YouTube has banned the James Randi Educational Foundation!?!?
Category Archives: Antiscience
Ideologyspotting
How to spot a hidden religious agenda
Misguided interpretations of quantum physics are a classic hallmark of pseudoscience, usually of the New Age variety, but some religious groups are now appealing to aspects of quantum weirdness to account for free will. Beware: this is nonsense.
UPDATE: As the comment below indicates, the article was pulled. PZ points out that there is an archived copy of the article
I think it’s sad that NS would cave to complaints, rather than having some intellectual integrity. There was no malice in the story. Occasionally the truth is going to force some people to open their eyes a little, and that can sometimes be painful.
Mocking What You Don't Understand
A discussion of recent neuron-deficient attacks on science.
The tricky thing about most basic research, though, is that you don’t always know what you’ll get out of it when you release the funds. Such research often opens up new and surprising avenues that themselves then spin off important innovative technologies that no one could have predicted. (In Jindal’s case, he wasn’t even attacking basic research, but rather, research of obvious disaster safety import. Not even my caveats can help him.)
In an ideal world, then, specific scientific appropriations would hardly be above criticism—but you would also have to make a cogent argument for why they’re not the best use of our investments. You wouldn’t just mock that which you don’t understand
Tripe from Tierney
I ran across Tierney’s latest post in the NY Times, Politics in the Guise of Pure Science and, as it too often does, it left a bad taste.
Why, since President Obama promised to “restore science to its rightful place” in Washington, do some things feel not quite right?
First there was Steven Chu, the physicist and new energy secretary, warning The Los Angeles Times that climate change could make water so scarce by century’s end that “there’s no more agriculture in California” and no way to keep the state’s cities going, either.
I couldn’t help but notice that Tierny doesn’t actually rebut the claim, or give any context at all for it. Just simple appeal to ridicule, with fragmentary quoting, which always raises the question of whether the remarks are being quoted out of context. Not to mention that I think Tierney is missing the point. There is science, and there is policy. Policy will encompass more than science, but it’s critical that policy be based on science, rather than basing policy on ideology and rewriting or suppressing contradictory science.
Via The Inverse Square Blog I see that my spidey-senses were spot-on. Siegel at Daily Kos provides more complete quotes and context to Chu’s comments, and makes it clear that Chu was describing a range of possibilities, with the loss of agriculture and severe reduction in water for the cities at the extreme end of the spectrum of outcomes.
Update: Carbon Nation takes a swipe, too.
So That's How it Works
Accuse anyone asking for empirical evidence of being ‘close minded’; try to protect your ideas from this sort of pessimism
Scientific Illiteracy on Parade
Scientific illiteracy all the rage among the glitterati
[T]op prize went to the lifestyle guru Carole Caplin for denouncing a study showing that vitamin supplements offer little or no health benefits as “rubbish” – it is the third year on the run that she has been mentioned in the review. Science author and GP Ben Goldacre pointed out that the study Ms Caplin referred to was the most authoritative yet published. “Carole should understand that research can often produce results which challenge our preconceptions: that is why science is more interesting than just following your nose,” Dr Goldacre said.
Dressing Up as Real Science
A book review of Trick or Treatment
While no reasonable person can believe in Stairways subliminal lyrics, far too many people do believe in equally implausible things in the realm of alternative medicine. In the book, the authors tackle four main areas: acupuncture, homeopathy, chiropractic and herbal medicine. The books conclusion is that acupuncture, homeopathy, chiropractic are essentially worthless, while herbal medicine has limited value.
Buy You a Drink?
Are you worried about global warming? Should you be worried about global warming? Understanding the dangers posed by climate change and evaluating policies toward it require some understanding of science. How do we know the Earth is warming? What will happen when the temperature increases? What can be done to mitigate or avoid the problems? These are essentially scientific questions.
What about bird flu? MRSA? AIDS? Pandemic disease is something that can only be understood and combatted through science. Are we all going to get wiped out by some disease? What steps should we take to avoid being wiped out by disease? These are essentially scientific questions.
If you have no interest in science and being informed, then you can only blame yourself when you get conned by someone peddling antiscience, or swept up by FUD.
This Will End the Controversy
Yeah, right.
Tech puts JFK conspiracy theories to rest
“The question we were trying to answer is, given the spatter evidence in a vehicle, and knowing an individual was sitting at a particular location, is there something we could use to determine where the shot originated?” said Steve Schliebe, a blood spatter and trace evidence specialist with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, who was part of the special investigation.
I imagine this will work just as well as a categorical denial of a coverup by a government official.
It's not April 1st, Right?
I have scienceray on my RSS feed, and they are a source of some pretty neat pictures. The latest is on crystals: Introduction to Crystals and Their Formation
Crystals are neat-looking, so I looked at the pictures. And then I started reading the text.
This is a first of a series of articles dealing with the healing power of crystals.
[…]
The big thing about crystals is to remember that they work in tune with the vibrations and brainwaves that humans naturally produce. Because of this, it is important that your vibes are in harmony with those of the crystal.
Oh, crap. New-age crap, to be specific. This sounds like a job for Orac, and sure enough, he’s dealt with it. Your Friday Dose of Woo: Crystals, crystals everywhere, but no woo to amplify