Denialism Blog

Author: MarkH

  • Two Court Decisions for Science

    There have been two interesting court decisions, I think both decided correctly for science this week. In the first, a federal court has decided states may regulate greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles. In particular, one statement from the judge seemed to come straight from the deck of cards.

    “There is no question that the GHG (greenhouse gas) regulations present great challenges to automakers,” Judge William Sessions III, sitting in the U.S. District Court in Burlington, wrote at the conclusion of his 240-page decision.

    He added, “History suggests that the ingenuity of the industry, once put in gear, responds admirably to most technological challenges. In light of the public statements of industry representatives, (the) history of compliance with previous technological challenges, and the state of the record, the court remains unconvinced automakers cannot meet the challenges of Vermont and California’s GHG regulations.”

    Exactly correct. They raised the same complaints for seatbelts, crumple-zones, airbags, and CAFE standards, and each time their claims of imminent bankruptcy have been shown to be overblown. If anything, it should be good for the industry. As Toyota has become the largest automobile manufacturer in the world with consistently rising profits, the American car manufacturers have locked themselves into making bigger less efficient cars and consistently show losses and diminishing size. If anything, this kick in the pants will help car manufacturers in this country survive and compete with the cars from Japan.

    The second, from the NYT, a New Jersey court has refused to decide that life “begins” at conception.

    A doctor is under no obligation to tell a pregnant woman that she is carrying “an existing human being” before performing an abortion, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled today in a decision that had been eagerly awaited by both foes and supporters of abortion rights in this country.

    The 5-to-0 decision came in a case brought in 1996 by Rosa Acuna, who was 29 years old and married when she and her husband, who already had two children, agreed to an abortion about six to eight weeks into her pregnancy.

    People on both sides of the abortion debate said that Mrs. Acuna’s medical malpractice case was essentially asking the court to weigh in on the long-debated issue of when life begins.

    Mrs. Acuna charged that the doctor, Dr. Sheldon C. Turkish, did not provide her with “material medical information” before she and her husband signed a consent form allowing him to perform the procedure. Specifically, she said in her lawsuit, the doctor had a duty to tell her that the procedure would “terminate the life of a living member of the species Homo sapiens, that is a human being.”
    …
    Because there is no consensus within the medical community, or even in the general public, about when life begins, the justices wrote, there is therefore no legal basis for requiring doctors to tell patients “that an abortion results in the killing of a family member.”

    Not only is this fundamentally stupid claim on the part of the plaintiffs, like this 29-year-old woman did not know what an abortion is, but the idea of a court decided when life begins is offensive. I also disagree that there is no consensus (or that there can not be one) within the scientific community. Scientists should acknowledge that life does not “begin”, but is instead continuous from parent to child, and the real question is when we consider a human life to have value. There is no stage in human reproduction in which the components are not living. The real issue is fundamentally religious, and should therefore be outside the purview of the courts, that is when does someone get a soul? Or in more secular terms, become a human being? That is unanswerable, unmeasurable, and should not be determined by any court or government.

    So good news from the courts this week, stepping in where they should, and staying out of where they don’t belong.

  • Making Scienceblogs More International

    I thought I’d survey the readership for some ideas on how to make Denialism Blog more interesting and accessible to an international readership. One of the goals of the Scienceblogs’ mothership Seed is to expand and get the whole world interested in scientific literacy as well as our little community and I realize that my topic is a little US-centric. However, I doubt that denialism is necessarily more prevalent in the US. For instance, the recent influence of HIV/AIDS denialism in Thabo Mbeki’s South African government is of particular concern (see Nick’s excellent overview of the problem).

    So, what are some examples of denialism on the international level that the denialism blog should cover? What types of stories should we cover to get the message out on a broader level that the methods of subverting science are almost always the same? What kind of denialism is going on in your neck of the woods that you think needs more attention?

    Consider it an open thread – tell us about the cranks, quacks and denialists in your backyard.

  • Skeptics' Circle Number 69 – Unscrewing the Inscrutable

    At Unscrewing the Inscrutable Brent Rasmussen brings us the 69th skeptics circle with a fun, old west feel.

    One of the first entries was particularly interesting to me as an example of crank magnetism. The Socratic Gadfly found Lynn Marguilis embracing 9/11 conspiracies, which shouldn’t be surprising given her HIV/AIDS denial – also requiring a conspiratorial world view.

    It would be interesting to study this problem systematically, and see how many times a crank adopts more than one crank belief. I suspect given that it takes a certain kind of broken mind to believe this nonsense that they are susceptible to multiple crank theories as a default, and it will actually be rare to find someone that is irrational on one issue, and not irrational on most issues.

