urgency.

It would be a fitting memorial.

I have not seen a single argument put forward that would have actually prevented this. Instead everything from video games, to handgun registration, to making illegal weapons purchases harder, to Muslims, to evolution, to violence on TV has been blamed.

The sad fact is he did this with a legally-purchased firearm. If handguns had been illegal, he still could have done this with a shotgun or rifle. Firearms bans are not a realistic political goal in this country anyway, and there are already too many guns distributed around to country to get the shit back in the horse. And as far as Islam, video games, and violent TV, we might as well blame the kid's basketball hobby.

People need to cram whatever rational explanation they can into an irrational event. Sometimes there's no good explanation, and no good solution.

Update - I like Amanda's take at Pandagon, and it's less snarky than mine.

Banks Must Come Clean on ID Theft

2007-04-17T09:54:00.000-05:00

In my day job, I'm fighting denialism from the banking industry. I have a hypothesis on so called "new account" identity theft: it occurs largely because of lax authentication practices, and much of it could be curbed with sensible changes in business practices. My evidence for this is in two papers--Putting Identity Theft on Ice: Freezing Credit Reports to Prevent Lending to Impostors and Identity Theft: Making the Known Unknowns Known.

The banking industry deflects attention to its authentication practices by blaming the victim. As I have explained elsewhere, they sponsor polls and interpret the results to make it look like identity theft is "closely connected to the victim." If it's connected to the victim, it's the victim's fault for not protecting their data. And there are real stretches made to show a connection. For instance, if someone at your workplace steals your identity, Javelin Research considers the crime to be closely connected to you. For those of us who work at large employers like the University of California, this is preposterous.

Anyway, I have an oped in today's Chronicle explaining the need for public reporting of statistical data on identity theft. If we had real data, we could get beyond the silly public relations fodder from the industry. We could put the industry's denialist tactics to the test!

VT Shootings

2007-04-16T23:40:00.000-05:00

It's in terribly bad taste, but I'll raise the question: Who wants to guess where the debate on gun control will go in light of the killings today at Virginia Tech? Will the gun nuts really argue that if the students were more armed, they could have fought back? Will we hear "guns don't kill people, people do?" Will the police be blamed for not "locking down" the entire campus after the first shooting?

Machiavelli and Rose-Colored Conceptions of the Past

2007-04-16T23:21:00.000-05:00

Mark's post on whether things are getting better reminded me of Machiavelli's Discourses where he explains why people believe past times are better than the present. It's worth a read:

Men always praise the ancient times and find fault with the present, but not always with good reason; and they are such partisans of things past, that they celebrate not only that age which has been recalled to their memory by known writers, but those also which they remember having seen in their youth. And when this opinion of theirs is false, as it is most of the times, I am persuaded the reasons by which they are led to such deception are various. And the first I believe is that the whole truth which would bring out the infamy of those times, and they amplify and magnify those others that could bring forth their glory. Moreover, the greater number of writers so obey the fortune of the winners that, in order to make their victories glorious, they not only exaggerate that which is gotten by their own virtue, but they also exaggerate the actions of the enemies; so that whoever afterwards is born in either of the two provinces, both the victorious and the defeated ones, has cause to marvel at those men and times, and is forced summarily to praise and love them. In addition to this, men hating things either from fear or envy, these two reasons for hating past events come to be extinguished, as they are not able to offend or give cause for envy of them. But the contrary happens with those things that are in operation and are seen, which because you have a complete knowledge of them as they are not in any way hidden from you; and knowing the good together with the many other things which are displeasing to you, you are constrained to judge the present more inferior than the past, although in truth the present might merit much more of that glory and fame; I do not discuss matters pertaining to the arts, which shine so much by themselves, which time cannot take away or add a little more glory which they merit by themselves; but I speak of those matters pertinent to the lives and customs of men, of which such clear evidences are not seen.

[...]

