At the same time the Cleveland Plain Dealer defended inaccurate history in flag-folding ceremonies, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs announced it would allow inaccurate ceremonies, if the family of the departed veteran requests it, and if the family provides the script. Here’s the news from the Akron Beacon-Journal.
Scripts must still adhere to standards that prohibit racism, obscenity, or political partisanship.
2 Comments | 
Accuracy, Bogus history, First Amendment, History, Patriotism, Voodoo history | Tagged: Flag etiquette, Patriotism, Religion, veterans | 
Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
My brothers in journalism at the usually sensible Cleveland Plain Dealer have lost their journalistic senses.
In an editorial this morning, the paper supports, defends and calls for the reinstatement of the inaccurate, insulting and embarrassing flag folding script that the Department of Veterans Affairs’ National Cemeteries finally, belatedly but justly, stopped promulgating a few weeks ago.
In the words of the Plain Dealer:
Those are not just folds in a meaningless fabric or empty words spoken at the grave site. They represent honor, continuity with the past, traditions to be preserved, even when some of the words may quietly be set aside for families who wish a different approach.
America’s military men and women put on the line not just life and limb, but often precious time with their children, higher pay or easier jobs, help to a spouse or an aging parent. They do so to serve their country. Their recompense when they get home is a veterans system at best struggling to meet crescendoing needs for medical, rehabilitative and psychiatric care – and now with a tin ear for what matters.
Except that they ARE meaningless words in the script, violative of tradition and law, historically inaccurate, and insulting to the memory of patriots like George Washington. They do not honor the past, portraying a false past instead. The ceremony is not traditional, having been written only in the past three decades or so. The script departs radically from the historic path of America’s patriots, defending freedom without regard to profession of faith.
Christians, Jews, Moslems, atheists and others put their lives on the line to defend this nation. They didn’t ask that their memories be fogged with silly and historically inaccurate glop.
The Air Force has a flag folding script that does not bend history or assault anyone’s religion. If someone wants to use a ceremony, why not that one? The accurate, Air Force version honors America’s veterans:
Traditionally, a symbol of liberty, the American flag has carried the message of freedom, and inspired Americans, both at home and abroad.
In 1814, Francis Scott Key was so moved at seeing the Stars and Stripes waving after the British shelling of Baltimore’s Fort McHenry that he wrote the words to “The Star Spangled Banner.”
In 1892, the flag inspired Francis Bellamy to write the “Pledge of Allegiance,” our most famous flag salute and patriotic oath.
In July 1969, the American flag was “flown” in space when Neil Armstrong planted it on the surface of the moon.
Why does the Plain Dealer choose a religious screed that insults history over a script that accurately honors all of America’s veterans?
The full text of the newer, accurate ceremony is below the fold.
3 Comments | Accuracy, Bogus history, Flag etiquette, Patriotism, Rampant stupidity, Religion, Separation of church and state, Voodoo history | Tagged: Bogus history, Flag etiquette, flag folding ceremony, History, Religion | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Old hoaxes never die. Sometimes they don’t even fade away (making it certain that they are less honorable than any soldier).
Folding the flag by an Air Force color guard at Arlington National Cemetery; photo by Arlington National Cemetery
The right wing whine machine is working up a dudgeon because National Cemeteries now have a policy against use of a flag- and history-insulting script that ascribes all sorts of hoakum to the simple folding of the American flag at funerals — a ceremony which is touching and sobering when done as a military color guard does it in silence, as they are trained.
A blog named headsup explains most of the issues, with a few links, at “Keep opinion to self.”
Regular readers recognize the issue. Fillmore’s Bathtub explained how the discontinued ceremony butchered history, how some people clung to the old ceremony, and how the Air Force devised a more accurate ceremony to use if color guards are asked.
People who sow strife for a living never let facts get in the way of a good dudgeon.
