Remember Jonathan Miller and “The Body in Question?”
Dick Cavett remembers, discusses the now-75-years-old man. Plus, delightfully, Cavett has video at his blog at the New York Times.
And here, Miller explains to Cavett just why creationism is in error, and why the study of Darwin and evolution is worthwhile. You’ll have to go to the Times site for the full program; here’s a few minutes’ of of Miller:
Leave a Comment » | 
Charles Darwin, Creationism, Darwin, Education, Evolution, History, Science, Television | Tagged: Charles Darwin, Creationism, Darwin, Dick Cavett, Education, Evolutin, History, Jonathan Miller, Science, Television | 
Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
You can see it in this little-noted blog. Someone drops by to tell me I’m in error, that Rachel Carson really did plot with Pol Pot to murder millions, and then they also show up in the creationism threads defending the view that dinosaurs never existed, or in a tangentially-related note on climate change, perhaps arguing that ocean levels rising are either not a problem, or the product of Atlantis’s rising from the depths (and therefore no problem, since the denizens of that city had better science than we do and will be able to fix things, never mind their being dead for 5,000 years). [That last description is mostly fictional – mostly.]
What is it that makes one person deny reality on so many different fronts?
Mark Hoofnagle hit the research journals, listing results at denialism blog, demonstrating that crankery can be studied. This raises in my mind the interesting little question of whether such crankery is a pathology, and perhaps treatable or curable.
Our recent discussions of HIV/AIDS denial and in particular Seth Kalichman’s book “Denying AIDS” has got me thinking more about the psychology of those who are susceptible to pseudoscientific belief. It’s an interesting topic, and Kalichman studies it briefly in his book mentioning the “suspicious minds”:
At its very core, denialism is deeply embedded in a sense of mistrust. Most obviously, we see suspicion in denialist conspiracy theories. Most conspiracy theories grow out of suspicions about corruptions in government, industry, science, and medicine, all working together in some grand sinister plot. Psychologically, suspicion is the central feature of paranoid personality, and it is not overreaching to say that some denialists demonstrate this extreme. Suspicious thinking can be understood as a filter through which the world is interpreted, where attention is driven towards those ideas and isolated anecdotes that confirm one’s preconceived notions of wrong doing. Suspicious thinkers are predisposed to see themselves as special or to hold some special knowledge. Psychotherapist David Shpairo in his classic book Neurotic Styles describes the suspicious thinker. Just as wee see in denialism, suspiciousness is not easily penetrated by facts or evidence that counter individuals’ preconceived worldview. Just as Shapiro describes in the suspicious personality, the denialist selectively attends to information that bolsters his or her own beliefs. Denialists exhibit suspicious thinking when they manipulate objective reality to fit within their beliefs. It is true that all people are prone to fit the world into their sense of reality, but the suspicious person distorts reality and does so with an uncommon rigidity. The parallel between the suspicious personality style and denialism is really quite compelling.
Denialism may be a little greater problem than is generally acknowledged, in my opinion. When it infects policy makers it causes legislative and executive crackups, like Oklahoma’s Sen. Tom Coburn, who held up the naming of the Rachel Carson Post Office for a year under the bizarre misconception that she played a role in spreading malaria (ditto for Utah Rep. Rob Bishop, who shared the view but was unable to stop the bill in the House), or like the Bush administration officials at the U.S. Agency for International Development who kept refusing to authorize spending for pesticides in Africa, claiming environmental groups would oppose them while the environmental groups were lobbying the agency to spend the money on those pesticides.
Former South Africa President Thabo Mbeki denied that HIV causes AIDS. Mbeki’s refusal to act on the best science available may have led to as many as 350,000 deaths, some accounts say. Ashley Montagu told the story of Adolf Hitler’s odd views of heritage being spread by blood transfusions — to avoid any possibility of his soldiers’ being turned Jewish by a blood transfusion, Hitler forbade the use of blood banks. Tens of thousands of German soldiers died unnecessarily from lack of blood for transfusing during World War II. Partisans and scientists still debate whether and how much Ronald Reagan’s belief that AIDS was a syndrome caused by sin rather than a virus early in the AIDS crisis created a cascade of actions that still frustrates the development of a vaccination or cure.
Denialism in high school students is interesting, but most often a classroom problem. When kids take great issue with the course material the class can get derailed. Even when a teacher is able to keep the class on track, the denialist student may feel marginalized. A colleague reported a student had informed that historians now concur that George Washington was African-American. She could not be dissuaded from the view. I had a student who insisted well into the second semester than Adolf Hitler was a great leader, smart and humanitarian, framed for war crimes of the British and Americans. Unfortunately, I could not put him in contact with the earlier student who believed Hitler had been framed by the Soviet Union, and that the Americans and British were victims of the cruel hoax.
As the nominal head of public relations in the old (Pleistocene?) office of Sen. Orrin Hatch, my crew and I got the brunt of denialists and crazies. We had one woman in Salt Lake City, “Mrs. B,” who regularly called the Salt Lake office to complain about Hatch’s actions and what she assumed his beliefs must be. For a while she complained that, as someone born outside of Utah, he could never appreciate the views of the Latter-day Saints in Utah. When at last we persuaded her that he was also a Mormon, she began complaining that he ignored Utah’s non-Mormon population. Her ability to switch sides in an argument so as always to remain on the opposite side of Sen. Hatch got noticed.
