Carnival of Fighting Malaria (and DDT)

October 8, 2008

It’s been about a year since the first, completely impromptu Carnival of DDT.  Last fall, in October and November, there was enough going on about DDT to merit something like a blog carnival, with a second in November.

My news searches today turned up a number of items of interest in DDT and fighting malaria — enough to merit another summary post, IMHO.  Here goes.

First, Tim Lambert at Deltoid sets straight the history of the policy of the World Health Organization (WHO) with regard to DDT use, and whether WHO caved in to pressures from environmentalists to completely ban DDT, as Roger Bate had earlier, erroneously said.  Tim has a number of well-researched, well-reasoned posts on DDT and health; people researching the issue should be sure to visit the archives of his blog.  But for today, make sure you read “Roger Bates’ false history.”

Ornithologist Tom Cade holds a gyrfalcon, which is larger than the peregrine falcons he helped to preserve. Now working to aid the revival of the California condors, he will speak Friday at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary. Allentown (Pennsylvania) Morning-Call

Ornithologist Tom Cade holds a gyrfalcon, which is larger than the peregrine falcons he helped to preserve. Now working to aid the revival of the California condors, he will speak Friday (October 10) at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary. Allentown (Pennsylvania) Morning-Call

(Photo above has gone missing; see photo below)

Ornithologist Tom Cade, with a falcon; photo by Kate Davis, from Cade's biography at Global Raptors

Ornithologist Tom Cade, with a falcon; photo by Kate Davis, from Cade’s biography at Global Raptors

This Friday the Hawk Mountain Sanctuary presents an award to Tom Cade, the Boise, Idaho guy credited with doing much to save the endangered peregrine falcon. You can read about it in the Allentown, Pennsylvania, Morning Call.

Cade played a major role in reviving the nearly extinct peregrine falcon in the 1970s. As a graduate student, he studied how a pesticide contributed to their sharp population decline. He eventually founded a conservation group, The Peregrine Fund, which reintroduced captivity-bred birds to the wild.

. . . The falcon’s revival is widely considered one of the most successful recoveries of an endangered species. The species teetered on the brink of extinction in 1970, when as few as 39 known pairs of nesting falcons existed. A 2003 survey puts the number of nesting pairs at more than 3,100.

On Thursday Cade will receive the Sarkis Acopian Award for Distinguished Achievement in Raptor Conservation.  According to The Morning Call, “The award is given infrequently by Hawk Mountain officials and is named after the Kempton-area bird sanctuary’s primary benefactor, a late philanthropist who studied engineering at Lafayette College.”

Also, see this story about the recovery of peregrines in Canada, from the Sudbury Star.

Bug Girl tells the story of a new documentary on the Michigan State University professor who documented the deaths of songbirds made famous in Rachel Carson’s book, Silent Spring. Dr. George J. Wallace’s work became the subject of an article in Environmental Journalism in 2005.  Students and faculty at MSU’s Knight Center for Environmental Journalism produced the movie, “Dying to Be Heard.”  Be sure to check out the comments at Bug Girl, for more information.

International health care expert César Chelala argues that the “War Against Malaria Can Be Won, Without DDT” at the on-line Epoch Times. Chelala reports on a project in Mexico — where DDT use has never stopped since 1946 — a project now extended to other places in Central America, demonstrating that the tried and true methods of preventing mosquitoes from breeding and avoiding contact work well to fight malaria.  Plus, he says, it’s cheaper than using DDT.  Doubt that it could work?  Chelala points out that the Panama Canal could not be dug without controlling mosquito-borne illnesses, and the Canal was opened in 1914, 25 years before DDT was demonstrated to be deadly to insects, more than 30 years before widespread deployment of DDT.

Early detection and treatment is critical to eliminate the parasite carriers. An important aspect of this project has been the collaboration of voluntary community health workers who are taught to make an early diagnosis in situ and to administer complete courses of treatment not only to those affected but also to the patients’ immediate contacts.

The project was carried out in specific pilot areas called “demonstration areas” which had been selected due to their high levels of malaria transmission. In those areas, the number of malaria cases fell 63% from 2004 to 2007. In several demonstration areas I visited in Honduras and Mexico as a consultant for the Pan American Health Organization malaria had practically been eliminated. Plans are underway to expand the project to other regions where malaria remains a serious threat.

One of the advantages of not using DDT (besides avoiding its toxic effects) is the enormous savings realized from discontinuing its routine use. These savings can now be put to good use with other diseases.

You might also want to view Chelala’s description of solutions for public health crises in Africa, at The Globalist.

Chelala’s cool, clear and accurate reporting sadly contrasts with the hysteric and wrong reporting at Newsbusters and other polemical outlets on the web, seemingly bent on perpetration of the hoax that DDT is harmless and Rachel Carson was wrong.

Liz Rothchild’s one-woman play about Rachel Carson, “Another Kind of Silence,” got good reviews upon opening at the Warehouse Theatre, in Croydon, England.

Meanwhile, from Uganda comes news that DDT spraying failed to reduce malaria in spraying done in that nation. Proponents expected a sharp and steep decline in malaria, but numbers are not greatly reduced.  Even after taking account for the legal difficulties of spraying, after conservative businessmen sought an injunction to stop DDT use, the results do not speak well for DDT’s effectiveness.

Contrary to expectations, data collected by health departments in Apac and Oyam districts, which record the highest malaria incidence in the world, do not reflect significant improvements since DDT spraying ended prematurely. From May to July 2008, which is the period immediately following the spraying, between 400 and 600 clinical malaria cases per 100,000 of the population were reported per week in Oyam; and 600 to 800 such cases in Apac for the same period. These are almost exactly the same as the number of cases reported between January and April 2008.

