Obama’s cabinet: Neal Boortz spreads hoax smear, months after debunking

July 23, 2010

Neal Boortz, the Georgia-based radio broadcaster, goes beyond irresponsible journalism.  After we caught Boortz spreading false tales about Hilary Clinton last year, I proceeded to ignore him.

Traffic links pointed to Boortz this morning — now we find he’s spreading a hoax about Obama’s cabinet’s qualifications, months after the guy who started the false story caught his error and retracted it.  [July 4, 2011 – If that link doesn’t work, try this link to Boortz’s archive.]

That’s not just irresponsible and sloppy:  Boortz clearly has a grudge and will tell any falsehood to push his agenda of hatred.

Birds of a feather: Texas deficit champion Rick Perry with Neil Boortz, who tells whoppers about Clinton and Obama

Birds of a feather: Texas deficit champion Rick Perry, who refused to talk about his $18 billion deficit in Texas, with Neil Boortz, who spread a hoax about Hillary Clinton in 2008, and now spreads old hoaxes about President Obama.

Boortz posts this at his site, probably as a warning for what his philosophy of reporting is:

“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that justifies it.”

Frederic Bastiat

Just before Thanksgiving last year, a J. P. Morgan official wrote a humorous piece of conjecture for his weekly newsletter — a week when most of the markets in the U.S. were closed, and so there was little news.  Michael Cembalest, the chief investment officer for J. P. Morgan, without serious research wrote a piece wondering about what he saw as a lack of private sector experience in Obama’s cabinet in those positions in Cembalest’s view that are concerned most with job creation.

The spin meisters at American Enterprise Institute abused Cembalest’s rank conjectures as a “research report,” created a hoax saying Obama’s cabinet is the least qualified in history, and the thing went viral among otherwise ungainfully-employed bloggers (a lot like Neil Boortz).

Cembalest retracted his piece when he saw, in horror, what had happened (but not before I was too rough on him in poking much-deserved holes in the AEI claim).

Cembalest called me before the end of that week, noting that he’d retracted the piece.

Nearly eight months later, full of vituperation but bereft of information, today Neil Boortz resurrected the hoax story on his blog (on his radio program, too? I’ll wager Boortz is double dipping with his false-tale telling . . .).

Here’s a series of falsehoods Boortz told:

Last year J.P. Morgan thought it might be interesting to look into the private sector experience of Obama’s Cabinet. America, after all, was in the middle of an economic disaster and the thought was that the president might actually look to some people with a record of success in the private sector for advice. So a study is done comparing Obama’s Cabinet to the cabinets of presidents going back to 1900. secretaries of State, Commerce, Treasury, Agriculture, Interior, Labor, Transportation, Energy and Housing and Urban Development were included. The J.P Morgan study looked at the percentages of cabinet members with prior private sector experience, and the results were amazing.

The presidential cabinet with the highest percentage of private sector experience was that of Dwight Eisenhower at around 58%. The lowest — until Obama — was Kennedy at about 28%. The average ran between 35% and 40% … until, as I said, Obama. Care to guess what percentage of Obama’s cabinet has prior private sector experience? Try 7%.

Here’s a start at the truth — try 11 times the experience Boortz credits:

All totaled, Obama’s cabinet is one of the certifiably most brainy, most successful and most decorated of any president at any time.  His cabinet brings extensive and extremely successful private sector experience coupled with outstanding and considerable successful experience in government and elective politics.

AEI’s claim that the cabinet lacks private sector experience is astoundingly in error, with 77% of the 22 members showing private sector experience — according to the [standards of the] bizarre chart [from AEI], putting Obama’s cabinet in the premiere levels of private sector experience.  The chart looks more and more like a hoax that AEI fell sucker to — and so did others.

Boortz is eight months late, and the whole truth short.  Shame on him.

Not just false stuff — old, moldy false stuff.   Atlantans, and all Americans, deserve better reporting, even from hack commentators.

_____________

Coda:  Sage advice, but . . .

Boortz includes this warning on his website:

ALWAYS REMEMBER
Don’t believe anything you read on this web page, or, for that matter, anything you hear on The Neal Boortz Show, unless it is consistent with what you already know to be true, or unless you have taken the time to research the matter to prove its accuracy to your satisfaction. This is known as “doing your homework.”

Great advice — but no excuse for sloppy reporting.  He should follow his own rule.  On this piece, Boortz didn’t do his homework in any fashion.  He’s turning in somebody else’s crap, without reading it in advance, it appears.

26 Comments | Accuracy, Business, Business Ethics, Capitalism, Government, History, Hoaxes, Journalism, Political conventions, Political Smear, Politics, President Obama, Presidents | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Happy birthday, Peter Schickele

July 17, 2010

Peter Schickele is 75 today.

Peter Schickele, a.k.a. P. D. Q. Bach

Peter Schickele, born July 17, 1935

May he live to be a happy, robust, still-composing, still performing 135, at least.

Some people know him as a great disk jockey.  Some people know him as the singer of cabaret tunes.  Some people know and love him as a composer of music for symphony orchestra, or to accompany Where the Wild Things Are.

Peter Shickele, left, and P. D. Q. Bach, together, in happier times.

Peter Shickele, left, and P. D. Q. Bach, together, in earlier and, some say, happier times.

Then there are those happy masses who know him for his historical work, recovering the works of Johann Sebastian Bach’s final and most wayward child, P. D. Q. Bach.

Tip of the old bathtub-hardened conductor’s baton to Eric Koenig.

6 Comments | History, Hoaxes, Humor, Music, Music education, Mythology | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Religious nut new on the scene, “explains origins of life”

July 14, 2010

“Darwinism” is doomed, Perry Marshall says. The entire theory will crumble in 2013 (like the Berlin Wall — may as well start with an offensive comparison to totalitarianism since everyone knows it will get there eventually), if you just suffer through his lessons, send him some money, suspend all logic and reason, send him some money, forget everything you learned in science, and send him a ltittle money.

Plus, he’s figured out how to reconcile Christianity and science. (Call the Templeton Prize committee.)  (No, call James Randi and the FBI fraud squad instead.)  You can take his course at Coffeehouse Theology (no Mormons need apply, but hey, they teach evolution at their colleges, so they can’t be real saints, can they?).

Perry Marshall, publicity photo

According to Perry Marshall, "Perry Marshall's books on Google AdWords are the most popular in the world." No hyperbole, no ego here.

Did I mention he’s an engineer?

Yes, Spunky, that’s your Hemingway solid-gold S–t Detector™ clanging in your holster, if you’re using the handy, lithium-battery-powered version.  If the rest of the story didn’t set your device off, the lack of an immediate plea for money should have.