Were this worthy of controversy, it should have been controversial months ago. The “folding ceremony” in contention was never official, and was rarely used. Do your own survey of veterans’ funerals to see; I have never heard of the ceremony actually used. We have the DFW National Cemetery within a few miles of our home. I regularly visit with veterans, and I have attended ceremonies myself. Don’t take my word for it.
Stick to the Flag Code and the Constitution, and no one will get hurt.
Michelle Malkin? Any other wacko commentators who don’t know the Flag Code? Get a clue. Remedial history is calling you. Please get off the soap boxes. Please quit using the U.S. flag to cover your gluteus maximii.
It’s time to stand up for accuracy, for real history, and for the law. Honor the flag by following the rules, not by dressing in it, or dragging it through the mud for ratings points.
Dishonor Roll:
Honor Roll:
2 Comments | Bogus history, Flag ceremony, Flag etiquette, History, U.S. Constitution, Voodoo history | Tagged: First Amendment, Flag ceremony, flag desecration, Flag etiquette, Politics, Religion, Voodoo history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Chris Rodda has a bee in her bonnet about wacky claims about early U.S. government and Christianity — same bee I get on occasion (hence the famous phrase, “busy bee”).
At Talk to Action, Chris dissects one of the more odd and arcane claims of people like the late D. James Kennedy, that Thomas Jefferson tried to import a group of Calvinist seminarians to make the University of Virginia a religious institution. Kennedy’s claim is voodoo history at its most voodoo.
There are two things wrong with Kennedy’s claim. The first is the time frame. Jefferson did consider a proposal to move the Geneva Academy to the United States, but this was in 1794 and 1795, thirty years before the University of Virginia opened. The second is that, although the Geneva Academy was originally founded by John Calvin in 1559 as theological seminary, by the late 1700s it had been transformed into an academy of science. The plan considered by Jefferson was not to import a religious school. It was to import a group of Europe’s top science professors.
This one is so obscure I have heard it only a couple of times. I’m not sure if that’s because it is so far outside the world of reality that even most victims of these hoaxes recognize it, or if it just hasn’t gotten traction yet.
Jefferson’s relationship with religious instruction in higher education really never varied. When he was a member of the governing board of the College of William and Mary, the board of visitors, he successfully campaigned to rid the college of preachers in teaching positions, and with the money saved, he got lawyers hired to instruct in other topics instead. In his design for the University of Virginia, he most carefully left out religious instruction from the curriculum, and from the space of the university. Since he shared this view of religion in education with James Madison, Madison followed through on keeping the University of Virginia as an institution of learning and not religious indoctrination.
So, how could someone with the research chops claimed by the late Rev. Kennedy get this stuff so exactly wrong? He relied on an old hoaxer, Mark A. Beliles. Why could a scholar like Kennedy could be sucked in by such a clear and blatant hoax? Bogus history seemed to attract him like seagulls to and overturned hot dog cart.
Read it, and gain enlightenment on the facts, if not on the motivations of Rev. Kennedy.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars.
Leave a Comment » | Accuracy, America's founding, Bogus history, First Amendment, Heroes, Historic documents, History, Religious Freedom, Voodoo history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
History textbook controversies abound, really. Just a list to pull some sources together:
6 Comments | Accuracy, Bogus history, Books, History, History Revisionism, Politics, Textbook Selection | Tagged: Education, History, Japan, Korea, textbook controversy | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
We’re past the political equinox in the political hemisphere (not to be confused with any real equinox anywhere), and we’re coming down to silly season in the presidential race. Soon the hoax quotes will start appearing in full breeding plumage, to be beaten to death by unsuspecting candidates who wish to instill fear in voters, and by partisans who would rather give a tweak to someone they don’t like, rather than get their facts straight.
Remember when the oral faux pas of former Vice President Dan Quayle went around the internet — attributed instead to Al Gore? Yeah, that’s the sort of bird we’ll see. (To be fair, we should note that some of the Quayle quotes are invented, and they were also attributed to George W. Bush, and then to John Kerry; watch for them sometime in 2008.)