Near the end of a summer session just before the recess the Senate had a lot of late-night meetings. The news of these sessions did not always make the morning papers. On one issue of some Utah import, Hatch had suggested he would probably vote one way, because of some issue of agency direction that had him concerned. In the end the agency agreed to amendments that assuaged all of Hatch’s concerns and he was happy to support the bill (I forget what it was — the issue is absolutely irrelevant to the story).
I had caught a late-night flight to Salt Lake, and arrived at the SLC office early enough to catch our Utah problem solver Jack Martin explaining to Mrs. B that Hatch did indeed care about Utah . . . Jack and I could carry on a conversation with only his occasional remarks to Mrs. B keeping her going, a scene out of a Cary Grant comedy, perhaps. “Yes, Mrs. B . . . No, Mrs. B . . . I think I see your point.” What he said was unimportant. I could hear her rant on the telephone, while I was on the other side of the room. I finally asked Jack what her issue was, and he explained it was the bill that Hatch had reveresed his position on. She was complaining at great length about his original position. I explained to Jack that an accommodation had been reached and that Hatch changed his vote in the final tally.
Jack smiled broadly as he handed me the phone. “You tell her!” It took a long time to get her to stop talking so I could explain who I was and that I had new information. Finally she fell silent and I explained that she should be happy because Hatch had come around to her position. There was a silence of a few more seconds, and she started in again: “Hatch is an idiot! Only a fool would vote that way.” And she was off again on a rant against Hatch, eviscerating the views that she herself had held less than a minute earlier.
The issue wasn’t important to her. Hatch was wrong, whatever he did, even when he supported her views.
That’s denialism in full force, a raw, unmitigated power of nature.
Hoofnagle concludes at denialism:
So what do these studies mean for our understanding of cranks? Well, in addition to providing explanations for crank magnetism, and cognitive deficits we see daily in our comments from cranks, it suggests the possibility that crankery and denialism may be preventable by better explanation of statistics. Much of what we’re dealing with is likely the development of shoddy intellectual shortcuts, and teaching people to avoid these shortcuts might go a long way towards the development and fixation on absurd conspiracy theories or paranormal beliefs.
Wouldn’t you love to see that study replicated on readers of Watt’s Up With That?, Texas Darlin’ , Junk Science, or one of the anti–vaxxer blogs?
You may also want to read:
4 Comments | Barack Obama, Cargo Cults, Creationism, denialism, Dissent, Education, Health care, History, Reason, Science, Texas, Woo | Tagged: Climate change, Crank Science, Creationism, DDT, Gardasil, Junk science, Obama Birth Certificate, Science, Vaccines, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
I thought everybody does serious reading in the bathtub, no?
The Pima Air & Space Museum offers exclusive bus tours of the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Center (AMARG), also known as the “Boneyard.” The facility is located adjacent to the Museum at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. Seats are avaliable on a “first come first serve” basis.
See the photo at the bottom — when I lived and taught in Tucson, this was a constant source of fascination, and frankly, to us aviation fans, it still is.
The Boneyard at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base near Tucson, Arizona; the Pima Air & Space Museum now offers bus tours of the 309th Maintenance and Regeneration Group's collection of scrapped and very historic airplanes
Can’t soak all day.
6 Comments | Airplanes, Archaeology, Fossils, Geography - Physical, geology, History, History museums, Hoaxes, Journalism, Museums, Politics, Religion, Religious Freedom, Research, Science, Social Studies | Tagged: Abortion, Airplanes, Archaeology, Aviation, blogging, Boneyard, Climate change, Davis-Monthan AFB, DDT, geography, geology, Journalism, Politics, Religion, Research, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
John Mashey occasionally graces these pages with his comments — a cool, reasoned head on hot issues like global warming/global climate change, despite his history in computers or maybe because of it (which would put the lie to the idea that computer programming explains why so many computer programmers are wacky intelligent design advocates).
Mashey offered a comment over at RealClimate on a post about hoaxer and science parodist Christopher Monckton — a comment you ought to read if you think about Texas ever, and especially if you like the place. It’s comment #413 on that Gigantor blog.
Monckton wrote a letter to the New York Times and attached to it a graph. The graph, it turns out, probably would need to be classified in the fiction section of a library or book store, were it a book. Much discussion occurs, absent any appearance by Monckton himself who does not defend his graphs by pointing to sources that might back what his graphs say, usually.
In short, the post and the extensive comments shed light on the problems of veracity which plague so many who deny either that warming is occurring, or that air pollution from humans might have anything to do with it, or that humans might actually be able to do anything to mitigate the changes or the damage, or that humans ought to act on the topic at all.
So I’ve stolen Mashey’s comment lock, stock and barrel, to give it a little more needed highlight.
If you follow environmental issues much, you probably know Count Christopher Monckton as a man full of braggadocio and bad information on climate. He is known to have worked hard to hoodwink the U.S. Congress with his claims of expertise and policy legitimacy, claiming to be a member of the House of Lords though he is not (some climate change deniers in Congress appear to have fallen for the tale). He pops up at denialist conferences, accuses scientists of peddling false information, and he is a shameless self-promoter.