Mr. Marshall asks you to turn off your Hemingway, and your mind, relax and float downstream (apologies to the Beatles).  You being a Wise Human, should just reset the device, and go back to ignoring Perry Marshall.

Do you remember when people had to do a lot of dope to get these kinds of hallucinations?  People like Marshall do damage to Carlos Casteneda and famous hoakum.

The only mystery to me is, why is Marshall bursting out on the scene now, with on-line ads that run even next to P. Z. Myers’ blog Pharyngula?  (That’s where I found him; the elves of the internest may give you different ads.)  Marshall appears to be a follower, if not disciple, of Hugh Ross.  Perhaps he’s really prospecting for leads for his business.

Ignorance abounds in the world.  The cure is knowledge and study, not more ignorance and bovine excrement.

8 Comments | Creationism, Darwin, Evolution, History, Hoaxes, Intelligent Design, Religion, Santayana's ghost, Voodoo science, War on Education, War on Science | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

I get e-mail: Media Matters calls bluffs of climate change “skeptics”

July 10, 2010

Media Matters may be a site worth tracking more closely, not only on climate issues:

Media Matters: The greatest science “scandal” “in the history of man” predictably falls apart

In their never-ending quest to prove that they understand the intricacies of climate science better than actual climate scientists, conservative media figures routinely promote any ridiculous “evidence” they think undermines the scientific consensus about climate change.

This is a group that repeatedly points to snowstorms in February as proof that global warming is not real; claims that CO2 can’t be a pollutant because “we breathe” it; and ignores actual temperature data to baselessly claim that the Earth is really “cooling.”

Last year, conservative climate change skeptics, in the words of Wall Street Journal’s Kimberly Strassel, thought they had found a “gold mine.” Conservative media figures seized on emails stolen from climate scientists and proceeded to completely distort their contents. As we pointed out repeatedly at the time, this “scandal” relied on outrageous misrepresentations of the stolen emails and did not in any way undermine the scientific consensus about climate change.

Nevertheless, conservative media figures incessantly hyped the non-scandal with their usual overblown rhetoric:

  • Glenn Beck — who says he is not a conspiracy theorist, remember — suggested in the wake of “Climategate” that climate change is a “scam.” He also said that if the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report “had been done by Japanese scientists, there is not enough knives on planet Earth for hara-kiri.”
  • Noted climatologist Rush Limbaugh, who frequently decries the supposed global warming “hoax,” proposed that all of the scientists involved in “Climategate” should be “named and fired, drawn and quartered, or whatever it is.”
  • Andrew Breitbart called for “capital punishment” for NASA scientist James Hansen, because “Climategate” was supposedly “high treason.”
  • The Washington Times, Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, Investor’s Business Daily, The American Spectator’s Robert Stacy McCain, Rich Lowry, Newsmax’s James Hirsen, and Michael Ledeen all joined forces to smear the scientific consensus on climate change as a “cult.”
  • Fox News’ Mike Huckabee explained that “Jesus would be a truthseeker” while discussing the “revelation” that scientists had “cooked” climate change data.

The crew at Fox & Friends spent this year’s Earth Day promoting an important cause. No, not encouraging environmental consciousness — they devoted the show to pushing “Climategate” falsehoods in order to falsely claim that “scientists held back data that discredits theories on global warming.” They were joined by Brent Bozell of the Media Research Center, who was there to complain about non-Fox networks “dismiss[ing]” and “ignor[ing]” the story.

Last December, Bozell told Lou Dobbs that “Climategate” is the “biggest scandal in terms of science, finance, and politics … in the history of man.” After Bozell compared the climate science “cover-up” to “the craziness” of Dan Brown’s fiction, he actually managed to draw laughter from Dobbs. Unfortunately, contrary to Bozell’s suggestion that media outlets ignored the story, numerous non-Fox “Climategate” stories adopted conservatives’ dishonest framing of the non-story.

And now for the inevitable conclusion of this manufactured controversy.

As reported by The New York Times’ Andrew Revkin — who, by the way, Rush Limbaugh thinks should “just go kill” himself — the Independent Climate Change Email Review “cleared climate scientists and administrators” involved in “Climategate” of “malfeasance.” This follows several other exonerations of the scientists involved in the phony scandal. In response, Media Matters, joined by numerous progressive and clean energy groups, called on all outlets that reported on the original “Climategate” controversy to set the record straight.

So this leaves us where we were before the “Climategate” freakout: There is still overwhelming scientific evidence supporting the theory of global warming.

And once again conservative media proved that they don’t hesitate to rely on blatant distortions, outright falsehoods, and a complete disregard for reality to advance their political causes.

Mainstream media outlets would be doing everyone a service if they remembered that the next time they decide to report on whatever Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Fox News, and the perpetual conservative outrage machine are yelling about.

Conservatives’ phony scandal of the week: The Obama Justice Department and the New Black Panther Party

While we’re on the subject of manufactured scandals that respectable media outlets shouldn’t take seriously, Fox News and its friends in the conservative echo chamber spent much of the week promoting phony, trumped-up allegations against the Justice Department.

In short, conservative media outlets have been aggressively promoting the charge by GOP activist J. Christian Adams that President Obama’s Justice Department engaged in racially charged “corruption” when it partially dismissed a case against members of the New Black Panther Party for allegedly engaging in voter intimidation outside of a Philadelphia polling center on Election Day in 2008.

As we have documented extensively, Adams should not be trusted. He is a long-time right-wing activist with extensive ties to the Bush-era politicization of the Justice Department. Adams himself has admitted that he lacks first-hand knowledge to support his accusations. Additionally, Adams’ charge that the DOJ’s action in the New Black Panther case shows unprecedented, racially motivated corruption is undermined by the fact that the Obama DOJ obtained judgment against one of the defendants, and that the Bush DOJ declined to pursue similar allegations against a group of Minutemen — one of whom was carrying a gun — in 2006.

Even the Republican vice chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights called the New Black Panthers case “very small potatoes” and said an investigation into the DOJ’s decision is full of “overheated rhetoric filled with insinuations and unsubstantiated charges.”

And yet again, the fact that this is a completely manufactured scandal didn’t stop conservative media figures from engaging in one of their time-honored traditions: attempting to obscure their own problems with race by accusing others of racism.

Radio host Jim Quinn — who once told “race-baiting” African-American “ingrates” to “get on your knees” and “kiss the American dirt” because slavery brought them to the U.S. — hyped the New Black Panther story by calling the civil rights community “race-baiting poverty pimps.”

Rush Limbaugh — who earlier this week announced that if Obama wasn’t black he’d be a “tour guide in Honolulu” and claimed Obama is using the office of the presidency to seek “payback” for the country’s history of racism — forwarded Adams’ charge that the case was dropped because of racially charged corruption.

