Denialism Blog

Category: Cranks

  • Cranks cry persecution, Nisbet listens

    Ever since we began writing here about denialism we’ve emphasized a few critical points about dealing with anti-science. For one, denialists aren’t interested in legitimate debate – they are not honest brokers and the tactics they use exist to artificially extend discussion of settled scientific issues. Second, one of the most time-honored traditions of cranks is claiming persecution in response to rejection of their nonsense. Take for a recent example Coby’s exposure of the “environmentalists want to jail global warming denialists” myth. You don’t need to do anything to make a crank cry persecution, if they have to they’ll just make up some persecutory event or tale.

    So, I don’t have a lot of tears to shed for global warming denialists who insist they are being falsely compared to holocaust deniers. In that they use the same tactics as holocaust deniers to create the false appearance of debate, they are the same, true, but the comparison largely ends there. Unlike holocaust deniers their ideological motivations are different. And, of course, any reasonable person realizes that holocaust denial has not made the use of the term “denial” itself an assertion of antisemitism. If a doctor confronts an alcoholic about their denial of their alcoholism, they’re not suggesting they hate Jewish people too. When a psychiatrist tells their patient they’re in denial, that’s hardly comparing them to the Nazis. When we say a public figure has issued a denial of some scandal, we’re not suggesting they advocate a new holocaust. And finally, when we suggest any number of other people are denying reality, whether it be holocaust denial, evolution denial, HIV/AIDS denial, etc., the point is clear that we are referring to their methods more than their motives which are necessarily varied. It should also be clear that holocaust denial has not ruined the word deny or denial or denier for any number of other applications – this is just another example of denialists claiming persecution after being called on their BS.

    Nisbet disagrees, and he sides with Timothy Ball of all people who is very upset that he’s being called a “denier” in this PRI segment. Cry me a river. Bizarrely Nisbet suggests that in this radio segment he is so persuasive that we will never use the word “denier” again. I disagree, and it sounds like the reporter, Jason Margolis, disagrees as well:

    The relevant section follows (forgive transcription errors):
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  • Crankish Signs from the Tree Sitters

    All, I’m sorry for abusing you with posts concerning the Berkeley Tree Sitters. For those of us at UC, this has been an enduring pain. And it’s been embarrassing. Why? In part, because this is the type of rhetoric common to the debate:

    And of course…

    I promise, this is the last posting on the tree sitters. Thanks be to Zombietime.

  • Galileo, Semmelweis, and YOU!

    To wear the mantle of Galileo, it is not enough to be persecuted: you must also be right.
    –Robert Park

    I used to spend a lot of time on the websites of Joe Mercola and Gary Null, the most influential medical cranks of the internets (to call them “quacks” would imply that they are real doctors, but bad ones—I will no longer dignify them with the title of “quack”). I’ve kept away from them for a while in the interest of preserving my sanity. Unfortunately, Orac reminded me this week of the level searingly stupid and dangerous idiocy presented by these woo-meisters.
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  • A blog recommendation

    Everyone this morning should check out a new favorite website of mine the International Journal of Inactivism. Frank Bi has created a wonderful little catalog of global warming conspiracy theories that nicely illustrate the fundamental defects of reasoning used by the denialists. In particular, I enjoyed his genealogy of climate conspiracy theories.

    When we first started here, our first post after the introduction was on the non-parsimonious conspiracy as one of the primary indicators of pseudoscientific argument. Frank Bi has done a wonderful job showing just how dependent the global warming denialist arguments are on these absurd premises. Here’s to hoping he keeps it up.

  • Medical Hypotheses—"just make shit up; we'll publish it"

    Orac was kind enough to pollute my inbox with the latest idiocy from the journal that has never met a crank it didn’t like. As Orac says, “Medical Hypotheses [is] the journal where the editors encourage the authors to make shit up.”

    Before I tell you about the latest “hypothesis”, let me give you an idea of what kind of thinking goes into this publication. The latest issue has an editorial that argues that it is the “maverick” scientist who makes the real scientific breakthroughs, and that teamwork is only for the “modestly talented”.
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  • Denialist award—Andrew Schlafly, Esq.

    I am giving out a previously non-existent award today to a truly great denialist. Andrew Schlafly, spawn of anti-feminist Phyllis Schlafly and some long-forgotten sperm-donor (ironic, eh?), was not content just being the legal counsel to the uber-crank Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. No, he had to take it one step further, and clog our precious intertubes with Conservaepedia, a repository of all things stupid. In fact, there is so much stupid there, an entire wiki is devoted to documenting it. I was newly enraged when a commenter over at the “blogging on peer-reviewed research” site tried to use this pile of electronic dreck as a legitimate reference.