After much discussion, Mashey turned his attention to claims that Texans don’t know better than Monckton, and other things; Mashey notes that denialists cite Monckton’s performance at a conservative political show in Texas, instead having paid attention to real climate scientists who were meeting just up the road, for free:
AGW’s impact depends on where you live
OR
Texas is Not Scotland, even when a Scottish peer visits1) SCOTLAND
Viscount Monckton lives in the highlands of Scotland (Carie, Rannoch, 57degN, about the same as Juneau, AK, but warmer from Gulf Stream.)a) SEA LEVEL, STORMS
Most of Scotland (esp the highlands) is well above sea level, and in any case, from Post-Glacial Rebound, it’s going up. [Not true of Southern England.]b) PRECIPITATION
Scotland gets lots of regular precipitation. From that, he likely gets ~1690mm or more rainfall/year, noticeably more than Seattle or Vancouver.Scotland has complex, variable weather systems, with more rain in West than in East, but has frequent precipitation all year.
c) TEMPERATURE
Scotland’s climate would likely be better with substantial warming. See UK Met Office on Scotland, which one might compare with NASA GISS Global Annual Mean Surface Air Temperature Change. Scotland average maximum temperatures are 18-19C in the summer, i.e., in most places it might occasionally get up to 70F, although of course it varies by geography. +3C is no big deal. The record maximum was 32.9C (91F), set in 2003. Maybe there is yet a good future for air-conditioning/cooling vendors.If one does a simple linear regression on both sets of annual data, one finds that SLOPE(Scotland) = .0071C/year, SLOPE(world) = .0057C/year, i.e., Scotland is warming slightly faster than the world as a whole.
d) AGRICULTURE
The combination of b) and c) is, most likely *good* for agriculture in Scotland. There is plenty of rain, and higher temperatures mean less snow and a longer growing season. Great!In addition, the British geoscientist/vineyard archaeologist Richard Selley thinks that while it may be too hot for good vineyards in Southern England by 2080, it will be fine for some areas of Scotland.
Future Loch Ness Vineyard: great!e) OIL+GAS, ENERGY
Fossil fuel production (North Sea oil&gas) is very important to the Scotland economy. Wikipedia claims oil-related employment is 100,000 (out of total population of about 5M).Scotland has not always been ecstatic to be part of the UK.
2) TEXAS
The Viscount Monckton spoke for Young Conservatives of Texas, April 28 @ Texas A&M, which of course has a credible Atmospheric Sciences Department. Of course, many of them were unable to hear the Viscount because they were in Austin at CLIMATE CHANGE Impacts on TEXAS WATER, whose proceedings are online. See especially Gerald North on Global Warming and TX Water.Monckton delivered his message: “no worries, no problems” which might well fit Scotland just fine, at least through his normal life expectancy.
The message was delivered to Texans typically in their 20s, many of whom would expect to see 2060 or 2070, and whose future children, and certainly grandchildren, might well see 2100.
Texas is rather different from Scotland, although with one similarity (oil+gas).
a) SEA LEVEL, STORMS
Texas has a long, low coastline in major hurricane territory.
Brownsville, TX to Port Arthur is a 450-mile drive, with coastal towns like Corpus Christi, Galveston, and Port Arthur listed at 7 feet elevations. The center of Houston is higher, but some the TX coast has subsidence issues, not PGR helping it rise. The Houston Ship Canal and massive amounts of infrastructure are very near sea level. More people live in the Houston metropolitan area + rest of the TX coast than in all of Scotland.Of course, while North Sea storms can be serious, they are not hurricanes. IF it turns out that the intensity distribution of hurricanes shifts higher, it’s not good, since in the short term (but likely not the long term), storm surge is worse than sea level rise.
Hurricane Rita (2005) and Hurricane Ike (2008) both did serious damage, but in some sense, both “missed” Houston. (Rita turned North, and hit as a Category 3; Ike was down to Category 2 before hitting Galveston).
Scotland: no problem
TX: problems alreadyb) RAINFALL
Texas is very complex meteorologically, and of course, it’s big, but as seen in the conference mentioned above (start with North’s presentation), one might say:– The Western and Southern parts may well share in the Hadley-Expansion-induced loss of rain, i.e., longer and stronger droughts, in common with NM, AZ, and Southern CA. Many towns are dependent on water in rivers that come from the center of the state, like the Brazos.
– The NorthEast part will likely get more rain. [North’s comment about I35 versus I45 indicates uncertainty in the models.]
– Rain is likely to be more intense when it happens, but droughts will be more difficult.
Extreme weather in TX already causes high insurance costs, here, or here.
Scotland: no problem
Texas: problems.c) TEMPERATURE
Texas A&M is ~31degN, rather nearer the Equator than 57degN.
Wikipedia has a temperature chart. It is rather warmer in TX, but is also more given to extremes.Scotland: +3C would be dandy,
Texas: +3C not so dandy.d) AGRICULTURE
Between b) and c), less water in dry places, more water in wet places, more variations in water, and higher temperatures (hence worse evaporation/precipitation difference) are not good news for TX agriculture, or so says Bruce McCarl, Professor of Agricultural Economics at TAMU.For audiences unfamiliar with Texas A&M, the “A” originally stood for Agriculture, and people are called Aggies. One might assume that agricultural research is valued.
