OK...there's a huge Mercola article alleging that the H1N1 pandemic is a "massive" illusion (created by, presumably, very large magicians with great big scary magic wands). I'm pondering tackling the entire article, but meanwhile, I think it'd be OK if I took on the "fact" sheet they offer to anyone who'd like to print it and hang it up in their communities. See below each "fact" (there's really only one true--in intent and content--fact on there) and my parsing of it. I'd aver that if this list...

Saw this via 's twitter account. Looks interesting. Firing Bullets of Data at Cozy Anti-Science Published: November 4, 2009 “I always say that electricity is a fantastic invention,” the British economist Michael Lipton once told Michael Specter, whose bristling new book, “Denialism,” explores the dangerous ways in which scientific progress can be misunderstood. “But if the first two products had been the electric chair and the cattle prod,” Mr. Lipton continued, “I doubt that most consumers wo...

I saw this on Richard Wiseman's blog. The illusion is from an art exhibit in Dresden, Germany entitled "Tour of Senses" which presents a number of illusions. Sounds like a fun exhibit. I'd love for something like that to come to my city. (Image)

Wallace Sampson writing at Science-Based Medicine seems to be arguing against national health care for fear that the political system will be used to enshrine alt-med in federal health policy and law: Licensing of chiropractors, acupuncturists, naturopaths in US states lends legitimacy. Those occupations got licensing through political pressure and a lot of campaign contributions. Once included in a federal system, they will be more difficult to expel. If we can meet sectarianism in the open fi...

Bolding mine... Reinforcing its new policy role, Obama has brought his office under the purview of his Domestic Policy Council, delighting many faith leaders, particularly on the left. "The Bush office was totally disconnected from policy," says Wallis. "That White House was doing social policy that made poor people poorer, and the faith-based office would try to clean up the mess." The faith advisory council will submit first drafts of policy recommendations in October. "The council has access ...

The following is the second adapted excerpt of an upcoming article called “The Untold Story of Acupuncture.” It is scheduled to be published in December 2009 in Focus in Alternative and Complementary Therapies (FACT), a review journal that presents the evidence on alternative medicine in an analytical and impartial manner. This section argues that the current flurry of interest in acupuncture and Oriental Medicine stems predominantly out of postmodern opposition to Enlightenment rationalism, an...

If this is your cup of tea, I had an interesting conversation with Daniel Loxton ("Where Do We Go From Here", Jr. Skeptic Magazine) and Jim Lippard today on Twitter. You can read it prefaced with my summary of my position at Neural Gourmet. (Link)

According to Media Matters, Fox Business Network is available in 49,000,000 households. Yet it only has 21,000 viewers. Wow. I wonder what the ROI for advertisers is? :D (Link)

It's hard to believe that this didn't appear as satire on the Onion or Objective Ministries, but it's real. Apparently Christian parents are upset about a piece of whimsical playground sculpture at an UC Berkeley playground loosely modeled after the structure of DNA. "My daughter suggested that it was funny," said John Copeland, whose 7-year-old daughter attends summer camp there. "She shouldn't be talking to me about this. Now I'm forced to explain genetics to her, and why the Bible doesn't sa...

If you are exercising regularly as part of a weight loss program, then good for you. Studies have proven the value of exercise in reducing cardiovascular disease, preventing and treating diabetes, sustaining cognition, enhancing the immune system, and even reducing the risk of getting certain cancers. But narrowly considered, does exercise really help people lose weight? Not as much as you might think. ... A recent study, published this year by PLos One, looked at 464 overweight women, and divi...

An interesting article in the NY Times extolling Bassett Healthcare in Cooperstown, NY as an ideal model in both lowering health costs and improving quality of care. Bassett, whose doctors are salaried rather than receiving fees for services, has managed to deliver healthcare at costs that are lower than 90% of all other hospitals in New York State while being ranked in the top 10% nationally for quality of care. Dr. William F. Streck, the longtime president of Bassett, said the hospital paid s...

This is a fairly lengthy article (~1,800 words) so I'm just going to post a few short snippets here. The article talks a little bit about how Sen's ideas are becoming influential in the Labour Party in the UK. I wish the Democrats could start seeing how Sen's ideas relate to inequality and economics in the U.S. too. Then we might finally have a Democratic Party that is actually capable of doing things like getting meaningful healthcare reform. “Responsible adults," Sen wrote, "must be in charge...

"The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this." -- Albert Einstein, January 3, 1954 in a letter to philosopher Eric Gutkind More: (Link)

Found on the blog... (Image) Gotta have your priorities, right?

The numbers I found which were only good as of 2003 said that the average number of cigarettes smoked per day is about 15 for white males (about 9 for black males) over the age of 26. Slightly less than 20% smoke more than a pack a day. Source: (Link) But the actual numbers in no way affect the rest of your argument which is quite true. Pot smokers smoke until they've reached the desired effect, then they stop. Even for overall heavy cannabis smokers, the overall effect is that they inhale far...

