Denialism Blog

Author: MarkH

  • Crank Trifecta Complete

    It’s funny, but the crank use of the recent reevaluation of global AIDS statistics by the UN reminds me of a sign you see driving towards Charlottesville from DC. It’s faded wooden thingy that says, “Get the US out of the UN”. About 5 miles up the road is a derelict-looking building with what looks like Santa Claus dressed as a confederate soldier carrying the battle flag, so you get a feel for the general sentiment of the area. For those outside the US, it might be helpful to understand this problem to know that a big part of the hatred is based on the belief of some fundamentalists that the UN represents the beast of revelations. The establishment of world government brings rapture, yada yada. They have a whole series of creepy books about it that, to the US’s everlasting shame, are bestsellers.

    So far, Denyse O’Leary and Tim blair used the UN correction to suggest all science is BS, or at least anything believed by that there dirty UN should be suspect. The trifecta has now been sealed by Steve Milloy, denialist extraordinaire.

    It should come as no surprise that, according to the UN, 257 years of western development and progress has placed the Earth in imminent danger of utter disaster and that the only way to save the planet is to drink the UN Kool-Aid and knuckle under to global government-directed energy rationing and economic planning.

    Oh, and did I mention that the UN says we only have seven years to end the growth of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and 40 years to stop them entirely if we are to avoid killing as many as one-fourth of the planet’s species?

    I’d be scared too, if I didn’t know that this is the very same UN that just admitted to inflating the African AIDS epidemic — thereby maximizing the public panic feeding its fundraising efforts — and the very same UN that presided over the corrupt oil-for-food program which gave Saddam Hussein as much as $20 billion in kickbacks while delivering food unfit for human consumption to hungry Iraqis.

    Note the conspiratorial tone? The UN didn’t make an epidemiologic error, it was all part of its dastardly plan to create panic and raise money! Because actions of some corrupt members in oil for food means every wing of the UN, even UNicef, is out to rob us!

    This is actually a pretty clever tactic for the global warming denialists. The UN is definitely a target of a lot of right-wing hate, and if you can create the false association that climate science = the United Nations, well that right there will gain you the toothless rapture-ready vote. DeSmogBlog has it right I think, it’s more than just the usual crank glee at a perceived failure of science. It’s also a clever political smear trying to unite UN hatred with climate science.
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  • O Pangloss!

    Can I tell you how boring I find the fine-tuning argument? Paul Davies is the latest to use it and in the NYT no less. Davies’ argument depends on whether you believe his initial assertion that science fundamentally rests on faith:

    The problem with this neat separation into “non-overlapping magisteria,” as Stephen Jay Gould described science and religion, is that science has its own faith-based belief system. All science proceeds on the assumption that nature is ordered in a rational and intelligible way. You couldn’t be a scientist if you thought the universe was a meaningless jumble of odds and ends haphazardly juxtaposed. When physicists probe to a deeper level of subatomic structure, or astronomers extend the reach of their instruments, they expect to encounter additional elegant mathematical order. And so far this faith has been justified.

    So let me get this straight, science is a system that accurately describes the order in physical world. So far every finding of science points to a rational universe based on physical laws. Therefore it’s faith on our part that we will continue to find rational explanations? I’m not trying to be dense or anything, but isn’t it the evidence that has pointed towards rational explanations rather than faith?

    Davies then goes on to propose the fine-tuning argument:

    Although scientists have long had an inclination to shrug aside such questions concerning the source of the laws of physics, the mood has now shifted considerably. Part of the reason is the growing acceptance that the emergence of life in the universe, and hence the existence of observers like ourselves, depends rather sensitively on the form of the laws. If the laws of physics were just any old ragbag of rules, life would almost certainly not exist.

    Almost certainly not exist? How does he know? Why is this axiomatic? Maybe our type of life would have difficulty under different physical laws, but how can one positively assert that life could not possibly exist with different building blocks or different rules? I think if anything the diversity of life on this planet, and its ability to penetrate into so many different niches proves the incredible versatility of living things. I even feel the requirement of liquid water as a prerequisite for life is presumptuous. How do we know that no other physical materials could possibly sustain heritable transmission of information?

