December 21, 2006
In a post I missed back then, science writer Chet Raymo sets a standard for how science can leave the “bogus” category: He says intelligent design can start to be called “science” when the first paper is published retracting another, previous paper, that was since found to be in error. Raymo wrote:
Here is my litmus test for science.
In the October 7 issue of Science, the weekly journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Robin Allshire, of the prestigious Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell Biology at the University of Edinburgh, offers a retraction for a paper previously published in the journal, titled “Hairpin RNAs and retrotransponson LTRs effect RNAi and chromatin-based gene silencing.” He admits that his laboratory and others have been unable to reproduce the results reported in the paper.
When we see the first peer-reviewed experimental data supporting intelligent design or astrology that is reproducible in other laboratories by skeptics and believers alike, then these hypotheses can make a legitimate claim to being sciences.
When we see the first published retraction, we will know that intelligent design or astrology has reached maturity as a science.
Of course, the same is true for bogus history. Corrections made when error is found suggest that there is care for accuracy, and that the author has no great stake in the story other than getting the facts right to get the correct understanding.
I’ll have to revise the list, here, and here.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Catholic Sensibility.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
December 21, 2006
Former historian David Irving was released from jail in Austria early, on December 21. Irving claims that he no longer denies the Holocaust.
Details are in the Daily Telegraph from England.
In several European nations, including Austria, denial of the Holocaust not only is historical error, it’s also against criminal law.
He was arrested in November 2005 on charges related to two speeches and a newspaper interview he gave in Austria in 1989 in which he called the gas chambers a “fairy tale” and claimed that Hitler had no role in the Holocaust, even “offering his hand to protect the Jews”.
The charges covered statements he had made, such as questioning the accepted version of the Holocaust. He argued that “millions of people were led to believe” an “absolute absurdity”. A jury found him guilty of denying the Holocaust and other Nazi crimes.
Irving had appealed his 3-year sentence as too long. He serves the rest on probation.
Irving earlier sued U.S. historian Deborah Lipstadt for libel, in London, after she had called him a Holocaust denier. In a long and famous trial, she was found not to have libeled Irving, though under British law, truth is not a defense as it is in the U.S.
While it offends my First Amendment sensibilities to criminalize the making of such claims, one wonders about the intelligence or goals of people who deny the Holocaust.
Under California law, judicial note has been taken that the Holocaust occurred. It is a fact of history. U.S. law allows more robust, and offensive, discussion of the topic.
But in the end, the Holocaust is a fact. It’s an ugly, brutal and regrettable fact. Denying it occurred at all, or to the scope and degree it occurred, is only an odd form of denial of reality.
Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by Ed Darrell
December 20, 2006
Photo at left shows work to install a permeable reactive barrier (PRB) to help clean up contamination from arsenic, molybdenum, nitrate, vanadium and uranium wastes at an EPA Superfund Site managed by the U.S. Department of Energy near Monticello, Utah. The cleanup was done under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), the law better known as Superfund. (DOE photo)
GOAT, the blog of High Country News, carried a short story that brought me nasty flashbacks.
Families in Monticello, Utah, wonder whether there is a connection between local clusters of leukemia the old, abandoned uranium works at the edge of town.
“Each depth had its own color. If the sun was just right, it was really pretty.” That’s how Steve Pehrson described the ponds he and his friends swam in as kids, as told to the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. He and other Monticello, Utah, kids commonly cooled off in the tailings ponds at the uranium mill that sat on the edge of town. The kids also dug into the tailings piles, and the tailings were used in gardens and even sandboxes. Now, people in Monticello are looking into the link between these habits and cases of leukemia and other diseases that have cropped up amongst the citizenry.
If you follow that link to the Grand Junction (Colorado) Daily Sentinel, you find more stories, and more horrifying stories. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by Ed Darrell
December 17, 2006
History education is dead in England. British kids don’t know enough history, so the makers of the board game, Trivial Pursuit, have modified the history questions, dumbing them down to meet the lowered expectations of failed history teaching.
The Sunday Telegraph’s on-line edition has the story.
Where once there were puzzles to stretch most players’ general knowledge across a range of subjects, now they appear to have come straight out of the pages of Heat or Hello! magazines.
Questions such as, “Who heckled Madonna at an awards ceremony for miming in her concerts?” and “What is Prince Charles’s nickname for Camilla?” are no longer confined to the entertainment category, but now count as history. (The answers are “Elton John” and “Gladys” respectively.)
Questions that tested the knowledge of players in science and history, especially, have been downgraded.
The Sunday Telegraph analysis of a random 100 question cards from the latest box of Trivial Pursuit revealed that one in 10 of the science and nature category were celebrity or popular culture-based, compared to one in a whole box of question cards from 1992.