Politically, “Aggie-land” would not be considered a hotspot of hyper-liberal folks prone to becoming climate “alarmists”.Scotland: warmer, great! Wine!
Texas: serious stress.d) OIL+GAS, ENERGY
Here, there is more similarity: fossil fuels are economically important.On the other hand, Scotland was settled long before the use of petroleum, and while places like the highlands are very sparse, cities like Edinburgh and Glasgow are relatively dense, and many villages are quite walkable. Warmer temperatures mean *lower* heating costs.
Texas has naturally developed in a very different style, and with forthcoming Peak Oil, this may be relevant. In 2006, according to EIA, Texas was #1 in energy consumption, 5th per-capita (after AK, WY, LA, ND) and uses 2X/capita of states like NY or CA. Some of that is inherent in different climate and industry.
Sprawling development in a state with water problems, subject to dangerous weather extremes, and already seriously-dependent on air-conditioning, may end being expensive for the residents.
Scotland: makes money from fossil energy, but it was mostly built without it. Warmer temperatures reduce energy use.
Texas: already uses ~2.5-3X higher energy/capita, compared to Scotland. Warmer temperatures likely raise energy use.3. SUMMARY
Gerald North’s talk ended by asking:
“Is Texas the most vulnerable state?”That sounds like an expert on trains, hearing one coming in the distance, standing on the tracks amidst a bunch of kids, trying to get them off the tracks before there’s blood everywhere.
On the other side, someone safely away from tracks keeps telling the kids that experts are wrong, there is no danger, so they can play there as long as they like.
You will be well informed if you also read Mashey’s comments at #120 and #132.
13 Comments | Accuracy, Climate change, denialism, Economics, Environmental protection, Geography - Economic, Geography - Physical, Global warming, Government, Hoaxes, Politics, Rampant stupidity, Reason, Research, Science, Texas, Texas history | Tagged: Christopher Monckton, Climate change, Economics, Environmental protection, geography, Global warming, Hoaxes, John Mashey, Reason, Research, Science, Scotland, Texas | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
4 Stone Hearth’s 68th incarnation rises at remote central, among my favorite archaeology/anthropology/ancient history blogs.
Tim has done an outstanding job of shaking good stuff out of the internet tree: Did cooking make humans smart? Kris Hirst on the human transition to agriculture (every history teacher needs this one); The new discovery of a Miocene era ape, in Europe; and returning to a topic I spend so many years listening to at the Senate Labor Comittee, is tobacco worse than cocaine?
That’s just scratching the surface. Go see.
Leave a Comment » | Ancient history, Anthropology, Archaeology, History, History and art, History Methods and Tools, Prehistory, Research, Science | Tagged: 4 Stone Hearth, Anthropology, Archaeology, Four Stone Hearth, History, Prehistory, Research, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
On the AP World History list-serv, a discussion on good books for a canon on 20th century stuff turned into a discussion on Rachel Carson, DDT and malaria. That’s not the purpose of the list.
So, I offer this thread as a forum for that discussion, hoping some of the AP history teachers might participate.
Welcome, teachers! Comments are open.
7 Comments | Advanced Placement, DDT, Environmental protection, Junk science, Malaria, Rachel Carson, Science | Tagged: AP History, DDT, Environmnental Protection, Junk science, Malaria, Rachel Carson, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Infant in Nigeria sleeps beneath an insecticide-treated bednet that prevents the transmission of malaria, a disease that kills thousands of children in Africa annually. Nothing But Nets press release
According to Nothing But Nets:
Studies show that use of insecticide-treated bed nets can reduce transmission as much as 90% in areas with high coverage rates. Bed nets prevent malaria transmission by creating a protective barrier against mosquitoes at night, when the vast majority of transmissions occur. The African malaria mosquitoes generally bite late at night or early morning, between 10:00 p.m. and 4:00 a.m. A bed net is usually hung above the center of a bed or sleeping space so that it completely covers the sleeping person. A net treated with insecticide offers about twice the protection of an untreated net and can reduce the number of mosquitoes that enter the house and the overall number of mosquitoes in the area.
1 Comment | Africa, Cost of Green, DDT, Disease, Health care, History, Malaria, Public health, Science | Tagged: Africa, Bed Nets, Cost of Green, Health care, Malaria, Nothing But Nets, Public health, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
The Heartland Institute is charitably called a “think tank” sometimes. In their latest screed against science and people who wish to protect the environment, there is no evidence of thinking, however. It’s all tank.
The headline says it all: “Bedbug Outbreak Hits All 50 States Thanks to DDT Ban.”
With all their reading on bedbugs, they never noticed the many notes that DDT stopped working against bedbugs more than 50 years ago? Who is going to tell them that DDT doesn’t work? Or, is this a talisman, an understanding that none of the solutions proposed by Heartland Institute will work? First they flirt with intelligent design, then they lose their senses altogether. There’s an omen there.
Remember the scene in “Spinal Tap?” Heartland Institute on bedbugs is stupid, turned up to 11. Heartland Institute doesn’t allow comments, probably because they can’t stand the laughter.