Getting news out of Africa is not always easy.  Reading reports from Ugandan papers, it becomes clear that reporting standards differ greatly from the U.S. to Uganda.  Still, the saga from Uganda demonstrates that DDT is no panacea.  Uganda is a nation that had not used DDT extensively prior to the mid-1960s.  Resistance to use now comes from tobacco and cotton interests who speciously claim that potential DDT contamination of crops would result in the European Union banning vital Ugandan exports.  The legal issues all alone assume Shakespearean tragedy dimensions.  Or, perhaps more accurately, we could call the story Kafkaesque.

See also:

Happily, we have evidence that younger people show concern about DDT pollution, in a story about the stuff in Teen Ink magazine.

A study in the UK finds DDT present in colostrum, the vital pre-milk substance newly-lactating mothers create for their babies, as well as in later breast milk.

Bed bugs continue their own surge on Americans, and knee-jerk writers editorialize for the return of DDT, completely unaware that bed bugs are among those critters most resistant to DDT, and unaware that there are other, more effective solutions.

James McWilliams writes in The Texas Observer that most of us are ecological illiterates, which makes control of pollution more difficult, in a review of a new book, The Gulf Stream. Canny readers will recognize McWilliams as the author of the recently-published book, American Pests: Our Losing War on Insects from Colonial Times to DDT.

Sandra Steingraber will lecture on November 11 in Philadelphia on “The Many Faces of DDT,” part of a series of lectures sponsored by the Chemical Heritage Foundation, “Molecules That Matter.”  Steingraber is the author of Living Downstream:  An ecologist looks at cancer and the environment.

Canada’s Leader-Post reports that Chinese food processors have been caught using DDT in food to reduce insect infestations.  The cycle starts all over again.

Time for this carnival’s midway to shut down for the night.  Don’t let the bed bugs bite.

3 Comments | Accuracy, Africa, Books, DDT, Environmental protection, Health care, Hoaxes, Malaria, Politics, Rachel Carson, Science, Voodoo science, War on Science | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Michael Crichton’s errors worshipped by warming deniers

September 28, 2008

The Millard Fillmore soap-on-a-rope* started spinning in the shower this morning.  I knew some mischief was afoot.

Sure enough, as soon as we turned the gas on to the computer and the screen warmed up, what should pop up but a group claiming to be opposed to junk science and arrogant ignorance, but arrogantly spreading the ignorance of junk science:  Climate Change Fraud, “The Crichtonian Green.”

I caught the site with a news reader that looks for idiocy about DDT.  This is the line the automoton caught:

“DDT is not a carcinogen…the DDT ban has caused the deaths of tens of millions of poor people…”

We’ve washed out the dirt from Crichton’s claims before in the Bathtub, in “Michael Crichton hysterical for DDT.”  Go read his errors there (there’s a YouTube video of his assaulting innocent school children with his hysteric errors, too, in case you think I’m joking).

Among the anti-science crowds, this stuff is holy writ.  Dogma insists that scientists are craven political creatures driven to silly programs that waste money and hurt poor people.  Never mind the facts.  They believe it religiously — and they treat efforts to educate them as assaults on their faith.

DDT is a well-established carcinogen in animals, including mammals, and every cancer-fighting agency on Earth lists DDT as a probable human carcinogen.  The various “bans” on DDT all allow DDT to be used to protect poor people against disease, but DDT’s overuse by its advocates led to rapid evolution of resistance and immunity in insects targeted by DDT — DDT use was stopped when it stopped being effective.  Inaction on the part of DDT advocates, and their unwillingness to use other methods to fight malaria, have been culprits in the too-slow program to reduce malaria among poor people.   Spraying DDT advocates with DDT will do absolutely nothing to get them off their butts to act.

(Go to the search feature on this blog, search for “DDT.”  The truth is out there.)

Oy.  This is how the week starts?

__________

*  No, I never did get a Millard Fillmore soap-on-a-rope; but it makes a good gambit to open a post, don’t you think?

8 Comments | Accuracy, Bogus history, Climate change, DDT, Global warming, History, Hoaxes, Junk science, Politics, Rampant stupidity, Science, Voodoo science, War on Science | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

90 years ago today, the fighting 369th won the war

September 25, 2008

You won’t find it phrased that way in any of the textbooks, but it would improve the telling of history of World War I if we did tell it that way.  This retelling promises to be a good one.

It might improve race relations in the U.S., too.

The story of the Harlem Hellfighters, the 369th Infantry Regiment, and their bravery and fighting acumen in World War I, make for a gripping day of war stories, if you’re looking for stories of heroism.

Edge of the American West is one of those blogs that will make you smarter as you read it, rather than angrier.  If someone is wrong somewhere on the internet, Edge of the American West will help you keep it in perspective.

Leave a Comment » | 1914-1918, Accuracy, Citizenship, Civil Rights, Heroes, History, veterans, World War I | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Palin slashes Special Olympics Budget: Accurate statement still unfair?

September 24, 2008

This is how bad it is:  Even accurate statements about Gov. Sarah Palin are called unfair by McCain campaign operatives and hard-shell, stiff-necked partisans.

Conservatives are complaining about media coverage of Gov. Sarah Palin.  For example, they say, she is accused of cutting funding for Alaska’s Special Olympics in half.  Not fair they say, and they offer the actual figures:  The budget for Special Olympics for 2007 from the Alaska legislature was $650,000.  Palin used her line-item veto, and cut the funding to $275,000.

Hello?  Half of $650,000 would be $325,000.  Palin cut the Special Olympics budget by 58%. Last time I looked at the math tables, 58% was more than half of 100%.

