Denialism Blog

Month: June 2007

  • The end of the Alexander Cockburn saga

    George Monbiot posts his last reply to Alexander Cockburn.

    Wisely, Monbiot has chosen not to continue arguing with a crank. At a certain point it’s always a lost cause. And considering Cockburn’s evidence one would be crazy to continue.

    It turns out, the sole-source of his rambling diatribe against all global warming science – the papers from Martin “Guy I met on a boat” Hertzburg – turned out not to be papers at all. They were never published, never peer reviewed. The only peer-reviewed literature Cockburn managed to find to agree with him was published in Lyndon Larouche’s fake journal 21st century Science and Technology!

    My favorite part though is Monbiot’s sad realization he’s got nothing but a crank to argue with, and his somewhat mournful decision to write off Cockburn for good. He hits upon some big truths about cranks.
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  • Kilimanjaro and Global Warming

    I’m surprised it took as long as a day for denialists like Patrick Michaels to gloat over the finding that the loss of the ice caps on Kilimanjaro – an example used by Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth – has turned out to be from causes other than global warming (a more in depth paper).

    But one thing they usually won’t mention when they quote these articles – how Kilimanjaro was the exception that proved the rule.

    In an article in the July-August edition of American Scientist, Mote and Kaser also cited decreased snowfall in the area as a driver of melt because bright, white snow reflects sunlight back into the atmosphere; if there’s not new snow, sunlight gets absorbed and melts the ice.

    The scientists say that other declining glaciers, like the South Cascade Glacier in Washington, would be a better poster child for the plight of glaciers in a warming world, which are indeed diminishing overall as a result of climate change. It’s just that Kilimanjaro is one exception to the trend. Government photographs taken from 1928 to 2000 have shown that the South Cascade Glacier lost half its mass in that time.

    “There are dozens, if not hundreds, of photos of mid-latitude glaciers you could show where there is absolutely no question that they are declining in response to the warming atmosphere,” Mote said.

    Why am I not surprised that they never seem to mention this part of the article. Hmmm. Anyway, the best overview of the problem I think comes from Geek Counterpoint:

    Kilimanjaro has pretty much been used as a “poster child” for global warming by Al Gore & co. Meanwhile, climate change “skeptics” have used the data for Kilimanjaro’s natural thawing as supposed “proof” that climate change isn’t behind any glacier’s retreat. Essentially, both camps have fallen victim to their own versions of confirmation bias (you see what you expect / want to see…).

    Amen.

  • Is there any idiot theory UD won't credulously repeat?

    Now it’s the “Rachel Carson killed millions” nonsense over at Uncommon Descent and it’s based upon this WSJ editorial from Dr. Zaramba, the health minister for Uganda.

    What’s really embarrassing is how they link the entire article and it’s clear they didn’t even read it.

    BarryA writes:
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  • Reprogramming adult cells into embryonic stem cells

    Blogging on Peer-Reviewed Research

    As promised, I’m going through the three papers from last week about the re-programming of adult cells into an embryonic-like phenotype. Since it is three papers I’ll go through first what’s common to all three, and then what each group did special.

    First of all, let’s summarize the method one more time.
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  • Sopranos last episode

    Anyone else want to venture a guess as to what that ending was about?

    To those who haven’t seen it – I’d avoid going below the fold – it will be a spoiler.
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  • A Bigot Surgeon General Nomination (part II)

    Last week we discussed the nomination of Dr. James Holsinger to be Surgeon General of the United States, and our concerns considering his anti-gay views.

    Now Jim Burroway has done a thorough dissection of Holsinger’s attempt to use science to advocate for homophobic policies in his church and it’s about as skewed and cherry-picked as something Paul Cameron would advocate.

    This is of significant concern as the Surgeon General is supposed to be a science educator, someone who informs the public about medicine and health-related issues. The fact that this nominee has abused science previously to bash homosexuals is a sign this is yet another unqualified nominee being advanced to a scientific position for political reasons. Write your senator, call or send an email. This man should not be Surgeon General of the United States.

  • Sean Carroll Reviews Behe's "Edge of Evolution"

    It’s a good read, also check out MarkCC’s review

    It’s another example of cranks not recognizing talent – or rather the absence of it. And Sean Carroll hits pretty hard in his review making the point that there are so many basic errors in the book that Behe isn’t doing ID any favors. He ends with this:

    The continuing futile attacks by evolution’s opponents reminds me of another legendary confrontation, that between Arthur and the Black Knight in the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The Black Knight, like evolution’s challengers, continues to fight even as each of his limbs is hacked off, one by one. The “no transitional fossils” argument and the “designed genes” model have been cut clean off, the courts have debunked the “ID is science” claim, and the nonsense here about the edge of evolution is quickly sliced to pieces by well-established biochemistry. The knights of ID may profess these blows are “but a scratch” or “just a flesh wound,” but the argument for design has no scientific leg to stand on

    The article included this picture – which I am shameless stealing from now on to mock this tendency:
    i-6dc20c7ace2a6700cccf1467778094dc-blackknight.gif
    CREDIT: JOE SUTLIFF, AFTER MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL

    I think Carroll was channeling one of my commenters…

  • Hurricanes and Global Warming

    Ever since I heard the link I was hoping for something more solid than the weak associations I was hearing about on NPR and other news sources. It seemed very preliminary, and a bit worrisome that, especially in the foreign press, that they were claiming things like the New Orleans/Katrina disaster was the first example of a global warming disaster. The evidence simply wasn’t conclusive and in general in science, results need to age. It’s like cheese or wine, you wait for the results that get better with time, and you have to be patient.

    I’m reading now in New Scientist that the hurricane link, when evaluated through proxy-data over about 3 centuries, is pretty weak. (Nature article here)
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  • Denialists' Deck of Cards: The Ace of Spades, "We'll Lose Money!"

    i-bc7c187b37ebf18d2d53fc5d30cb856f-as.jpeg And finally, we come to the final card. Perhaps industry’s strongest card–“we’ll lose money”–is not really denialism, but it is what motivates so much of the bad rhetoric in public policy debates.

    And of course, the truth is more nuanced. Proposals for reform create new opportunities, and many businesses have thrived under the very proposals they said would wreak havoc.

    “Wall Street…has greeted practically every important market regulation introduced in this century with howls of dismay and predictions of disaster. In 1934, the head of the New York Stock Exchange told Congress that if the Securities Exchange Act, which became the foundation of market regulation in the U.S., was made law there was a chance that stock trading in the U.S. would be “entirely destroyed.” Needless to say, it wasn’t. In 1975, when the S.E.C. abolished fixed commissions, the Street claimed that its business would be demolished. Instead, after transaction costs fell, trading volume shot up. And in 2000, when the S.E.C. required companies to disclose material information to all investors, rather than just to insiders, we were told that this would strangle the flow of information to the market and make stock prices swing wildly. But, as numerous academic studies have found, it has actually done the opposite…” James Surowiecki, Over There, New Yorker Magazine, Feb. 2, 2007.

  • Profile of a Crank – Julia Stephenson

    Ben Goldacre at Bad Science is leading the way on opposing this new absurdity of “electric smog”, and one of it’s leading proponents in Britain, Julia Stephenson.

    It’s really too easy. Remember the crank HOWTO? Well, she’s just about a perfect example.

    It all started when she got wifi in her apartment…
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