    I think it’s also a bad sign for the 9/11 cranks, between Marguilis and their super-secret inside man declaring himself the messiah, it just goes to show just what kind of nuts get attracted to this nonsense.

  • What's more annoying, creationists or vegans?

    An art teacher has been “removed from the classroom” for proselytizing to his students about his vegan lifestyle. Apparently after being born-again into veganism, he wouldn’t stop talking to kids about living “cruelty-free” during class. The kicker? He now wants to charge the school district with child endangerment for encouraging them to drink milk.

    Dave Warwak, 44, also said he plans to ask the McHenry County state’s attorney to file child-endangerment charges against the school district because the school continues to promote milk and other animal products as part of a healthy diet.

    Warwak said he was not fired or suspended during a meeting Monday with school officials and representatives of Fox River Grove District 3. But he said he is not returning to class.

    Of particular concern to him, he said, are posters in the school cafeteria that promote milk. …

    “I can’t really see working there as long as those milk posters are up and they keep feeding poison to the kids,” said Warwak of Williams Bay, Wis., who said he began his vegan lifestyle in January.

    Sounds like a win win solution there. He quits, and the kids keep drinking milk (as recommended by the the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine). One also wonders where these cruelty-free farms are that are growing food without pesticides (even organic farming uses pesticides – just a different “approved” set), combines, processing, shipping, rodent control, dumping millions of freeze dried bugs on crops etc.

    Either way, I wouldn’t miss yet another zealot, proselytizing their nonsense in an inappropriate venue. And who thinks this is just as inappropriate as a creationist or any other religious zealot using class time to try to indoctrinate kids into their unscientific worldview?

  • RFID and cancer

    Who needs privacy concerns if RFID causes cancer. The small implantable microchips that have generated concern from privacy experts and readers of revelations alike have now been associated with sarcoma formation in animals.

    A series of veterinary and toxicology studies, dating to the mid-1990s, stated that chip implants had “induced” malignant tumors in some lab mice and rats.

    “The transponders were the cause of the tumors,” said Keith Johnson, a retired toxicologic pathologist, explaining in a phone interview the findings of a 1996 study he led at the Dow Chemical Co. in Midland, Mich.

    Leading cancer specialists reviewed the research for The Associated Press and, while cautioning that animal test results do not necessarily apply to humans, said the findings troubled them. Some said they would not allow family members to receive implants, and all urged further research before the glass-encased transponders are widely implanted in people.
    …
    Published in veterinary and toxicology journals between 1996 and 2006, the studies found that lab mice and rats injected with microchips sometimes developed subcutaneous “sarcomas” — malignant tumors, most of them encasing the implants.

    – A 1998 study in Ridgefield, Conn., of 177 mice reported cancer incidence to be slightly higher than 10 percent — a result the researchers described as “surprising.”

    – A 2006 study in France detected tumors in 4.1 percent of 1,260 microchipped mice. This was one of six studies in which the scientists did not set out to find microchip-induced cancer but noticed the growths incidentally. They were testing compounds on behalf of chemical and pharmaceutical companies; but they ruled out the compounds as the tumors’ cause. Because researchers only noted the most obvious tumors, the French study said, “These incidences may therefore slightly underestimate the true occurrence” of cancer.

    – In 1997, a study in Germany found cancers in 1 percent of 4,279 chipped mice. The tumors “are clearly due to the implanted microchips,” the authors wrote.

    I’m pretty sure they’re referring to this study in mice in the first example. As usual the idiots writing science pieces can’t figure out how to link articles in the literature, or even mention useful information to help find the article like the journal name or an author. Worthless, I swear.

    RFID didn’t need any more help being creepy. But two things should be considered before this becomes a major concern. First, is that enough of these have been implanted in dogs and cats that it strikes me as strange that this has not been observed yet in the pet population (I could only find one report and it’s not clear this is different from post-injection fibrosarcoma seen with vaccination in cats and dogs). Maybe now that we know to look such an effect might appear with systematic study. Second this result would be surprising since one would not predict the types of materials used in implantable chips would cause inflammation or be carcinogenic (unless someone screwed up), so it is unclear what the mechanism would be for carcinogenicity.

    The things that are scary are that this has been observed inadvertently in multiple studies, the cancers are repeatedly sarcomas, and based on what the researchers have said, directly associated with the RFID implant. It’s enough that I would never agree to get an implant, not that I see any good reason to in the first place. Even a 0.01% risk of cancer would be crazy, since there isn’t enough of a benefit to the technology to justify the risk of tens of thousands of cancers a year if the technology were widely adopted. Here’s an instance in which the precautionary principle wins out. This technology should be frozen for human use until the cause of these results is better understood.