2 Comments | Cost of Green, DDT, Debunking, Environmental protection, Politics, Public health, Rampant stupidity, Science | Tagged: bedbugs, Cost of Green, DDT, Entomology, Politics, Rampant stupidity, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
It’s spring. Each of the past four years, spring has been the time that the anti-Rachel Carson, anti-environmental protection, anti-environmentalist, pro-DDT groups throttle up their campaigns to impugn Carson and environmentalists, and argue that all we need to do is poison Africa to make the world safe from malaria.
Here’s where Col. Renault joins us from Casablanca to say “Round up the usual suspects.” It’s spring 2009. Henry I. Miller of the Hoover Institution could be along any moment to say we need DDT to fight West Nile Virus, though DDT is not the pesticide of choice even among pesticide professionals.
The Wall Street Journal has become a favorite venue for these poison-the-Earthers as it has left rational policy decisions behind, at least in the editorial and op-ed pages. Steven Milloy’s got a book out slandering environmentalists, Green Hell, and a new blog to promote the book. No doubt someone will trot out Gordon Edwards’ Lyndon-Larouche-tainted claims against Rachel Carson, though none of them check out.
Sure enough, Green Hell blog picks it up repeating the old canard about how a day without DDT is like a day of genocide. You can’t teach a stupid dog new tricks, you know. In a post title that drips with calumny, Milloy says “Greens re-boot African genocide.” They have no case; smears must do the work.
Let’s dissect the WSJ piece, eh?
In 2006, after 25 years and 50 million preventable deaths, the World Health Organization reversed course and endorsed widespread use of the insecticide DDT to combat malaria. So much for that. Earlier this month, the U.N. agency quietly reverted to promoting less effective methods for attacking the disease. The result is a victory for politics over public health, and millions of the world’s poor will suffer as a result.
So much error in so little space! The error-to-word ratio may be a new land speed record.
Were there 2 million deaths per year from malaria, we could say malaria killed 50 million people in the last 25 years. But for many, or most of the past 35 years, the death rate has hovered around 1 million, sometimes lower. That’s still too high for those of us who think malaria should be beaten, but it’s not 2 million a year. WSJ exaggerates the death figures — what else do they exaggerate? If they have a case, why do they need to exaggerate?
WHO never abandoned DDT for specific uses. There was no policy for WHO to reverse in 2006. WHO made it clear that they would continue to use DDT where appropriate, and where local governments would allow. WSJ, new to the business of caring about Africans afflicted by malaria, doesn’t know the history.
DDT’s effectiveness against malaria-carrying mosquitoes began to wane by 1950. By the mid-1960s, many populations of mosquitoes had developed resistance and even immunity to DDT. That was why the World Health Organization (WHO) abandoned its campaign to eradicate malaria. Overuse of DDT, especially in agriculture, led to rapid evolution of resistance among mosquitoes. Without a weapon that worked as DDT had worked before resistance, the campaign could not succeed.
The Journal is simply wrong when it says only less-effective methods are left. DDT’s greatly reduced effectiveness is part of the reason; but research over the past five years, in tests run broadly in several African nations, shows that bednets reduce malaria infections by between 50% and 85%. That is much more effective than DDT in broadcast spraying.
One of the things WSJ fails to mention — maybe they don’t know, there is much demonstration of ignorance in the editorial — is that DDT is not used in broadcast spraying to fight malaria. Such campaigns proved disastrous because they killed off the predators of mosquitoes more effectively than they killed the mosquitoes, and because they often produced harmful results in other ways. Along some African rivers, the spraying campaigns killed off a lot of fish local people used for food. The dangers of DDT have been demonstrated in Africa.
WHO had championed a campaign in the late 1950s and 1960s to eradicate malaria. The strategy was to use DDT to knock down local mosquito populations for six months or a year, and in that time treat humans infected with the malaria parasites so that, when the mosquitoes came back, there would be no pool of malaria infection among humans from which to draw malaria to spread.
Alas, the overuse of DDT caused mosquitoes to develop resistance before the malaria-fighters could get into the field in some places and get the health care components of the campaign to work.
Because of the worldwide resistance to DDT among insects, DDT cannot be counted on as a panacea against malaria in any case. While it was never the panacea, never the sole tool to beat the disease, its role has been dramatically reduced by the rise of resistance to the chemical.
The U.N. now plans to advocate for drastic reductions in the use of DDT, which kills or repels the mosquitoes that spread malaria. The aim “is to achieve a 30% cut in the application of DDT worldwide by 2014 and its total phase-out by the early 2020s, if not sooner,” said WHO and the U.N. Environment Program in a statement on May 6.
Citing a five-year pilot program that reduced malaria cases in Mexico and South America by distributing antimalaria chloroquine pills to uninfected people, U.N. officials are ready to push for a “zero DDT world.” Sounds nice, except for the facts. It’s true that chloroquine has proven effective when used therapeutically, as in Brazil. But it’s also true that scientists have questioned the safety of the drug as an oral prophylactic because it is toxic and has been shown to cause heart problems.
Where was the Wall Street Journal when these studies were proposed, when they were run, and when they were reported? WHO and health care agencies in affected countries carefully worked to find non-DDT solutions to malaria. All programs to fight malaria require good health care systems, to diagnose malaria in victims, accurately as to the form of parasite affecting the victim, and to treat the disease to restore health to the victim and remove that person from the pool of people from whom mosquitoes can draw new malaria to infect others. The results are in. The treatment works. Now comes WSJ to pose questions that have already been answered? They are too late, and wrong.
