Shill Gambit

Big Milk says that the moon is not made of cheese — using logical fallacies

I just spent several days telling you about logical fallacies, let’s take a look at the argument that the moon is made of cheese. It’s kind of simple, instead of arguing about the evidence, the science denier will try to tell me that I shill for Big Pharma when I discuss the settled science of vaccine safety and effectiveness. Or I shill for Big Agriculture when I say that GMOs are safe or that glyphosate does not cause cancer.

So here is an imaginary (or is it?) conversation between myself and a member of the Moon Denier Society who claims that the moon landings were a hoax and that the moon is made of cheese. Apparently, I am a shill for Big Milk. I’m sure if I wrote that almond milk is bad for the environment, I received significant compensation from Big Milk. Fair disclosure, nope.

2017 top 10 list for the Skeptical Raptor – mostly about vaccines

Happy New Year to everyone who isn’t a Gregorian calendar denier, which is apparently not a thing (see Note 1). Because 1 January is generally a very low readership day for websites, probably as a result of excessive imbibing of ethanol based beverages, the Skeptical Raptor thought that a 2017 top 10 list for the website would be fascinating. Or something.

So time to take a look at what we wrote about in 2017 (mostly vaccines), what were the most read articles, and anything else that seems interesting about 2017 and the Skeptical Raptor. And it’s Day 3,747 without receiving a single check, bar of gold, Bitcoin or unmarked dollars from Big Pharma. This is unacceptable, unethical behavior on their part.

So here we go.Read More »2017 top 10 list for the Skeptical Raptor – mostly about vaccines

Bill Gates, part 3 – despised by GMO refusers

Bill Gates, through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) located in Seattle, Washington, is one of the world’s leading charities that brings advanced healthcare (including vaccinations) and other leading-edge technology to underdeveloped countries. As I’ve said before, I am not a hero worshipper, but there is something admirable and moral about a person who has built incredible wealth, and then decides to give it back to the world in a way that cannot itself be measured monetarily.

Bill and Melinda Gates appear to be genuinely devoted to helping people, especially those who lack access to modern technology and medicine. To that end, they have stated that they will give away about 95% of their wealth through charitable causes.

This focus on vaccines has made Bill Gates a target of the antivaccination lunatics. Numerous lies about Gates have become internet memes, from “Gates’ vaccines are population control” (based on a complete misreading of something he said) to Gates’ polio vaccines have paralyzed 47,000 kids in India. I refuted the most egregious lies. And then there’s the postmodernist antivaccine cretin Sayer Ji who invented a whole host of lies about Gates. I debunked those too.Read More »Bill Gates, part 3 – despised by GMO refusers

Antivaccine cult resorts to ad hominem attacks

by Michael Simpson
2020-09-14
16 Comments
Anti-vaccines, Logical fallacy, Pharmaceutical, Vaccines

I get a lot of email about this blog. Most of it is nice, many asking questions or recommending future topics. I do enjoy the recommendations, because it sometimes leads to some interesting areas of research.

Occasionally, I get critical emails, some civil, and some not quite as civil. And I got one of those emails, with interesting and not very creative ad hominem attacks – really could some of you do better than this?

Logical fallacies – debunking pseudoscience

by Michael Simpson
2016-01-28
3 Comments
AIDS denialism, Anti-science, Anti-vaccines, Climate change, Logical fallacy, Pseudoscience

Logical fallacies are essentially errors of reasoning in making an argument – identifying them is an excellent tool in debunking pseudoscience and other junk science. When logically fallacious arguments are used, usually based on bad reasoning to support a position (or to try to convince someone to adopt the same position), it is considered a fallacy.

Most of you didn’t know, because I didn’t promote it much, but I had a link in the menu for a list of logical fallacies. It lay fallow, barely read by me or, apparently, anyone else.

However, I decided to update and improve my list of favorite logical fallacies used by all of the pseudoscience crowd. There are many more logical fallacies than what I list, but this blog is focused on providing evidence, in a snarky way, against anti-science claims made by everyone from the vaccine deniers to creationists.Read More »Logical fallacies – debunking pseudoscience

The moon is made of cheese–Big Milk’s coverup of the Truth

Presented herewith is an online discussion with someone about the science of the earth’s moon. Or, pseudoscience.

Skeptical Raptor: The moon is a large, rocky body that orbits the earth. It is approximately 4.4 billion years old.

Moon Denier Society: The moon is made of cheese. That is the truth.

SR: The moon is not made of cheese. NASA landed on the moon and brought back rocks.

MDS: The moon is made of cheese. NASA faked the moon landings, everyone knows that. Those are just earth rocks.

SR: The moon is not made of cheese. We have evidence of the moon landings. And moon rocks differ so much from earth rocks, you couldn’t just exchange some rocks found on the ground with moon rocks. And they found no evidence of cheese anywhere.

I am not, nor have I ever been, a member of the Big Pharma Shill Party

by Michael Simpson
2020-09-14
7 Comments
Merck, Pharmaceutical, Vaccines, Website

My official Big Pharma Shill® t-shirt. Thanks to the Facebook group, Refutations to Anti-vaxx Memes. https://www.facebook.com/RtAVM

Occasionally, I receive thinly veiled questions about my integrity and ethics in the comments of various posts, in emails, or on social networking sites. Mostly, I laugh about them since they are a form of Ad hominem argument, called the Big Pharma Shill Gambit, where one side of an argument tries to dismiss the scientific evidence of another side by accusing them of being a paid mouthpiece for pharmaceutical companies. My response is generally to state that I am “polishing the gold bars stored in the basements of Big Pharma offices,” and I don’t get paid very much to do that–it’s just about the only answer worthy of the stupidity of these accusations.

The problem with actually trying to dismiss these accusations is that it’s nearly impossible to dismiss the accusations with evidence, because as we know, proving the negative is almost impossible. I could post my investment documents, and you will see that I own many shares of stock and mutual funds that invest in biotechnology and pharmaceuticals. Companies I might discuss might make up 0.1% of the holdings of the mutual fund, which means I own around 0.000000001% of a single Big Pharma company. Now, I am certainly not arrogant enough to believe that what I write has any effect on some company’s stock price, but if it did, I reap the rewards of ½¢. Woo hoo.

Of course, even if I did post my stock holdings, someone will accuse me of hiding my 2 million shares of Merck stock in my secret offshore bank account. Which probably is in the same vault as the shiny Big Pharma gold bars. Read More »I am not, nor have I ever been, a member of the Big Pharma Shill Party