    Part of the justification for SETI, with which Davies is himself is intimately involved, is that life as an organization principle is a powerful force in its own right. On our own planet we’ve found life at the bottom of the oceans, and deep within the earth’s crust, feeding on radiation no less. I don’t think we should underestimate its potential to confound our expectations.

    Now Davies goes on to assert that the only way to dismiss the explanation that we exist because of some kind of divine provenance is to believe in a multiverse. After all, in a multiverse why would anyone be surprised to find the preconditions for our existence so neatly arranged? I again dismiss this argument out of hand. You don’t need to believe in a multiverse to justify life coming into existence in this universe. It is based on this false axiom that life can only come into existence with one set of rules, and one set of materials. We simply do not know that this is true, and I believe significant evidence on our planet points to a great deal of creativity in the ability of life to problem-solve.

    From these false axioms Davies concludes:

    Clearly, then, both religion and science are founded on faith — namely, on belief in the existence of something outside the universe, like an unexplained God or an unexplained set of physical laws, maybe even a huge ensemble of unseen universes, too. For that reason, both monotheistic religion and orthodox science fail to provide a complete account of physical existence.

    Actually no. Monotheistic religions have explanations – but they are just fabricated and not very likely. Talking snakes and a sky-daddy who made the universe in 6 days. Science is an intellectual system with the integrity not to assume it has all the answers in the absence of any data. Further, why should science have to provide a complete account to be without faith? It works! Beyond that, why should we care if it is incomplete? Why does lack of completion of scientific understanding of the universe (if such a thing is possible), indicate faith on the part of those who use science because it’s such an effective tool and process for understanding the world around us?

    I do not buy any of these axioms that Davies presents to make his case for faith in science. The worst of which is this fine-tuning argument that I think Voltaire addressed adequately 250 years ago with Candide:

    Master Pangloss taught the metaphysico-theologo-cosmolonigology. He could prove to admiration that there is no effect without a cause; and, that in this best of all possible worlds, the Baron’s castle was the most magnificent of all castles, and My Lady the best of all possible baronesses.

    “It is demonstrable,” said he, “that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for as all things have been created for some end, they must necessarily be created for the best end. Observe, for instance, the nose is formed for spectacles, therefore we wear spectacles. The legs are visibly designed for stockings, accordingly we wear stockings. Stones were made to be hewn and to construct castles, therefore My Lord has a magnificent castle; for the greatest baron in the province ought to be the best lodged. Swine were intended to be eaten, therefore we eat pork all the year round: and they, who assert that everything is right, do not express themselves correctly; they should say that everything is best.”

    Candide listened attentively and believed implicitly, for he thought Miss Cunegund excessively handsome, though he never had the courage to tell her so. He concluded that next to the happiness of being Baron of Thunder-ten-tronckh, the next was that of being Miss Cunegund, the next that of seeing her every day, and the last that of hearing the doctrine of Master Pangloss, the greatest philosopher of the whole province, and consequently of the whole world.

    O Pangloss! This is indeed the best of all possible universes, for we are in it!

  • What was in Criss Angel's envelope?

    I watched the season finale of phenomenon – the show in which mentalists compete to see who is the next “phenomenon” – and Criss Angel did skeptics everywhere proud with the contents of the envelope.

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  • 74th Skeptics' Circle – Med Journal Watch

    Med Journal Watch has it up.

    I must admit some sadness that yet again one of my skeptic colleagues has fallen for Sandy Szwarc’s nonsense though. People, figure this out, she’s not a real skeptic. They don’t make blanket statements like this:

    Hearing that a study found some food, exposure or physical characteristic is associated with a 5% to 200% higher risk for some health problem seem like a frightening lot. It’s easy to scare people half to death by citing relative risks that sound big but aren’t actually viable. Such modest risks (RR=1.05 – 3.0) don’t go beyond a null finding by more than chance (the toss of a dice or random coincidence) or a mathematical or modeling error, even if they’re reported as “statistically significant” in an underpowered study. Larger increases in risk are less likely to have happened by chance. False positives are also often due to various biases and confounding factors. Regular JFS readers understand that relative risks below 3 aren’t considered tenable and this knowledge is one of our best defenses from letting the news of the day get our goat. But, even these may be conservative.