Most malarial deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa, where chloroquine once worked but started failing in the 1970s as the parasite developed resistance.
Fascinating. In discussions with the pro-DDTers, resistance of mosquitoes to DDT is generally denied. But here the WSJ cites similar resistance by the parasite. Remember, dear reader, that the DDTers are selective in their use of evidence.
Even if the drugs were still effective in Africa, they’re expensive and thus impractical for one of the world’s poorest regions. That’s not an argument against chloroquine, bed nets or other interventions. But it is an argument for continuing to make DDT spraying a key part of any effort to eradicate malaria, which kills about a million people — mainly children — every year. Nearly all of this spraying is done indoors, by the way, to block mosquito nesting at night. It is not sprayed willy-nilly in jungle habitat.
DDT is more expensive than bednets. DDT is used now only for indoor residual spraying (IRS). Hut walls are treated with DDT to kill or repel mosquitoes after they have already bitten a victim; this prevents the spread of some parasites, at least in the bodies of the mosquitoes killed. IRS requires some expensive work, however. First, analysis of the mosquitoes must be done to be sure DDT is effective; annd second, a professional or highly-trained person must apply the stuff. DDT applications have to be repeated about every six months. They cost about $12.00 each time. IRS may decrease malaria infection by as much as 35% (I’m being liberal).
In contrast, bednets decrease malaria infection by 50% to 85%. They cost about $10.00 for the expensive ones, and they last five years. In tests and in practice in Africa over the past five years, bednets have proven to be a necessary and very effective method to fight malaria. Bednets work without DDT (there are alternative chemicals available for IRS); DDT can’t work without bednets.
There is strong opposition to use of DDT even for IRS, in Uganda, for example, where cotton and tobacco farmers have sued to stop the use. In other areas, local people still fear fish kills. DDT is controversial because of local opposition to it, not because of any environmental group’s action.
And the net result is that DDT is not the cheapest nor most effective method to fight malaria. It is an increasingly expensive, controversial, and decreasingly effective tool.
But here is the bottom line: Unless malaria is wiped out in human hosts, there will always be mosquitoes ready to spread the disease from one infected human to a dozen uninfected humans. The key to eliminating malaria is not killing every mosquito on Earth, as quixotic a goal as that may be; the key is to develop methods of curing humans quickly and well and interrupting the life cycle of the parasite. Drugs are expensive? DDT cannot substitute for drugs, regardless how cheap it is.
WHO is not saying that DDT shouldn’t be used. But by revoking its stamp of approval, it sends a clear message to donors and afflicted countries that it prefers more politically correct interventions, even if they don’t work as well. In recent years, countries like Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia have started or expanded DDT spraying, often with the help of outside aid groups. But these governments are also eager to remain in the U.N.’s good graces, and donors typically are less interested in funding interventions that WHO discourages.
These campaigns have provided little success against malaria — nothing on the scale of success of bednets.
Oddly, one of the greatest roadblocks to the use of DDT in Africa since 2000 was the Bush administration, which refused to allow any U.S. dollars for the purchase of DDT or treatment. There are foggy signs the Bush policies eased in 2008. But again, it may simply be that the opportunity to use DDT is gone. It’s time to move on to fight malaria, and quit tilting at the DDT windmill.
“Sadly, WHO’s about-face has nothing to do with science or health and everything to do with bending to the will of well-placed environmentalists,” says Roger Bate of Africa Fighting Malaria. “Bed net manufacturers and sellers of less-effective insecticides also don’t benefit when DDT is employed and therefore oppose it, often behind the scenes.”
Roger Bate acts as a shill for malaria over recent years. Despite the name of his organization, he stands opposed to any effective means of fighting malaria, and he always stands for poisoning Africa. His claims here are directly contradicted by the results of campaigns run by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a group which has dedicated its time and an astounding amount of money to beating malaria. Bill Gates has no axe to grind on the issue — the foundation encourages bednets and medical care, and is relatively silent about DDT. The Foundation’s work has saved more lives in the past three years than Roger Bate has in more than a decade of promoting DDT. The Gates Foundation clearly is more credible.
All other serious experts tend to agree with the Gates Foundation path as well.
It’s no coincidence that WHO officials were joined by the head of the U.N. Environment Program to announce the new policy. There’s no evidence that spraying DDT in the amounts necessary to kill dangerous mosquitoes imperils crops, animals or human health. But that didn’t stop green groups like the Pesticide Action Network from urging the public to celebrate World Malaria Day last month by telling “the U.S. to protect children and families from malaria without spraying pesticides like DDT inside people’s homes.”
Pesticide Action Network is probably the only so-called green organization as crazy against DDT as Roger Bate is crazy for DDT. Ignore what they say. Pay attention to what’s really going on. (See comments on PAN.) DDT is dangerous — PAN, for any inaccuracies they may have, are more accurate than the pro-p0ison side.