So, why would it not be fair to say that Palin cut the funding by half?  She cut it by more than half.

Oh, no, the conservatives say:  ‘You have to let us jigger the numbers first — the final total, after Palin cut it, was still more than the previous year’s allocation from the state.’

Charlie Martin at Pajamas Media takes up the conservatives’ cudgel, that it’s unfair to Sarah Palin to report her budget cuts accurately (you know, not even Dave Barry could make this stuff up).

And then Glenn Reynolds joins the morning howl, complaining that “main stream media” isn’t interested in debunking the “rumor.”

Excuse me?  Why should anyone be interested in “debunking” a “rumor” which is, as the sources indicate and the conservatives’ own research demonstrates, neither rumor nor error, but hard fact?

If you needed a demonstration that conservatives cannot count, or that they will not count accurately when only honor is at stake, these sorts of stories will do.

Below the fold, for the sake of accuracy, you’ll find a longish excerpt from Charlie Martin’s analysis.

Read the rest of this entry »

Leave a Comment » | Accuracy, Debunking, denialism, Elections, Ethics, History Revisionism, Hoaxes, McCain 2008, Newspapers, Obama 2008, Politics, Uncomposted Organic Fertilizer, Voodoo history | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Governors with broad foreign policy experience? Here’s a short list, Sen. Hutchison

September 14, 2008

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, joined a panel on CBS’s “Face the Nation” this morning, discussing the qualifications to be vice president of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

She said, “Four of the last presidents have been governors, and they have come in, every one of them, without an in-depth foreign policy experience.”  Hutchison suggested that Palin reads the newspapers and knows as much as the average governor about foreign policy, but doesn’t need significant knowledge in foreign affairs.

Hutchison challenged:  “Name one governor who has become president who has had in-depth foreign policy experience.”

It pains me when public officials demonstrate such a vast lack of knowledge about American history.  Because you’re from Texas, Sen. Hutchison, let me give you the facts, so you can avoid gaffes in the future.

1.  Thomas Jefferson, former governor of Virginia, assumed the presidency after having served as the American Ambassador to France, after extensive travels through Europe specifically to study government and foreign affairs, and after having served as both Secretary of State to George Washington, and vice president to John Adams.  If we ignore Jefferson’s service after his governorship, we would note that he read fluently in both Greek and Latin before he was 20, and had read extensively of the histories of Rome, Greece, France, Britain and the rest of Europe.  By the time he assumed the presidency he had added fluent French, passing Italian, and Hebrew to his catalog of languages.

Jefferson was a Democratic-Republican (the first of that party), the party that is today known as the Democratic Party.  Perhaps Sen. Hutchison is party blind.

2.  Theodore Roosevelt — you remember him, the guy with the glasses on Mt. Rushmore? — came to the vice presidency in 1901 from being governor of New York.  Prior to that he had been Assistant U.S. Secretary of the Navy, a post from which he wrote the book on naval power in the new age, for foreign affairs.  When the Spanish American War broke out, Roosevelt thought his desk job as head of the Navy too tame, so he created an elite corps of cavalrymen, recruiting almost equally from his old cowboy friends in the Dakotas and his Harvard friends, and insisted on service in the front lines.  His 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, the “Rough Riders” were deployed to Cuba.  Coming under fire, they stormed San Juan Hill and pushed better-trained, veteran Spanish troops off, thereby winning the battle (Roosevelt was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for this action, though many years after his death).  Among the more interesting facts:  Their horses had not made it to Cuba; Roosevelt led the charge on foot.  He always was impatient.

Roosevelt’s experience came in handy.  He was the guy who pushed the Japanese and Russians to a peace treaty, ending the Russo-Japanese War, in 1906.  Roosevelt was awarded the Nobel Prize in Peace for this work (he’s the only person ever to have won the Congressional Medal of Honor and been president, and the only Congressional Medal of Honor winner to win a Nobel Prize, and vice versa.  If we’re making a case that one doesn’t need foreign affairs experience to be vice president, for fairness, we should consider that vice president’s with foreign affairs experience provide great advantages to the nation, and have advanced the cause of peace, and readiness.

New York City, the major city in New York, was in 1900 one of the world’s greatest cities, a major trading center, and one of America’s largest ports (Roosevelt had been police commissioner there, earlier).  The population of the city alone was 3,437,202.  The population of the entire state was 7,268,894.  Alaska’s population today is about 670,000

3.  Franklin D. Roosevelt arrived at the White House after four years as governor of New York. Like his cousin before him, Roosevelt had served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, during a period of frequent intervention in Central America and Caribbean nations.  It is reputed that FDR wrote the constitution imposed on Haiti in 1915.  In his Navy post, Roosevelt visited England and France, and made the acquaintance of Winston Churchill.  Roosevelt played a key role in the establishment of the Navy Reserve, and fought to keep the Navy from decommissioning after the end of World War I.  FDR came from a privileged family.  They made frequent trips to Europe, and by the time he was 18 FDR was conversant in both French and German.  A philatelist, his knowledge of the world’s business and trade was rather legendary.

4.  Jimmy Carter graduated high in his class at the U.S. Naval Academy, where the required curriculum includes extensive instruction in foreign affairs.  He was chosen by Adm. Hyman Rickover for the elite nuclear submarine corps.  As Georgia’s governor, Carter was elected to the Council on Foreign Relations, a non-governmental group whose intention is to create knowledge about foreign relations in the U.S. in order to aid in defense and trade, and the Trilateral Commission, a group founded on the idea that trade between the U.S., Japan and Europe can be a basis for improving international relations and trade.

