Denialism Blog

Category: Politics

  • The stupidest internal NIH memo ever – or why I can't wait for the new administration

    One of the great things about science is that it is open, international, and celebrates the free exchange of ideas. However, during the last 8 years we’ve seen some odd things at the National Institutes of Health – the premier governmental scientific institution in the world. The paranoia of the current administration has filtered down and contaminated day to day operations of what is essentially an academic health sciences campus.

    For example, for some bizarre reason they decided to erect a 10 foot high iron fence around the entire campus:
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    And at the entrances every car is searched, every day. And why? What makes the NIH campus different from any other medical campus in the country? We all work with the same radioactive isotopes, etc. They have a higher level infectious disease research lab which if you were really worried about could be fenced in rather than fencing in the entire 300 acre campus. What is the reason for this excess of security?

    I happen to think there is no good reason and that the NIH security is run by paranoid idiots. The best evidence I have of this is a recent memo I’ve obtained that was sent to Health and Human Services employees about foreign visitors from the Deputy Secretary. Here is the relevant section:

    i-7946a972cb4ab6b390962193dc8cb05c-NIH memo.jpg

    Really? Now if an NIH investigator wants to bring a foreign speaker in to give a talk, not only can they not plug in their thumbdrives in the lecture hall computer to upload their powerpoint for fear of espionage, but they have to be followed into the bathroom too? Could you imagine? You invite some bigwig foreign scientist – like say any of this year’s Nobel Laureates in medicine – and when they have to make a pit stop you’d be forced to follow them in the bathroom for fear they’ll steal our lucky charms.

    I hope in the next administration the first thing they do is tear down that stupid fence and treat the NIH like any other academic medical campus, and find whoever wrote this stupid memo and fire them. This type of paranoid security obsessiveness is uneccessary and counterproductive to the free exchange of ideas science needs in order to be open, international and collaborative.

  • Dumb and Dumber: Toys From China & Lobbyists from NAM

    So you operate a toy company and along the way, you probably offshored your production to China to save money. And now that Americans have awakened to the obvious problems with your business plan, you want to still sell your toys to the public without testing them for lead.

    Your options: 1) sell your inventory before February 10, 2009, when the new lead regulations come into effect; 2) do nothing and just risk it; and/or 3) lobby to make the standards non-retroactive.

    Dear readers, would you be surprised if our friends who cut corners by offshoring to China would choose option 3? Melanie Trottman reports in today’s Journal that:

    …Mr. Woldenberg [a toy seller] said he believes that few, if any, of his company’s goods have lead in excess of the new standards, he has started to have the inventory tested. Meanwhile, he has written to the Consumer Product Safety Commission and congressional staffers, asking for an indefinite amount of time to sell off his older inventory.

    The National Association of Manufacturers and other trade groups have also asked regulators and Congress not to apply the new lead standard to products made before the standard was set.

    “There’s the potential loss of billions of dollars in inventory that is deemed safe for purchase on Feb. 9 but deemed unsafe Feb. 10” unless proved otherwise, said Jim Neill, an association spokesman.

    Deemed safe on February 9th but not on the 10th? We should ask Jim Neill how much lead he thinks is safe for his children–the February 9th or the February 10th standard.

  • Palin as Populist Chic

    I am enjoying the news post election, because what was once news media “liberal bias” about Sarah Palin is now simply common sense.

    Even more fun is the frank conversation about the conservative movement. Today’s Journal has a must read by Mark Lilla on how the very conservatives who valued intellectualism and elites were corrupted by “populist chic.” Lilla recalls Jane Mayer’s recent article on Palin, noting how conservative intellectuals chose Palin as a candidate that was appealing to the masses. But in so doing, conservative intellectuals mirrored their liberal rivals. Lilla explains:

    Back in the ’70s, conservative intellectuals loved to talk about “radical chic,” the well-known tendency of educated, often wealthy liberals to project their political fantasies onto brutal revolutionaries and street thugs, and romanticize their “struggles.” But “populist chic” is just the inversion of “radical chic,” and is no less absurd, comical or ominous. Traditional conservatives were always suspicious of populism, and they were right to be. They saw elites as a fact of political life, even of democratic life. What matters in democracy is that those elites acquire their positions through talent and experience, and that they be educated to serve the public good. But it also matters that they own up to their elite status and defend the need for elites. They must be friends of democracy while protecting it, and themselves, from the leveling and vulgarization all democracy tends toward.