Beck, who infamously called President Obama a “racist” with a “deep seated hatred for white people or the white culture,” declared that the Obama administration is “full” of “people that will excuse” the “hatred” of the New Black Panthers. He also relied on falsehoods to try to connect Obama to the New Black Panthers, and claimed today that the New Black Panthers are part of Obama’s “army of thugs.”

Of course, the New Black Panthers are a fringe hate group, and only a cynical race-baiter like Glenn Beck would claim they are somehow part of Barack Obama’s imaginary “army of thugs.”

But I’m sure they appreciate all of the publicity, courtesy of Glenn Beck and Fox News.

Bek Younuhvercity

This week also marked the launch of Beck’s latest attempt to grab money from “educate” his audience: Beck University.

As Beck described it, the online Beck University is an “academic program” that would be a “unique experience bringing together experts in the fields of religion, American history, and economics.” At the outset of the first “course” — Faith 101, with frequent Beck guest/promoter of historical misinformation David Barton — Beck announced that viewers “will learn more in the next hour than you’ve probably learned in your entire life about American history.”

Laughable hyperbole aside, as we pointed out this week, Glenn Beck is uniquely unqualified to found a university, considering he regularly traffics in bizarre conspiracy theories, distortions, and downright falsehoods on a wide variety of subjects.

The day after the first “course” at Beck University, Beck stood in front of his blackboard and labeled various historical figures “heros” or “villians.”

And lastly, by my count, between his TV show last night and his radio program today, Beck launched no fewer than four baseless charges that, by his standards, should get him fired.

This weekly wrap-up was compiled by Media Matters’ Ben Dimiero.

Whom the gods destroy, they first make mad, Euripides said (paraphrased).  With that ancient wisdom in hand, one might be well advised not to stand next to Glenn Beck or Fox News.

If Glenn Beck wishes to know the evils of Woodrow Wilson or Theodore Roosevelt, I can point him to sources.  In spite of those evils, however, they remain heroes of American history for the good things they did.  Beck criticizes them for those good things, however, and not for their failures (including Wilson’s patent racism, and Roosevelt’s failure to push for integration at opportune times — to Beck, those would be virtues, I fear).

Visit Media Matters here, sign up for Media Matters’ e-mail newsletter here.

9 Comments | Accuracy, Climate change, climate_change, Conservation, Global warming, History, Hoaxes, Journalism, News, Newspapers, Political Smear, Politics, Science, War on Education | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Power Line, on NASA and Islam: When you start believing your own fictions, you’re in trouble

July 8, 2010

Astronaut Charles Bolden, veteran of four space missions. President Barack Obama appointed Bolden to be NASA Administrator. NASA image.

Astronaut Charles Bolden, veteran of four space missions. President Barack Obama appointed Bolden to be NASA Administrator. NASA image.

Let go of the power line, step back, and no one else will get hurt.

Paul Mirengoff at the much-read, and as we shall see, too-much-trusted PowerLine, asks a heckuva a question:

As Scott points out in the post immediately below, the news that President Obama tasked NASA head Bolden, as perhaps his foremost mission, with raising Muslim self-esteem is entirely absent from the New York Times and the Washington Post, as well as the nightly newscasts of ABC, NBC, and CBS. Why?

It might be, as Mirengoff goes on to speculate wildly and without reason, because the news agencies are taking payoffs from Obama, or just so enthralled with him that they can’t bring themselves to report bad news.

Think about that for a moment:  News agencies unwilling to report bad news?  Is your Hemingway Sh__ Detector working yet?  Mine’s clanging something fierce.

Does Mirengoff seriously think the Poobahs at Disney sit around issuing orders that ABC news gatherers ignore bad news about Obama?  Has Mirengoff been in some sort of plastic bubble, deprived of newspapers and television for the past four years?

Why the silent treatment?  Because it’s very much a not-much-news story, Paul.  It doesn’t say what you think it says, or worse, what you know it doesn’t say, but claim it does for whatever trouble you can stir up.

Charles Bolden, NASA’s administrator, explained for a news channel that broadcasts to the Middle East, what his job is with regard to the Arabic and Islamic populations (this is the version reported by York):

“When I became the NASA administrator, [Obama] charged me with three things,” NASA head Charles Bolden said in a recent interview with the Middle Eastern news network al-Jazeera. “One, he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math; he wanted me to expand our international relationships; and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering.”

Good reporters would look at the interview, and realize the PowerLine guys got the story dead wrong.  Not bothering to speculate on why part-time yahoos misreported the story, they’d go on to real news.

Note carefully what Bolden said, and then note carefully what he did not say.  Bolden didn’t say the mission of NASA had changed.  Bolden didn’t say Obama told him to ignore the mission of NASA.  Bolden said NASA, arguably our nation’s most famous and vanguard science agency, has a top duty to inspire children to do well in science in math, to cooperate with other nations in exploring space as we have done since at least the Reagan administration, and, for audiences in Arabic nations, to help them understand Arabic contributions to science.

“Let go of the power line, step back, and no one else will get hurt.” Downed powerline in New Jersey, in summer 2011. Photo by Saed Hindash, The Star-Ledger

Bolden did not say, as Hot Air misreported, “NASA’s spaced-out mission no longer includes  . . . space.”  Hot Air isn’t reporting.  This is a time-tested propaganda technique they engage in:  MSU, “making [stuff] up.”

Which of those goals does Power Line disagree with?  Each of them is a noble enterprise on its own.

But, pausing for just a moment to make liars out of Power Line and the Examiner, and others, ABC News got it right. How soon do you think Mirengoff or Scott Johnson at Power Line will update their story to note ABC reported it?  How much longer before others do?

Media Matters, who tend to be more careful and much, much more accurate, tells most of the story in the headline of their story:  “Yet again, an Obama official says ‘Muslim,’ right-wing media freakout follows.”

If ABC can get it right, why not these other guys?

Yellow journalism was bad enough the first time around.  PowerLine, could you at least take the time to get the story right?  If you don’t have a Hemingway to help you out, you can always use the old Cheech and Chong Excrement Detection Method.  I don’t recommend it, but it tends to make reporters more careful if they ever use it once.

You gotta wonder why these people spread easily-falsified, malignant rumors.  Who are they working for?  It’s pretty clear they don’t have much respect for their readers.

This is a hoax, people.  NASA has not changed its mission.  The president cannot change NASA’s mission since that is dictated by law (it requires an “act of Congress,” literally).  NASA’s chief did not say that stupid thing others claim — he’s not stupid. Don’t pretend it’s news, don’t pretend it’s a problem when the head of NASA says he’s trying to promote interest in science, math and history, and international cooperation.  That’s his job.

No one was assigned the job to get the story wrong.  I wish people would quit working so hard at it.

What is Obama’s policy on NASA?  Here’s the 2011 Budget Message.