5. Bill Clinton graduated from Georgetown University with the degree of Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service (BSFS), from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service.  Phi Beta Kappa, he won a Rhodes Scholarship, designed to pick from the next generation of great leaders, and got a degree in government in his studies at University College, Oxford.  He also traveled Europe during that time.

Hutchison’s point may apply to two Republican governors who won the White House, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.  They brought other gifts, but their lack of foreign policy experience nearly led to a nuclear war with the Soviet Union in Reagan’s first term, and Bush’s lack of foreign policy knowledge probably led to the unfortunate invasion of Iraq, which has led our nation too close to the brink of national calamity.

And for good measure, let’s list this guy at #6:  Bill Richardson, the current governor of New Mexico, has a sound reputation in international relations, as a former Secretary of Energy, and former U.S. Ambassodor to the United Nations.  Among other things, Richardson talked the North Koreans into shutting down their nuclear bomb plans and operations in 1994.  When the Bush administration squirreled that deal, it was Bill Richardson again who stepped in (at the request of the North Koreans — they trust him), and got them to agree to back off the most recent bomb plans and development.  “Richardson has been recognized for negotiating the release of hostages, American servicemen, and political prisoners in North Korea, Iraq, and Cuba.”  In 14 years as a congressman representing New Mexico, Richardson “visited Nicaragua, Guatemala, Cuba, Peru, India, North Korea, Bangladesh, Nigeria, and Sudan to represent U.S. interests.”  He previously staffed the Foreign Relations Committee of the U.S. Senate, and worked for Henry Kissinger’s State Department in the Nixon Administration.

Contrary to Hutchison’s claim, of the four “recent” governors to gain the White House, two (both Democrats) had foreign relations education or experience far beyond that of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, and at least three other governors brought extensive foreign relations experience with them; one other has foreign relations experience a Secretary of State might envy.

Those are the facts.

Sen. Hutchison:  Can you earmark about $200,000 for education in foreign affairs for Dallas high schools?  Perhaps you can see, now, that experience and education in foreign affairs is useful for high office.  My students will be seeking those offices sooner than we may expect.

I wouldn’t want them wandering the world thinking lack of knowledge about foreign affairs is a good thing.

Update:  Calvin Coolidge was governor of Massachusetts before being elected to the vice presidency on a ticket with Warren G. Harding.  Coolidge’s foreign relations experience could be said to be lacking.  However, Coolidge’s experience as a mayor and governor differed greatly from Palin’s:

[From Wikipedia’s entry on Coolidge] Instead of vying for another term in the state house, Coolidge returned home to his growing family and ran for mayor of Northampton when the incumbent Democrat retired. He was well-liked in the town, and defeated his challenger by a vote of 1,597 to 1,409.[29] During his first term (1910 to 1911), he increased teachers’ salaries and retired some of the city’s debt while still managing to effect a slight tax decrease.[30] He was renominated in 1911, and defeated the same opponent by a slightly larger margin.[31]

And, later:

Coolidge was unopposed for the Republican nomination for Governor of Massachusetts in 1918. He and his running mate, Channing Cox, a Boston lawyer and Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, ran on the previous administration’s record: fiscal conservatism, a vague opposition to Prohibition, support for women’s suffrage, and support for American involvement in the First World War.[49] The issue of the war proved divisive, especially among Irish– and German-Americans.[50] Coolidge was elected by a margin of 16,773 votes over his opponent, Richard H. Long, in the smallest margin of victory of any of his state-wide campaigns.[51]

*   *   *   *   *   *

By the time Coolidge was inaugurated on January 1, 1919 the First World War had ended, and Coolidge pushed the legislature to give a $100 bonus to Massachusetts veterans. He also signed a bill reducing the work week for women and children from fifty-four hours to forty-eight, saying “we must humanize the industry, or the system will break down.”[65] He signed into law a budget that kept the tax rates the same, while trimming four million dollars from expenditures, thus allowing the state to retire some of its debt.[66]

Update:  Lisa has a series of interesting posts on presidents and their executive experience, at As If You Care.

“I-have-gall” (not “I got Gaul”) update:  Some clown actually compared Palin to Roosevelt in a letter to the Wall Street Journal, according to Snopes.com.  Snopes’s response was much kinder, and less flattering to Roosevelt, than I would have been.  WSJ left off the San Juan Hill episode, the Medal of Honor, and the Nobel Peace Prize (though he won that for his actions as president).

5 Comments | Accuracy, Education, FDR, foreign affairs, History, McCain 2008, Obama 2008, Politics, Presidents, Theodore Roosevelt | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

But, did Lee really say it?

September 9, 2008

Kevin Levin at A Civil War Memory checks out an almost-Sherman-like quote attributed to Gen. Robert E. Lee. “It is good that war is so terrible,” Lee is reputed to have started out . . .

Levin shows again why so many regard him as a very good historian.

2 Comments | 1861-1865, Accuracy, Civil War, Famous quotes, History, Quotes, War | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Actors, not soldiers, in RNC video

September 7, 2008

I’m a bit relieved, actually, that they didn’t interrupt a soldier’s funeral to make a political ad — but should we otherwise be concerned?

Real flag, but actors hands. Screen grab of RNC video by CBS News

Real flag, but actor's hands. Screen grab of RNC video by CBS News

You remember that video of a soldier’s funeral shown at the Republican Convention on Tuesday night?  The funeral depicted in the video was stock footage, staged by actors — see “Fake soldiers used in RNC video.”

But might we worry about a trend?  The video makers also screwed up and put up footage of a Walter Reed Middle School in a portion of a film intended to depict Walter Reed Hospital.  The principal of the school disavowed any connection to the campaign.  Oops.