    He concludes:

    …As for political judgment, the promotion of Sarah Palin as a possible world leader speaks for itself. The Republican Party and the political right will survive, but the conservative intellectual tradition is already dead. And all of us, even liberals like myself, are poorer for it.

  • Stop the RFK Jr. appointment NOW

    I would beg everyone who reads the scienceblogs and cares about science to contact the transition team in the Obama administration as Orac has requested.

    It should be clear by now to readers of this blog that pseudoscience is not a problem of just the right. The left wing areas of pseudoscience are just as cranky, just as wrong-headed about science, just as likely to use the tactics of denialism to advance a non-scientific agenda. We have been dealing with the denialism of the right more because they’ve been in control. Now is the time to nip the denialism of the left in the bud so it doesn’t take root in this new administration.

    RFK Jr. is a crank (Orac for more), and one of the problems with cranks is Crank Magnetism. When people have one type of pseudoscientific belief it tends not to be isolated. Instead it reflects a general incompetence in understanding science, evaluating the quality of evidence, and what constitutes good science. RFK Jr.’s crankery will not be limited to vaccines and autism. He will undoubtably become the poster boy for all sorts of left wing crankery – be it environmental extremism, toxin/radiation paranoia (we’ll never get public wifi), or his already well known anti-vax crankery.

    My letter to the transition team is below the fold. Please join me in trying to prevent this terrible error on the part of the Obama campaign.

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  • Double Plus Good: No George Bush Waste Station in SF

    A group in San Francisco managed to get a measure on the city ballot that would rename our Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant to the “George W. Bush Sewage Plant.”

    I thought this a supremely bad idea. Such a move (like protesting the Marine Core in Berkeley) would invite a conservative reaction, possibly stripping the city of federal funds.

    And as a local public utilities supervisor pointed out, our waste station is progressive, like much of the city: “The potential irony here is that this is a modern facility that protects the ocean and the environment every day,” [Tony] Winnicker said, “and I’m not sure that’s the right legacy for President Bush.”

    Well, Measure R failed by 69-30 percent! There is some good sense in San Francisco, sometimes. We also rejected a measure that would have legalized prostitution. More on that later.

  • Looks Like the Same-Sex Marriage Amendment Passed

    Here in California, the Mormons poured millions into an initiative constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, after the California Supreme Court found a right to marry in the State’s Constitution.

    Proposition 8 looks like it has passed. Currently, it’s 52-48 in favor, with 95% of the vote counted.

    I’m really just posting this in order to share this anti-Proposition 8 commercial that was running in California. It might be the most offensive political ad ever. Check it out:

  • Watch the returns here!

    Watch it happen live! And if I can, I’ll though in some useless editorializing.

    Now fivethirtyeight and CNN have excellent widgets to watch as well. Fivethirtyeight.com is especially cool, as it has developed a nice reputation for actually being right. Currently, they are projecting a rather wide victory for Obama.

    Ohio an Penn!!!!!

  • If you read no other posts this week…

    …you must at least read this one.

    As first person histories go, this one is tops.

  • Man-cow hybrids: has the time finally come?

    In a little over a week, Michigan voters will be asked to vote on Proposal 2. The proposal is very simple. It is a constitutional amendment that makes Michigan a less hostile place for human embryonic stem cell (HESC) research. It forbids state or local government from passing laws that are more restrictive than federal law. Here’s how it will appear on the ballot:

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  • Mr. President, We Must Not Allow a Cellphone Gap!

    I keep on hearing that the political polls are inaccurate because pollsters do not call wireless phones.

    I commission polls at UC Berkeley and we call wireless phones. Seems like a no brainer to me. So, I’ve never quite understood why professional polling firms wouldn’t call cell phones. (I’m an expert in telemarketing laws; survey firms can call cell phones legally so long as it is not a front for marketing.)

    Today, I poked around at some prominent pollster’s sites to see whether they call cell phone users:

    Gallup: Yes, when it is a “national telephone Gallup Poll” survey.

    Zogby: No. Here are their reasons.

    Princeton: It looks like yes, but it’s not clear that they always do. Looks like Pew did a study with Princeton on this issue finding:

    The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press has conducted three major election surveys with both cell phone and landline samples since the conclusion of the primaries. In each of the surveys, there were only small, and not statistically significant, differences between presidential horserace estimates based on the combined interviews and estimates based on the landline surveys only. Yet a virtually identical pattern is seen across all three surveys: In each case, including cell phone interviews resulted in slightly more support for Obama and slightly less for McCain, a consistent difference of two-to-three points in the margin.

    Peter Hart: No statement on the matter.