May 10, 2007
Is it the 9/11 cranks saying it? Of course not. Instead it's the Wall Street Journal Editorial Page featuring Peter Hoekstra.
And you wonder why we call the WSJ editorial page a denialist organization?
In the mid-1990s, Bill Clinton's first Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, declared that…
May 10, 2007
At Infophilia.
In particular I like Conspiracy factory's anecdote about anecdotes.
May 10, 2007
Not to harp on Uncommon Descent today, but their seeming inability to see words that they don't like gives the appearance of no reading comprehension skills whatsoever. Take for example their read of this New Scientist article on cute little marsupials.
Let's first quote from the article:
From the…
May 10, 2007
DaveScot, crank extraordinaire at Uncommon Descent, has made the mistake of talking about Thomas Jefferson now that there is UVa representation on the Scienceblogs.
He makes the argument that because the constitution only dealt with federal separation of church and state (before the…
May 8, 2007
I'd like to hear from some other sciencebloggers and science readers what they think reform of peer-review should look like. I'm not of the opinion that it has any critical flaws, but most people would like to see more accountability for sand-bagging and other bad reviewer habits. Something like…
May 7, 2007
Hey PZ, when do I get access to the time machine! I'm so jealous.
Apparently sites like Talk Origins and Panda's thumb have been subverting the study of transposons because of their Darwinist bigotry. And they've been doing it since 1956!
According to the press release, however, it has taken…
May 7, 2007
Visit the Bronze Blog for a very thorough list of woo justifications, or Doggerel as Bronze Dog puts it, and help him think of more examples.
My favorite so far they once thought the Earth was flat.
May 7, 2007
I thought Michael Egnor was the DI's biggest liability for stupid arguments. Now I'm thinking based on Aferensis' posts that it's probably Dave Scot based on his suggestion that "All the hominid fossils we have wouldn't fill a single coffin."
But my favorite part of how embarrassing he is for…
May 7, 2007
I should just feed every xkcd straight into the scienceblogs.
Luckily they believe in CC.
May 7, 2007
Dembski misses the point as always with his recent post describing why the vertebrate eye is again evidence of design. You see, the big bad Darwinists used the structure of the eye, which has its photoreceptors in the back behind all the layers of the retina, as evidence that our eye isn't…
May 4, 2007
For this Friday afternoon I thought I'd rehash a previous post from denialism.com on adult stem cells and those that hype results inappropriately to disparage embryonic stem (ES) cells. It all started with an exciting JAMA article about using autologous stem cell transplants to help treat type I…
May 4, 2007
I'm turning on moderation since the 9/11 truthers have shown up and desire to show me how they're not cranks by hijacking threads and linking their conspiracy sites.
Sorry about that. But I don't think it's a valuable use of time to argue with cranks. I also won't accept comments that are just…
May 4, 2007
I realize I've put this up before, but it's too relevant to our discussions all week to pass up.
Via xkcd.
May 4, 2007
Almost everybody knows about the fallacies of logic, formal and informal, that are routinely used in arguments with denialists. While these fallacies aren't perfect examples of logic that show when an argument is always wrong, they are good rules of thumb to tell when you're listening to bunk, and…
May 3, 2007
Well, I won't watch CNN anymore, after Glenn Beck decided to call climate scientists who actually believe climate science Nazis. You read his profile at Media Matters and it's clear pretty much anyone he disagrees with is a Nazi.
Disagree with him on healthcare? You're a Nazi.
Disagree with him on…
May 3, 2007
I'm sorry for mixing terminologies. But moving goalposts isn't adequate to describe the full hilarity of the kinds of arguments denialists make. For instance, the goalposts never have to be moved when they require evidence that places them somewhere in the land before time. What I mean is the…
May 2, 2007
It was pointed out in a comment in our FRC post how much cherry picking resembles rank dishonesty.
That's because it is. Deception is inherent in denialist arguments, and there are few better examples than Sal Cordova's selective quotation as demonstrated by Ed Brayton in Dispatches from the…
May 2, 2007
You know who they are - those organizations that have words like "freedom" and "rights" "choice" and "consumer" in their names but always shill for corporate interests...those occasional MDs or engineers creationists find that will say evolution has nothing to do with science. They are the fake…
May 1, 2007
How will we ever know the truth about 4-29. I say, it was a conspiracy to undermine 9-11 truth to show that fuel from a tanker truck could actually melt steel and cause a freeway to collapse. Initial photos from the site raise lots of questions.
And if you visit the 9/11 truth site 9/11…
May 1, 2007
Some might wonder why I include some right-wing "family" organizations on the list of denialists. It's simple. In their efforts to oppose all forms of contraception, they routinely lie about the science behind the efficacy of condoms for STD-prevention (just like HIV/AIDS denialists), the efficacy…
May 1, 2007
For our next installment of the big five tactics in denialism we'll discuss the tactic of selectivity, or cherry-picking of data.
Denialists tend to cite single papers supporting their idea (often you have to squint to see how it supports their argument). Similarly they dig up discredited or…
April 30, 2007
A crank is defined as a man who cannot be turned.
- Nature, 8 Nov 1906
Here at denialism blog, we're very interested in what makes people cranks. Not only how one defines crankish behavior, but literally how people develop unreasonable attitudes about the world in the face of evidence to the…
April 30, 2007
Three can keep a secret if two are dead.
-Benjamin Franklin
What are denialist conspiracy theories and why should people be instantly distrustful of them? And what do they have to do with denialism?
Almost every denialist argument will eventually devolve into a conspiracy. This is because…
April 30, 2007
Hello and welcome to denialism blog.
Here we will discuss the problem of denialists, their standard arguing techniques, how to identify denialists and/or cranks, and discuss topics of general interest such as skepticism, medicine, law and science. I'll be taking on denialists in the sciences,…