    I should also point out that this is yet another example of crappy science reporting. Not because it wasn’t thorough, but because of the complete lack of transparency about the specific sources in the literature from which the reporting came. I think we should start writing emails to authors of articles that do this until the problem is corrected.

  • Cut and paste denialism

    I think most skeptical bloggers would agree that one common tactic one sees from denialists is whole-hog cut-and-paste rebuttals without attribution. For instance, on finds when arguing with evolution denialists that they’ll just cut-and-paste tired creationist arguments into comment threads.

    We wrote briefly about the latest attempt by global warming denialists to suggest that the scientific consensus does not support climate change. To start with, it was little more than a repeat of the previous debunked attempts, and was hardly original.

    Well, for more proof they can’t think originally, write originally, or do anything other than rehash debunked arguments, check out Lambert’s coverage of Shulte’s reply to criticism that he’s engaging in more typical denialist nonsense. It’s a cut-and-paste job from Monckton without attribution! Not only is it total nonsense – nearly every citation is miscategorized or misrepresented – but it’s almost word-for-word lifted from another global warming hack’s writing, without attribution or citation.

    So continuing the long tradition of hack responses to criticism, the latest global warming denialist nonsense looks just like the same nonsense that was debunked in years past, and just like the kind of nonsense one sees from creationists.

    And one can’t help but love the irony. Here’s Schulte’s last paragraph.

    The author of the statement has been less than courteous, and less than professional, in having failed to verify the facts with me before thrice having used the word
    “misrepresentation” in connection with a draft of a paper by me which he or she cannot have read at the time. Worse, the author of the statement has used the word “foolish” about me when he or she had not done me the usual professional courtesy either of contacting me or even of reading what I had written before making haste to comment upon it. I should not expect any properly-qualified and impartiallymotivated scientist to behave thus.

    If the statement was indeed authored by Oreskes, I expect her to apologize for her professional discourtesy to me, and I invite the Chancellor of her university to enquire into the matter and then, if she be the statement’s author, to ensure that she apologizes promptly and unreservedly.

    Ahh, “less than professional” accuses the denialist who plagiarizes in his response. I think Oreskes handled it just right. After all, does one really have to see each rehashing of a crank argument to know that it’s nothing other than the usual misrepresentation and dishonesty?

  • The antidepressant suicide link – busted?

    The Washington Post reports on the apparent jump in suicide rates since antidepressants got a black-box warning in 2004 after some reports suggested an increased suicide rate in youths after the initial prescription.

    The article here (goddamn WaPo still can’t figure out how to link anyone but themselves) shows a disturbing correlation:

    METHOD: The authors examined U.S. and Dutch data on prescription rates for selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) from 2003 to 2005 in children and adolescents (patients up to age 19), as well as suicide rates for children and adolescents, using available data (through 2004 in the United States and through 2005 in the Netherlands). They used Poisson regression analyses to determine the overall association between antidepressant prescription rates and suicide rates, adjusted for sex and age, during the periods preceding and immediately following the public health warnings.
    RESULTS: SSRI prescriptions for youths decreased by approximately 22% in both the United States and the Netherlands after the warnings were issued. In the Netherlands, the youth suicide rate increased by 49% between 2003 and 2005 and shows a significant inverse association with SSRI prescriptions. In the United States, youth suicide rates increased by 14% between 2003 and 2004, which is the largest year-to-year change in suicide rates in this population since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began systematically collecting suicide data in 1979.

    This is disturbing. However, the I don’t agree with the current interpretation of the problem.

    NIMH’s Insel said it is possible that antidepressants are lowering the risk of suicide overall, even as they increase the risk among a subset of patients. New research to be published soon examines genetic factors that may put some patients at particular risk, he added.

    There is another explanation – a mixture of confirmation bias and post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning. The main offender, yet again, is a meta-analysis.
    (more…)

  • What's killing the bees? IAPV apparently

    Another update on Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), the surprisingly devastating attack on the honeybee that occurred last year that was responsible for huge losses of bee colonies and a great deal of concern about crops pollinated by this insect.

    Originally we mocked the idea that CCD was caused by global warming and alarmist calls from people like Bill Maher that suggested a correlation between CCD and cell phone use (ha!). Critical at the time were initial experiments showing that irradiation of hives allowed recolonization, suggesting an infectious process. Now it seems this has been confirmed.

    Signs of colony collapse disorder were first reported in the United States in 2004, the same year American beekeepers started importing bees from Australia.

    The disorder is marked by hives left with a queen, a few newly hatched adults and plenty of food, but the worker bees responsible for pollination gone.

    The virus identified in the healthy Australian bees is Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus (IAPV) — named that because it was discovered by Hebrew University researchers.

