How dishonest can a Breitbart writer get?

This dishonest:

According to the FBI annual crime statistics, the number of murders committed annually with hammers and clubs far outnumbers the number of murders committed with a rifle.

This is an interesting fact, particularly amid the Democrats’ feverish push to ban many different rifles, ostensibly to keep us safe of course.

However, it appears the zeal of Sens. like Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) is misdirected. For in looking at the FBI numbers from 2005 to 2011, the number of murders by hammers and clubs consistently exceeds the number of murders committed with a rifle.

Think about it: In 2005, the number of murders committed with a rifle was 445, while the number of murders committed with hammers and clubs was 605. In 2006, the number of murders committed with a rifle was 438, while the number of murders committed with hammers and clubs was 618.

Yeah, think about it. Notice that he specifically compares deaths by blunt instrument to deaths by rifle? That’s so he can leave out the “8,260 firearm-related homicides in 2011 attributed to shotguns, handguns, and other unidentified guns.”

But let’s be charitable. Let’s assume he honestly believes the most dangerous weapon a person can be armed with is a hammer. Then shouldn’t he be advocating that teachers be issued a hammer for each classroom rather than arming the teachers with guns?

It must be fun to be an atheist in Italy

Like that other historically strongly Catholic country, Ireland, Italy has to have some special challenges to the atheist community. Fortunately, they’ve got an active atheist group, Unione degli Atei e degle Agnostici Razionalisti (google translation) and they have an agenda (google translation).

Have you ever noticed that all these diverse atheist groups, when they settle on a set of goals, always end up being on the liberal/progressive end of the spectrum? The Italian group, in addition to wanting religious interference out of the government and schools (which I can see as reasonable aspirations for either conservative or liberal organizations) also supports a social progressive agenda of ending discrimination on sexual orientation, open availability of contraception, gay marriage, equality for women, stem cell research, evolution, etc.

Also, isn’t it weird that any of those issues should be associated with liberal positions, rather than conservative ones? Maybe one of the goals of conservatives ought to be bringing their ideology in better alignment with reality.

Science is partisan

I have rarely seen such a politically vapid proposition as the one that Daniel Sarewitz managed to get published in Nature. “Science must be seen to bridge the political divide“, he says. He’s worried about the politicization of science, and he seems to think it’s all the scientists’ faults.

To prevent science from continuing its worrying slide towards politicization, here’s a New Year’s resolution for scientists, especially in the United States: gain the confidence of people and politicians across the political spectrum by demonstrating that science is bipartisan.

What the hell does that even mean? Does he think the scientific institutions in this country are all arms of one political party? Has he even considered the possiblity that it isn’t science dogmatically accepting the goals of one political party, but rather, that the other party has so willfully and enthusiastically embraced anti-scientific sentiment that it is not in our own interest to support them?

He cites a letter from a long list of highly respected scientists, including a group of Nobelists, who openly endorsed Barack Obama for president. He deplores this. Why? Because many of them already had a history of supporting Democratic candidates.

But even Nobel prizewinners are citizens with political preferences. Of the 43 (out of 68) signatories on record as having made past political donations, only five had ever contributed to a Republican candidate, and none did so in the last election cycle. If the laureates are speaking on behalf of science, then science is revealing itself, like the unions, the civil service, environmentalists and tort lawyers, to be a Democratic interest, not a democratic one.

Yes? So? There is a reason most scientists tend to vote Democratic: because the Republican party is a puppet of the evangelical Christian right and the irrational reactionary Tea Party. Scientists will tend to vote for the party that best supports scientific positions and doesn’t promote anti-scientific bullshit…not because party bosses are telling them to stay in line, but because that’s what scientists care about.

When your party fields a set of presidential candidates that includes evolution-deniers and climate-change deniers, the casual disregard for scientific evidence is not going to encourage scientists that you are actually on their side. When your party is representated extravagantly by the Texas Board of Education, you’re going to be perceived as anti-science.

Sarewitz ignores all the flaming science-denialism of the far right wing of the Republican party to pretend that both parties are essentially the same.

This is dangerous for science and for the nation. The claim that Republicans are anti-science is a staple of Democratic political rhetoric, but bipartisan support among politicians for national investment in science, especially basic research, is still strong. For more than 40 years, US government science spending has commanded a remarkably stable 10% of the annual expenditure for non-defence discretionary programmes. In good economic times, science budgets have gone up; in bad times, they have gone down. There have been more good times than bad, and science has prospered.

Both parties recognize the utility of science and technology; neither really embrace it, with the Republicans being far, far worse. They appointed John Shimkus to head the Economy and Environment committee; the Shimkus who immediately announced that global climate change isn’t occurring because the Bible promised it wouldn’t. Marco Rubio could babble that there is some legitimate scientific doubt about whether the earth is 6000 or 4.5 billion years old — and he’s a leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. The official Republican party platform in 2012 demanded an end to abortion and stem cell research.