Here’s the full Al Jazeera interview these guys misreported:

Here’s the Wall of Shame of blogs, reporters and news outlets who screwed up the reporting, in addition to Powerline, twice.

Also see this:  Obama:  A bold new course for NASA

Save

Save

3 Comments | History, Hoaxes, NASA, News, Political Smear, Politics, Science, Space exploration | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Stolen e-mails report: Scientists in the clear, science solid

July 7, 2010

So far it’s a shut out against the “skeptics” of global warming.*

From Science Insider (the AAAS breaking news blog):

The fifth and, so far, most thorough major investigation into the published mails from the University of East Angia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) has given the CRU a relatively clean bill of health. (See the full report.) The independent inquiry into so-called “Climategate”, instigated by UEA and headed by former civil servant Muir Russell, examined the conduct of the CRU scientists following allegations sparked by the so-called “Climategate” e-mails. It looked at selective use of data, subverting of peer review, and failure to respond fully to requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

The report was unequivocal in its backing of the scientists in terms of research integrity, though it did criticize their openness. “Their rigour and honesty as scientists are not in doubt,” it said. In response to the assertion that CRU had withheld data, the report found that it was mostly not theirs to withhold but was easily accessible in public databases. One of the report’s authors, physicist Peter Clarke of the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom, told a press briefing today that they were able to download the relevant data “in a few minutes” and then process it in the same way as CRU had done, producing similar final results. “It took a couple of days of code writing,” he said. The authors found no evidence of bias by CRU in its selection of data. Allegations of misuse of tree ring data were also put aside.

Some of the 1000 e-mails that appeared on the Internet suggested that CRU Director Phil Jones had tried to influence peer review of papers he disagreed with and prevented them from being cited by reviews of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

On the subject of peer review, Russell said that expressing “robust opinions [about papers] was typical during peer review.” And after consulting with editors of the IPCC report, the panel concluded that the CRU scientists were “parts of teams and not individuals responsible for the wording of the reports,” Russell says.

Where the CRU scientists did fall down was in their openness to requests for data. “There was a consistent pattern of failing to display the proper degree of openness,” Russell says. And the report criticizes UEA for failing to recognize its statutory requirements under the FOIA and also the risk to the reputation of the university and to the credibility of U.K. climate science. Panel member James Norton said that “now more than ever scientists need to be open. Scientists don’t own their own data and at most have a temporary lease.”

More:

_____________

*  They’ve complained about being called denialists — maybe we should start calling them “gullibles,” especially since they seized on the thin reed of these stolen e-mails to claim that the victimized scientists were the ones who had done something wrong, since they fell for the fourth-grade science project hoax, and since they fell for the Spanish bomb-in-the-mail hoax.

6 Comments | Climate change, climate_change, Ethics, Global warming, Green Politics, Hoaxes, Politics, Research, Scandals, Science | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Africa Fighting Malaria claims to be fighting malaria

July 6, 2010

In response to earlier analysis here, that Africa Fighting Malaria (AFM) does not appear to do much to fight malaria, Richard Tren wrote a comment to a post at TropIKA.

Tren is unlikely to respond here; I gather he does not want to answer questions.

I will comment more completely later — I’m still not sure just what AFM does to fight malaria.  It’s humorous that he calls my question an “ad hominem” attack; I ask the questions because Tren has led the fight in the unholy smear campaign against Rachel Carson, against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, against dozens of other scientists and science itself, against saving the bald eagle, against wise use of pesticides, against bed nets, against fighting malaria other than poisoning Africa. Most recently, as Tren mentions, he published a book that repeats much of the inaccurate claims and hoaxes he has relied on before.  But he’s concerned about attacks on him personally, and not the substance.

Why am I concerned at all?  The AFM-led assault on the World Health Organization, Rachel Carson, malaria fighters in public health, scientists and environmentalists  has come at an extremely high cost in human life. It is impossible to know how many people have died needlessly from malaria, yellow fever, leishmaniasis, dengue fever and other insect-borne diseases in the absence of medical care or prevention programs in lieu of DDT, but it must be millions — many of them could have been saved but for policy-makers’ beliefs that an increase in DDT could poison these people to health quickly and cheaply.  The campaign in favor of DDT has hampered serious efforts to fight malaria especially, such as Nothing But Nets and USAID’s support for prophylactic measures to beat the disease.

Does Tren answer the question well, what does AFM actually do to fight malaria?

Help me find some substance here in Tren’s letter (unedited by me in any way):

Paul,

It’s hard to know whether or not to respond to this. To say that we are ‘under fire’ because of the sniping and ad-hominem attacks from a blogger who has, for some or other reason, decided to take issue with my organization is an exaggeration to say the least. However even though your post has so far received zero comments I’d like to make a few things clear for the record.

AFM was founded in South Africa in 2000 and we opened an office in the United States in 2003. We maintain an office and a presence in South Africa as well as an office in the Washington DC. You say that we have focused most of our attention on one issue – the desirability of using DDT in mosquito control programs. Actually we focus on malaria control programs, not mosquito control programs; but to an extent you are correct. We have focused on this issue because DDT continues to play an important role in malaria control in many southern African programs (and in some other countries) and over the years other countries, such as Uganda have attempted to use DDT but have been harshly criticized and domestic and international groups forcing DDT spraying programs to close down. AFM defends DDT because of its outstanding record in saving lives and because it is under attack. The scare stories and smear campaigns against this insecticide are so pervasive and the misunderstanding about it so widespread that it is vital for some group or individual to provide a counterbalance, based on sound science.

AFM was a critical voice in securing an exemption for the use of DDT in the Stockholm Convention, and our research and advocacy work helped to usher in far-reaching reforms to US support for malaria control. We recently published a major book on DDT and its role in malaria control – The Excellent Powder – see http://www.excellentpowder.org. Additionally, we have responded to several recent publications that seek to limit the use of DDT (and interestingly other insecticides such as pyrethroids), with letters in Environmental Health Perspectives, British Journal of Urology International and working papers published on our own website. We have publicly exposed and criticized the way in which anti-insecticide advocacy groups, like Pesticide Action Network, have lobbied against indoor residual spraying programs that are funded and maintained by the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI). All of these letters and papers can be accessed from our website – if any of your readers have any difficulty in accessing them, I’d be happy to forward them.

A word on our critical review of a paper published in British Journal of Urology International. Several researchers from the University of Pretoria published a paper in late 2009 claiming that DDT use in IRS would increase the chance that a boy would be born with a urogenital birth defect by around 33%. This paper was widely covered in the media and caused considerable problems for the malaria control programs in southern Africa. One scientist in particular even claimed on a public TV program that DDT was linked to the case of intersex South African athlete, Caster Semenya; this was further promoted in the print media causing great concern among people living in malaria areas. As we documented in our review, the research paper was very deeply flawed and the conclusions of the authors were premature to say the least. Although it required a considerable investment of time and effort, we respond with a formal review of both the paper and the outrageous claims made in the media for which there was no scientific evidence. Our letter to the journal, which was co-authored by some senior malaria scientists from South Africa, was published in the journal. Although the authors of the paper were given ample opportunity to respond to our criticisms, they declined – which is telling.