    For those of you who might have forgotten, Conservaepedia hit teh ‘tubes a little over a year ago, with a mission to counter the horrid liberal bias at Wikipedia. Well, no one is going to accuse Conservapaedia of liberal bias. In fact, the entire site is essentially a demented play book for reactionary Christian cults and denialists.

    I don’t want to take you too far through the looking glass, but here are some fun examples of reactionary lunacy for you.

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  • About that crank

    So on the blog birthday we asked our dear readers what they’ve learned over the last year, and as a test we gave them this crank who attacks the bisphosphonate anti-osteoporosis drugs in his article “the delusion of bone drugs”.

    I think the reader with the best grade is LanceR or Martin, but SurgPA would have done better if he had shown his work.

    But let’s talk about some signs that something you’re reading is unscientific crankery. In this case, we don’t have a particularly sophisticated crank, and he let’s the cat out of the bag in his very profile:

    Because of Bill’s increasing concerns about the serious, sobering and perilous times we are living and being manipulated into, his intentions will be mainly devoted (as he has been) to posting articles that will alert, inform, expose, and wake up a sleeping reading public. This involves the issues that are not covered, or not covered truthfully by the “National News Media.” “In the time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” – George Orwell. To warn the public of the present and coming danger of permitting the federalizing of local police departments across our nation is of the utmost importance. If allowed to continue, the federalizing of local police departments, will result in the planned replication of the infamous “Nazi storm troopers” reminiscent of Hitler´s Germany in recent past history. “A prudent person foresees the danger ahead and takes precautions; the simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences.” –

    The guy mentions Orwell and Hitler in his profile! He’s already way behind in presenting himself as a rational source of information that should be listened too. But let’s give him the benefit of the doubt, it was written in the third person, maybe his profile-writer was the crank. What does he have to say about bisphosphonates?
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  • Vox Day's Crazy Dad Threatens Judge's Life

    Dude. If you thought Vox Day (the guy with the minge haircut) was crazy, check out what his crazy dad has been up too since he fast captured last year:

    The trial of millionaire tax protester Robert Beale turned bizarre even before jury selection began Monday as the prosecutor announced the arrest of four of Beale’s supporters for conspiring with Beale to disrupt the proceedings and intimidate the judge.

    “God … wants me to take the judge out, that’s what he wants me to do,” Beale allegedly told his common-law wife, according to a new criminal complaint filed against him and the four associates.

    …

    “Once I take down Ann Montgomery, no judge in the whole court will have anything to do with me,” Beale said in a tape-recorded phone call from jail.

    …

    Beale is a “member/leader” of what’s known among certain groups as an extra-judicial “Common Law Court” in Ramsey County. The lengthy title of this specific “court” indicates a religious undercurrent, including a reference to “a superior court for the People, original jurisdiction under Almighty Yahweh exclusive jurisdiction in and for confederation-government United States of America.”

    These are the guys behind world nut daily folks, just in case you were wondering why it’s such a source of insanity.

    And what’s with people not paying their taxes? Wesley Snipe fell for this nonsense conspiracy that the income tax is illegal as well. People, pay your taxes! I’ve heard about this nonsense before that the amendment was never ratified, yada yada. It’s constitutional, if you don’t pay your taxes you will go to jail, get over it.

    H/T Theresa.

  • Slate parses some crankery

    Slate has a series of three articles on what editor Daniel Engber refers to as “the paranoid style”. Starting with A crank’s progress, sliding into a review of Doubt is their product, and finishing with a spot-on review of Expelled he runs the guantlet of modern denialism. He also happens to hit upon the major commonalities between all pseudoscientists, which of course I find gratifying. For instance, read his description of Berlinski and how he nails the truisms in detecting the false skeptic:

    Forgive me if I don’t pause here to defend the conventional wisdom on evolution and cosmology. (Click here or here for a more expert appraisal.) That would be beside the point. Berlinski’s radical and often wrong-headed skepticism represents an ascendant style in the popular debate over American science: Like the recent crop of global-warming skeptics, AIDS denialists, and biotech activists, Berlinski uses doubt as a weapon against the academy–he’s more concerned with what we don’t know than what we do. He uses uncertainty to challenge the scientific consensus; he points to the evidence that isn’t there and seeks out the things that can’t be proved. In its extreme and ideological form, this contrarian approach to science can turn into a form of paranoia–a state of permanent suspicion and outrage. But Berlinski is hardly a victim of the style. He’s merely its most methodical practitioner.