How do I know the misquote mocking birds will sing? I’ve already seen one bird, with sightings claimed by dozens of non-thinkers in the blogside. Hillary Clinton’s victory at the 2008 Democratic Convention is so much assumed that people are already staking claims on quote mines, pulling out nuggets of disinformation. In one “quiz,” quotes are listed, and the reader — that would be you or me, Dear Reader — is asked to select who might have said the disgusting thought, Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin, Nikita Kruschev, the Devil Himself (just kidding), or “None of the above.” Each quote’ s “correct” answer is then revealed to be “none of the above,” because Hillary Clinton said it.
For those who may doubt, a date is attached to each “quote.”
You can see this one coming from miles away: Clinton’s quotes are true quote mine nuggets, ripped out of context, disguised with odd dates and no other details, and edited so a discerning reader cannot track them down to expose the fraud by the makers of the quiz (who was identified as Neal Boortz in one piece I saw but I haven’t been able to find his version).
We’ll take a more rational, hoax-debunking view below the fold. You can bet that Hillary Clinton didn’t take the Idi Amin-Stalin-Mao-Hitler view. You can take that to the bank.
32 Comments | Bad Quotes, Bogus history, Ethics, Hoaxes, Politics, Voodoo history | Tagged: dirty politics, gullible pundits, Hillary Clinton, hoax quiz, hoax quotes, Politics | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Let’s put an end to the silly “Christian nation” notion once and for all. Can we?
I am a hopeful person. Of course, I realize that it is highly unlikely we would ever be able to disabuse people of the Christian nation myth.
Okay — then let’s at least lay some facts on the table.
First, some background. John McCain, U.S. Senator from Arizona and candidate for U.S. president, granted an exclusive interview to a reporter from Belief.net. Read excerpts here.
In the interview McCain falls into the Christian nation trap:
Q: A recent poll found that 55 percent of Americans believe the U.S. Constitution establishes a Christian nation. What do you think?
A: I would probably have to say yes, that the Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation. But I say that in the broadest sense. The lady that holds her lamp beside the golden door doesn’t say, “I only welcome Christians.” We welcome the poor, the tired, the huddled masses. But when they come here they know that they are in a nation founded on Christian principles.
Second, David Kuo properly, but gingerly, takes on McCain′s argument (hooray for Belief.net).
Then, third, Rod Dreher (the Crunchy Con from the Dallas Morning News) agrees with McCain, mostly.
McCain’s blithe endorsement of this myth, based in error and continued as a political drive to shutting down democratic processes. McCain may be starting to understand some of the difficulties with this issue. His remarks are a week old, at least, and there’s been a wire story a day since then. Will it make him lean more toward taking my advice?
Below the fold, I post a few observations on why we should just forget the entire, foolish claim. Read the rest of this entry »
48 Comments | 6th Amendment, Bogus history, Books, First Amendment, Politics, Religion, Religious Freedom, Separation of church and state | Tagged: Christian nation, Christian Nation Hoax, hoax, John McCain, Law, Politics, Religion, Separation of church and state, Supreme Court | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
On the road for a day and a half. Here is an encore post from last October, an issue that remains salient, sadly, as creationists have stepped up their presence in Texas before the next round of biology textbook approvals before the Texas State Board of Education. I discuss why intelligent design should not be in science books.
Flying pig image from Flying Pig Brewery, Everett, Washington. (Late brewery? Has it closed?)
[From October 2006]: We’re talking past each other now over at Right Reason, on a thread that started out lamenting Baylor’s initial decision to deny Dr. Francis Beckwith tenure last year, but quickly changed once news got out that Beckwith’s appeal of the decision was successful.
I noted that Beckwith’s getting tenure denies ID advocates of an argument that Beckwith is being persecuted for his ID views (wholly apart from the fact that there is zero indication his views on this issue had anything to do with his tenure discussions). Of course, I was wrong there — ID advocates have since continued to claim persecution where none exists. Never let the facts get in the way of a creationism rant, is the first rule of creationism.