The National Academy of Sciences did a serious study of DDT in the late 1970s, and in a publication on the future of such chemicals in 1980, NAS said that while DDT was at one time a near-miracle working chemical, it is more dangerous than its benefits justify, and it needs to be eliminated from use. The entire world has been working to protect people from dangerous man-made chemicals. The Persistent Organic Pesticides Treaty of 2001 (POPs) calls for an end to use of dangerous chemicals, and singles out a dozen of the most dangerous. DDT is among the dozen most dangerous. POPs includes a waiver to allow DDT use for fighting disease, so even it does not ban the stuff. History shows that DDT decreases in effectiveness, and we discover new dangers from the stuff almost every year. Since we have effective alternatives, and since DDT use has been hamstrung by litigation in Africa and ineffectiveness in the field, now is a great opportunity to end DDT use with very little harmful effect.
“We must take a position based on the science and the data,” said WHO’s malaria chief, Arata Kochi, in 2006. “One of the best tools we have against malaria is indoor residual spraying. Of the dozen or so insecticides WHO has approved as safe for house spraying, the most effective is DDT.” Mr. Kochi was right then, even if other WHO officials are now bowing to pressure to pretend otherwise.
Kochi was right to call for IRS then — and since we now have effective alternatives to DDT to use in IRS, WHO is right again to call for a reduction in DDT use in 2009. We must take a position based on the science and the data, after all.
DDT is less effective than alternatives, and more expensive. DDT is a killer once released in the wild. DDT is unnecessarily controversial where it might do the most good, and therefore even less effective than it might be. How can the Wall Street Journal come to any different conclusion, if they’re looking at the economics and science? Who would have suspected political string-pulling at WSJ?
Rachel Carson was right. 47 years after Silent Spring is not too soon to eliminate DDT use.
___________
Here’s one indicator of the silly and bizarre exaggerations pro-DDT people tend to use: This guy claims DDT had eliminated polio. In an otherwise over-the-top claim that Rachel Carson is a mass murderer — a claim that is false in all respects — the author goes even farther, claiming DDT effectiveness as a pharmaceutical against a disease like polio where there is no record for DDT’s ever having been used.
____________
Even more flight from reality: Climate Change Fraud blog, a site that appears to be a haven for anti-science, reprinted the WSJ editorial and added a bogus history introduction. And another addition to the Wall of Shame: Black and Right.
7 Comments | Africa, Biology, Cost of Green, DDT, Disease, Green Politics, Health care, History, Malaria, Politics, Science | Tagged: Africa, Cost of Green, DDT, Disease, Green Politics, Health care, Malaria, Pesticides, Politics, Rachel Carson, Science, Silent Spring | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
In a drawer in a file box in the U.S. Patent Office in Washington, D.C., is a study in black ink on white paper, lines that resemble those images most of us have of the first Wright Bros. flyer, usually dubbed “Kittyhawk” after the place it first took to the air.
Drawing 1 from patent granted to Orville Wright for a flying machine
The patent was issued on May 22, 1906, to Orville Wright, Patent No. 821393, for a “flying machine.”
It makes more sense if you turn the drawing on its side.
Wright Bros. flying machine, from patent drawing
Why did it take three years to get the patent issued?
Below the fold, the rest of the patent.
1 Comment | Airplanes, DBQ sources, Historic documents, History, History images, Images, Invention, Patents, Science, Technology | Tagged: Airplane, Aviation, Flying, Historic documents, History, History images, May 22 1906, Patents, Science, Technology, Wright Brothers | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Seen at the TFN blog, Insider:
Call your state senator, Texans! Let them know McLeroy should not be confirmed as chair of the State Board of Education. Find your state senator and how to contact her or him here.
1 Comment | Humor, Politics, State school boards, Texas, Texas Freedom Network, Texas Lege | Tagged: Don McLeroy, Politics, Science, Social Studies, Texas Freedom Network, Texas Legislature | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Texans, the information on finding your state representative and state senator are below — call them, today.
In a surprise move, the Senate has moved the nomination of Don McLeroy to the floor for an up-and-down vote.
McLeroy has ushered in a new era of bitter, partisan and divisive politics to the State Board of Education. In the past year he has insulted English teachers, citizens of Hispanic descent, unnecessarily gutted a good mathematics text from the approved list (just to show he can do it), and done his best to butcher science education standards for Texas. He suspended work on new social studies curricula because, in part, he doesn’t like the term “capitalism,” insisting on “free enterprise” instead, contrary to almost all scholarly writing on the topic.
The man is a menace to education. He uses wedge political issues to divide educators from parents, parents from schools, schools from the community, students from teachers, and education from propaganda.
I quote the entirety of the post from Texas Freedom Network’s Insider blog, below, to explain:
UPDATE: Click here to see video of the committee vote.
In a surprise meeting on the Senate floor, the Senate Nominations Committee in Austin has just approved the appointment of Don McLeroy as chairman of the Texas State Board of Education. It appears that McLeroy’s supporters plan to bring his confirmation to the full Senate early next week. Confirmation will require a two-thirds vote.
Committee Chairman Mike Jackson, R-La Porte, had said he would not bring up McLeroy’s confirmation for a vote in committee unless he thought there were enough votes to get it in the full Senate. We don’t know at this point whether opposition from nearly all Democrats and some Republicans has softened, but the signs are alarming.
If you haven’t done so already, it’s critical that you contact your senator and tell him or her that you oppose McLeroy’s confirmation. You can find the name and contact information for your senator here.