In the history category, 62 questions in the latest version of the board game related to events in the past 10 years, compared to only 30 questions in the earlier edition.
In times gone by, in the U.S. people would work to gain the sort of knowledge that would allow them to answer the tougher questions in the old “College Bowl” quiz program. Now we lower the bar, and make the questions more trivial.
Would that explain why the U.S. and Britain both have such difficulty applying the lessons of Vietnam, or Korea, or even Gulf War I? People simply don’t know the lessons. And so it is that our education systems condemn us to repeat the mistakes of Vietnam, Korea, and Gulf War I.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
December 14, 2006
I noted yesterday that the Discovery Institute was banking on ignorance in a recent press release. Such banking can be dangerous — it appears they were overdrawn.
Ed Brayton at Dispatches on the Culture Wars has a thorough Fisking of the Discovery Institute claims today. Also be sure to see this article by Timothy Sandefur, at Panda’s Thumb.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
December 13, 2006
In the later years of his life, after he was elected a Member of Congress from Florida in 1963, Claude Pepper’s appearances on Capitol Hill always generated memories from politicos attending, of the 1950 campaign that took away his U.S. Senate seat a decade earlier. It was a nasty campaign. Because he had actually met Joseph Stalin, Pepper, a Democrat, was called “Red Pepper” by his opponent George Smathers, a moniker designed to produce a particular reaction in Florida’s conservative but uneducated voters. Smathers never hesitated to point out that Harvard-educated Pepper had learned “under the Harvard Crimson.” But that was just the start.
There are a few recordings of the breathless claims against Pepper by campaign stumpers, and they are fantastic. Pepper’s family morality was impugned — the speaker notes that Pepper’s sister was a “well-known thespian” as if it were some sort of a sin to be an actor. Pepper himself was accused of “matriculating in public” all through his college career. It would seem normal that a college student would enroll for classes, no?
Of course, the speaker was hoping the audience wouldn’t know the meaning of those large words, and might confuse them for something else less savory. Pepper’s opponent banked on the ignorance of a large portion of voters — and won.
Do campaigns on ignorance work today?
The Discovery Institute comes now with a press release that announces, in rather breathless fashion, that Judge John Jones used the plaintiff’s suggested findings of fact in his decision against intelligent design in schools, in Pennsylvania a year ago. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by Ed Darrell
December 10, 2006
Photo from Apollo 14 Moon Mission
In a classroom discussion of “how do we know what we know” about history, another student brought up the allegations that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) faked the manned Moon landings. That makes about a dozen times this year a kid has mentioned this claim (who thinks to start counting these things?). The kid was pretty unshakable in his convictions — after all, he said, how can a flag wave in a vacuum?
I usually mention a couple of things that the fake claimers leave out — that dozens, if not hundreds, of amateur astronomers tracked the astronauts on their way to the Moon, that many people intercepted the radio transmissions from the Moon, that one mission retrieved debris from an earlier unmanned landing, etc. Younger students who lack experience in serious critical thinking have difficulty with these concepts. They also lack the historic background — the last manned Moon landing occurred when their parents were kids, perhaps. They didn’t grow up with NASA launches on television, and the whole world holding its breath to see what wonders would be found in space.
Phil Plait runs a fine blog called Bad Astronomy. Five years ago he got fed up with the Fox Television program claiming the Moon landings were hoaxes, and he made a significant reply that should be in some hall of fame for debunking hoaxes. Since the claim that the Moon landings were hoaxes is, itself, a hoax, I have titled this “Debunking the Moon landing hoax hoax.”
In any case, if you’re wondering about whether the Moon landings were hoaxes, you need to see Phil Plait’s post. Phil writes:
From the very first moment to the very last, the program is loaded with bad thinking, ridiculous suppositions and utterly wrong science. I was able to get a copy of the show in advance, and although I was expecting it to be bad, I was still surprised and how awful it was. I took four pages of notes. I won’t subject you to all of that here; it would take hours to write. I’ll only go over some of the major points of the show, and explain briefly why they are wrong.
Also, consider these chunks of evidence, which Phil does not mention so far as I know:
First, the first Moon landing left a mirror on the surface, off of which Earth-bound astronomers may bounce laser transmissions in order to measure exactly the distance from the Earth to the Moon. Read the rest of this entry »
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20 Comments | Accuracy, Astronomy, History, Hoaxes, How do we know what we know, Moon, Reason, Science, Space exploration, Space Race, War on Science | Tagged: Apollo 11, Apollo Project, Astronomy, Bad Astronomy blog, Debunked Hoaxes, Flag on the Moon, History, Hoaxes, How do we know what we know, Jim Scotti, Moon, Moon Hoax, NASA, Phil Plait, Reason, Science, Space exploration, Space Race | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
December 9, 2006
Remembering history so as not to repeat it has academic value, sure. In public policy, it can help change things for the better. And in some cases it can literally be life and death.
