Debunking
Moon hoax comic
Darryl Cunningham, who took down homeopathy and Andrew Wakefield in comic form, has turned his attention to the Moon Hoax. His cartoon about it is very well done and worth checking out.
The Vaccine Song
This is, quite simply, brilliant. The Vaccine Song:
I have a hard time disagreeing with anything in that song*. I really wish everyone knew that at the same time Jenny McCarthy is railing against vaccines for their toxins, she was injecting botox — which contains botulin, one of the deadliest substances known to mankind — directly into her face.
* I’m not thrilled with the ad hominems in the song, but the point is well-taken: people would rather listen to someone like McCarthy and Carrey, who have no medical expertise at all, over their trained and experienced doctors.
No, methane from the BP oil leak won’t kill us all
While I was at TAM 8 a breathless story came out claiming that methane erupting from the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico was going to cause a catastrophic global extinction event. I knew the story smelled bad right away* but was a bit busy at the meeting, so I couldn’t attack it.
Happily, my pal Annalee Newitz at io9 did. She talked to actual experts and found out there simply isn’t enough methane leaking from the oil plume to do much except to the local environment. In my humble opinion, this ecological disaster sucks enough without adding hysteria to it.
Homeopathy made simple
Daryl Cunningham — the man who did this devastating comic strip about antivaxxers — has turned his sights on homeopathy. In just a few dozen panels he describes this alt-med nonsense, shows why it’s nonsense, shows why it’s dangerous, and then provides a dramatic and emotional example of just how and why belief in homeopathy can kill.
Climategate’s death rattle
Hear that choking sound? That’s the dying gasps of Climategate. The Pennsylvania State University’s investigation into allegations of misconduct by climate scientist Michael Mann found him innocent, specifically saying:
… the Investigatory Committee determined that Dr. Michael E. Mann did not engage in, nor did he participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions that seriously deviated from accepted practices within the academic community for proposing, conducting, or reporting research, or other scholarly activities.
Astrología es el toro
My friend Lourdes Cahuich is a professor, educator, and all-around astronomy promoter. Concerned over the prevalence of astrology in the Hispanic community, she translated my entire astrology debunking into Spanish. That’s quite a feat, since as you’d expect I had a lot to say!
It was long enough to break into three parts:
Penn’s – and the syringe’s – point
Sure, you know Penn Jillette — the larger, louder half of Penn & Teller. Penn’s an interesting character — a vocal skeptic, to say the least, in that what’s on his mind is on his lips. He and I don’t always agree, but when we do, we do.
Such is the case with antivaxxer Dr. Andrew Wakefield, the long-discredited and now disbarred guy who started the whole modern craze of getting preventable diseases to resurge. I’ve been pretty clear about what I think of Dr. Wakefield, and now you can see what Penn thinks, too, on his new online show Penn Point:
Bad astrology
Like there’s any other kind!
Wacky astrologer is wacky
Terry Nazon is a professional astrologer. That really tells you right away most of what you need to know: she’s wrong, because her whole profession is based on misinterpretation, bad science, and human fallacy. Astrology doesn’t work.
Oddly, astrologers tend to flip out when you mention that to them (and they really freak when you go into details, as I did in that link above). They claim you don’t understand astrology, you’re in denial, and that besides, their flavor of astrology is The One True Flavor. Of course, when you ask for actual specifics, they lapse into goobledygook, spin, and anecdotes.
Senate narrowly votes down antiscience greenhouse gas Resolution
A Senate vote yesterday narrowly allowed the Environmental Protection Agency to monitor and regulate greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles. There has been a lot of spin and furor over this vote, but in the end I think that this was heavily (though not totally) influenced by a political (and heavily partisan) denial of climate change.