    This is completely absurd, and it’s interesting how the cranks are raising the bar. They used to deny anything of a RR less than two so they could ignore risks of things like second hand smoke. Now scientists apparently have to show RR’s of 3 or more by Sandy’s fiat.

    I mean, for the love of Jebus, she cites Steven Milloy and his anti-science site Junkscience in the article!

    Note to future skeptic’s circle hosts – read the damn entries!

  • Crank Convergence

    Keeping quiet for the last few days has given me the advantage of seeing patterns in my firefox tabs. I see news stories in my feed that I’m interested in, open them in tabs and figure maybe I can blog about them later.

    Well, the result of doing this for the last week has led to a couple of nice crank convergences.

    The first is this crank attack on scientific consensus from John West at ID the future. It follows a pretty standard crank script. First a misstatement of what scientific consensus means

    Should the consensus view of science always prevail? Darwinists often claim science isn’t democratic and that students should therefore learn only the evidence which supports Darwin’s theory because that theory is held by the majority of scientists

    Only the evidence that supports Darwin’s theory? Here is the problem. The IDers are trying to oppose the scientific consensus on evolution, which would be acceptable, if they actually had evidence. But they don’t. They just have promiscuous teleology.

    The rest of the podcast consists of the same old nonsense. Consensus has been wrong before, therefore we should allow dissenting views be presented when the public believes something different yada yada. Which would be fine and scientists agree if those views were based on science.

    West then lists three criteria used for silencing debate:

    1. Majority of scientists support the theory.
    2. Critics aren’t scientists.
    3. Critics are religious.

    Of course, this is a total straw man attack, and no scientists who are fighting to prevent the teaching of cdesign proponentsists’ nonsense in schools uses these criteria. Except the first of course, which is true, except that it is overly simplistic. The majority of scientists support the theory of evolution because that is what the data supports, it isn’t just some silly belief like a magic man done it. The second two criticisms are frankly absurd. And we don’t object to the religion of the opponents because of their religion, but rather that they are trying to insert religious ideas into the debate without any scientific data to back them up. If they had data, or a cohesive theory that presented a valid explanation for the existing data, we might be able to talk. Instead, cdesign proponentsists have nothing but religious ideology, dishonestly presented as science, with the goal of subverting legitimate scientific education. We here at denialism blog, who believe that debate should be squelched when it is the non-productive squealing of cranks who don’t like science, have a real set of criteria for ignoring the misinformation campaigns of pseudoscience. None of those criteria are of course those that he lists, because it would be to difficult to argue with.

    Noting all the recent attacks on the mere idea of consensus by the anti-AGW crowd, I am of course thrilled that the cdesign proponentsists are now also taking this tactic. Although, this is the underlying theme of all Galileo gambits and other crank views of persecution by some bizarre notion of dogmatic science.

    The second convergence of crank thinking is also between cdesign proponentsists and AGW denialists, except in this case it’s Denyse O’Leary and Tim Blair converging in their crankery.

    Both are crowing about the recent correction by UN health officials of worldwide AIDS statistics, which were mistaken due to a sampling bias.

    This is wonderfully consistent with what we know about how cranks operate. Any perceived slight to science is good news because they think it means that their particular brand of nonsense gains in legitimacy when mainstream science is proven wrong. This is of course absurd, this is science correcting itself, which is what legitimate science does. Only cranks react with glee to the denigration of science, a quality Blair has in spades. It’s a sure sign of a crank, along with attacks on consensus, attack on peer review and a persecution complex which we noted long ago in our HOWTO. It’s gratifying to see the consensus theory on cranks fit the data so nicely.