Discussion has since turned to the legality of teaching intelligent design in a public school science class. This is well settled law — it’s not legal, not so long as there remains no undisproven science to back ID or any other form of creationism.
Background: The Supreme Court affirmed the law in a 1987 case from Louisiana, Edwards v. Aguillard (482 U.S. 578), affirming a district court’s grant of summary judgment against a state law requiring schools to teach creationism whenever evolution was covered in the curriculum. Summary judgment was issued by the district court because the issues were not materially different from those in an earlier case in Arkansas, McLean vs. Arkansas (529 F. Supp. 1255, 1266 (ED Ark. 1982)). There the court held, after trial, that there is no science in creationism that would allow it to be discussed as science in a classroom, and further that creationism is based in scripture and the advocates of creationism have religious reasons only to make such laws. (During depositions, each creationism advocate was asked, under oath, whether they knew of research that supports creationism; each answered “no.” Then they were asked where creationism comes from, and each answered that it comes from scripture. It is often noted how the testimony changes from creationists, when under oath.)
Especially after the Arkansas trial, it was clear that in order to get creationism into the textbooks, creationists would have to hit the laboratories and the field to do some science to back their claims. Oddly, they have staunchly avoided doing any such work, instead claiming victimhood, usually on religious grounds. To the extent ID differs from all other forms of creationism, the applicability of the law to ID was affirmed late last year in the Pennsylvania case, Kitzmiller v. Dover.
58 Comments | Bill of Rights, Biology, Bogus history, Charles Darwin, Creationism, Hoaxes, Intelligent Design, Textbook Selection, Voodoo science, War on Science | Tagged: Bill of Rights, Biology, Creationism, Curricula, Evolution, Hoaxes, Intelligent Design, Politics, Religion, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Cornelia Dean’s article in the New York Times on September 27 reports that several scientists got the same deceptive invitation to appear in a documentary movie that has not been made, but instead discovered themselves in a different movie, a sort of mockumentary in support of the discredited concept of intelligent design.
Actor/comedian/lawyer/economist Ben Stein is the producer and narrator of “Expelled!” P. Z. Myers kicked off the blog discussions when he noted his own appearance in the movie, not exactly what it was billed — Myers posted the invitation letter, related the story, and eventually posted the kiss-off letter from the producer, who seems too embarrassed to talk about his deceptive actions.
One has to wonder, is such a vanity production in defense of voodoo science the best use of Ben Stein’s money? Is it the best use of Ben Stein’s brain? What was he thinking?
Let the record note: Scientific contributions from intelligent design and the rest of creationism, for 2007 and 2008, was a mockumentary movie, based on deception-obtained interviews.
Is that what they want us to teach the kids in high school?
Also see:
Image: AV Club.com
Leave a Comment » | Bogus history, Creationism, Ethics, Intelligent Design, Voodoo science | Tagged: Ben Stein, Creationism, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, Intelligent Design, PZ Myers, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
It looks a lot like inside baseball. It’s conducted away from classrooms, while teachers struggle to deliver science to students in crowded classrooms without adequate textbooks, without adequate science labs and without adequate time. The perpetrators hew to Otto von Bismark’s claim that the public shouldn’t see their laws or sausages being made.
Since Bismark, in the U.S. we have food safety laws to protect our sausage. In Texas, the political scheming in the State Board of Education (SBOE) continues to spoil science education.
Science standards for Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) — the Texas state science education standards — are being rewritten by the Texas Education Agency, under direction of the SBOE. While procedures have been consistent over the past 15 years or so, and the state legislature reined in SBOE from political shenanigans in textbook selection, SBOE members are fighting back to get the right to skew science standards. For weeks the selection of committees to review specific standards have been held up so members of the SBOE can stack the committees to put their political views in.