Do you ever wonder why some conspiracy theories, no matter how retarded they sound, seem to never die? Where do these things come from, anyway? Well, it turns out that politicians have realized that in the Internet age, a good conspiracy theory can work wonders. So why not just start one? You know, like... (Link) The conspiracy theories lightly treated are: Barack Obama isn't a natural born citizen of the United StatesThe "Clinton Body Count"The Jews Secretly Run the WorldWater Fluoridation i...

The unlikely friends of the Holocaust memorial killer An anti-liberal ideology is being created by groups who would once have been sworn enemies Nick Cohen The Observer, Sunday 14 June 2009 ... Yet for all his roots in neo-Nazism, von Brunn was also a transitional figure who typified a wider range of forces than I can adequately squeeze into the "far right" label. He was an enthusiastic "truther", who went on the net to deny that the al-Qaida attacks on New York and Washington had surprised the...

Bayer Aspirin (325mg) Active ingredient (in each tablet) Aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid). Pain reliever/fever reducer Inactive ingredients carnauba wax*, corn starch, hypromellose, powdered cellulose, triacetin * may contain this ingredient (Link) I assume you have no problem with the acetylsalicylic acid, but let's look at the other ingredients. Carnauba wax: A wax derived from the leaves of the carnauba palm. It's used as a release agent, anti-caking agent, and surface finishing agent. Sure...

Got the news a couple of hours ago and thought this would be of interest to the denizens of this group. I'll cross post in A&A and R&T too. CFI is the parent organization of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (formerly CSICOP) and the Council For Secular Humanism. It's a press release, meant for widespread distribution, so I'll post the whole thing. The Center for Inquiry and its affiliate organizations, the Council for Secular Humanism and the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, announced today...

Whether we believe in the divine or not, I think there's one thing everyone who posts in R&T here on DU does believe. The separation of church and state, the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, is a cornerstone of our government and way of life. Every year bloggers from all over write for three days straight in support of church-state separation in an attempt to raise awareness of church-state issues. Blog Against Theocracy 2009 is well under way and already there are scads of posts jus...

This is a few days old, but I thought I'd post it anyway for anyone who might not have saw it in the news. Rod Beckstrom, the Director of the National Cybersecurity Center resigned less than a year after the office was created as a division of the Department of Homeland Security to coordinate government cybersecurity efforts. In his resignation letter to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, Beckstrom said he “did not receive appropriate support” from the DHS. “During the past year the NCSC rece...

Clive Thompson writing for Wired and the New York Times however does. This is the paradox of ambient awareness. Each little update — each individual bit of social information — is insignificant on its own, even supremely mundane. But taken together, over time, the little snippets coalesce into a surprisingly sophisticated portrait of your friends’ and family members’ lives, like thousands of dots making a pointillist painting. This was never before possible, because in the real world, no friend...

This is one of the coolest things ever. Who'd ever think to use Tesla coils as speakers!? Well, apparently ArcAttack! did. Here's a video of the Doctor Who theme played on Tesla coils. (Link) More on ArcAttack!'s website: (Link)

You don't understand what evolution is, or how it works. I'm not trying to be mean when I say this. The popular portrayal of evolution is highly inaccurate so if that's all you've got to go on you're very likely to come to some very strange conclusions. Complicating the matter is that there are players out there consciously trying to muddy the waters, such as The Discovery Institute. If you're interested, and it sounds like you are, then a good jumping off point is this article appearing in New...

By definition, “alternative” medicine consists of treatments that have not been scientifically proven and that have not been accepted into mainstream medicine. The question I keep hearing is, “But what about acupuncture? It’s been proven to work, it’s supported by lots of good research, more and more doctors are using it, and insurance companies even pay for it.” It’s time the acupuncture myth was punctured — preferably with an acupuncture needle. Almost everything you’ve heard about acupunctu...

For many people, they can get that same sense of awe and wonder simply by ponying up $9 for a movie ticket. And the neat thing about movies is that they don't need explaining usually. You just sit there, turn off your mind and get amazed. However when it comes to this...? (Image) Oh sure. It's a pretty picture. But what is it? It's all well and good to rattle off that it's a picture of a glowing shell of gas some 19,000 million million miles away, somewhere off in the direction of the constel...

Our local CFI affiliate, FreeThought Fort Wayne, taped our little cable access show this morning. I did my vaccine myths segment where I had an infectious disease specialist give me a flu shot on camera. Like I said above, this was in a full TV studio full of electronic equipment and I'm pretty sure there was a cell tower less than a half mile away. The microwaves and radio waves must have amped up the effects of all the toxic chemicals in the flu vaccine and now I have both the mutant autism an...

 
That's very cute. (Link)

Oh, if only we were all as perfect as you. Two problems: 1) Repeat after me, "The plural of anecdote is not data." 2) Horrible additives? Please list the "horrible additives" found in non-Whole Foods Brand pasta and canned tomatoes, along with supporting evidence.

That societies collapse because of diminishing returns on investment in complexity. However, even Tainter doesn't see his thesis as relevant to contemporary societies: From The Collapse of Complex Societies, pp. 213-214 (Link) (Image)