conspiracy theory
oracknows | September 15, 2017It's Friday, and it's been a rough week. So, after digging into an epidemiology study yesterday, I'm in the mood for something a bit less...heavy. Antivaxers sometimes call me to task when I point out what to me is a simple fact, namely that antivaxers are basically conspiracy theorists. In essence, to believe many antivax views, you have to believe that there is a vast conspiracy among big pharma, the government, and the media to hide great harm from vaccines because...well, it's never quite clear. To protect pharma profits? Really, this is no different than the cancer quacks who claim that…
oracknows | July 24, 2017As a skeptic, I can't help but taking an interest in conspiracy theories. The reason, of course, is because behind virtually every commonly accepted pseudoscientific and antiscience ideas there is conspiracy theory. For instance, in the case of the antivaccine movement, the conspiracy theory is that some combination of the CDC, big pharma, and the FDA is conspiring to hide the truth—excuse me, The Truth—that vaccines cause autism, brain damage, autimmune disease, diabetes, sudden infant death syndrome, shaken baby syndrome, and whatever other disease, injury, or condition that antivaxers like…
oracknows | March 15, 2017Some of you might have been wondering just WTF has been going on here on the old blog, given the relative paucity of posts over the last week and the "reruns" from the distant past that I've been posting. I address this question because I realize that not everyone reads the comments and it's quite possible some of you might have missed it, but here in Michigan we had an enormous windstorm last Wednesday that knocked out power to 800,000+ people. Unfortunately, Orac was one of them. True, we did get the power back over the weekend, but then, in a cruel twist of fate, we lot power again on…
oracknows | July 17, 2016Well, I've finally seen it. The things I do for my readers, the pain to which I subject myself by watching neuron-apotosing levels of pseudoscience, misinformation, and lies as antivaccine propaganda, in order to deconstruct them for your amusement and, I hope, education!
Yes, I've finally seen Andrew Wakefield and Del Bigtree's "documentary" VAXXED: From Cover-up to Catastrophe. Now, having watched Wakefield and Bigtree's "masterpiece," I can quite confidently say that it's every bit as accurate and balanced a picture of vaccine benefits and risks as Eric Merola's two movies about the quack…
oracknows | April 29, 2016Three days ago, I noted a disturbance in the antivaccine Force.
Last night, I noticed that that disturbance continues.
The first time around, it was Brian Hooker, a biochemical engineer turned incompetent antivaccine “epidemiologist” completed the circle of clueless conspiracy mongering, who was at the center of the disturbance. His conspira-woo tapped into the Dark Side of the Force by taking a conspiracy theory that the antivaccine movement has been flogging for nearly two years now (as hard as it is to believe, it started in August 2014!), a conspiracy known as the “CDC whistleblower” and…
oracknows | March 24, 2016Ever since I mentioned on Tuesday that the prestigious Tribeca Film Festival had taken a massive dump on reality and science by selecting for screening Andrew Wakefield's antivaccine propaganda "documentary," Vaxxed: From Cover-up to Catastrophe, dedicated to the so-called "CDC whistleblower," the topic has taken over, as topics sometimes tend to do here. In response to the mounting criticism for featuring a film by a scientific fraud clearly intended as an "I'll show you all" moment to persuade viewers that Wakefield was right after all about his long discredited claim that the MMR vaccine…
gregladen | July 8, 2015A new paper has just been published. This paper is going to cause an uproar in the science denialist community. Mud will be thrown. Tin hats will be donned. Somebody better check the oil pressure.
Conspiracies everywhere
I see conspiracies everywhere. It's true.
Look at any internet site that talks about health, disease, diet, or anything related. Some of those sites will be legit science based sites. The majority will be sites feeding you woo. The anti-Vaxers, the anti-Milkers, the Homeopaths, man of the "natural food" sites. Now look more closely at those sites to find out what they…
oracknows | April 28, 2015I've written on multiple occasions of what I like to refer to as "antivaccine dog whistles." In politics, the term "dog whistle" refers to things politicians can say to certain groups, usually groups with odious views, that they are with them without actually echoing the views for which the group at which the dog whistle is aimed. The intended target audience gets the message, while those not familiar with the issues either don't get the message or see what is being said as something unobjectionable, even admirable. Think "states' rights" versus civil rights, for example.