You make the point that we have focused on DDT – true, we have done so because there is a need for someone to respond to the never-ending claims of harm. Someone has to stand up and defend the malaria control programs that are using DDT and implementing effective malaria control measures – perhaps if some of the other advocacy groups or individuals stepped up and helped to defend IRS and the use of public health insecticides, we wouldn’t have to spend so much of our time and energy doing it.

In addition to defending the use of public health insecticides, we strongly advocate for investments in new insecticides and against regulations and policies that may hamper access to insecticides or investment in new insecticides. For instance in 2008/9 we coordinated a response to proposed EU regulation of insecticides that could limit access to insecticides. (The various documents that I describe are available on our website) As an example of our work in this regard, we recently held a successful policy briefing on Capitol Hill (in Washington, D.C.) involving stakeholders from advocacy groups, donor agencies and the private sector. Again details of this are available on our website.

Aside from our advocacy and defense of public health insecticides, we have been successful in exposing the ongoing use of sub-standard malaria medicines as well as fake medicines in Africa. Our research studies have been published in Malaria Journal, PLoS One, and other journals. In order to maintain this project and to get safe and effective malaria medicines out to communities we have raised funds for malaria treatments and have focused on increasing access in Uganda. Again, details are available on our website.

Lastly AFM is involved in a research and advocacy program to remove import tariffs and non-tariff barriers from malaria commodities. As malaria programs are scaled up, it is increasingly important to ensure that barriers to access are removed – import tariffs and non-tariff barriers can be significant and AFM is very excited to be involved in this important area of research and advocacy. See http://www.m-tap.org for more details.

So, I hope that this helps to answer the questions about what we do. We are a policy and research group, we have never pretended to be anything else and our track record stands for itself.

Paul, if you want to have a discussion about our work, I’d be happy to correspond with you and your colleagues on a basis of cordiality and respect. I would be delighted to debate our work on DDT, public health insecticides, drug quality and import tariffs and non-tariff barriers, but let’s leave the sniping bloggers and their misleading and biased comments out of this.

Richard Tren

Leave a Comment » | Africa, DDT, Hoaxes, Malaria, medicine, Public health, Rachel Carson, Science | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Skeptics noise broad; no deep effects on American opinions

July 2, 2010

A commenter with the handle Klem complained about my outlook on global warming issues, in a recent post about the desperation I see in the warming denialist world.  Klem finds my views not pessimistic enough:

Those purloined emails have ultimately destroyed the IPCC, it has no credibility with the public anymore. You seem like a smart guy but I can’t believe after this amount of time you still don’t understand this. And you say it’s the anti-warming camp which is desperate? Oops I think you’re in denial.

I’ve been involved in environmental issues since well before the first Earth Day.  Lack of understanding among the public at large is a constant issue, and not a recent development.  Lack of support for a clean environment rarely is an issue, however.  The old progressive era push for clean water, clean air, outdoor activities, and healthy living, continues probably stronger today than ever before.  No one defends smoking stacks as symbols of progress anymore.

Even petroleum companies spend millions in advertising to tout their “green” tendencies.  Big Oil doesn’t spend money like that if they don’t have clear indicators that it’s effective.

One indication of how deep is the desire for environmental protection is the mini-movement chronicled and maybe led by conservative writer Rod Dreher, known as “crunchy conservatism.” Dreher wrote about conservatives who, from most outward appearances — Birkenstock sandals, organic-food heavy diets, environmentally-friendly yards and homes — might be considered lefty environmentalists, but who adhere to conservative social and economic policies, and the Republican party (yes:  educated people who vote against their own best interests; go figure).

No matter how odd their views on economics, no matter how odd their views on their fellow humans, they recognize the basic benefits of the progressive movement on their own lives, and they would like to conserve those benefits.

Have the so-called skeptics changed those trends?  Did the stealing of e-mails convince most Americans that scientists are evil, conniving, and wrong?

Rather than take the denialists’ methods, the famous MSU technique*, how about we actually ask people what they think?

Recent polls with some depth on environmental issues show most Americans to be quite  level-headed about warming and other environment issues, and not so subject to the hot winds of talk-without-fact from Fox News, the Heartland Institute, or other paragons of science denialism.

Most Americans remain concerned about global warming

Pay attention to reality for a moment; the headline on the press release is, “Large majority of Americans still believe in global warming, Stanford poll finds”:

Three out of four Americans believe that the Earth has been gradually warming as the result of human activity and want the government to institute regulations to stop it, according to a new survey by researchers at the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University.

The survey was conducted by Woods Institute Senior Fellow Jon Krosnick, a professor of communication and of political science at Stanford, with funding from the National Science Foundation. The results are based on telephone interviews conducted from June 1-7 with 1,000 randomly selected American adults.

“Several national surveys released during the last eight months have been interpreted as showing that fewer and fewer Americans believe that climate change is real, human-caused and threatening to people,” Krosnick said. “But our new survey shows just the opposite.”

For example, when respondents in the June 2010 survey were asked if the Earth’s temperature probably had been heating up over the last 100 years, 74 percent said yes. And 75 percent said that human behavior was substantially responsible for any warming that has occurred. Krosnick has asked similar questions in previous Woods Institute polls since 2006.

“Our surveys reveal a small decline in the proportion of people who believe global warming has been happening, from 84 percent in 2007 to 74 percent today,” Krosnick said. “Statistical analysis of our data revealed that this decline is attributable to perceptions of recent weather changes by the minority of Americans who have been skeptical about climate scientists.”

In terms of average Earth temperature, 2008 was the coldest year since 2000, Krosnick said. “Scientists say that such year-to-year fluctuations are uninformative, and people who trust scientists therefore ignore this information when forming opinions about global warming’s existence,” he added. “But people who do not trust climate scientists base their conclusions on their personal observations of nature. These ‘low-trust’ individuals were especially aware of the recent decline in average world temperatures; they were the ones in our survey whose doubts about global warming have increased since 2007.”

According to Krosnick, this explanation is especially significant, because it suggests that the recent decline in the proportion of people who believe in global warming is likely to be temporary. “If the Earth’s temperature begins to rise again, these individuals may reverse course and rejoin the large majority who still think warming is real,” he said.

Ah, the Fickle Public — it appears only a small fraction of the public is fickle, after all.  Shifts in public opinion on the reality of warming were driven by weather, not weather men.