Six health care professionals — five nurses and a physician, all Bulgarians — are scheduled for execution shortly in Libya for a crime that would have been almost impossible for them to have committed. They were convicted of spreading HIV to patients. Health professionals are almost unanimous in pointing out that the timing of the onset of the disease indicates that the disease was transmitted before these people came to Libya, but government-operated facilities and government-paid health care workers.
More trouble for the ignorance-as-knowledge set: Evolutionary principles, applied, allow scientists to track the real origin of the infections, exonerating the convicted workers. In short, tracking the provenance of the viruses that infected the victims rules out almost all of the possibility that the accused health care workers could have played a role. Here is a link to a free .pdf paper which lays out the exculpatory science evidence, published by the eminent science journal Nature.
Will Libya’s government listen to the evidence? Nick Matzke, a research whiz at the National Center for Science Education, has a post at Panda’s Thumb laying out most of the facts, and providing links to high quality information sources. Health professionals worldwide urge Libya’s courts to legally exonerate and free the accused.
You can help. Mike Dunford at The Questionable Authority lays out actions you can take to urge Libya to free the health workers.
Please write today.
More information:
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Posted by Ed Darrell
December 8, 2006
Dennis Prager, please call George Santayana!
Invoking the name of George Washington, who, Prager says, brought his own Bible to be sworn in to office, Dennis Prager refuses to retreat from his errors of history, and insists that Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison should be prevented from bringing his own scripture to Ellison’s swearing-in.
Prager is simply wrong on the history, both the tradition and the law. He claims there is some grand tradition of Members of Congress swearing on a Bible. That is not so. When corrected, he claims it is important anyway. When it is pointed out that what he wants is illegal, Prager claims cultural imperative as the reason to vitiate the First Amendment.
It would be a teapot tempest, except for Prager’s breaking the teapot — he has real newspapers carrying his column, and he keeps insisting on being wrong about history, he insists on bogus history.
Flunk him, let him advance to the 9th grade when he can master the material and pass the test, without a tantrum.
Other commentary:
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Posted by Ed Darrell
December 3, 2006
Conservative, sometimes-rational commentator Dennis Prager is in a dudgeon because someone suggested that our first Muslim Member of Congress might take his oath of office on the Qur’an, rather than a Bible. Prager’s irrational rant demands that Congressmen Keith Ellison of Minnesota be stripped of his religious freedom (really — go see). He claims, using bogus history, that swearing without a Bible would be a first. That’s dead wrong.
Then-State Rep. Keith Ellison speaks at a Macalester College seminar on environmental justice and human rights, in February 2006. On November 7, Ellison was elected to represent Minnesota in the U.S. Congress, the first Muslim to be elected. Photo from Macalester College, American Studies Department.
Prager claims in his bio to have done graduate study. Would it be too much to expect him to understand the U.S. Constitution?
First, the U.S. Constitution prevents anyone from requiring any official elected to federal, state or local office, from having to take any oath on any religious book. Really. It’s in Article VI: Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by Ed Darrell
November 28, 2006
Some people were relieved when voodoo history maven Davin Barton’s term as vice chair of the Texas Republican Party expired.
Dallas Morning News editorial writer and occasional columnist William McKenzie warns that we have not seen the last of Barton’s involvement in politics — and textbooks are in Barton’s gunsights.
McKenzie wrote about Barton in the November 28 paper:
Pay attention to his work, because, as Newsweek reported after the election, the religious right is at a crossroads. With big-name leaders declining, lesser-knowns like Mr. Barton will fill the gap. And they will come with their own approach.
The most interesting thing I learned from him was that the next wave will revolve around networks of activists, not the big names who lobby Washington. Look for e-mail blasts that start with a small group upset about a comment or decision about abortion, homosexuality or textbooks. In the decentralized technological world, a David Barton doesn’t need the podium of a Jerry Falwell or a Ralph Reed to trigger a prairie fire.
In other words, watch him.
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2 Comments | Accuracy, Bad Quotes, Bogus history, Education, Freedom - Political, History, History Revisionism, Politics, Textbook Selection, Voodoo history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
November 27, 2006
A fellow named Daniel J. Lewis asked for a debate with P. Z. Myers on . . . well, it’s difficult to say, really. Lewis is a creationist, affiliated with the group “Answers in Genesis” — Ken Ham’s group that has a museum in Kentucky ready to open, touting the hypothesis that Hanna-Barbera was not far off of reality with “The Flintstones” humans and dinosaurs coexisted (go to the link, click on exhibit #19). Anyway, PZ asked the regulars to lie low for a while at let Lewis expound. Not likely to happen on a blog that has tens of thousands of readers daily, right?