  • Reprogramming adult cells into pluripotent stem cells – what do these new results mean

    Blogging on Peer-Reviewed ResearchYou guys might have noticed I’ve been quiet lately, that’s because I’ve scheduled a thesis defense and am under deadlines. However, I couldn’t let these two (1) papers(2) on reprogramming of human adult cells into stem cells slip by without some comment (NYT piece here)

    These reports are a follow-up on landmark animal studies that we discussed previously that showed that expressing 4 genes in cells obtained from adult animals you could induce them to form embryonic stem cell (ESC) like cells that researchers dubbed induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells). At the time we noted several obstacles to the practicability of this technology, and these papers represent success in overcoming the first – transferring the technique into human cells.

    I admit I’m surprised they were able to do so so quickly. But this turned out to be a nice example of the discovery of common exploitable pathways between humans and other animals.

    Below the fold I’ll go over the differences between these studies and the previous animal studies, the evidence of the pluripotent nature of these cells, unresolved problems with this technology and why this isn’t a victory for the anti-ES cell crusaders.

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  • Ben Goldacre on Homeopathy

    Sometimes people wonder why the skeptic types get all worked up over a behavior that is usually seen as at-worst harmless. Ben Goldacre explains why, in one of the best, and clearest articles on the problem of homeopathic medicine.

    This is exactly what I said, albeit in nerdier academic language, in today’s edition of the Lancet, Britain’s biggest medical journal. These views are what homeopaths are describing as an “attack”. But I am very clear. There is no single right way to package up all of this undeniable and true information into a “view” on homeopathy.

    When I’m feeling generous, I think: homeopathy could have value as placebo, on the NHS even, although there are ethical considerations, and these serious cultural side-effects to be addressed.

    But when they’re suing people instead of arguing with them, telling people not to take their medical treatments, killing patients, running conferences on HIV fantasies, undermining the public’s understanding of evidence and, crucially, showing absolutely no sign of ever being able to engage in a sensible conversation about the perfectly simple ethical and cultural problems that their practice faces, I think: these people are just morons. I can’t help that: I’m human. The facts are sacred, but my view on them changes from day to day.

    It’s awesome. Read it.

  • I could have told him that

    Richard Black investigates the common crank claim that science is just an old boys network designed to throw sweet, sweet grant money at their friends. Guess what? The evidence of this conspiracy is lacking.

    I anticipated having to spend days, weeks, months even, sifting the wheat from the chaff, going backwards and forwards between journal editors, heads of department, conference organisers, funding bodies and the original plaintiffs.

    I envisaged major headaches materialising as I tried to sort out the chains of events, attempting to decipher whether claims had any validity, or were just part of the normal rough and tumble of a scientist’s life – especially in the context of scientific publishing, where the top journals only publish about 10% of the papers submitted to them.

    The reality was rather different.
    …
    The sum total of evidence obtained through this open invitation, then, is one first-hand claim of bias in scientific journals, not backed up by documentary evidence; and three second-hand claims, two well-known and one that the scientist in question does not consider evidence of anti-sceptic feeling.

    No-one said they had been refused a place on the IPCC, the central global body in climate change, or denied a job or turned down for promotion or sacked or refused access to a conference platform, or indeed anything else.
    …
    Whether this exercise has conclusively disproved a bias is not for me to say – I am sure others will find plenty to say, doubtless in the courteous and gracious language that typifies climate discourse nowadays.

    But I will say this; if someone persistently claims to be a great football player, and yet fails to find the net when you put him in front of an open goal, you cannot do other than doubt his claim.

    Andres Millan, who wrote to me on the subject from Mexico, offered another explanation for why scientific journals, research grants, conference agendas and the IPCC itself are dominated by research that backs or assumes the reality of modern-day greenhouse warming.

    “Most global warming sceptics have no productive alternatives; they say it is a hoax, or that it will cause severe social problems, or that we should allocate resources elsewhere,” he wrote.

    “Scientifically, they have not put forward a compelling, rich, and variegated theory.

