April 6, 2008
I must admit I have a love-hate relationship with Bill Maher. He is a funny guy, he is good at mocking some of the more ludicrous aspects of politics, and he has been an effective critic of this administration and some of its more egregious policies.
However, I've also long held the position that…
April 2, 2008
Part III of our discussion of the history of denialist movements is on one that should tie things together and one I hope some of my fellow sciencebloggers will realize speaks to the necessity of challenging denialists on every front.
My work in this instance is made extremely easy as Naomi…
March 31, 2008
The Independent has yet another hysterical article about the potential link between cell phones and brain cancer. And I've been asked, what are we seeing here? Is this the early reporting of a potential public health threat? Or is it just more nonsense from a newspaper that wouldn't know good…
March 31, 2008
To continue to explain how terribly misguided Mooney and Nisbet are about ignoring denialist campaigns I think it's time to go over the history of one of the most effective denialist campaigns ever. That is the concerted effort by the major tobacco companies (RJ Reynolds, Brown & Williamson,…
March 28, 2008
At long last I have finished my surgical requirements. After 12 weeks of nonstop surgery rotations, despite enjoying it thoroughly, I'm ready to try something else for a while. Or at least I'm looking forward to waking up at 6AM rather than 4AM for a few months. It seems like such a small…
March 24, 2008
This week I think I'm going to spend some time discussing denialism throughout history. In part inspired by the recent attacks on some of the most effective scientific communicators we have by by Mooney and Matthew Nisbet, and PalMD's post on some modern thinking by "ancients" I feel like it's…
March 24, 2008
One of the problems with medical education is that while you are intellectually trained to deal with medical problems and emergencies, actual experience with how to respond to emergent clinical situations is difficult to teach and usually only comes with experience. Further, real clinical experts…
March 20, 2008
Everyone please welcome PalMD of WhiteCoatUnderGround.
I've been enjoying his writing for quite some time and think that he gets what the mission of denialism blog is all about.
He has of course introduced himself, and I think in just a few posts you'll see why he's a wonderful asset to the sb…
March 20, 2008
Well, since we first wrote about losing Plan9, Higher Grounds, Satellite Ballroom and Just Curry for a worthless CVS, the C-Ville has picked up the story (here too) as well as the Hook. Good for them. I take back my sniping comments about them ignoring the Corner district.
A few things are clear…
March 20, 2008
The NYT reports on a this article by Tomas Grim of the Dept of Zoology at Palacky Univ purporting to show a negative effect on numbers of scientific publications for scientists correlated with increasing beer consumption.
According to the study, published in February in Oikos, a highly respected…
March 20, 2008
Now that PZ, Brian, and ERV have all weighed in on whether Chris Mooney's piece on crank enablers is right or not, let me lay out my operational strategy as an anti-denialist writer.
It is true that repetition of denialist arguments is a strategic error, and that the repeition itself can reinforce…
March 13, 2008
Check it out, the genesis of the Skeptics' Circle.
In particular I admire PalMD's willingness to read JPANDS for the sake of the cause. Yes, it's as bad as you thought.
March 11, 2008
I love a crank that you only have to quote to utterly humiliate. From the guy who brought the logic of the Third Reich to bear on the immigration issue we have this thoughtful analysis of the real threat to science:
As I have demonstrated in "The Irrational Atheist," religion is not a threat to…
March 10, 2008
Also pissing me off this week is the continuing nonsense from Cato's anti-universal health care club which is suggesting that increasing health care coverage will lead to an increased number of deaths because of increasing medical errors.
Sack notes that "at least twice as many Americans are…
March 8, 2008
Has anyone noticed how my sciblings are really ornery at the moment?
We've got PZ bringing out the angry stick over Wilkins' criticism of Dawkins. Physioprof is getting ready to pop Greg Laden in the nose over this thread (and I tend to agree it needs a rewrite).
And then Shelley broke my heart…
March 7, 2008
There is no way I could let the Heartland Institute's Global Warming conference go by without comment, especially since it's so beautifully conformed to my expectations of what a gathering of cranks would be like. I think DeSmogBlog's coverage has been the best.
But back to my expectations, we…
March 6, 2008
My least favorite thing? Being constantly ill. Of the eight weeks or so I've been back, I've been sick for about four of them. I managed to get by the first three or four weeks cold-free through neurotic hand-washing before the current cold circulating the hospital got a whack at me.
It was a…
March 1, 2008
I've lived in Charlottesville Virginia now for about 8 years and one of the great things I love about it is the Corner community. I have a bar I like, there is a good music at the Satellite Ballroom where I plan on seeing They Might Be Giants this month. We've got lots of local businesses and…
February 28, 2008
At Conspiracy Factory.
In particular I like Skepchik's take on a pretty horrifically sexist Oprah poll which seems to present the only options for women in a stressful situation are to cry now or cry later or act like a big strong man. Hmm.
PalMD has really been fighting the good fight lately…
February 28, 2008
This time it appears to be a physical assault and an attempt to enter a home of a researcher that works with mice.
The researcher described the attack in which people wearing masks attempted to break into her house during her daughter's birthday party. Although her identity is being protected, I…
February 26, 2008
I've almost come to the end of the core 8 weeks of my surgery rotation (4 more weeks follow in electives) and am currently working on the trauma service for another couple days before taking exams.
I don't have a great deal to say, the hours stay long, the medicine remains interesting etc. I'm…
February 25, 2008
I must say I've loved much of the writing at the new blog Science-Based Medicine. These guys are fighting the good fight and presenting very sophisticated aspects of evaluating the medical literature in a very accessible way. In particular I'd like to point out David Gorski's critique of NCCAM…
February 18, 2008
One of the few advantages of having no time is that when I do get around to sorting through my RSS feeds of various denialists is that I end up seeing patterns I didn't observe as much when I tracked these jokers day-to-day. So, inspired by BPSDB I decided I'm going to share some generalizations…
February 17, 2008
I'm late to the party sorry, but this week's circle is up at Bug Girl's Blog. Check it out. She's one of my favorite bloggers and she's done a great job with her Valentine's day edition.
In particular I will point out Greta Christina's review of "Mistakes Were Made (but not by me)", and the new…
February 11, 2008
I'm very upset to see that following up on previous threats, animal rights terrorists have set fire to a scientist's house.
I've been saying for a while that the real threat towards biological science isn't the evolution denialists and other silly cranks' rather laughable attempts at trying to…
February 4, 2008
Having been busy and a bit out of the loop for the past month, I think it's time I stop and point out what a great job Chris Mooney and other have done in generating a real movement behind making this happen. In particular note the supportive essay from the Editor-in-Chief of Science and the…
February 4, 2008
I've just completed my first month of my surgical rotation and still find almost every day fascinating. I just finished a 4-week rotation in the hepatobiliary service (liver, biliary and pancreatic surgeries mostly) and now go on to thoracic for 2 weeks, and then trauma for 2 weeks to complete…
January 28, 2008
For the benefit of Teresa and her son, here's a description of a day in the life. This may not be all medstudents on the surgical rotation, but at the moment it's what I'm doing.
I wake up around 4AM, put on scrubs (usually, but on clinic day you dress nice), and go to work. I spend about an hour…
January 25, 2008
Surely no one can be pissed at me for pointing out that surgeons have some of the coolest tools, so I think I'll describe a few of them that I've seen used a great deal in general surgery.
The one most frequently in use is referred to simply as "the Bovie" and it is used for electrocautery.…
January 24, 2008
Weed via vending machine.
No I'm not kidding.