The premise that Lewis wants to start from is problematical, so I invited him to come by here someday and have a more leisurely chat, where there are far fewer people waiting to pounce on every error. If Lewis ever drops by, this is the thread. This is what Lewis said at Pharyngula:
Then if the blog administrator allows it, I’m available to publicly discuss creation vs. evolution if we can do so on level, intelligent grounds without childish attacks. You can start with your belief system (naturalism), and I can start with mine (the Bible).
I find that a problem because it assumes that science requires a specific belief system contrary to Christianity, and it assumes the Bible establishes a complete philosophical foundation for Christians, which seems awfully narrow to me. Plus, I don’t trust a creationist to define what “naturalism” means as a philosophy, or that science must be bound by that definition. So, in the discussion thread, I said:
Nothing in the Bible contradicts anything Darwin proposed, unless and except we insist on a Darbyist interpretation of scripture only. Is there any tenet of Christianity, especially one based in the Bible, which suggests God couldn’t have created an evolutionary system to make life diverse? Is there any tenet which requires any opposition to evolution or any other finding of science?
When you’re done here, Mr. Lewis, if you’re ever done, c’mon over to my blog and start in again.
Meanwhile, there is some rational discussion on the issue over at a fellow Texan’s blog, A Nerd’s Country Journal (tip of the old scrub brush to Carnival of the Godless #54). That’s a neat summary of my view, consistent with the error debunking goal of this blog: Creationism is bad religion not keeping with the tenets of Christianity, in addition to being really, really bad science.
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6 Comments | Accuracy, Bogus history, Charles Darwin, Creationism, Religious Freedom, Voodoo history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
November 26, 2006
Superstar historians rare get recognized on the street. The BBC’s use of historians, even natural history professors, however, has made a few stars in Britain. Neil Oliver is one of the latest, dubbed “The Naked Historian” for reasons I haven’t figured yet.
The Sunday Times has a profile on November 26:
Neil Oliver is draped languidly over a sofa in Glasgow’s Millennium Hotel. He is fully clothed and only doing the photographer’s bidding, but it is easy to see why the presenter of the hit series Coast has been dubbed the Naked Historian.
It’s not just a surname he shares with television’s sexiest chef. Both were “discovered” by screen queen Pat Llewellyn, of Optomen Television, and both exude that unquantifiable essence that can be detected only through the lens of a camera.
It’s partly enthusiasm, partly a lack of self-consciousness and partly hair. You could bet your last tub of Brylcreem that a bald Jamie Oliver, Alan Titchmarsh or Gordon Ramsay would be unable to command their multi-million-pound fees. Neil Oliver’s Jacobite locks — stereotypical among his fellow archeologists — give him an instant recognition factor on television.
It’s not all fluff; Oliver gets down to talking history and the importance of studying history:
Oliver, 39, says Scots’ knowledge of their history is generational, with people over 40 being the most well-informed. But most of them were taught in a system that favoured British and world history. The resurgence of Scottish history in schools is a recent phenomenon. So why are young people so ill-informed? It may be they have lost sight of the bigger picture as history is taught in modules without an overview.
Oliver, whose perspective goes back to the Palaeolithic, is concerned about this. “If you have a generation without that broad framework, it fundamentally changes how things are viewed,” he says. “History affects the way you understand the world. People who don’t have that education drummed into them become dislocated.”
Could such a thing happen in America, could historians become media stars? Historians can dream about a future, too.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
November 22, 2006
Patricia Burroughs has the story — you New Englanders are way, way behind.
Palo Duro Canyon during inversion, Winter 2001, site of the first Thanksgiving celebration in what would become the United States, in 1541. Go here: www.visitamarillotx.com/Gallery/index3.html, and here: www.tpwd.state.tx.us/park/paloduro/
Update, 11/27/2006: Great post here, “Top 10 Myths About Thanksgiving.”
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Posted by Ed Darrell
November 22, 2006
Voodoo historian and crank scientist “Harun Yahya” (it’s a pseudonym) has done the Rev. D. James Kennedy one better — he’s sending books to school libraries in Turkey claiming that Darwin is responsible for terrorism.
For years U.S. creationists have bragged about their reach into Turkey and Islam. Whether Moslems regard it as a toe-hold for Christianity, or whether American creationists have any compunction about working to stir up religious strife in Moslem nations, sane people who work for peace, justice and knowledge should be concerned.
In a chutzpa-filled claim that would take away the breath of Baron Munchausen, Yahya claims that Darwin is reponsible for fascism, communism and terrorism — never mind that fascists, communists and terrorists generally denounce Darwin and espouse the views of Yahya on evolution.
Read the rest of this entry »
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19 Comments | Accuracy, Bogus history, Charles Darwin, Creationism, Darwin, History Revisionism, Science and faith, Voodoo history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 