The poll also specifically addressed the effect of the computer break-in that exposed a few thousand e-mail messages from climate scientists under attack by anti-green critics:

‘Climategate’

“Overall, we found no decline in Americans’ trust in environmental scientists,” Krosnick said. “Fully 71 percent of respondents said they trust scientists a moderate amount, a lot or completely.”

Several questions in the June survey addressed the so-called “climategate” controversy, which made headlines in late 2009 and early 2010.

“Growing public skepticism has, in recent months, been attributed to news reports about e-mail messages hacked from the computer system at the University of East Anglia in Britain – characterized as showing climate scientists colluding to silence unconvinced colleagues – and by the discoveries of alleged flaws in reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC),” Krosnick said. “Our survey discredited this claim in multiple ways. ”

For example, only 9 percent of respondents said they knew about the East Anglia e-mail messages and believed they indicate that climate scientists should not be trusted, and only 13 percent said the same about the controversial IPPC reports.

That may explain why Anthony Watts’ logo for his Australian tour shows a kangaroo whose rear end has just been kicked (you can tell by the stars).

Climate skeptics butt-kicked in Australia logo

In cartoons, stars show where a character has been punched or kicked, right?

No agreement to control greenhouse gases came out of the Copenhagen conference last fall.  So-called climate skeptics patted each other on the back, claimed victory, and proceeded to send Christopher Monckton on his Bonnie Lies All Around the World Tour.  In cool light of morning, however, the facts can’t be silenced:  Warming continues, science shows the extremely high probability that humans cause it, official investigations show that climate scientists who had their e-mails stolen were victims of crime, not perpetrators, and climate skeptics failed to stop warming with their big-dollar, nice-banquet meetings with the Heartland Institute, or anywhere else.

If they are skeptics, they are pretty bad at it, falling like chumps for a story that fourth-grade science project made the case they have failed to make everywhere else, and for the story that one of their comrades was sent a bomb in the mail (it turned out to be a misdirected fuel filter).

No wonder Americans remain concerned about warming.

_____________

* Make S[tuff] Up

More, resources:

19 Comments | Climate change, climate_change, denialism, Global warming, Hoaxes, Politics, Polling and Public Opinion, pollution, Science | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Paranoia strikes the birthers

June 20, 2010

Thursday evening WordPress had a glitch — a stray character in code caused the system to overwrite some material, to mess up a lot of blogs.  It took a couple of hours to fix.

In the birther world, such things only happen “by design.”  Because of a glitch that affected 50,000 blogs (including this one), the birthers feel singled out.

Seriously, at that site where the paranoia runs rampant, My Very Own Point of View, the discussion is on what can be discerned by differences in images from microfiche copies of the newspaper columns announcing births recorded in Honolulu, from the Hawaii Vital Records office, in 1961.  In 5,000 words or so, the author determined that there are differences in the images because some of the microfiche is scratched, and some isn’t.

Ergo, the author says, Obama conspired to mess with every microfiche in the world, and he’s therefore an alien (probably from the planet Tralfamador, or maybe a waiter in the Restaurant at the End of the Universe).

I’ve read the piece three times trying to figure out what the point is, other than the author has never thought much about libraries or microfiche or newspapers ever before.  Am I wrong?

No wonder there’s an aluminum foil shortage, eh?

Tinfoil hat area

Warning: Tinfoil Hat Wearers Too Close for Comfort

I suggested a less ominous meaning behind the scratches on the microfiche, but the blog owner found my comments offensive, and refused to post them.  I asked why, and this was the response I got:

Because you are not civil. There is nothing about race in this material or in my posts. There is not a single “conclusion drawn”. If you have an INTELLIGENT debate to advance on the material then do so. If you do not, go post somewhere where your poison is not moderated.

Of course, I made no mention of race.  I addressed solely the issues of library archival procedures and how they might make for differences in copies from different libraries.  Here is the comment she’s talking about; you decide which of us is crazy, Dear Reader:

http://myveryownpointofview.wordpress.com/2010/05/28/extra-extra-announcing-obamas-birth/#comment-251

Why do you assume that microfilm copies should be the same in all locations?  You’re assuming that there were not different editions of the same paper, which is incorrect; you’re assuming there is one source of microfilm copies, which is unlikely (many libraries used to make their own microfilm from paper copies in their collections — it’s unlikely, I think, that the Library of Congress would have used the same microfilm available at the University of Hawaii — in 1961 precedence was given to paper collections, and the microfilming was done later).

You assume that later flaws in the film are not introduced by dust, by reading machines that shred the film.

You assume much that is simply not so in the newspaper industry and in library archiving.

And in the end, what do you claim?  A couple of periods disappear in photocopies?  A new flyspeck appears?

You need to check the rules of civil procedure, specifically with regard to evidence and contemporary business records.  I’ll wager you can figure out why most of what you worry about here is no issue in proving things up in a courtroom.

I don’t  think I was uncivil.  I think that birthers all fall into that category Euripides described, of those whom the gods destroy, they first make mad.

(And, please, if you can figure out what the complaint is about copies differing in quality at different libraries, please tell us what is going on, in comments.)

11 Comments | Barack Obama, Birth Certificate, Hoaxes, Libraries, President Obama, Rampant stupidity, Weblogs | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Does Africa Fighting Malaria actually fight malaria?

June 11, 2010

This spring’s publication of a book, The Excellent Powder, by Richard Tren and Donald Roberts, repeating most of the false claims about malaria and DDT, got me wondering. Their organization, Africa Fighting Malaria (AFM):

Does AFM do anything to fight malaria? At its own website it makes some astoundingly grandiose claims:

In its seven years of operation, AFM has helped transform malaria control by taking on and turning around failing public health institutions, donor agencies and governments.

Offhand I can’t think of any public health institution AFM has even been involved with, other than its undeserved criticism of the World Health Organization — and if anyone knows of any donor agency or government AFM has “turned around,” the history books await your telling the story.

Africa Fighting Malaria springs to life every year around World Malaria Day, April 25, with editorials claiming environmentalists have killed millions. AFM seems to be one of the sources of the bizarre and false claim that Rachel Carson is a “mass murderer.” AFM makes noise whenever there is difficulty getting a DDT spraying campaign underway in any part of Africa, for any reason, quick to lay the blame on environmentalists, even though the blame generally rests in other places. AFM is quick on the draw to try to discredit all research into DDT that suggests it poses any health threat, though so far as I can tell AFM has published no counter research, nor has it conducted any research of its own.

In its 2009 Annual Report, AFM proudly states “AFM is the only advocacy group that routinely supports IRS [Indoor Residual Spraying] and through its advocacy work defends the use of DDT for malaria control.”

