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This is a very powerful argument in the post-9/11 environment. And if you’re a denialist worth your salt, you can figure out a way to claim that your industry is a potential target for terrorism.
Danger! can be used to get things done quickly, as Verisign realized when it wanted to move a “root server” without following normal process. In Department of Commerce officials’ emails, Verisign made pleas to declare an emergency to get their way: The company wants “to push us to declare some kind of national security threat and blow past the process,” one e-mail said. The subject line of another message described the company’s “request for immediate authority to effect address change.” |
Denialism Blog
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Denialists' Deck of Cards: The King of Spades, "Danger!"
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Blogging for Sex Education
Renegade Evolution encourages us to spend some time today blogging for sex education (she has a great feminist blog by the way).I thought to further this aim I’d talk about this recent Nation article about the scam that is the abstinence education industry. Basically, it’s just pork for the already-wealthy right-wing friends of the administration who use their money to attack abortion and fund denialist groups like the Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America.
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Denialists' Deck of Cards: Two Kings, the Proposal "Can't Be Enforced," or "Lawsuits (It Can Be Enforced)"
“Can’t be enforced” is a different argument than “it won’t work” (the Jack of Diamonds). Here, the denialist is usually threatening to operate an offending practice overseas, or oddly enough, arguing that because a proposal doesn’t give someone a right to sue, it isn’t worth passing. Of course, if the proposal gives one a right to sue, the denialist uses the opposite argument: the proposal is enforceable, and the denialist will complain of frivolous lawsuits.
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This guy is a brain surgeon?
Clearly the brain, as a material substance, causes movement of the body, which is also a material substance. The links are nerves and muscles. But there is no material link between our ideas and our brains, because ideas aren’t material.
I’m not a neuroscientist, but that’s strikes me as the dumbest thing I’ve heard yet. No material link between our ideas and our brains? So I guess when we take a hallucinogen like LSD it works by magic? How could it be that thinking
is separate from “material” as he puts it, when we can ingest material substances that alter our thinking? How is it that damage to specific areas of the brain can inhibit different kinds of thought? Immaterial things like remorse, impulsivity, memory, language can all be affected by “material” brain-damage and “material” drugs. How does the non-materialist explain this? Is it magic?This goes beyond Egnor’s usual ignorance of science, this is more like Deepak Chopra kind of woo – this idea that our brains are in contact with the divine and that’s where our thoughts and ideas come from. But it’s just magical thinking, there is no evidence of some divine hand in our thoughts, quite the opposite. The evidence is that ideas do have an organic origin, or how else does one explain how damage to the system or specific drugs that interact with it, affects our thinking in predictable and repeatable ways?
And let’s think about what this “non-materialist” view does for the study of neuroscience. Oh wait, nothing. Because if the brain is an incomprehensible magic black box, why study neuroscience? Why try to decode, dissect and discover how neural processes and diseases work if you believe it’s just magic?
** It’s also ironic that this paper – Probabilistic reasoning by neurons – just popped up on Nature AOP and I couldn’t help thinking that maybe Egnor didn’t do a thorough literature review before posting this nonsense.
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Folie a news
I’ve decided to describe a largely unacknowledged process of disease pathogenesis that I will call folie a news. To explain though, I’ll have to first discuss a disease called delusional parasitosis.
Delusional parasitosis (DP – sometimes called Ekbom’s disease) is a lot like what it sounds like. Normal or abnormal sensations of itching are interpreted by the patient as being bug bites, or bugs traveling under the skin despite the absence of histological evidence of a parasitic infection. This is what is known as a “fixed delusion” and it becomes an obsession for the patient. The disease has a few known organic causes such as amphetamine or cocaine-use and many common co-morbities including diabetes, schizophrenia, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, lyme disease and depression.(1) Patients usually present to a dermatologists office complaining of sensations of itching and biting from insects, and frequently carry in samples of skin or lesions they’ve scratched off – this is referred to as “matchbook sign” in that the patients would often present with their skin scrapings in a small box like a matchbook. These days it’s probably more likely to be “zip lock sign”.
12% of DP patients present with what is known as folie a deux(literally madness of two) in which the patient is not the primary sufferer of the delusion, but has adopted the delusion of another patient – usually a spouse or other family member.(2) It’s also important to remember that these people may be perfectly rational in every other way, but have just this single fixated delusion. Also, the feelings they’re having are real – one must not tell them it’s just “in their head” – it’s just what they’re ascribing them to is off . Further treatment with atypical anti-psychotics – which is effective a majority of the time – should be broached carefully as people feel stigmatized by diagnoses of mental illness.
Now keep these things in mind while watching the following video that grrlscientist blogged this weekend about people who think bugs are crawling out of their skin.
(video and more below the fold)
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Lambert catches Cockburn in a big fat cherry-pick
I should have known better than to trust a single quote cited by a denialist or crank. In our Case Study of Alexander Cockburn we pointed out his selective use of data but we missed a big fat cherry-pick.
It’s based on this quote from Cockburns article:
As Richard Kerr, Science magazine’s man on global warming remarked, “Climate modelers have been ‘cheating’ for so long it’s become almost respectable.”
Tim Lambert catches Cockburn in this dishonesty and it’s a pretty bad behavior. It reminds me of the HOWTO again, in that people that become cranks really see only what they want to see in a source of information. It’s clear to any honest, reasonable person reading Kerr’s article that the conclusion was the opposite of what Cockburn suggested.
This is why it’s denialism, and not “dissent” or “skepticism”. They can’t seem to do it without dishonesty.
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Denialists' Deck of Cards: The Red Joker, "Give Money to the Leadership"
Giving money to the leadership of the Senate and House is a great strategy, because no proposals will be considered at all if the leadership blocks them. The leadership is rarefied; one only taps them in desperate situations -
Denialists' Deck of Cards: The King of Clubs, "I'll Sail Away"
Believe it or not, I’ve heard industry lobbyists say that they’d stop doing business in California/America if certain consumer protection regulations passed. It’s totally implausible, but still a high-value card. -
The Penitent Paris
As Paris Hilton gets ready for her short stay in jail, she increasingly is photographed carrying Jesus books. And today, she appears on my favorite blog wearing a “Faith” hoodie, and carrying Count Your Blessings, Spiritual Warrior, and some others.
Her behavior recalls Machiavelli’s advice:
…a prince ought to take care that he never lets anything slip from his lips that is not replete with the…five qualities, that he may appear to him who sees and hears him altogether merciful, faithful, humane, upright, and religious. There is nothing more necessary to appear to have than this last quality, inasmuch as men judge generally more by the eye than by the hand, because it belongs to everybody to see you, to few to come in touch with you. Every one sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are, and those few dare not oppose themselves to the opinion of the many, who have the majesty of the state to defend them; and in the actions of all men, and especially of princes, which it is not prudent to challenge, one judges by the result.
Oh when will we outgrow this infantilism? It’s scary that this pro forma “got religion” act, so frequently performed in this country, actually sways people.
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Denialists' Deck of Cards: The Queen of Spades, "Big Government"
The denialist can always raise the specter of “big government.” As in, the proposal at issue will create bigger government, complete with appeals to fears of world government and stuff like satan. This is a high-risk card because big business loves big government.