    Don’t mistake denialism for debate, it is merely the amplification of doubt using tactics no self-respecting scientist should use.

    His review of Expelled is also worthy of note, in particular I enjoy how expands the type of analysis used by Stein et. al to other denialists like anti-vax denialists and the HIV/AIDS denialism such as that published by Harpers. He correctly points out that Harpers is a crap magazine, and that it rejoices in anti-intellectual attacks on science.

    Expelled extends this contrarian approach with one more question: If God might be right, then why are scientists trying so hard to deny His existence? The suppression of faith starts to look like a concerted effort, and so doubt gives way to paranoid science. A skeptic cites bad evidence and sloppy data; the paranoid finds the books have been cooked. A skeptic frets over thoughtless conformism; the paranoid grows frantic about conspiracy.

    The proponents of intelligent design are far from the only critics of mainstream science whose skepticism has taken on the trappings of conspiracy theory. In a 2005 article for Salon and Rolling Stone, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reported on a top-secret meeting in rural Georgia where high-level government officials and pharmaceutical executives worked to cover up the link between children’s vaccines and autism. (No such link has been found.) The public utilities are still accused, as they have been for more than 50 years, of conspiring against America’s youth by fluoridating the water supply. And skeptics of the obesity epidemic point out that the media collude with pharmaceutical companies to feed a booming weight-loss industry. Paranoid science reveals nonmedical conspiracies, too–impenetrable ballistics data form the basis for a theory of the assassination of JFK, and the calculations of structural engineering cast doubt on the official story of 9/11.

    More below the fold

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  • The inconsistency of cranks

    One of the most salient features of cranks is their inconsistency. A major difference between someone who is trying to reason scientifically and someone who has a fixed belief they are trying to defend against rational inquiry is the scientific thinker is looking for synthesis. They want things to fit together nicely, to make sense, and incorporate as much of the data as possible into a cohesive picture or theory that is convincing to ones peers so they adopt your view.

    A crank, on the other hand, doesn’t care about internal consistency, presenting a cohesive picture of any kind, or creating a body of knowledge to be adopted and utilized by their peers. If someone has a different theory that is completely different from theirs they don’t care, as long as it remains opposed to the scientific theory that impinges upon their fixed belief.

    Case in point, Jennifer Marohasy’s blog features this post which exclaims with glee that Kerry Emanuel has reversed his position on the role of global warming on hurricanes based on this news piece. In an example of crank magnetism Dave Scot at Uncommon Descent has also picked up this thread only he exclaims that Emanuel has reversed his position on global warming itself (check out the intellectual company you keep when you’re a global warming denialist, sheesh).

    What becomes immediately clear, however, is that this is only evidence of the scientific incompetence of these individual writers, their lack of reading comprehension, and the inconsistency of global warming denialists’ approach to the scientific literature. So, what is it we do, boys and girls, whenever a crank mentions some finding in a scientific paper? Look at the primary source! It’s the first step, and I guarantee you the crank’s didn’t read or comprehend the paper at all. Here it is, free at MIT (PDF). Not only does the paper consistent with an impact of global warming on hurricanes, but the cranks have latched on to a paper that uses computer models *gasp*. You see, the endless refrain from global warming denialists that computer models have no value goes out the window the second they perceive a modicum of support from a paper that uses them.

    As far as Kerry Emanuel reversing his position, they got that wrong too. Here’s what he told me:

    Unfortunately, reports about my paper have been greatly distorted. I am certainly not denying global warming, nor am I denying a link to increasing hurricane power, but I am pointing out that one particular technique suggests less of an increase going forward than we previously feared. Also, the technique, when applied to historical climate data from 1980-2006, strongly re-affirms earlier analyses that show that hurricane power has increased by about 50% over the past 25 years.

    Oops. It’s hard out there for a crank. This paper is consistent with global warming increasing hurricane intensity, it just predicts less of an effect going forward. I’m sure Dave Scot and Marohasy will immediately retract all their bogus claims, distortions and lies about this paper, Kerry Emanuel, and, no doubt, their sudden belief in models. While I’m waiting for that to happen though, let’s keep this in mind as an example of how cranks don’t actually care what kind of evidence they must use to preserve their fixed belief, or that it be consistent with their previous statements, arguments, etc. All that matters is that science they oppose ideologically gets crapped on.
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