But returning to our argument, I say that, if the judgment of men is corrupt in deciding whether the present or the ancient age is better, in those things where because of their antiquity they cannot have a perfect knowledge as they have of their own times, the old men ought not to corrupt themselves in judging the times of their youth and their old age, they having known and seen the latter and the former equally. Which thing would be true if men throughout all the periods of their lives had the same judgment and the same appetites. But as these vary, things cannot appear the same to those men who have other appetites, other delights, and other considerations in their old age than in their youth. For as men wane in strength but grow in judgment and prudence, so it is that those things which in their youth appeared supportable and good, will turn out unsupportable and bad, and where they ought to blame their judgment, they blame the times. In addition to this, human appetites being insatiable because by nature they have to be able to and want to desire everything, and to be able to effect little for themselves because of fortune, there arises a continuous discontent in the human mind, and a weariness of the things they possess; which makes them find fault with the present times, praise the past, and desire the future, although in doing this they are not moved by any reasonable cause. I do not know, therefore, whether I merit to be numbered among those who deceive themselves, if in these Discourses of mine I shall laud too much the times of the ancient Romans and censure ours. And truly, if the virtue that then reigned and the vice that now reigns should not be as clear as the Sun, I would be more restrained in talking, being apprehensive of falling into that deception of which I accuse others. But the matter being so manifest that everyone sees it, I shall be bold in saying openly that which I learned of those times and these, so that the minds of the young men who may read my writings can avoid the latter and imitate the of the former, whenever fortune should give them the opportunity. For it is the office of a good man to show others that good which because of the malignity of the times and of fortune, he has not been able to accomplish, so that some of those more loved by Heaven can accomplish them.

Signs of progress

2007-04-16T16:55:00.000-05:00

Pew Polling (PDF) on the younger generations is proving to be very interesting. Take for instance, some signs of progress.

Looks like it's the boomers that are keeping us back on evolution (sorry Ted).

The thing I hate about polls like these is when the pollsters ask people's opinions on things and then proceed to mistake their opinions for facts.

For instance:

Now. Does anyone see the problem here? The actual data on drug use shows that it has undergone a 20 year decline, the 60s and 70s were the peak of drug use in the youth. This is a popular misconception. Check out the data on teen drug use and you actually see we're getting better. Further, crime is down, violent crime is at the lowest levels since the 60s. Are we really more likely to resort to violence? The voting issue too is a joke, young people are voting in increasingly higher numbers with each election (Bush has helped).

Finally, binge drinking has only become a "problem" since some idiot decided to describe a binge as more then 3 or 4 drinks at a time. Give me a break. What prohibitionist prude came up with that definition? And it conflicts with the data from NIDA etc.

So, take this survey at it's word when they ask people opinions about themselves since that's something people can reliably speak to. Don't pay attention when people are asked opinions about what others have done, because they have no idea.

We must be irritating UC

2007-04-16T12:00:00.000-05:00

The hilarity of this post is hard to ignore. Cordova is actually trying to give the ID creationist movement credit for the discovery that "junk" DNA has lots of functions (as well as suggest that acknowledgement by Sternberg in a review article is some how proof of ID science).

That's an interesting suggestion. I'll have to figure out how to get on this scam, you know, making vague statements then taking credit for others' work. Like, I could say, "we don't know everything about non-coding DNA, there must be something as yet undiscovered" then when they discover something new like miRNA or retrotransposons I can demand my Nobel even if contributed nothing.

Never mind the importance of actually doing benchwork, I can just say my BS theory predicts this or that, and then when other people discover anything I get to claim victory. That's a brilliant idea. It apparently also works when one makes the claim about a decade after the discovery, you see in reverse-vampire conspiracy world, the DI and ID always existed and were always right. Anyway, here's a simple image of what we know about the DNA in a human cell.

As you can see, we've figured out a lot of what that "junk" is, and considering introns were discovered in 1978, promoters were hot stuff as early as the mid-eighties, transposons were discovered in the 50s in corn resulting in Barbara McClintock's 1983 Nobel, and retrotransposons and various other repeat elements that have undergone recent hot study were really discovered as a result of the Human Genome Project which began in the early 1980s it's pretty much insane for the DI to suggest that they had any impact on this science. The sheer arrogance of it is actually pretty extraordinary.

