News From Around The Blogosphere 5.23.11

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1. Actor Paul Giamatti identifies himself as an atheist - Yup, in keeping with centuries of Jewish tradition, Mr. Giamatti doesn’t believe in any gods. He even goes further than many other celebrity atheists in that he’s not afraid to even use the label “atheist.”

2. Australian distributor of Power Balance bracelets goes out of business -

The Australian distributor of the controversial Power Balance wristbands will be placed into receivership today, with the owner of the business saying that sales have “evaporated” since the business provided undertakings to the ACCC to stop claiming the wristbands could improve balance, strength and flexibility.

Power Balance Australia owner Tom O’Dowd has exclusively told SmartCompany that while he had been “naive” in thinking that the business would not by [sic] subject to laws surrounding the regulation of health products, the ACCC’s aggressive stance against the products effectively killed off any survival hopes.

3. 60 Minutes reports on Lance Armstrong scandal - Last week, I defended a piece by 60 Minutes about the cult group calling themselves Sovereign Citizens, but this week, I’m taking issue with one of their stories. Now I haven’t been following the investigation into possible use of performance-enhancing drugs among professional bicyclists, nor the particular accusations against Lance Armstrong. But it seems to me, at least as it was presented on 60 Minutes, that the real story here is an abuse of government power. From what I could tell, the entire investigation has turned into a witch hunt based not on any empirical evidence, but on nothing more than hearsay.

Now maybe Armstrong cheated and maybe he didn’t. I have no clue, nor any commitment to either conclusion. Certainly, as with any professional athlete, there is a clear motivation to cheat…at least as long as one  can keep it a secret, as exposure would almost certainly destroy one’s career. But if federal officials couldn’t even nab Al Capone for anything other than tax evasion, why is it that they can potentially bring down Lance Armstrong without anything other than the testimonies and conspiracy theories of people who may have a grudge against him?

You’re pitting WHO against Stephen Hawking?!

"Suck it, bitch!"

The other day, the world’s most famous living physicist Stephen Hawking made headlines with an off the cuff remark he made about heaven:

“I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I’m not afraid of death, but I’m in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first,” he told the newspaper.

“I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.”

And all of a sudden, people went ape shit, and several people called out the genius physicist for his statements. So who were these brave intellects who entered the ring against Stephen Hawking? Evangelical and former child actor Kirk Cameron, for one.

According to Cameron:

“”To say anything negative about Stephen Hawking is like bullying a blind man. He has an unfair disadvantage, and that gives him a free pass on some of his absurd ideas. Professor Hawking is heralded as ‘the genius of Britain,’ yet he believes in the scientific impossibility that nothing created everything and that life sprang from non-life,” the former TV star tells E! News.

I do agree on one point. Hawking does have an unfair advantage…actually knowing stuff.

Then ABC Nightly News with Diane Sawyer pitted Hawking against a random 12-year-old kid who we’re told had a near-death experience where he gained access to easily accessible information. ABC even framed the story as one versus the other. It’s almost like this kid had some sort of internet or something.

Then a religious physicist named Scott M. Tyson criticized Hawking with a bunch of logical fallacies, which Steven Novella details in his latest article. And finally, there is some writer for The Guardian who states that he’d stake his life that Stephen Hawking is wrong, which PZ Myers references in his piece explaining how not to argue with Hawking.

I’d love to be able to say there was no clear winner in any of these battles but just look again at the people going up against one of the greatest physicists of our time: an actor, a journalist, a 12-year-old kid? It’s sad that not only do these laypeople think can contend with Hawking but that the media seems to think they’ve got what it takes to be fair opponents. That’s like a boxing match pitting Mike Tyson against…well, a 12-year-old.

Sorry media but it wasn’t even close. The winner and still champion is Hawking, who only wins this battle of wits on the grounds that he’s way smarter than you and is a leading expert in the subject.

Related articles

• Kirk Cameron Doesn’t Think Stephen Hawking Is Very Smart [Nibbly Things] (socialitelife.com)
• Heavens No! Kirk Cameron Attacks Stephen Hawking for Godless Views (eonline.com)
• Kirk Cameron feels disadvantaged against Stephen… (shortformblog.tumblr.com)
• Kirk Cameron on Stephen Hawking Heaven Theory: WRONG! (thehollywoodgossip.com)
• Kirk Cameron Vs. Stephen Hawking: WAR OF THE BRAINIACS! (videogum.com)
• Stephen Hawking says heaven is a myth (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

Neil DeGrasse Tyson is my god

Thank you Lord Tyson for taking our minds off American Atheists’ horrible billboards, David Silverman’s poor TV performance, and Bill O’Reilly’s ICP-level stupidity.

Rebecca Watson has written a great response to the this failure of a billboard campaign by American Atheists as has Staks at Dangerous Talk. Of course I planted my flag first on criticizing this campaign a month ago here and here. The former earned me the title of “faithiest accommodater” by one commenter who apparently put on their crankypants that day.  Well, welcome fellow faithiest accommodaters who feel there’s a difference between blunt, unapologetic, but articulate intellectual criticisms of religion and just being an asshole who nobody’s going to want to hang out with.