Board members are insisting on stacking the review committees now, weeks after the deadline for members to nominate qualified teachers and experts to review the standards. This is the gateway to the path of bad standards through which we earlier watched other school boards frolic — Cobb County, Georgia, Dover, Pennsylvania, and the State of Ohio. Taxpayers in Cobb County and Dover paid the price when courts correctly noted that the changes proposed violated the religious freedom clauses of the state constitutions and the First Amendment. Ohio’s board backed down when a new governor cleaned house, and when it became clear that their position would lose in court.
Simply gutting the standards, however, may not rise to the standard of illegal religious influence. Keeping kids in the dark may not violate federal or state law. It’s immoral, but would the Texas State Board stick to that side of morality? Many observers doubt it, given the track record of recent years striking important health information from texts that might save a few lives, and the legislature’s pro-cancer legislation this year.
Some observers have provided detailed reports that to many of us look like simple foot dragging. In the past week it has become more clear that the foot dragging is really political positioning.
If anyone was lulled to sleep by the Dallas Morning News article a few weeks ago which touted board members’ claims they would not advocate putting intelligent design into the biology curriculum, the greater fears now seem to be coming true: Board members did NOT say they would stand for good science, or that they would not try to cut evolution, Big Bang, astronomy, geology, accurate medicine and health, and paleontology out of curricula. The Corpus Christi Caller-Times warned:
Board chairman Don McLeroy, though indicating that he won’t support the teaching of intelligent design, says he would like to see more inclusion in textbooks of what he called weaknesses in the evolutionary theory, a sentiment expressed by many of the predominantly Republican 15-member board.
This only sounds like another version of a common tactic by religious pressure groups that seek to create a controversy about evolution that only exists in their opposition. That nicely covers their ultimate goal of converting classrooms into pulpits for religious teachings.
Texas schoolchildren will be the losers if the teaching of science, or health, or history — all subjects that have been the target of pressure groups — is based on something other than the best known and most widely accepted bodies of knowledge. In a pluralistic nation with many creeds and religions, letting personal faith become the guiding force for the public school curriculum invites creation of a battleground.
Texans should watch the State Board of Education in the months to come.
Just over a month ago one of the chief theorists behind Big Bang theory died in Austin, Ralph Alpher. His death went largely unnoticed. In 2003, with the Nobel Prize winning-physicist Ilya Prigogine of the University of Texas not yet cool in the grave, charlatans felt free to misrepresent his work on thermodynamics, saying he had “proved” that evolution could not occur. In fact, his prize-winning work showed that on a planet like Earth, evolution is a virtual certainty. Prigogine, Alpher: A greater tragedy is brewing: Will Big Bang survive the hatchets of anti-science forces on the SBOE? Many hard theories of science are unpopular with religious fanatics in Texas. Those fanatics are over-represented on the SBOE.
Don’t just watch. Write to your board member, to the TEA director, to the governor, to the legislature. One way to keep “no child left behind” is by holding all children back. Texas and America cannot afford such Taliban-like enforcement of ignorance.
5 Comments | Bogus history, Politics, Science, Science and faith, State school boards, Texas, Texas Lege, Textbook Selection, Voodoo history, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Maybe Fillmore fans should be offended.
Franklin Pierce ordered the first bathtub for the White House. Many people were upset. They thought taking baths was not healthy and would make you sick!
Good heavens! They’ve got all the points of the Millard Fillmore/bathtub in the White House hoax — but they’ve attributed it to the wrong president!
It’s a hoax hoax!
1 Comment | Bogus history, Hoaxes, Millard Fillmore, Presidents | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
It’s not exactly breaking news, but I probably should have caught it earlier — that Ron Radosh article in the New York Sun in which he noted Pete Seeger had condemned Stalin, ‘finally, after all these years?’ The article that made Instapundit exclaim it’s about time?