Why not just stick to the facts that we have?

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Posted by Ed Darrell

Wrong in the small things

September 5, 2008

21“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’ Matthew 25:21 NIV

As I’ve listened to the Republican speeches this week, I’ve noticed a nasty trend:  They get small things wrong, usually just for a good line.  Good Hollywood writing, but snarky, and missing historical context.  Good speeches, but a preface to bad policy, I fear.

Two examples.

First, I listened to the smarm from former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee Wednesday night. It’s always a struggle to listen to Huckabee because of the way he mangles facts.  He had a great laugh line:

In fact, I don’t know if you realize this, but Sarah Palin got more votes running for mayor in Wasilla, Alaska, than Joe Biden did in two quests for the presidency — that oughta tell you something.

Well, yeah, it tells me Mike Huckabee can’t count.

I remember looking at vote totals, and Biden’s were not great, compared to others like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.  But I would have sworn Biden got a couple thousand votes in Texas, or some other race after he’d dropped out.  That should be approximately equal to a winning candidate in a town like Wasilla, which has 9,000 residents if you count the sled dogs and every moose that’s ever wandered through (slight exaggeration — the population is officially listed at under 6,000).

Sure enough, it turns out that Biden got almost 80,000 votes in the Democratic primaries this campaign.  Palin would have had to have gotten every man, woman, child and dog in Wassilla to vote for her, nine times each, to equal that vote. Huckabee was off by a factor of 9.   Huckabee can’t count.

What else in Huckabee’s speech was off by a factor of 9?

Then, Thursday night, former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge said that 230 years ago this nation was founded by men who were called mavericks themselves:

More than 230-plus years ago, a group of leaders – some people called them mavericks – dared to think differently, dared to act boldly and dared to believe its future leaders would preserve, honor and protect the great land of the free.

Oh, really?  Who called them mavericks?  That would have been very prescient of them — the phrase didn’t come into use until cattle became big business in Texas, more than 100 years after the founding.  The word comes from a Texas cattleman, Samuel Augustus Maverick (1803-1870), who used to leave his stock unbranded, and then claim all unbranded cattle on a range as his.  It was a semi-legal way to steal cattle from his neighbors.

Critically, Maverick’s having been born in the year of the Louisiana Purchase, it’s highly unlikely that anyone in Philadelphia in 1776, the event Ridge was obviously referring to, would have called themselves after his actions 75 or 100 years or more in the future.

David Barton, the King of the Misquote and Mangled Quote, was a Texas delegate — surely he could have corrected these minor historical errors — had Barton any idea about what really happened in history.

Should we dismiss this errors as one-liner jokes, or do Republicans really deserve criticism for failing to know history?  It’s astounding that they’d get wrong the well-known history of our founding, don’t you think?

Coupled with Sarah Palin’s defense of the Pledge of Allegiance — “if it was good enough for the founding fathers, it’s good enough for me” (the pledge was written by a socialist minister in 1892, more than a century after the Constitution) — one could make a case that ignorance is a value the Republicans value, in their audiences.

35 Comments | Accuracy, America's founding, Elections, History, Hoaxes, Quotes | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Obama hoaxers crawl out of the woodwork, onto the internet

August 31, 2008

 

Dennis at Thinking in a Marrow Bone — not an Obama supporter, mind you — posted a conversation he had with a guy who posted a hoaxed photo of Barack Obama, purporting to show him holding a landline telephone upside down.

This is the hoax photo

Dennis called him on the hoax.  After a few rounds of weak defense, and then moral waffling of significant proportion, the hoaxer deleted the comments from his blog.  Dennis preserved the conversation at TMB.

Moral of the story:  Don’t believe much of what you hear or see, without corroboration.  If a claim casts aspersions on someone, and comes on the internet, check it out before granting credence. Thanks to Dennis, an honest guy, for exposing the hoax and preserving the record of it.

Hoaxers are malicious and will do almost anything to damage Obama, even if it requires bringing down the U.S. and burning the flag.  No wonder George Washington wanted out of this sort of politics.

Question:  What’s the deal with the clock in the doctored photo?  [Oh – it says “3:00 o’clock”]

Honor roll:  Bloggers and others who exposed the hoax:

Dishonor roll, the Little List, bloggers who tried to perpetrate and perpetuate the hoax, or who got suckered themselves:

Special Consideration:

 

16 Comments | Accuracy, Barack Obama, Elections, History, Hoaxes, Internet, Obama 2008, Technology | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Dangers of failing to teach evolution, part I

August 24, 2008

From comments at the website of the New York Times today, on the story, “A Teacher on the Front Line as Faith and Science Clash”:

I teach biology and I would like to add a story in encouragement to other biology teachers. About 15 years ago I was teaching a botany course to college sophomores and started discussing the evolution of land plants. Expressions began to harden. Students stopped taking notes. So I stopped and asked if my discussion of evolution was bothering them. Many nodded and one said, “Why do teachers act like evolution is a fact?” At the time I had little experience and had assumed they had a working knowledge of evolution from previous classes at college as well as from high school biology. They did not. I didn’t have much time left that day, but I did explain some of the lines of evidence that support evolution.

The next day, one of my students came in and slammed a stack of books onto her table. She said, “I am so mad! I am so angry!” She looked near tears. She said, “My parents never let me even hear the word, evolution! They said it was all lies! I went to the library last night and got out books about it!” (and here she held up Origin of Species) Then she said, “It makes so much SENSE! I am so angry I never got to learn about it before!”
Now I teach a class entirely about evolution and I think of her often. She still gives me inspiration to keep on trying to open up minds.

