Tennessee Senate Bill 893, which, if enacted, would encourage teachers to present the “scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses” of “controversial” topics such as “biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming, and human cloning.” There are no scientific controversies… Read More »Creationism legislation–Tennessee Monkey Bill (update 2)
The other day, I was watching some news story about climate change; it was mostly from the denialist point of view, but I was struck by what seemed to be almost the same arguments that the creationist folks say about evolution. I began to wonder if there was a religious component to the global warming denialists, maybe at the same fundamentalist belief level as the creationists.
While I was digging through the Huffington Post’s Science Section (which publishes story about how homeopathy works or how a bug jumping on a camera lens is obviously a UFO chasing the powerful Chilean Air Force, I noticed a couple of articles by Victor Stenger, a world-renowned particle physicist who writes about scientific skepticism of religion and faith. It’s possible that I’m too harsh about HuffPo’s general anti-science content, though Stenger only partially makes up for the rest of the anti-science articles on HuffPo.Read More »Religion and global warning denialism
This quality of photo would be convincing evidence of a UFO visit.
I know all of my liberal friends love the Huffington Post (HuffPo), but I think that the online newspaper is no better than anything published by Rupert Murdoch. And it’s not just me. Brian Dunning, over at Skeptoid, considers it one of the 10 worst anti-science websites, although I think it deserves a higher seeding in the Pseudoscience Bracket. Here’s how I look at it: if they can’t get the science right, if they continue to support non-evidence based stories, how are we to trust anything else they write? If they aggressively promote homeopathy, anti-vaccine lunacy, and colon detoxification, all thoroughly debunked with real science published in real peer-reviewed journals, then what are they promoting in their political news? I rarely read anything from HuffPo, and I consider them an insult to the science journalism.Read More »Huffington Post sees UFO’s–logical fallacies everywhere
When I write about skepticism, sitting at my trusty MacBook Pro, I have access to every source and bit of information that is required to write about evolution, vaccines, global warming, and the existence of sasquatch. If I need to dig up a link to an article that debunks some silly anti-vaccination lunatic’s claim, it’s easy to do. However, since people make pseudoscientific claims all the time, it’s always good to have access to information right at the tip of your fingers. Of course, it’s relatively easy to put your question in google, in the hope of getting a good answer. Then again, you have to weed through the 100 hits that might actually support the bogus claim.Read More »iPhone and iPad Apps–skepticism and atheism (update 1)
There’s been lots of news this week regarding anti-evolution legislation. Republicans in various state legislatures are starting to push their religious agenda in violation of the Establishment Clause of the 1st Amendment to the US Constitution. Remember, according to the Establishment Clause of the US Constitution, teaching religion in public schools is prohibited, and numerous court rulings have clearly stated that creationism is a religious doctrine, not a scientific controversy. These Republican legislatures are trying to push a full anti-science agenda, forcing school children to think that abiogenesis (the origin of life on Earth), global warming and evolution are somehow scientifically unsound principles. In the real world, these is no controversy, except with regards to fine-tuning mechanisms, rather than on the broad theory.
Read More »Antiscience legislation updates–Oklahoma, New Hampshire and Tennessee
When I write about skepticism, sitting at my trusty MacBook Pro, I have access to every source and bit of information that is required to write about evolution, vaccines, global warming, and the existence of sasquatch. If I need to dig up a link to an article that debunks some silly anti-vaccination lunatic’s claim, it’s easy to do. However, since people make pseudoscientific claims all the time, it’s always good to have access to information right at the tip of your fingers. Of course, it’s relatively easy to put your question in google, in the hope of getting a good answer. Then again, you have to weed through the 100 hits that might actually support the bogus claim.Read More »Skeptics guide to skeptical iPhone apps
An anti-evolution group in Tennessee
In 1925, in the state of Tennessee, the most famous legal proceeding in the battle between evolution and anti-evolution occurred. In what became known as the Scopes Monkey Trial, a high school science teacher, John Scopes, was accused by the State of Tennessee for violating the Butler Act,a Tennessee law that required school teachers to not “deny” the Biblical account of the origin of man. The trial grabbed the attention of the whole country, and two of the greatest attorneys of that era, William Jennings Bryan (a three time Democratic candidate for President of the US) prosecuted the case, and Clarence Darrow defended Scopes. Even though the trial is often considered a science vs. religion battle, in fact, it centered around a “modernist” view, that evolution was consistent with the bible and religion, against a “fundamentalist” view, that the bible is the “word of god”, which would exclude evolution.Read More »Creationism legislation–Tennessee, or The Return of the Monkey Bill
Yesterday, I responded to an article that I read, where the author wanted African-Americans to refuse HIV testing because of…pseudoscientific nonsense. I refuted the 10 claims of the AIDS denialist without too much trouble, though I doubt that the denialist will care that much. An AIDS denialist, for those who might not know, is someone who denies the link between HIV and AIDS, blaming AIDS on something else (other than the scientifically supported HIV infection).
There are consequences to denying real science. Vaccine denialists are leading to an increase in communicable diseases that were once almost unknown. Climate change denialists may lead us to finding New York City under a few meters of water. Read More »Consequences of AIDS denialism–African American Female HIV Rates
I ran across a blog that is titled Homeopathy: Science Modern Evidencebased (sic). Since any reasonable person would understand that homeopathy violates some of the basic principles of physics, chemistry and biology. And because there is no viable mechanism that would make you think homeopathy actually could work, clinical trials show that it doesn’t work, or, at best, it is a mythical placebo. So, if it doesn’t work in clinical trials, and there is no possible mechanism underlying it, employing Occam’s Razor, we would have to say the simplest explanation is the best: Homeopathy does not work. It’s a lie. It’s a scam. Period. End of story.
But you want more. You want real explanations. Read More »A homeopath discusses evidence based homeopathy–except no evidence
There are times I read pseudoscience online, and it causes my blood pressure to go through the roof. Of course, maybe life would be easier if I just accepted that everything written in the interwebs is accurate and THE TRUTH™. Today I read some comments about the new iPad where global warming denialists used junk science to support their ramblings. How the article moved from the new iPad to global warming is beyond the ability of me to describe.
I have a lot of smart people who I follow on Facebook and Twitter. Very few are actual friends or family, most are just like-minded people who entertain me with rational discussions on a wide range of topics. And sports.
Then one of my Facebook friends posted 10 Reasons Why Black People Should Not Take The HIV Tests! by Curtis Cost, a well-known member of the anti-vaccine gang. I thought it might be some racially charged article that I’d read and ignore, but it’s some of the worst AIDS-denialist junk that I’ve ever read. He makes these 10 points without one bit of evidence, completely violating the “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” Read More »AIDS denialist lies to African-American community