    “And until that happens, to expect the government, or any source of scientific funding, to give as much money, attention, or room within academic journals to the alternatives, seems completely misguided.”

    It’s good that he researched this and all, but frankly, it was a waste of time. It doesn’t matter what the crankery is, they’re always convinced the reason people don’t listen to their nonsense is that it’s some kind of conspiracy against them. And surprise surprise, when you actually try to make them provide evidence of said conspiracy, they can offer none. From the HIV/AIDS denialists to the cdesign proponentsists, you always see the same argument again and again. Science is a church, protecting dogma! It’s biased against us! You’re just conspiring to enrich your buddies with grant money! Blah blah blah.

    You don’t need to waste any time investigating such nonsense, it’s a prima facie absurd claim.

  • In Defense of Homeopathy

    Jeanette Winterson offers her “defence” in the Guardian, and I can’t wait for Ben Goldacre to rip into it.

    She starts with this classic argument from anecdote:

    Picture this. I am staying in a remote cottage in Cornwall without a car. I have a temperature of 102, spots on my throat, delirium, and a book to finish writing. My desperate publisher suggests I call Hilary Fairclough, a homeopath who has practices in London and Penzance. She sends round a remedy called Lachesis, made from snake venom. Four hours later I have no symptoms whatsoever.

    Dramatic stuff, and enough to convince me that while it might use snake venom, homeopathy is no snake oil designed for gullible hypochrondriacs

    Actually, the fact that she thinks this is a valid argument shows that it is snake oil designed for gullible hypochondriacs. As they say, the plural of anecdote is anecdotes, not data.

    It get’s worse – ready for some quantum water woo?
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  • Uncommon Descent preaches about materialist morality

    BarryA drops this idiot bomb on us:

    Obviously, by definition, materialists cannot point to a transcendent moral code by which to measure moral progress. Indeed, it is difficult for them to account for moral progress at all because if materialism is correct, the “is” in a society defines the “ought.”

    Gosh, given that the cdesign proponentsists are all about science they do spend a hell of a lot of time criticizing materialism. Until they get their god-o-meter up and running it seems as though that this is a fundamental conflict between their stated beliefs and practice. But that’s nothing new.

    What I am curious about is whether or not materialists (code for atheists) can or cannot point to a transcendent moral code by which to measure human progress? And further, can the religious? I would argue the religious, if anything, are far more incapable of pointing to a transcendent moral code. After all you must ask, which religion, which book, which interpretation? Sure they can point to all sorts of crap, but they certainly can’t agree on the moral interpretation of their scripture. They change which parts of their code they listen to in any given century (we only really take 3 of the 10 commandments seriously for instance), how can they suggest they are in possession of a transcendent morality because of their religiosity?

    Then see this whopper:

    On what basis do you say that the recognition of the humanity of African-Americans is “progress” unless you have held up the previous nonrecognition and the present recognition to a code and deterermined the former was bad (i.e., did not meet the code) and the latter is good (i.e., does meet the code)? In other words, when you say we have “progressed” it is just another way of saying that the previous state of affairs was bad and the present state of affairs is good. But how can you know this unless there is a code that transcends time and place by which both states of affairs can be measured. Certainly to say that things were previously one way and now they are another is not the same as saying there has been progress. Change is not the same as progress.

    Now, I don’t quite get what BarryA is talking about here. Is he saying ending slavery is not progress? Or is he saying that ending slavery can only be judged as a moral good if you are religious? Because, you know, none of those religious codes prohibit slavery buddy. If anything, they encourage it, and tell slaves to be obedient. So if you guys are in charge of the transcendent code, and it’s in one of your outdated books of silly metaphors, where are your slaves? Slavery was ended in this country when many people – including many religious people — decided we could transcend dogma that defended the practice.

    Here’s a job for my commenters. Leave me your transcendent materialist moral code that you can use to measure human moral progress. Mine is something like, “Progress can be measured by increasing rationality, human happiness, and abandonment of the hateful dogmas that bind us to tribalism and bigotry.”