— Bio prof, Ohio

Related resources:

14 Comments | Accuracy, Biology, Creationism, Dissent, Education, Ethics, Evolution, Newspapers, Religion, Science, Teaching | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Creationist success: Thermodynamicophobia strikes climate change denialists

August 17, 2008

Every once in a while we get a glimpse of what the future would be like if the creationists ruled education and could teach some of the fantastic things they believe to be true as fact.

For example, creationists have for years complained that the basic chemistry of life somehow violates what chemists and physicists know as the “laws” of thermodynamics. Patient explanations of what we know about how photosynthesis works, and how animals use energy, and what the laws of thermodynamics actually are, all fall on deafened ears.

Comes Jennifer Marohasy, an Australian blogger at The Politics and Environment Blog, with this fantastic explanation about how the well-established notion of radiative equilibrium, simply doesn’t work.

“For the Earth to neither warm or cool, the incoming radiation must balance the outgoing.”

Not really.

No, really. Go read the post. And see these critiques, at Tugboat Potemkin, where problems with the rules of the principle of Conservation of Energy are noted, and Deltoid, where LOLCats makes a debut in explaining physics to the warming denialists.

Then go back and read the comments at Marohasy’s blog.

It’s not just the confusion of terms, like treating watts as units of heat. There’s an astonishing lack of regard for cause and effect in history, too:

Conservation of energy: it’s not just a phrase. The theory of radiative equilibrium arose early in the 19th century, before the laws of thermodynamics were understood.

Probably didn’t mention it here before, but Marohasy is also one of those bloggers who suffers from DDT poisoning. Among other things, she and Aynsley Kellow (whose book she recommends) use an astounding confabulation of history to claim DDT wasn’t harming birds at all, completely ignoring more than 1,000 research studies to the contrary (and not one in support of their claim).

Suggestion for research: Is the denialism virus that affects creationists, DDT advocates, and climate denialists, the same one, or are there slight variations? A virus seems the most charitable explanation, unless one wishes to blame prions.

Creationist physics, denialism in meteorology, physics, chemistry, and history. It makes a trifecta winner look like he’s not trying.

See also:

1 Comment | Accuracy, Climate change, Creationism, denialism, Education, Global warming, History, Physics, Science, Voodoo history, Voodoo science | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

The role of theism in science: A short answer for why intelligent design is not science, and why philosophy shouldn’t be taught in high school chemistry classes

August 12, 2008

This will be a short post, and so will confuse the long-winded but short-thought intelligent design advocates, especially those who claim to be philosophers, and especially those who claim to be philosophers of science who can see a role for intelligent design.

A short visit to Telic Thoughts last week produced a revelation that they have a new philosopher who wants to argue that intelligent design “philosophically” could be science, if. I answered that argument at some length, in lay terms, here: “Intelligent Design, a pig that does not fly.”

Dr. Francis Beckwith, at Baylor, appears to have dropped his campaign to teach philosophy in science classes since he rediscovered that God visits the Pope, and since he moved on to more serious philosophical pursuits and away from his practice of confusing people about the law of separation of church and state in America (especially confusing the Texas State Board of Education).  We hope Beckwith sticks with philosophy and stays out of Texas textbooks.

So there was a vacancy in the phalanx of defenders of intelligent design, in the slot reserved for company store philosohers. Dr. Brad Monton volunteered for the job.  Monton has a blog, here. Monton philosophizes at the University of Colorado.

What should be the role of theism in science?  Exactly this:  Theism should encourage scientists to be diligent, to be honest, to ask tough questions, and be kind.  Theism should encourage scientists to be wise stewards of their lab resources and time, and to share the fruits of their work with humanity, for the benefit of all creation (no, not “creationism”).

That’s it.  Honest and thorough, not mean.  Work quickly and true.

If scientists stick to the noble purposes of their work, using these noble methods, we will see a quick death to creationism and intelligent design, which clamor and riot to be included in the science texts though they have not a lick of evidence to support them that is honest, true and nobly gained.

Philosophical debates do not belong in high school science classes, nor middle school or elementary school science classes.  The fun of science, the honest ethics of science, the value of science, and the stuff of science are appropriate topics for those science classes.  Especially school kids should not be encouraged to offer unevidenced, petulent denials of the facts as we know them.  That will only encourage them to become larcenists, disturbed individuals, and Republican state legislators.  Heaven knows we don’t need those.

Wes Elsberry agrees at his blog, The Austringer, but with more felicity:

The issue is not whether science could make progress in spite of re-adoption of 17th century theistic science, but whether theistic science could provide any benefit to the methods of science today. Monton, Plantinga, and the neo-Luddites have not convincingly made that case. Mostly, they haven’t even badly made that case. They seem to assume that science would be better off reverting to 17th century theistic science and become perplexed when scientists disagree with them. We had that debate, we call it “the 19th century”. Nobody has shown that the mostly-theistic body of scientists who decided to eschew supernatural conjectures as part of science were wrong to do so. Mostly, I think, because they were right to do so, and their reasoning still applies today.

Monton seeks a publisher.  I wish he’d seek a course in botany, another in zoology, another in genetics, and one in evolution.  He might find something worth publishing, then.

Philosophically, anything fits in science, if there is evidence to support it, and especially if there is theory that supports it and offers solid explanations that can be relied upon. But we don’t teach philosophy to kids.  We teach the kids the evidence.  Philosophically, any voodoo science could be considered science, if there were evidence to support it.  Philosophically, the FAA should regulate flying pigs that pose a threat to commercial and general aviation.  Pragmatically, however, pigs don’t fly.  In regulation of our air space, and in our science classes, we rely on theory backed by hard evidence.  I wish theists would all agree on that point, and shut up about intelligent design until some institute of discovery actually provides research results that provide evidence that ID is science, rather than philosophy.