The New York Times noted that Seeger had made the confession in his book in 1993. Pete was probably too polite to embarrass his former banjo student, Radosh, with Radosh’s being at least a decade behind the times. But of course, the harpy right wing pundits can’t resist taking a swipe at Seeger anyway. I have to wonder whether earlier examples can be found.
Sour grapes articles were expectorated at NewsBusters, by P. J. Gladnick, Hard Country (which inexplicably extolls the virtue of Pete’s music and offers links to several videos of Pete’s performances), Andrew Sullivan (who even more inexplicably links to the NY Times article pointing out Seeger did it at least a decade ago), Dean’s World, Classically Liberal, Assistant Village Idiot (bucking for promotion?), Moonbattery, Mona Charen at NRO (who confesses to having it wrong in the 1970s, too), Dictators of the World, Jim-Rose.com, Synthstuff — whew! Here’s a pre-Radosh column sour grapes swipe from David Boaz in The Guardian.
See also The Philadelphia Inquirer, Walter Weiss, and the AP story in the Miami Herald. And this: The Peekskill riots?
To get the bad taste out of your mouth, see what Marketing Begins at Home has to say, and see the photos. And see this piece on the Highlander School.
7 Comments | Accuracy, Bogus history, Communism, History, History and art, Joseph Stalin, Music | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Anti-science and anti-evolution groups’ desperation erupts in odd ways. When scientists get together and discussion turns to the political movement known as intelligent design (ID), they express frustration at the sheer volume of supercilious ideas and claims that surge out of ID advocates. At its heart, this frustration has an almost-humorous puzzle: Scientists cannot tell what is a real claim from ID advocates, or what is a parody of those claims.
Neither can anyone else.
I stumbled into a mackerel-in-the-moonlight* example to show the problem: Jonathan Wells, a minister in the Unification Church of Rev. Sun Myung Moon, wrote a slap-dash screed against evolution published by right-wing cudgel publishing house Regnery, called The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design.
Amazon.com invites authors to set up blogs, and Jonathan Wells has one. The only post there is reproduced in full below the fold — a list of . . . um, well . . . a top ten list of something (Wells just calls it a “top ten list”). It consists of amazing flights of fancy surrounding the issue of teaching science in public schools. I promise, I am not making any of this up — when I quote Wells, it will be his words entirely, completely, in context, uncut and unedited. If I didn’t tell you this was not parody, and if you have half your wits, you’d think either I was making it up, or somebody at Amazon was.
Point by point criticism, in brief, below the fold. I promise, I am not making this up.
__________________________________
* John Randolph is reputed to have said of Henry Clay: “Like a rotten mackerel by moonlight, he shines and stinks.” Read the rest of this entry »
2 Comments | Biology, Bogus history, Charles Darwin, Creationism, Hoaxes, Intelligent Design, Justice, Natural history, Religion, Voodoo history, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Vox Day, who claims to know more than most mortals can even think about, has fallen into a quote mine. (Quote mine defined.) Worse, the mine appears to have caved in.
Vox Day wishes to make the claim that Darwin is responsible for the evils of the Soviet Union. Apart from the prima facie absurdity of the claim, Vox has a dozen highly tenuous links he wishes to torture into supporting his claim, despite their refusal to do so.
This just in: Since I started out on this particular Fisking, Vox has popped up with this gem:
Unsurprisingly, evolutionists are reacting strongly to my column today. They swear up and down that there is no connection whatsoever between evolution and Communism, despite the fact that every single major Communist not only subscribed to Darwinist evolution but considered Darwin to be second only to Hegel as a pre-Marxist socialist figure.
There is no evidence Stalin or Lenin ever subscribed to evolution theory, and at any rate, Stalin expressly rejected Darwin and evolution, eviscerating the Soviets’ lead in genetics in 1920 by banning the teaching of evolution, banning research in evolution or research that had Darwinian overtones, stripping Darwin-theory subscribing biologists of their jobs, exiling a few to Siberia and death in several cases, and executing a few just for good measure. In place of evolution, Stalin backed Trofim Lysenko who advocated, apart from his creationist-like hatred of Darwin, an odd, almost-Lamarckian idea that stress in utero would change characteristics.