Now why should scientists embrace all that? Are we supposed to pretend that doesn’t matter, because Republican approval of military and industrial research means overall level of funding to NIH/NSF won’t change?

Note that I’m not saying the Democratic party is flawless. Far from it. I’ve moaned about Tom Harkin’s alternative medicine boondoggle before; I know that Democrats are about as likely as Republicans to be anti-vaccination, and are worse about opposing genetically modified organisms. Picking either of these teams of bozos is a matter of compromise, but the differences are clear, and the Republican clowns are flagrantly anti-science, and proud of it.

So Sarewitz piously bleats out this nonsense, and then, as you might expect, offers no serious answers to how scientists are supposed to be “non-partisan.” Here’s the sum total of his advice:

To connect scientific advice to bipartisanship would benefit political debate. Volatile issues, such as the regulation of environmental and public-health risks, often lead to accusations of ‘junk science’ from opposing sides. Politicians would find it more difficult to attack science endorsed by avowedly bipartisan groups of scientists, and more difficult to justify their policy preferences by scientific claims that were contradicted by bipartisan panels.

During the cold war, scientists from America and the Soviet Union developed lines of communication to improve the prospects for peace. Given the bitter ideological divisions in the United States today, scientists could reach across the political divide once again and set an example for all.

“Reach across the political divide”? What? How? Scientists are not a voting bloc in congress. They aren’t trying to reach compromises with a group of people — they’re trying to understand the natural world, and when one party consistently defies reality with theological nonsense, we’re not going to reach out to them. We’re going to tell them they’re wrong.

There is another strategy for members of the electorate to take other than compromise: it is to advocate for the party that best fits the values of your group. Right now, the Democrats, imperfectly and with reservations, does a somewhat better job of meeting the expectations of most scientists. Why the hell should we support an anti-science political party? Because bipartisanship is a virtue unto itself? It isn’t.

Sarewitz is simply a middling idiot.

Talking about bad science

We’re doing it on youtube right now. I’m watching comments there as they emerge as well.

And here it is, if you missed it:

Subjects discussed:

Sharon Begley’s placebo article:
http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2013/01/02/in-the-magazine/health-in-the-magazine/placebo-power.html

Steven Novella on the placebo:
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/the-placebo-effect/

Energy drinks:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/02/health/scant-proof-is-found-to-back-up-claims-by-energy-drinks.html?pagewanted=all

Mark Lynas on GMOs:
http://www.marklynas.org/2013/01/lecture-to-oxford-farming-conference-3-january-2013/

The Ars Technica review of Ben Goldacre’s book, Bad Pharma
http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/01/profits-over-your-dead-body/

Silencing and shaming to suppress abortion:
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/article/2012/12/20/evidence-based-advocacy-how-do-abortion-providers-experience-stigma

The important things in life

Luis Martinez stopped at the Subway sandwich shop and ordered this thing they call a Philly Cheesesteak…and he ordered it with ketchup. The Subway worker, Lawrence Ordone, objected.

"That’s when I flew off the handle," said Ordone.

"He shoved a chair to the side, like knocked it down to come at me, and I said, ‘This is going to be serious,’" said Martinez.

"I said, ‘Let’s go, fight me like a man,’" said Ordone.

"I was scared. Next thing, I’m thinking a gun’s going to come out," said Martinez.

Ordone said he blocked the customer so he couldn’t get out.

"He threatened to kill me in front of my wife," said Martinez.

These are important issues that a man should engage in battle over: everyone KNOWS that a true Philly cheesesteak is served with ketchup and fried onions. The abomination that the Subway serves lacks both. And now we have learned that Subway employees are willing to fight to the death to preserve their heresy.

Oh, and American cheese? Pffft. It’s supposed to be Cheez-Whiz.

By the way, Ordone was fired — Subway apparently objects to their employees assaulting customers. They still, however, refuse to serve ketchup.

Priming the pump

We will have a Google+ podcast this evening, at 6pm Central time — I’ll start sending out invitations around 5:30. You do not need an invitation to watch it live, or to leave comments during.

The general topic is bad science and quackery. To get us started, here are a couple of links to some examples beyond the usual homeopathy/magic healing stuff that is so blatant — it’s subtler stuff that we often ignore.

  • Money interests promote bad science. Look at energy drinks: lies and hype.

    Promoting a message beyond caffeine has enabled the beverage makers to charge premium prices. A 16-ounce energy drink that sells for $2.99 a can contains about the same amount of caffeine as a tablet of NoDoz that costs 30 cents. Even Starbucks coffee is cheap by comparison; a 12-ounce cup that costs $1.85 has even more caffeine.