Cleverly, and tellingly, they do not reveal that IRS in integrated vector (pest) management is what Rachel Carson advocated in 1962, nor do they mention that it is also supported by the much larger WHO, several nations in Africa, and the Gates Foundation, all of whom probably do more to fight malaria when they sneeze that AFM does intentionally.

Google and Bing searches turn up no projects the organization actually conducts to provide bed nets, or DDT, or anything else, to anyone working against malaria. I can’t find any place anyone other than AFM describes any activities of the group.

AFM has impressive video ads urging contributions, but the videos fail to mention that nothing in the ad is paid for by AFM, including especially the guy carrying the pesticide sprayer.

Looking at the IRS Form 990s for the organization from 2003 through 2008 (which is organized in both the U.S. and South Africa), it seems to me that the major purpose of AFM is to pay Roger Bate about $100,000 a year for part of the time, and pay Richard Tren more than $80,000 a year for the rest of the time.

Can anyone tell me, what has Africa Fighting Malaria ever done to seriously fight malaria? One could make the argument that if you sent $10 to Nothing But Nets, you’ve saved more lives than the last $1 million invested in AFM, and more to save lives than AFM in its existence.

Tip of the old scrub brush to Pharyngula and Antievolution.org, even though AFM wasn’t what they were targeting.

Update: Tim Lambert at Deltoid sent some traffic this way, which caught the attention of Eli Rabett, which reminded me that there really is more to this story about Africa Fighting Malaria, and you ought to read it at Deltoid and Rabett’s warren.

Formatting issues More (updated September 24, 2013):

50 Comments | Africa, DDT, Disease, Health care, History, Hoaxes, Malaria, Public health, Rachel Carson, WHO - World Health Organization | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Does Africa Fighting Malaria actually fight malaria? (format fix)

June 11, 2010

[Editor’s note: This post is an attempt to fix a formatting error in the earlier post with the almost-same headline, which has some corruption in it I have been unable to find or fix, but which renders the text almost unreadable.  My apologies.  Have not yet figured out how to move comments, alas; check the old post.]

This spring’s publication of a book, The Excellent Powder, by Richard Tren and Donald Roberts, repeating most of the false claims about malaria and DDT, got me wondering. Their organization, Africa Fighting Malaria (AFM):

Does AFM do anything to fight malaria? At its own website it makes some astoundingly grandiose claims:

In its seven years of operation, AFM has helped transform malaria control by taking on and turning around failing public health institutions, donor agencies and governments.

Offhand I can’t think of any public health institution AFM has even been involved with, other than its undeserved criticism of the World Health Organization — and if anyone knows of any donor agency or government AFM has “turned around,” the history books await your telling the story.

Africa Fighting Malaria springs to life every year around World Malaria Day, April 25, with editorials claiming environmentalists have killed millions.  AFM seems to be one of the sources of the bizarre and false claim that Rachel Carson is a “mass murderer.”  AFM makes noise whenever there is difficulty getting a DDT spraying campaign underway in any part of Africa, for any reason, quick to lay the blame on environmentalists, even though the blame generally rests in other places.  AFM is quick on the draw to try to discredit all research into DDT that suggests it poses any health threat, though so far as I can tell AFM has published no counter research, nor has it conducted any research of its own.

In its 2009 Annual Report, AFM proudly states “AFM is the only advocacy group that routinely supports IRS [Indoor Residual Spraying] and through its advocacy work defends the use of DDT for malaria control.”

Cleverly, and tellingly, they do not reveal that IRS in integrated vector (pest) management is what Rachel Carson advocated in 1962, nor do they mention that it is also supported by the much larger WHO, several nations in Africa, and the Gates Foundation, all of whom probably do more to fight malaria when they sneeze that AFM does intentionally.

Google and Bing searches turn up no projects the organization actually conducts to provide bed nets, or DDT, or anything else, to anyone working against malaria.  I can’t find any place anyone other than AFM describes any activities of the group.

AFM has impressive video ads urging contributions, but the videos fail to mention that nothing in the ad is paid for by AFM, including especially the guy carrying the pesticide sprayer.

Looking at the IRS Form 990s for the organization from 2003 through 2008 (which is organized in both the U.S. and South Africa), it seems to me that the major purpose of AFM is to pay Roger Bate about $100,000 a year for part of the time, and pay Richard Tren more than $80,000 a year for the rest of the time.

Can anyone tell me, what has Africa Fighting Malaria ever done to seriously fight malaria?

One could make the argument that if you sent $10 to Nothing But Nets, you’ve saved more lives than the last $1 million invested in AFM, and more to save lives than AFM in its existence.

Tip of the old scrub brush to Pharyngula and Antievolution.org, even though AFM wasn’t what they were targeting.

_____________
Update: Tim Lambert at Deltoid sent some traffic this way, which caught the attention of Eli Rabett, which reminded me that there really is more to this story about Africa Fighting Malaria, and you ought to read it at Deltoid and Rabett’s warren.

More (updated September 24, 2013):

Leave a Comment » | Africa, DDT, Disease, Health care, History, Hoaxes, Malaria, Public health, Rachel Carson, WHO - World Health Organization | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

A cocktail with gin and DDT? Slim chance

June 10, 2010

World War II soldier gets DDT to kill lice - CDC photo, Wikimedia

He'll need a drink after this. World War II soldier gets a dose of DDT, without gin. CDC photo via Wikimedia

MicroKahn worked to track down the facts:  Was there really a cocktail called a Mickey Slim that consisted of gin and DDT?

Non-gin drinkers will think that’s likely, but gin drinkers would quickly recognize that such a drink would be wasteful of good gin.

And it will give cancer to your children and grandchildren, and thin your eggshells.

It’s probably a bar room legend:  The Myth of the Mickey Slim.

7 Comments | DDT, Hoaxes | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Maybe, 4th grader disproves much warming in Beeville, not entire planet?

June 7, 2010

Hmmm.  News from Beeville is tough to come by when limited to calls that tend to catch school officials before they get to their office or after they go home (early, by most standards — but it’s summer, so we cut ’em some slack).

But we can find more information on what would be an astounding, groundbreaking study by 4th grader Julisa Castillo, which has been advertised as disproving global warming.

Again from the Beeville Bee-Picayune, about five months ago:

Conclusion: ‘pretty creative’

by Scott Reese Willey
As world leaders meet in Copenhagen to draft legislation to rein in the release of greenhouse gases and stem climate change, an R.A. Hall Elementary School student is questioning the science supporting global warming.

High school student judging R. A. Hall Elementary science fair projects

Caption from Beeville Bee-Picayune: A.C. Jones High School student Zachary Johnson, above, looks over a science experiment entered in R.A. Hall’s annual science fair. Zachary and other members of the high school’s science club judged the exhibits. Photo from, and read more at: mySouTex.com - Conclusion ‘pretty creative’

“There is not enough evidence to prove global warming is occurring,” fourth-grader Julisa Raquel Castillo concluded in a science project she entered in the campus’ annual science fair on Tuesday.

