Dan

Scientific Prognostication

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… [B]eware those who deride predictive science in its entirety, for they are also making a prediction:  that we have nothing to worry about. And above all, do not shoot the messenger, for this is the coward’s way out of openly and honestly confronting the problem.

– Dr. Kerry A. Emanuel during the Congressional hearing for U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science Space and Technology

Interestingly, those who “deride predictive science in its entirety” are frequently the same folks who deride science in general when it reaches conclusions that don’t support their pre-existing political or religious ideology.

That’s all too common.

(via)

The Tea Party wants more abortions

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Planned Parenthood supportersThe Tea Party (and the Tea-Party’esque Republicans) seem to want more abortions… or at least they want to create more unintentional pregnancies, increasing the demand for abortion services.

This same group, however, wants to defund the programs (Planned Parenthood and Title X) that are best equipped to provide education, contraception, and reproductive health services for women who have the highest risk of unintentional pregnancies.

Well over 60% of abortions are performed on women under the age of 30. Roughly half are performed on women with an annual household income less than $30,000. Planned Parenthood and Title X are huge providers of reproductive health services for this demographic, including cancer screenings, pregnancy tests, STD treatments, menopause treatments, tubal ligations, and low-cost contraceptives.

The reason the Tea Party wants to defund these programs, presumably, is because these programs can potentially present information about (and, in the case of Planned Parenthood, perform) abortions. Title X cannot perform abortions or recommend abortions. Roughly 2% to 3% of Planned Parenthood visits involve abortions. That leaves a whopping 100% of Title X services and 97% of Planned Parenthood services dedicated to other reproductive health care services… services that have a direct impact on whether young, low-income women get unintentionally pregnant.

Even setting aside the incendiary issue of whether abortion is a medical procedure or an abomination, defunding Planned Parenthood and Title X is a completely absurd position to take for a group that, to its core, opposes the very existence of the abortion procedure.

The reason it’s absurd? Opposing the programs that provide low-cost contraceptives and sexual health services is effectively promoting increased unintentional pregnancies, thereby increasing the demand for abortion services.

The best way to lower the rate of abortions isn’t to outlaw abortions. That would just make them dangerous. The best way is to reduce the number of unintended pregnancies. That can be accomplished, in part, by providing affordable contraceptives and sexual health education to the women who have the highest risk… which is exactly what Planned Parenthood and Title X do. Defunding these programs is simply a big “thumbs up” for abortions and a big “thumbs down” for women’s health.

…and that would be an abomination.

Let’s play a game!

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Here’s a quick sampling of headlines from six major news sites, which include MSNBC, Fox, MSN, BBC, New York Times, and CNN. Each headline was  the main headline on the front page of the news agency’s website at around 1:30 PM on Monday, March 14th, 2011.

Here’s the game. Read the six headlines and guess which one is Fox News.

Searching for survivors

URGENT: Nuke Meltdown in 3 Reactors

Uranium rods ‘highly likely’ melting at Japanese nuclear plant, official says

Fuel Rod Crisis Fears at 3rd Reactor

Japan Nuclear Plant Hit By Second Blast

Meltdown alert at Japan reactor

I’m not going to give away the answer (especially since every person I’ve asked has easily gotten the answer right), but this game can be played any time of day on any day of the year… and it’s almost always a simple task to pick out the Fox News headline.

When headlines are simply more sensationalist on one news site, I find it amusing. When they’re misleading, I find it disturbing, regardless of the news organization.

Either way, it’s an easy game to play… and it’s almost always easy to spot Fox headlines.

Henry Waxman calls shenanigans

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Henry Waxman calls shenanigans on anti-science Republicans…

“The new Republican majority in the House has a lot of power to write our nation’s laws, but they do not have the power to rewrite the laws of nature,” Mr. Waxman said. “Republicans in Congress can’t cure cancer by passing a bill that declares smoking safe. And they can’t stop climate change by declaring it a hoax.”

They can’t… but they continue to try.

Yeah. She’s my daughter.

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Megan was eating a warm, chocolate-chip cookie/brownie thing and had gotten to the center where it was all melty and chocolately.

I said, "Is that my part?"

She says, looking around in the bowl, "No. Your part is… Oh, sorry. I already ate your part."

I’m so proud.

Yep. It works like that.

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Amazingly, despite the fact that our current cold weather in the the US is perfectly consistent with the consequences of global warming, the pro-pollution, global warming deniers continue to insist that localized cold weather and snow means the planet is not warming.

I guess when you deny basic science (or remain willfully ignorant of it), reality is purely subjective.

Personal attacks in science denial

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Orac, of Respectful Insolence, has a post about how global warming wasn’t "invented" by Al Gore, contrary to what many global warming deniers seem to think. However, the part I find especially interesting in his piece is his explanation of why denialists tend to attack people.

Here’s an excerpt:

If there’s one characteristic of denialists of all stripes, it’s that they have a strong tendency to personalize their dislike of their particular bete noir science.

[…]

The reason, of course, is that cranks can’t attack the science using good science and, of course, it’s far easier to attack a person than well-supported science. After all, all people have flaws that can be ridiculed or used as the basis of ad hominem attacks.

Like Orac, I’ve seen this from global warming deniers, anti-vaxxers, religious fundamentalists, and anti-evolution creationists. Whatever motivates them in their denial, it seems they share this common tactic of attacking the messenger.

…any messenger.

A global warming denier is like…

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I was trying to come up with a good analogy to describe global warming deniers and, of three I created, some friends thought this was the best one.

A global warming denier is like an inspector checking out a crumbling, leaky dam that is in danger of collapse who, upon finding a small bit of dry concrete, exclaims, “See! There’s no problem! It all looks fine!”

I thought I’d modify it for some instances to read…

A global warming denier is like an inspector checking out a crumbling, leaky dam that is in danger of collapse who, upon displaying a small bit of dry brick from a completely unrelated building in a neighboring town, exclaims, “See! There’s no problem! It all looks fine!”

…or, in many cases…

A global warming denier is like an inspector checking out a crumbling, leaky dam that is in danger of collapse who, upon finding a small bit of wet concrete, acts as if it’s dry, and exclaims, “See! There’s no problem! It all looks fine!”

One friend suggested this one, which I found amusing.

A global warming denier is like a guy living on a planet that is getting measurably warmer due to pollution and, for political reasons, latches on to the tiniest shred of unrelated “evidence” and calls it proof otherwise.

Okay… that’s not really an analogy.

About Science

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Two things are certain about science.  It does not stand still for long,and it is never boring.  Oh, among some poor souls, including evenintellectuals in fields of high scholarship, science is frequentlymisperceived.  Many see it as only a body of facts, promulgated fromon high in must, unintelligible textbooks, a collection of unchangingprecepts defended with authoritarian vigor.  Others view it as nothingbut a cold, dry narrow, plodding, rule-bound process — the scientificmethod: hidebound, linear, and left brained.

These people are the victims of their own stereotypes.  They aredestined to view the world of science with a set of blinders.  Theyknow nothing of the tumult, cacophony, rambunctiousness, andtendentiousness of the actual scientific process, let alone thecreativity, passion, and joy of discovery.  And they are likely toknow little of the continual procession of new insights and discoveriesthat every day, in some way, change our view (if not theirs) of thenatural world.

Kendrick Frazier, “The Year in Science: An Overview”
1988 Yearbook of Science and the Future
Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.