As I said before, advertising isn’t about making arguments; it’s about selling a product. And if you want to sell a product like atheism in the month of December, you ought to be associating yourself with positive humanist values like good will towards your fellow human beings. That wins friends and influences people. Plus there’s that bonus of actually having helped people. Something I hear we atheists are all about and yet I see little of from the American Atheists.

And if you still REALLY want to get under the Religious Right’s skin, as one group of atheists learned this holiday season, you’re going about it all wrong.

Andrew Wakefield is a fraud!

Andrew Wakefield is a fraud. To many of you out there, this is not news at all. But today the British Medical Journal released the first of several close examinations by journalist Brian Deer that exposes Andrew Wakefield’s now retracted 1998 study published in the Lancet that analyzed twelve children as not just bad science but deliberately fraudulent.

Among many distortions, Wakefield altered the medical information of all twelve children including changing the dates their symptoms were first reported to fit his predetermined conclusions. For instance,  although the children were reported in the study to show their symptoms almost immediately after receiving the MMR vaccine, their medical records show some developed their symptoms earlier while others not for many months after vaccination (not unlike Jenny McCarthy, who claimed that her son appeared to lose his very soul almost immediately after vaccination but recently admitted it was many months later that his symptoms appeared).

And suddenly this has created a media firestorm on the side of good for a change. Everyone’s talking about this and it’s being called by many to be the biggest scientific fraud of this generation. Orac is even calling it the greatest scientific fraud since Piltdown Man. Dan Harris and Diane Sawyer were harsh in their report on ABC World News tonight. Then Sanjay Gupta went on Wolf Blitzer’s show and firmly declared the study a fraud. Elliot Spitzer and Sanjay Gupta interviewed JB Handley on CNN and were pretty tough on him. Handley said they hadn’t done the research and Spitzer blunted stated, “I think we have.” It was pretty awesome.

But nothing was better than when CNN’s Anderson Cooper and Sanjay Gupta, got the exclusive privilege of interviewing Wakefield himself and just ripped him to shreds.Not since Jon Stewart was on Crossfire was there a more epic smack-down on television.

Cooper pulled no punches, reminding Wakefield mid-conspiracy that it’s not just Brian Deer calling him a fraud but the entire global medical community and chastising Wakefield for using this interview to just plug his book. Unfortunately, Cooper wasn’t able to respond to Wakefield’s now frequent claim that his research has been repeated in five other studies around the world other than to simply say that this claim is false. But for those who are curious, here are the embarrassing facts about those five studies. Then after the interview, Cooper invited on Seth Mnookin, author of the new book The Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine, Science, and Fear. Cooper said Wakefield refused to be interviewed with Mnookin there to ask questions, so now he and Gupta were just going to talk to Mnookin after the Wakefield interview. And I really started to think Anderson Cooper has been paying attention to skeptical blogs because they hit on just about every point, including whether the media has played into the perpetuation of the myth that vaccines cause autism by presenting a false balance.

This may have been the single biggest nail in the coffin on the anti-vaccine movement yet. It’s just a PR disaster for them. Just look at their flimsy response.

This idea that the entire world is against them and in on an evil conspiracy is, as Mnookin says, just laughable. And this is just a slam dunk victory for good science reporting and skepticism.

[UPDATE 1/7/11: Today, Brian Deer himself (the man Wakefield calls the "hitman" hired to take him out) made several CNN appearances that can viewed here and on Anderson Cooper here.]

[UPDATE 1/11/11: Seth Mnookin talks on American Morning here and Sullivan fact-checks Age of Autism's defense of Wakefield here]

Related articles

• BREAKING: BMJ calls Andrew Wakefield a fraud (blogs.discovermagazine.com)
• Medical Journal Calls Anti-Vaccination Study an ‘Elaborate Fraud’ [Scams] (gawker.com)
• Andrew Wakefield Autism-Vaccine Study An “Elaborate Fraud” (oliverwillis.com)
• “Piltdown” medicine: Andrew Wakefield’s scientific fraud was worse than previously thought (scienceblogs.com)
• Retracted autism study an ‘elaborate fraud,’ British journal finds (cnn.com)
• Journal: Study linking vaccine to autism was fraud (sfgate.com)
• Vaccine, Autism Link Reportedly ‘Fraud’ (foxnews.com)
• Andrew Wakefield, the Autism-Vaccine Link and ‘Deliberate Fraud’ (psychcentral.com)
• Journal: Study on vaccine, autism a fraud (boston.com)
• Journal: Study linking vaccine to autism was fraud (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• BMJ press release: there is “no doubt” that it was Wakefield who perpetrated this fraud (leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk)
• Report Linking Vaccine To Autism Was Fraudulent, Says Lancet (huffingtonpost.com)
• Autism-vaccine study was ‘fraud,’ journal says (theprovince.com)
• BMJ Lifts Curtain on MMR-Autism Fraud – MedPage Today (news.google.com)
• Autism, vaccine study was ‘fraud’ says journal (nationalpost.com)
• ‘Fraud’ study linked autism to vaccine: report (cbc.ca)
• Report: Study tying vaccine to autism was fraud (msnbc.msn.com)

Documentary Comedy ‘Gawd Bless America’ looks awesome!