  • The science media flops big-time and promotes bad science. One example: Sharon Begley oversells placebos.

    But while anecdotes are not science, it is stories of the placebo response that drive home its awesome power—much more so than reports in dry research papers.

    Jebus Christ. Enough said, maybe.

  • There are legitimate concerns to discuss about GMO foods, but usually we hear little but knee-jerk ideological rejection at the idea of tainting our precious food (this in a country where it’s almost impossible to buy food that isn’t genetically tweaked and processed). A critic rethinks his position on GMO foods.

    I want to start with some apologies. For the record, here and upfront, I apologise for having spent several years ripping up GM crops. I am also sorry that I helped to start the anti-GM movement back in the mid 1990s, and that I thereby assisted in demonising an important technological option which can be used to benefit the environment.

  • Bad science prospers when their topic is hidden behind shame and silence. Case in point: the abortion issue, which only has two voices, the strident shrieking about ‘baby-killers’ and muted, almost embarrassed silence.

    When abortion providers do not disclose their work in everyday encounters, their silence perpetuates a stereotype that abortion work is unusual or deviant, or that legitimate, mainstream doctors do not perform abortions. This contributes to marginalization of abortion providers within medicine and the ongoing targeting of providers for harassment and violence. This reinforces the reluctance to disclose abortion work, and the cycle continues.

This is not an exclusive list, but merely something that will get us started. And of course, people can warm up to it by discussing it here in the comments.

Evolution? This fossil says no

I thought I’d break the news here first: I have incontrovertible evidence against human evolution. To wit: my lungs are persistently filling up with fluid over the last few days. Which, if I’m not mistaken, is pretty much the opposite of what they are allegedly evolved to do. I mean, what possible advantage could that have provided on the savanna? Aside from possibly repelling predators with weaker stomachs. Hear my mighty and productive coughs, o puny lion, and slink away revolted! Or something.

Why did we even bother to lose the gills, again?

This is becoming an annual tradition I’m not so sure I approve of: I was sick last year on my birthday as well. (Yes, today. 53. Thank you.) Last year Annette bought us a room in Tucson to celebrate, and we spent the day enjoying the city and eating lunch with friends, and then by the time we were halfway back to the Coachella Valley I was wracked with fever and hoping for truck stop soup.

I have to say, from the perspective of increasing age, that coughing fits aren’t nearly as fun as they used to be when I was a kid. And dextromethorphan is definitely becoming my least favorite recreational drug ever. Between this and PZ’s nosebleed, you all may want to cover your monitors with dental dams for the next few days. When do the Obamacare Death Panels kick in again? I’ll happily take my Socialist Suicide Pill if they cut it with some codeine.

Anyway, I do have a few interesting things to report that have accumulated over the last few days:

  • We were talking here a while ago about wildlife agencies and their 19th Century-style obeisance to the hunting crowd. As an effort to emphasize conservation over game hunting and fish stocking, the former California Department of Fish and Game is now the Department of Fish and Wildlife. A cosmetic change, but an important one.
  • Rebecca Rosen at The Atlantic has launched a campaign in which men pledge not to speak on science or tech panels  that are all-male. I don’t get asked all that often, but I signed it anyway. Spread the word.
  • A literature survey and metaanalysis published in JAMA suggests that while there are indeed links between significant obesity and increased mortality,  as compared to people with “normal” range Body Mass Indices (BMI), “Grade 1 obesity overall was not associated with higher mortality, and overweight was associated with significantly lower all-cause mortality” [emphasis mine]  than in people whose BMIs are in the “normal” range.

I think that last item means I’m gonna have to get over this goddamn cough the hard way.

Podcast postponed

How about tomorrow, at 6pm Central time?

This has been a nasty week for me — my ankle is a nest of flaming knives, which means I haven’t been getting a heck of a lot of sleep. Then on top of that, this morning my nose started bleeding — I’ll spare you the details, but I was browsing the web on my iPad this morning and marveling at this incredibly brilliant, detailed, glistening blood spatter effect appearing on a website before I realized it was me, drenching everything in my lap. Almost two years on blood thinners means that when the geyser blows, it’s a bad one. I’m afraid I’d be going on camera with yet another toilet paper plug in one nostril that would steadily turn crimson over the hour, and really, that’s not a good look for me.

(Yes, I did see a doctor about this a short while ago. It’s become a recurring phenomenon lately. I thought they were going to tell me to count my blessings, I was getting leechings every day for free.)

Now pardon me, I have to go stare at the ceilings some more and pack more wadding up my face while cussing as I hobble about the blood-flecked bathroom. It’s been one of those fun days.