See?  I said it would be short.

10 Comments | Accuracy, Creationism, Education, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Politics, Religion, Science, State school boards, Teaching, Voodoo science | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Leonidas and the 300: died August 11, 480 B.C.

August 12, 2008

300 popped up on some channel last night, and we got a time delay recording to watch it, which I did, mostly.  Interesting stylization.  Cartoonish characterizations, which one should expect from a movie intended as homage to the graphic novel that directly spawned it.

A monument to Leonidas I - Inscription, Molon Lave, which roughly translates to Come and get it!

A monument to Leonidas I - Inscription, "Molon Lave," which roughly translates to "Come and get it!"

Several sources dated the climax of the battle as August 11, 480 B.C. — 2488 years ago yesterday. (The battle is said to have occurred during the Olympics that year, too.)

World history classes dig through that period of history in the first semester.  Teachers, it’s time to think about how we’re going to facilitate this history this year.  As always, some bright student will wave a hand in the air and ask, “Mr. Darrell!  How do they know what happened if no one survived, and nobody had their Sony videocorder?”

At least one other student in the course of the day will be surprised to discover the movie wasn’t a filmed-on-the-spot documentary.  But apart from that, how do we know the events well enough to pin it down to one day?  And, since the Greeks surely didn’t use the Gregorian calendar, since it wasn’t invented until the 18th century — how do we know the date?

The short answer is “Herodotus.”  The longer answer may resonate better:  This is one dramatic battle in a year-long fight for the history of the world.  The Greeks were understandably and justifiably proud that they had turned back Xerxes’s armies and navy (The Battle of Salamis, a bit after Thermopylae).  So, these events were preserved in poetry, in the chronicles, in song, in sculpture, and in every other medium available to the Greeks.  Your AP English students will probably tell you the movie reminds them of The Iliad.  There’s an entré for discussion.

Turning points in history:  Had Xerxes succeeded in avenging his father’s, Darius’s, defeats, and subjugated the Greeks, history would be much different.  The culture the Romans built on, the trading patterns from east to west and around the Mediterranean, the technologies, the myths, and the stories of the battles, would be different. (Remember, one of Darius’s defeats was at the Battle of Marathon, from which we get the modern marathon racing event, the traditional close of the modern Olympics.)

How do we know?

How do you handle that question?  Tell us in comments, please.

Resources and commentary on Thermopylae, Leonidas, and the 300:

3 Comments | 480 BC, Accuracy, Ancient history, Education, Famous Battles, Greece, History, History Methods and Tools, Movies, Travel, War | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Fred Flintstone waded here: Hoaxsters ready to teach creationism to Texas kids

August 5, 2008

Creationists in Texas claim to have found a stone with footprints of a human and a dinosaur.

No, I’m not kidding.

Hoax

Hoax “dinosaur and human footprints” claimed to be found in the Paluxy River near Glen Rose, Texas.

Could you make this stuff up? Well, yeah, I guess some people think you could. Somebody did make this stuff up.

According to a report in the too-gullible Mineral Wells Index, long-time hoaxster and faux doctorate Carl Baugh’s Creation Evidence Museum announced the rock was found just outside Dinosaur Valley State Park. The area has been the site of more than one creationist hoax since 1960, and was an area rife with hoax dinosaur prints dating back to the 1930s. (See these notes on the warning signs of science hoaxes and history hoaxes.)

The estimated 140-pound stone was recovered in July 2000 from the bank of a creek that feeds the Paluxy River near Glen Rose, Texas, located about 53 miles south of Fort Worth. The find was made just outside Dinosaur Valley State Park, a popular destination for tourists known for its well-preserved dinosaur tracks and other fossils.

The limestone contains two distinct prints – one of a human footprint and one belonging to a dinosaur. The significance of the cement-hard fossil is that it shows the dinosaur print partially over and intersecting the human print.

In other words, the stone’s impressions indicate that the human stepped first, the dinosaur second. If proven genuine, the artifact would provide evidence that man and dinosaur roamed the Earth at the same time, according to those associated with the find and with its safekeeping. It could potentially toss out the window many commonly held scientific theories on evolution and the history of the world.

Except, as you can see, Dear Reader and Viewer, it’s a hoax. No dinosaur has a footprint exactly resembling the print of Fred Flintstone’s pet Dino, as the rock shows; nor do human footprints left in mud look like the print shown.

Dear God, save us from such tom-foolery, please.

To the newspaper’s credit, they consulted with an expert who knows better. The expert gave a conservative, scientific answer, however, when the rock deserved a chorus of derisive hoots:

However, Dr. Phillip Murry, a vertebrate paleontology instructor in the Geoscience department of Tarleton State University at Stephenville, Texas, stated in his response to an interview request: “There has never been a proven association of dinosaur (prints) with human footprints.”

The longtime amateur archeologist who found the fossil thinks that statement is now proven untrue.

“It is unbelievable, that’s what it is,” Alvis Delk, 72, said of what could be not only the find of a lifetime, but of mankind.

Delk is a current Stephenville and former Mineral Wells resident (1950-69) who said he found the rock eight years ago while on a hunt with a friend, James Bishop, also of Stephenville, and friend and current fiancee Elizabeth Harris.

Yes, it’s unbelievable.