    Although worker bees in colony collapse disorder vanish, bees infected with IAPV die close to the hive, after developing shivering wings and paralysis. For some reason, the Australian bees seem to be resistant to IAPV and do not come down with symptoms.

    Scientists used genetic analyses of bees collected over the past three years and found that IAPV was present in bees that had come from colony collapse disorder hives 96 percent of the time.

    So far the data is correlative, but it’s a very strong correlation, as well as a highly plausible biological explanation. Introduction of the pathogen to healthy colonies will be the definitive test.

    Here is the paper in Science, as well as more perspective from Bug Girl.

  • Mythbusting – it's harder than you think

    The Washington Post reports on research that correcting mythical beliefs is more difficult than you’d think. The interesting finding seems to be that if you repeat the myth in the course of correcting it, people are more likely to forget the correct information and remember the myth!

    When University of Michigan social psychologist Norbert Schwarz had volunteers read the CDC flier, however, he found that within 30 minutes, older people misremembered 28 percent of the false statements as true. Three days later, they remembered 40 percent of the myths as factual.

    Younger people did better at first, but three days later they made as many errors as older people did after 30 minutes. Most troubling was that people of all ages now felt that the source of their false beliefs was the respected CDC.

    The psychological insights yielded by the research, which has been confirmed in a number of peer-reviewed laboratory experiments, have broad implications for public policy. The conventional response to myths and urban legends is to counter bad information with accurate information. But the new psychological studies show that denials and clarifications, for all their intuitive appeal, can paradoxically contribute to the resiliency of popular myths.

    It’s interesting the examples that they use as popular myths that have become ingrained through repetition.

    This phenomenon may help explain why large numbers of Americans incorrectly think that Saddam Hussein was directly involved in planning the Sept 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and that most of the Sept. 11 hijackers were Iraqi. While these beliefs likely arose because Bush administration officials have repeatedly tried to connect Iraq with Sept. 11, the experiments suggest that intelligence reports and other efforts to debunk this account may in fact help keep it alive.

    Similarly, many in the Arab world are convinced that the destruction of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 was not the work of Arab terrorists but was a controlled demolition; that 4,000 Jews working there had been warned to stay home that day; and that the Pentagon was struck by a missile rather than a plane.

    So hear that framers and mythbusters? If you want to change popular perception of science, and myths about everything from global warming to 9/11 conspiracies, one major thing to remember is to not repeat the myth.

    Mayo found that rather than deny a false claim, it is better to make a completely new assertion that makes no reference to the original myth. Rather than say, as Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) recently did during a marathon congressional debate, that “Saddam Hussein did not attack the United States; Osama bin Laden did,” Mayo said it would be better to say something like, “Osama bin Laden was the only person responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks” — and not mention Hussein at all.

    There you have it. I admit this would be difficult to do. For the most part, when I take on something that is patently false as part of a skeptical response, I often repeat the claim in order to take it apart. This research would suggest that by merely repeating the myth, I’m shooting myself in the foot.

    So the question is, when writing skeptically about myths that people believe and repeat, how do you challenge individuals making the claims without mentioning what claim they made? I’ll have to keep this research in mind in the future I think, and while I’ll still mock people for really stupid statements, the focus of skeptical writers should be on providing positive statements of correct information, while avoiding repetition of the false information.

  • Will Global Warming Increase Heart Disease?

    I was surprised to see this article in the International Herald Tribune suggest that global warming might cause increased incidence of cardiovascular death. In particular one statement struck me as being somewhat absurd.

    On the sidelines of the European Society of Cardiology’s annual meeting in Vienna this week, some experts said that the issue deserved more attention. It’s well-known that people have more heart problems when it’s hot.

    During the European heat wave in 2003, there were an estimated 35,000 deaths above expected levels in the first two weeks of August. In France alone, nearly 15,000 extra people died when temperatures soared. Experts say that much of that was due to heart problems in the elderly worsened by the extreme heat.
    …
    The hardening of the heart’s arteries is like rust developing on a car. “Rust develops much more quickly at warm temperatures, and so does atherosclerosis,” said Dr. Gordon Tomaselli, chief of cardiology at Johns Hopkins University and program chair at the American Heart Association.

    In higher temperatures, we sweat to get rid of heat. During that process, blood is sent to the skin where temperatures are cooler, which opens up the blood vessels. In turn, the heart rate rises and blood pressure drops. That combination can be dangerous for older people and those with weakened cardiovascular systems.

    That’s interesting. It makes you wonder why all those old people move to Florida if increased heat is actually dangerous for older people. There are problems with this report, and while increased temperatures do cause some cardiovascular problems, they decrease others, and the picture is more complicated than this article would suggest.
    (more…)