It turns out that…
oracknows | October 16, 2014
Does anyone remember the H1N1 influenza pandemic? As hard as it is to believe, that was five years ago. One thing I remember about the whole thing is just how crazy both the antivaccine movement and conspiracy theorists (but I repeat myself) went over the public health campaigns to vaccinate people against H1N1. It was truly an eye-opener, surpassing even what I expected based on my then five year experience dealing with such cranks. Besides the usual antivaccine paranoia that demonized the vaccine as, alternately, ineffective, full of “toxins,” a mass depopulation plot, and many other…
oracknows | August 25, 2014
Here it is, Tuesday already, and the antivaccine underground is still on full mental jacket alert over the biggest story the antivaccine movement has seen in a while. Fortunately, it’s a story that’s been largely ignored by the mainstream media, which tells me that maybe, just maybe, the mainstream media has figured out that it shouldn’t give undue credence to cranks. I’m referring, of course, to the claim that the CDC has for 13 years been covering up smoking gun evidence that the MMR vaccine when administered before 36 months causes autism in African-American males.
Ironically, as I…
oracknows | March 20, 2014If there's one thing a budding skeptic quickly learns is that at the core of any good woo almost invariably lurks at least one conspiracy theory. At the risk of flirting a little too close to Godwin territory, this simple fact about pseudoscience, pseudohistory, and other non-evidence-based belief systems was first driven home to me around 15 years ago when I first started becoming interested in Holocaust denial. It didn't take too long for me to discover that at the heart of Holocaust denial are various conspiracy theories. Somehow the Jews, we are told, conspired to exaggerate the number of…
illconsidered | October 30, 2012The reality of weather modification is no conspiracy theory. Or at least, so say the conspiracy theorists....
Hurricane Sandy is being described as the “worst storm in 100 years” and will possibly mutate to super-storm status once it combines with a polar air mass over the eastern United States enabling it to cause widespread damage and chaos, but how convenient is the timing of this “natural” event in regards to the election? Is it possible that the storm is a contrived event designed to throw the election for Obama?
Just askin'....
(h/t mandas)
illconsidered | September 11, 2012There is a blogstorm raging these days for those of you with inadequate workplace supervision. Check here for the latest post from ground zero.
The synopsis is: scientist releases paper showing strong correlation between belief in conspiracy theories, free market ideology, anti-science attitudes and the rejection of climate science; climate skeptic blogger community sees conspiracy and scientific fraud. (To their credit, I have not yet seen the accusation of "socialist".)
I don't have much to say about it, I am as embarrassed for these folks as I am amused by the irony of it all. I should…
tsmith | August 5, 2010Interesting post today at juggle.com, showing the evolution of a conspiracy theory akin to a game of telephone. Interestingly, it starts with an article in Wired by author (and former Scienceblogger) Johah Lehrer. Lehrer wrote an article on the effects of chronic stress on health outcomes, and one researcher's work to develop something akin to a vaccine to mitigate the stress effects. Sounds reasonable, no?
Next, the Daily Mail picked up the article, and focused on the "stress vaccine" angle.
Finally, the folks at Alex Jones' Prison Planet--who've never met a conspiracy theory they didn't…
illconsidered | April 17, 2010[UPDATE: readers should be aware of a correction on the source site. The best estimate of CO2 is in fact 150,000 tons per day, not 7400, with a possible maximum of 300,000 tons per day. So the graphic is much less compelling, but the story of Joe vs the Volcano is not affected.]
Even if I can't say it, the volcano Eyjafjallajokull is great to illustrate just how ludicrous the "Volcanoes emit more CO2" argument is. Courtesy of Information Is Beautiful, here is a very telling graphic.
Is there really a need to say more?
illconsidered | April 6, 2010[editor's note: an initial name confusion had the orignal version of this article referring to Jay Rogers instead of the actual author of the AEI piece Jay Richards. This has been fixed and as well a no longer relevant paragraph has been removed. Apologies for any confusion.]
[Preliminary Note: Coby asked me to edit this essay for a guest post on "A Few Things Ill Considered" (AFTIC). The original post is here, but this version cleans up the salty language (I'm kind of a roughneck and freely curse on this forum) and polishes up the content and provides the links to the relevant source…