For comparison, real hominid footprints look much different — the print below was left in a thin-layer of volcanic ash about 4 million years ago, 61 million years after dinosaurs went extinct, according to timelines corroborated by geologists, paleontologists, astronomers, nuclear physicists and biologists:

Print of a hominid, found at Laetoli, Africa; image from Stanford University

Print of a hominid, found at Laetoli, Tanzania, Africa; image from Stanford University. Photo: J. Reader/SPL

With luck, serious scientists will get a chance to analyze the prints soon, and note that they are hoaxes. If history is any guide, however, Baugh and his comrades will keep the rock from scientific analysis, claiming that scientists refuse to analyze it.

The rock is approximately 30 inches by 24 inches. The human footprint, with a deep big toe impression, measures 11 inches in length. Baugh said the theropod track was made by an Acrocanthosaurus. Baugh said this particular track was likely made by a juvenile Acrocanthosaurus, one he said was probably about 20 feet long, stood about 8 feet tall and walked stooped over, weighing a few tons.

Its tracks common in the Glen Rose area, the Acrocanthosaurus is a dinosaur that many experts believe existed primarily in North America during the mid-Cretaceous Period, approximately 125 million to 100 million years ago.

Baugh said Delk’s discovery casts doubts on that theory. Baugh said he believes both sets of prints were made “within minutes, or no more than hours of each other” about 4,500 years ago, around the time of Noah’s Flood. He said the clay-like material that the human and dinosaur stepped in soon hardened, becoming thick, dense limestone common in North Texas.

He said the human print matches seven others found in the same area, stating the museum has performed excavations since 1982 in the area Baugh has dubbed the “Alvis Delk Cretaceous Footprint” discovery.

This “find” comes as the State Board of Education begins rewriting science standards for Texas schools. The chairman of the SBOE is a committed creationist who publicly says he hopes to get creationism into the standards and textbooks in Texas, miseducating Texas students that creationism has a scientific basis.

Delk’s own daughter, Kristi Delk, is a geology major at Tarleton State University in Stephenville and holds different beliefs from her dad about the creation of Earth and the origins of man.

She said she wants to see data from more tests before jumping to any conclusions.

“I haven’t come to terms with it,” she said. “I am skeptical, actually.”

Listen to your daughter, Mr. Delk.

In a story Texas educators hope to keep completely unrelated to the foot prints hoax, Mineral Wells area schools showed gains in academic achievement on the Texas state test program.

Additional resources:

________________________

Gary Hurd at Stones and Bones, who Is a bit of an expert in this stuff, calls “fake.“

Here is how to fake a patina that will look like this fake fossil: Brush the surface with vinegar, and then sprinkle with baking powder followed by baking soda, and let dry. Repeat until you are happy with the results. This is not the only way, or even the best way. But it is simple, and will fool the average fool. Especially easy if they want to be fooled.

So, having spent a little bit more time on the photo of this fake, I feel that I understand a bit more about how it was produced. A legitimate dinosaur track was found and removed. Incompetent, unprofessional “Cleaning” damaged it. An parital overprint, or simple erosion depression was “improved” by adding “toes.” The faked surfaces were smothed over with a simple kitchen concoction to make a “patina.” Artifact fabricators next bury the fake for a year or two, or they smear it with fertilizer and leave it exposed. This helps weather the object and obscure tool marks.

Did you find this post useful, or entertaining? Vote to share it with others — click the “Digg” button above; list it on Reddit or other services, if you have memberships there. Link to this post from your own blog. Help spread the word this hoax is coming.

Help stamp out hoaxes; run with the word:

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37 Comments | Accuracy, Bogus history, Creationism, Education, History, Hoaxes, Public education, Religion, Science, Texas, Texas Citizens for Science | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Montauk “monster?” No, it’s a raccoon

August 5, 2008

Darren Naish at Tetrapod Zoology did the scientific work any RKSI person ought to do, and identified the carcass that washed up on a beach in Montauk, New York, as a poor old raccoon.  (“RKSI?”  Road Kill Scene Investigator — though maybe this should be “Beach Kill.”)

Raccoon, Tennessee Department of Health Photo

Raccoon, Procyon lotor, Tennessee Department of Health photo

Beaches of Montauk, New York, appear to be safe.

Religionists often accuse me of having “faith” in science, and to a small degree that is accurate.  I do have faith that, much of the time, there is a rational explanation for things that at first appear magical, or to verify stories of monsters, goblins, or Republican platform planks.  Naish uses his experience in watching decomposing critters on the beach to show how to identify the creature in Montauk.  This is a powerful demonstration of the power of scientific methods:  Naish worked the issue from 3,470 miles away (about 5,585 km).

With a bit of luck the popularity of this monster story, and the resolution of the mysteries by Naish and other like-minded scientists, might inspire a few people to do the CSI-style thing, to actually study science.  One might study animal anatomy, as Naish has done, or one might apply to the University of Tennessee’s Forensic Anthropology program at the Knoxville campus.

Naish said:

Like all of these sorts of mysteries, this one was fun while it lasted, but the photos that really clinched it for a lot of people weren’t (so far as I can tell) released on the same day as the initial, tantalizing mystery photo (the one shown at the very top). And I don’t mind this sort of thing too much: we get to see a lot of dumbass speculation, sure, but the immense interest that these stories generate show that people – even those not particularly interested in zoology or natural history – have a boundless appetite for mystery animals. If only there were some clever way of better utilizing this fascination.

The truth is out there. Sometimes it helps to have a good university library and some scientific knowledge to flush it out, and flesh it out.  Students, you can become the bearer of answers you seek.

Word of the day:  Taphonomy (beyond the usual, “one more science creationists don’t do”)

Other resources:

Tip of the old scrub brush to Pharyngula, once again (so many tips there, it’s probably soaked).

6 Comments | Accuracy, Geography - Physical, History, Science, Travel | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

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