It's also an interesting claim that missing out on the functions of "junk" DNA was the greatest mistake molecular biologists have ever made. And was it ever really a mistake that a majority of us made? I remember back when large portions of DNA were found to be non-coding, not everybody thought that meant they served no purpose. Hell, our lab has been studying that junk for about 20 years looking for things and finding lots of interesting and important pieces of non-coding DNA. To say that it wasn't until the DI or ID showed up that scientists started looking at noncoding DNA is a joke. This has been a hot pursuit for decades. It's almost as funny as when they claim evolution isn't important for molecular biology. In the last 3 days we've had a bunch of talks from visiting researchers, and in every single one they mentioned evolution as a guiding principle in figuring something or another out. I guess I've been more attuned to it lately. For example, in pretty much every talk I saw the researchers used VISTA for conservation analysis of non-coding DNA regions. It's a wonderful program. You enter regions of genomic DNA and it aligns them and shows you areas of conservation. It turns out the areas that are mostly highly conserved across species are usually where the important gene-regulatory cis-elements are. Take for example this little alignment I just did of human, mouse and chicken smooth muscle alpha-actin promoter sequences.

What this shows us is the conservation of sequences between the three species in the sequence immediately preceding the smooth muscle alpha actin coding sequence. The closer the line is to the top - or 100% conservation - the more the sequences have stayed the same over millions of years of evolution. It's helpful because it points to what is important for gene regulation. A promoter might have an element 30 thousand bases away that is critical for regulation of a gene, all the intervening sequence might be completely unimportant, and VISTA will show you essentially what selection has deemed important enough not to change.

Interestingly, when the mouse actin promoter was first put into a transgenic mouse with a reporter gene on it, they only included the first few hundred base pairs (where most the conserved elements and CArG binding sites are), because in tissue culture that was enough to drive expression. However, in the animal, the thing didn't work, the reporter didn't get expressed where smooth muscle actin was. So, our lab looked both forwards and backwards through the promoter and gene and found not only did you see conservation of a elements -2.6kb back (in mice and rats, but not in chicken), but you also had a conserved CArG element in the first intron. We then cloned this sequence that included the -2.6kb and the first intron (out of the rat actually), put the reporter gene on it, and voila, beautiful recapitulation of the expression of smooth muscle alpha actin in the mouse.

The other interesting thing our little Vista plot shows us is that huge portions of sequence still appear to be "junk", that is, they don't appear to do anything, and nature hasn't seen fit to conserve them across species. Often times, researchers create artificially short promoters that take the various conserved regions and cut out thousands of intervening base pairs and they recapitulate endogenous expression perfectly. So to say that "junk" DNA doesn't exist, is well, still unfounded, especially considering papers such as this one in which researchers demonstrated entire megabase regions of DNA could be deleted from the mouse genome, with no ill effect. One day we might figure out a use or reason for so much extraneous DNA, but to say the "junk" hypothesis has been fully disproven is still unfounded, almost as unfounded as suggesting ID had anything to do with discovering additional functions in non-coding DNA (like scientists really sit around reading the output of the DI for anything but laughs).

Also what's this bizarre need for design to mean that everything has a specific function? Aren't we biasing our supposedly non-Christian, or non-deity based "scientific" theory towards a perfect creator? After all, why can't the Raelians be right? Maybe we were designed by imperfect aliens who weren't paying too much attention to the details, or had problems with foresight? And what kind of designer would create our system of cranial nerves? What a complicated inelegant train wreck those are. Why would a competent designer make sure childbirth was so painful and dangerous? What kind of idiot made our urogenital system in general? Reproduction and waste disposal using all the same equipment? Why do men get nipples? What idiot designer would make our terrible system of sinuses. Why does their designer theory need everything to fit into its specific cubby-hole? Why couldn't there be waste, inefficiency, redundancy and mistakes in their designers plan? There's a good explanation for why evolution by natural selection would come up with such inelegant solutions, they just had to work, they didn't have to be pretty. But why would a designer, especially a perfect one, screw these things up?

It's one of the signs of the underlying assumption of ID, and one that the IDers are continuously deceptive about. There is only one possible designer they are interested in pushing, and their assumptions how a designer would operate are the proof. They know which designer they're trying to justify. The fact they won't acknowledge that it's specifically the god of the bible they're pushing as designer is just more proof of the fundamental deceptive nature of the DI.