So, for example, Lysenko ordered that seed wheat be frozen, and then planted in winter. The freezing, the Stalin-Lysenko idea held, would make the wheat able to grow in cold weather. The crop failures were so spectacular that at least 4 million people died of starvation in the Soviet Union. By 1954 the crop failures were so massive the Soviet Union had to purchase wheat from the U.S., with loans from the U.S. These loans crippled any hope of the Soviet economy ever breaking out of its doldrums, and started the long slide to the collapse of the Soviet Union. You’d think Vox Day, who professes to be a libertarian and a Christian, would approve of the collapse of the Soviet Union by any cause — but he does not approve of the collapse if it came by a lack of evolution theory.
Vox Day never lets the facts get in the way of a rant. (As evidence that Marx was so deeply influenced by evolution theory, Vox notes that a fellow who knew Darwin, Edward Aveling attended Marx’s funeral. If that doesn’t convince, you, Vox says, Aveling later wrote an article saying it’s true, Marxism was based on evolution theory. So take THAT all you people who think Marxism emphasizes collectivism and the state: Darwin’s individual competition for survival is the REAL root of socialism. No, I’m not making this up — go read it for yourself. Then get some facts — read this account, which includes the guest list of Marx’s funeral. There were only nine people at Marx’s funeral, and Vox got the guest list wrong: Aveling wasn’t there. One more Vox claim refuted.)
Back to the regularly scheduled Vox Day quote mine cave-in, below the fold.
54 Comments | Accuracy, Bad Quotes, Bogus history, Capitalism, Charles Darwin, Communism, Economics, Evolution, History, Uncomposted Organic Fertilizer, Voodoo history, Voodoo science | Tagged: Accuracy, Bad Quotes, Bogus Economics, Bogus history, bogus science, Capitalism, Charles Darwin, Communism, Evolution, Voodoo history, Voodoo science, Vox Day | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Some are Boojums is back — that’s good news for truth seekers, science error debunkers and historians who care about accuracy.
Masthead photo for Jim Easter’s blog, Some Are Boojums
Some are Boojums author Jim Easter guts the anti-Rachel Carson case in his relaunch post.
Pay particular attention to what Jim writes in conclusion:
That’s right. The 1972 DDT ban did nothing to restrict the chemical’s use against malaria, but had the effect of eliminating the single most intense source of selection pressure for insecticide resistance in mosquitoes. As the rest of the world followed suit in restricting agricultural use of DDT, the spread of resistance was slowed dramatically or stopped. By this single action, William Ruckelshaus — and, credit where it’s due, Rachel Carson — may well have saved millions of lives.
Steven Milloy is invited to add that to the DDT FAQ any time it’s convenient.
Particularly notable is Jim’s work to make available the much miscited administrative law ruling by Judge Edmund M. Sweeney. It is now available on-line, so the critics can now provide accurate citations to the decision, if their intent were to inform the public, instead of maligning the truth and misleading the public.
Mr. Easter’s applied history work in this effort is notable. The internet misses much of near-recent history, especially from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Much of today’s political discussion could benefit from information that would be available in libraries, had libraries not suffered from great budget and priorities cuts in the last 20 years. Jim Easter’s contribution to making a more complete record of the history of DDT and the history of the EPA deserves applause.
4 Comments | Accuracy, Biology, Bogus history, Conservation, DDT, Environmental protection, Historic documents, Rachel Carson, Science, Voodoo history, Voodoo science, War on Science | Tagged: Bogus history, DBQ, DDT, EPA, Historic documents, Jim Easter, Judge Edmund Sweeney, Rachel Carson, Some Are Boojums | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
You are currently browsing the archives for the Bogus history category.
Ed Darrell on Texas's Colorado River
Come on in, the water's fine. Come often: Cleanliness is next to godliness.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 