Texas Freedom Network President Kathy Miller has released the following statement:
“If the Texas Senate genuinely cares about quality public education, they will reject as state board chairman a man who apparently agrees that parents who want to teach their kids about evolution are monsters. And we’ll see whether senators really want a chairman who presides over a board that is so focused on ‘culture war’ battles that it has made Texas look like an educational backwater to the rest of the country.”
Gov. Perry appointed McLeroy board chairman in July 2007. Since then, the board has turned debates over language arts and science curriculum standards in “culture war” battlegrounds. Chairman McLeroy has also endorsed a book that says parents who want to teach children about evolution are “monsters” and calls clergy who see no conflict between faith and science “morons.” This spring McLeroy led other creationists on the state board in adopting new science curriculum standards that call the scientific consensus on evolution into question and no longer include references to scientific estimates of the age of the universe.
1 Comment | Creationism, Education, Evolution, Politics, Rampant stupidity, Science, Texas, Texas Citizens for Science, Texas Freedom Network, Texas Lege, Textbooks | Tagged: Creationism, Don McLeroy, Education, Education reform, Evolution, Politics, Rampant stupidity, Science, Texas, Texas Citizens for Science, Texas Freedom Network, Texas Legislature, Texas State Board of Education | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
She’s being called Ida (EE-duh, to the Brits, EYE-duh to Bob Wills fans). How could you miss all the hype about her unveiling this week?
Science fans complain that the hype might be over done. Creationists appear a bit panicked by the developments.
Ida herself? She’s beautiful. Here’s an interview with Michael Novacek from the American Museum of Natural History in New York, carried on the public television news program World Focus.
Here’s a collection of British television stories on Ida, including David Attenborough’s animation of the reconstruction of her skeleton — some great graphics:
See also:
2 Comments | Charles Darwin, Evolution, Fossils, Journalism, Paleontology, Science | Tagged: AMNH, Biology, Charles Darwin, classroom video, Darwinius masillai, Evolution, Ida, Journalism, Missing Link, Museum, Research, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Evolution 2009 kicks off Wednesday, September 2, 2009 at the University of Nebraska atKearney.
In honor of Darwin’s birth bicentennial and the sesquicentennial of his most famous work, the program is dedicated to evolution in different fields of biology.
High school instructors can get in for $75. World class scientists like Jack Horner, Brad Davidson, Shannon Williamson and Randy Moore will present — along with world class evolution and legal evidence expert, Nick Matzke.
The main hotel will be the Ramada Inn in Kearney, where I spent a cold, snowy night in November 1979 after a kindly truck driver from Consolidated Freightways rescued me from certain hypothermia a few miles out of town, where my car had spun into nearly six feet of snow.
Now, can I find some excuse to get to the conference?
I predict: For the 21st consecutive year since the field of intelligent design was proposed, there will be no new research supporting intelligent design, even in the poster sessions. This is a science conference, and intelligent design supporters will quietly boycott the entire affair.
1 Comment | Creationism, Education, Evolution, History, Intelligent Design, Science | Tagged: Creationism, Education, Evolution 2009, Intelligent Design, Jack Horner, Nick Matzke, Science, University of Nebraska at Kearney | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
No real Texan would ever entertain the slightest doubt about the accuracy of evolution theory, once that Texan understood how evolution helps fight the imported Argentine fire ant, Solenopsis invicta. And, who could invent flies that turn the tiny ants into zombies as their larva eat the brains of the ants?
Evolution theory suggests that predators, or at least a parasite, exists for almost every species on Earth. Fire ants, though seemingly invincible (hence the species name, invicta), also have predators and parasites. Control of the ants may be a function of finding the right natural enemy of the ant.
Caption from TAES: As the egg of a new type of phorid fly develops inside the heads of red imported fire ants, it takes over the control of the host, said Dr. Scott Ludwig, Texas AgriLife Extension Service integrated pest management specialist. Ludwig released fire ants infested with the parasite at the Texas AgriLife Research and Extension Center at Overton on April 29. (Texas AgriLife Extension photo by Robert Burns)
Bill Hannah reduces the science to a good lay explanation in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:
It sounds like something out of science fiction: zombie fire ants. But it’s all too real.
Fire ants wander aimlessly away from the mound.
Eventually their heads fall off, and they die.
The strange part is that researchers at the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M’s AgriLife Extension Service say making “zombies” out of fire ants is a good thing.
“It’s a tool — they’re not going to completely wipe out the fire ant, but it’s a way to control their population,” said Scott Ludwig, an integrated pest management specialist with the AgriLife Extension Service in Overton, in East Texas.
The tool is the tiny phorid fly, native to a region of South America where the fire ants in Texas originated. Researchers have learned that there are as many as 23 phorid species along with pathogens that attack fire ants to keep their population and movements under control.
Resources:
1 Comment | Economics, Environmental protection, Evolution, Natural history, Science, Texas | Tagged: Entomology, Evolution, Fire Ant, Nature, Phorid Fly, Science, Texas | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
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 
May 21, 2009 at 9:23 pm Question: What do Don McLeroy and a catfish have in common?
Answer: A distant ancestor.
This might help to explain some of the behavior we’re seeing.