Duesberg in SciAm

2007-04-16T11:05:00.000-05:00

So what do people think of Scientific American's decision to publish an article by Peter Duesberg, HIV/AIDS denialist extraordinaire?

The justification that they give, is that despite his completely wrong ideas about AIDS, he still has something to contribute in his original field - cancer. But is that enough of an excuse? They make it sound like if you don't have every possible human being working on a problem, somehow it will irreparably damage the scientific enterprise.

I think it's a greater amount of harm to return any legitimacy to this crank and denialist. A lot of his crackpot ideas haven taken hold in Africa, and the results are deadly. Denial of the real causes of HIV, stigma over AIDS diagnoses, and BS cures from local cranks are responsible for nothing but misery and death, and Duesberg bears some responsibility for this.

It's also, in my mind, like giving a podium to Hwang Woo Suk. When someone has shown that they simply can't be trusted in the scientific enterprise, it's time for them to be ignored, permanently. HIV/AIDS denialism has the same deceptive elements of all the other types of denialism, and people who promulgate it really should be banned from contributing to the literature. It's not just some cute iconoclasm or "funny ideas". They are liars who spread deadly ideas. And liars should not be trusted to do anything but contaminate the literature.

I am disappointed in SciAm.

A terrible turn for framing (or why everyone is wrong but me)

2007-04-15T17:30:00.000-05:00

Over the weekend an interesting fight has popped up in the scienceblogs community.

Starting with Mooney and Nisbet's latest Op-Ed in the WaPo, the uppity atheist community, including PZ and Larry Moran are really tearing into the framers. Chris Mooney has responded to some of the criticisms.

Here's a breakdown of the problem. It stems from this statement by M&N:

If the defenders of evolution wanted to give their creationist adversaries a boost, it's hard to see how they could do better than Richard Dawkins, the famed Oxford scientist who had a bestseller with "The God Delusion." Dawkins, who rose to fame with his lucid expositions of evolution in such books as "The Selfish Gene," has never gone easy on religion. But recently he has ramped up his atheist message, further mixing his defense of evolution with his attack on belief.

Leave aside for a moment the validity of Dawkins's arguments against religion. The fact remains: The public cannot be expected to differentiate between his advocacy of evolution and his atheism. More than 80 percent of Americans believe in God, after all, and many fear that teaching evolution in our schools could undermine the belief system they consider the foundation of morality. Dawkins not only reinforces and validates such fears -- baseless though they may be -- but lends them an exclamation point.

We agree with Dawkins on evolution and admire his books, so we don't enjoy singling him out. But he stands as a particularly stark example of scientists' failure to explain hot-button issues, such as global warming and evolution, to a wary public.

Scientists excel at research; creating knowledge is their forte. But presenting this knowledge to the public is something else altogether.

Now this of course set PZ and LM's teeth on edge.

PZ:

Good grief, this is bogus beyond belief. Let's pretend: let's say I shut down my blog, Dawkins refuses to lecture on atheism anymore, Dennett retires to a grass shack in the South Pacific, and Sam Harris converts to Mormonism. Furthermore, every scientist in the country shies away completely from ever mentioning religion, except of course for people like Collins and Miller, who continue their "I'm a scientist, and I believe in Jeeezus!" schtick. We'll forget about the odious implications for the freedom of speech for atheists in this suggestion, and just ask whether it would make the slightest difference in accommodating the public to evolution.

Moran:

Forget about the fact that Dawkins has done more to change the climate of the debate than Nisbet & Mooney have ever done with their appeasement policy. That dosen't matter. If you're a fan of "framing" then you've got to modify your opinion so you never disagree with anyone.

...

As we've seen during the framing debates on various blogs, Nisbet & Mooney seem to be incapable of making the distinction between explaining science and what you do with that knowledge. Evolutionists have done a good job of explaining evolution. If Nisbet & Mooney don't think this is true then I challenge them to come up with a better way of describing the science of evolutionary biology.

What they're upset about is the fact that a segment of the population doesn't buy the scientific explanation. That's true, but it doesn't matter how well you explain it to those people, they still won't accept it. They won't accept it even it's economically beneficial and leads to medical advances.