Julisa studied temperatures in Beeville for the past 109 years to develop her conclusion.

She researched online data basis of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, the National Weather Service, and checked out books on climate change at the Joe Barnhart Bee County Library.

Her findings:

• temperatures rose and fell from 1900 to 1950.

• temperatures in Beeville cooled down over a 20-year period beginning in 1955 and ending in 1975.

• Since 2001, temperatures in Beeville have grown cooler year after year.

Close to 200 R.A. Hall students entered projects in this year’s science fair, said organizer Denise Salvagno, who also teaches the school’s gifted and talented students.

Fourth- and fifth-graders were required to enter projects as part of class work; however, students in grades first, second and third could enter projects if they desired.

Students in Ben Barris’ science club at A.C. Jones High School judged the projects.

“Some of these projects are pretty creative,” said Zachary Johnson, a senior at A.C. Jones and one of the judges. “You can tell a lot of the students put a lot of effort into their projects. Some of them didn’t put much effort into it but a lot of them did and, overall, I’m impressed with what I am seeing.”

Fourth-grader Kaleb Maguire proved that all tap water in Beeville was the same quality.

He took samples of water at 10 different sites across town and came to the conclusion that because the water originated at the same source — the city’s fresh water plant — the samples contained the same amount of alkalinity, pH and free chlorine.

Fourth-grader Amber Martinez concluded that worms subjected to music were more alert than those not.

And fourth-grader Sam Waters’ project was no doubt much enjoyed by his pet pooch, Lucky.

Sam wanted to know which meat his dog would like more. Turns out Lucky preferred chicken over both hotdogs and sausage.

Fifth-grader Savannah Gonzales found out that ants prefer cheese over sugar, but classmate Misty Nienhouse concluded that ants preferred sugar over cheese. Tessa Giannini’s science project also seemed to prove that ants preferred sugar over cheese, bread or anything else.

However, fourth-grader Faith Hernandez conducted a similar experiment and concluded ants preferred cheese over ham.

Yet, Jose Vivesos, a fourth-grader, concluded that ants prefer sugar water over anything else.

Nathanial Martinez, also a fourth-grader, built a working seismograph and demonstrated how it detected and recorded earthquakes.

Fifth-grader Jamison Hunter decided to see if money in the hand made a difference in someone’s heart rate.

He recorded the heart rate of each volunteer without money in their hand, with one dollar bill in their hand, two one dollar bills in their hand and three one dollar bills in their hand.

His conclusion: “From this experiment, I learned that everyone’s heart rate is different by how much money they hold,” he said. “No two people had the same results even with the test being done the same way.”

Read more: mySouTex.com – Conclusion ‘pretty creative’

Temperatures may have cooled in Beeville.  Can we extrapolate Beeville to the entire planet?

The title of the project may be a little bit ambitious.

[See earlier post on the issue here.]

More:

7 Comments | Accuracy, Climate change, climate_change, Environmental protection, Hoaxes, How do we know what we know, Journalism, Newspapers, Science, Texas | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Beeville fourth grader disproves global warming?

June 7, 2010

John Mashey alerted me to this news story from the online Beeville Bee-Picayune via mySouTex.com:

R.A. Hall fourth-grader is science national champion

R. A. Hall fourth grader Julisa Castillo, national science fair winner?

Caption from mySouTex: R.A. Hall fourth-grader Julisa Castillo (center) is the 2010 national junior division champion for the National Science Fair. Her project, “Disproving Global Warming,” beat more than 50,000 other projects from students all over the nation. She is pictured with her father, J.R. Castillo (left), and R.A. Hall Principal Martina Villarreal. Read more: mySouTex.com - R A Hall fourth grader is science national champion

R.A. Hall Elementary School fourth-grader Julisa Castillo has been named junior division champion for the 2010 National Science Fair.

Her project, “Disproving Global Warming,” beat more than 50,000 other projects submitted by students from all over the U.S.

Julisa originally entered her project in her school science fair before sending it to the National Science Foundation (NSF) to be judged at the national level.

The NSF panel of judges included former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, 14 recipients of the President’s National Medal of Science, and four former astronauts.

“Before she sent it off, she just had to add more details, citations for her research, and the amount of hours she spent working on it,” said Julisa’s father, J.R. Castillo.

In addition to a plaque, trophy and medal, Julisa has won an all-expenses-paid trip to Space Camp at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Ala., which she plans to attend this summer.
Read more: mySouTex.com – R A Hall fourth grader is science national champion

The blog of the North County Times (California) has doubts.  There are signs of hoax.  While the Beeville Independent School District does have an R. A. Hall elementary, the list of winners of last December’s science fair does not include Ms. Castillo.  To go from not placing at the local school to winning the national would be quite a feat!

I suspect an error somewhere, perhaps in the title of the project, or in the understanding of what the title implies.

Most of the obvious hoax signs check out against a hoax:  Beeville exists (improbably Texan as the name may be), R. A. Hall is an elementary school in Beeville ISD.  The principal of R. A. Hall is Martina Villareal.  Beeville has a guy named J. R. Castillo (listed as Julisa’s father in the photo caption), and his photos at the site promoting his music shows photos of a guy who looks a lot like the guy in the photo here.  Most hoaxers wouldn’t go so far for accuracy on details.

Fun little mystery.  I have made inquiries with the newspaper, and hope to follow up with the school.  Stay tuned.  There may be a great little science project somewhere in here.

_____________

See update here: Quick summary, big title, project not quite filling those shoes. I’ve made inquiries at the paper and school district without answers; there’s more to the story, but not much.  A good project with a misleading title, for those who would be misled by a 4th grade science fair project.

19 Comments | Climate change, climate_change, Education, Global warming, Hoaxes, How do we know what we know, Journalism, Newspapers, Science | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

False claims on DDT

June 6, 2010

One wishes Rachel Carson were still alive, to sue for slander.

One of the more interesting ways claims like those of Rich Kozlovich can continue to circulate, they are not based on any scientific studies.  Had Kozlovich made such claims in a scientific journal, they would have to be retracted. The claims in favor of DDT made at that site are pure hoax, junk science, bogus science, voodoo science (pick your favorite term).

Kids aren’t dying for a lack of pesticides — DDT is still available and cheap in India, China and across Africa.  Malaria is a disease, and it can’t be cured in humans by poisoning the environment.  Malaria’s spread can’t be stopped until we cure in humans so mosquitoes have no pool of disease to draw from, to spread to the next victim.

More:

1 Comment | DDT, Environmental protection, Hoaxes, Junk science, Rachel Carson, Science, Voodoo science | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

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