Why won't they accept it? Because it's against their religion. How do we change their minds? Part of the solution is to show them that their religion is false if it conflicts with science. This doesn't have anything to do with explaining the facts of science. It has to do with fighting superstition and anti-science attitudes.

M&N really agitated a hornet's nest there. It's interesting to me because on the one hand, PZ and Moran are wrong about the inherent conflict of reason and religion. For instance take the example of Sagan's discussing science with the Dalai Lama:

CS: Well, when I talk to religious leaders, one thing I always ask them is: What would you do if a fundamental tenet of your religion was definitively disproved by science? And, at least in the West, and especially among fundamentalist religions, the tendency is to say, "Science couldn't possibly," or, "My religion is an absolute truth, and if science gets different answers, too bad for science." The Dalai Lama's answer was: "If science found a serious error in Tibetan Buddhism, of course we would change Tibetan Buddhism." So I tried to push him on this issue. Suppose it was something basic? Suppose, for instance, it was reincarnation? And the Dalai Lama said to me, "If science can disprove reincarnation, Tibetan Buddhism would abandon reincarnation." And then he said, "But it's going to be mighty hard to disprove reincarnation."with a twinkle - it's going to be hard to disprove reincarnation.

Now, I know PZ and Moran's response to this, that the Dalai Lama is just pushing his irrational ideas further from the realm of empirical testing, thus ensuring their safety from science. But it's really the first part that is critical, Sagan was pointing out the problem that M&N are trying, and failing to address. Which leads to my problem with their take on the issue. The problem is not Dawkins, the problem is the unwillingness of people to accept facts from the real world which conflict with their worldview. As is obvious from a study of denialists, it's not just religion which creates this clash between reason and unreason. It's an unfortunate aspect of human nature that some people develop overvalued ideas, then refuse to relinquish them when they are proven wrong, again and again.

Mooney and Nisbet's framing is worthless against cranks, so they are missing their own point. The point is we are competing with cranks for the public's understanding of facts. To say that we should fear of upsetting cranks by exposing the illogic of people's overvalued ideas is hopeless. While they are appropriately wary of alienating people with Dawkins more frontal assault on religion, it is simply not possible to communicate science effectively and not challenge ideas like creation myths, Noah's ark, or, more generally, conspiracy theories, superstitious beliefs, racism, etc., that are the source of the cranks' ire.

So, do we need to be uppity atheists like PZ and Moran to communicate science? Of course not. Do uppity atheists lose us the debate? I strongly doubt it. Even if we didn't have uppity atheists and the like the cranks would invent them to attack science.

In short, the problem isn't the atheism. The problem is the cranks. Cranks do not accept evidence, they do not accept anything that conflicts with their pre-formed and un-evidenced "truths". The fact that they fear atheism is besides the point. Shifting the debate to Dawkins is a terrible idea. And saying that Dawkins isn't a good communicator is frankly nuts. PZ and Moran are wrong in that we have to take on all religion, Mooney and Nisbet are wrong that we can win this fight without pissing off religions.

We're competing with cranks and denialists for public opinion. The real focus to me (maybe I'm biased), should be on explaining to people how to tell the difference between the BS and the real science. It's about creating sources of factual information that people can rely on that are thorough, unbiased, and effectively expose crank arguments in a highly public fashion. If the crank argument happens to be something like teaching kids the Grand Canyon was formed by the biblical flood, then yes, you're going to have to attack a few sacred cows and piss off the religious. It's unavoidable, if people want to believe in silly things (and try to push them on everyone else), we're going to have fight back.

Mooney and Nisbet have taken their eye off the ball. Getting scientists to communicate effectively makes sense. What they should do is throwing everything we've got behind science lobbying groups - like the Union of Concerned Scientists or Scientists and Engineers for America but better funded - that makes sure that in every article about "controversial" science that they get a say. That when there is testimony in front of congress they are there, and lobbying congress on behalf of people who care about scientific truth. We need our own power lobby. We need to be sure when unscientific garbage gets to the desks of policy makers there is a lobbyist pounding on the door demanding that they get a chance to respond. The lobby of reason.