I am so seeing this movie. It looks like Jackass for skeptics:

It already looks a cut above Bill Maher’s Religulous just looking at the approach this guy, Blake Freeman, is using. Though I find it strange I’ve never heard of him before.

News From Around The Blogosphere 12.22.10

1. Catholic Church tells hospital they should have let patient die – A pregnant woman who was almost certainly going to die came into St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center. The doctors knew that in order to save the woman’s life, they’d have to abort the fetus. And it worked. But the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix didn’t like that decision and so they essentially excommunicated the hospital from any Catholic affiliation. They actually punished a hospital for putting patient life first. Though I guess it’s not really a punishment since now the hospital administration can continue to act ethically without having to give the misguided and ignorant opinions of Catholic officials another thought.

And speaking of the Catholic Church…

2. WikiLeaks uncovers another possible Vatican scandal – The Vatican originally agreed in writing to take up observer status with the International Task Force on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research, referred to as the ITF. Then, according to a U.S. diplomatic cable from WikiLeaks, they reneged on the agreement amid controversy over the role of the war-time pope.

She added that the deal “had fallen apart completely … due to Vatican back-pedaling,” according to the cable, which was published by the newspaper.

The message says this decision “may have been taken by the Vatican’s relatively inexperienced new deputy foreign minister (Ettore Balestrero), and if so, would not be the first time he has complicated Vatican foreign relations.”

However, it added: “The Vatican may also be pulling back due to concerns about ITF pressure to declassify records from the WWII-era pontificate of Pope Pius XII.

Yup, you can always count on the Vatican…for a good scandal.

3. Gallop poll suggests America is gradually moving towards accepting evolution – When it comes to accepting evolution, America is somewhat of an embarrassment to the rest of the world. In recent years, polls have shown that up to 47% of Americans are Young Earth Creationists. But a new poll suggests that number is now only 40%. Still not anything remotely to be proud of but it suggests that maybe our efforts to take on the creationists may be yielding positive results.

4. Sanjay Gupta embarrassingly uncritical of John of God – Unfortunately, CNN hasn’t put up the video yet of this segment, but I’ve linked to their blog about it. For those who don’t know, John of God is a Brazilian con artist posing as a faith healer. He does nothing we haven’t seen other “faith healers” who have been exposed as frauds have done, and yet Sanjay Gupta and his guests still found him to be “mysterious.” In fact, given how many times they reminded the audience during this segment that the universe is mysterious and there are still things we don’t know, Gupta made it clear that journalistic and scientific integrity was not very high on his list of priorities. I intend to write to CNN to express my outrage over the segment and demand that they fire Sanjay Gupta for his anti-intellectual nonsense. I hope others will join me in this campaign.

Related articles

• WikiLeaks cables: Vatican vetoed Holocaust memorial over Pius XII row (guardian.co.uk)

Leaked email exposes Fox News as less than “fair and balanced”

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During the big health care debate, Fox News’ Washington managing editor came up with an interesting, little idea for his network to maintain their “fair and balance” policy. He decided they should constantly mislead the public by calling it the “government option” and now we have the emails to prove it.

Fox News pundits started sporadically adopting the “government option” slant around March, 2009, when they previously referred to it as the “public option” and Republican pollster Frank Luntz scolded them if they slipped by into using the term “public option”:

Luntz argued that “if you call it a ‘public option,’ the American people are split,” but that “if you call it the ‘government option,’ the public is overwhelmingly against it.” Luntz explained that the program would be “sponsored by the government” and falsely claimed that it would also be “paid for by the government.”

Then on October 26, Fox used “public” and “government” interchangeably and Sammon was not happy. So he wrote an inter-office email, the subject of which was: “friendly reminder: let’s not slip back into calling it the ‘public option.’ “:

From: Sammon, Bill
Sent: Tuesday, October 27, 2009 8:23 AM
To: 054 -FNSunday; 169 -SPECIAL REPORT; 069 -Politics; 030 -Root (FoxNews.Com); 036 -FOX.WHU; 050 -Senior Producers; 051 -Producers
Subject: friendly reminder: let’s not slip back into calling it the “public option”

1)      Please use the term “government-run health insurance” or, when brevity is a concern, “government option,” whenever possible.

2)      When it is necessary to use the term “public option” (which is, after all, firmly ensconced in the nation’s lexicon), use the qualifier “so-called,” as in “the so-called public option.”

3)      Here’s another way to phrase it: “The public option, which is the government-run plan.”

4)      When newsmakers and sources use the term “public option” in our stories, there’s not a lot we can do about it, since quotes are of course sacrosanct.

Michael Clemente, Fox’s senior vice president, responded:

From: Clemente, Michael
To: Sammon, Bill; 054 -FNSunday; 169 -SPECIAL REPORT; 069 -Politics; 030 -Root (FoxNews.Com); 036 -FOX.WHU; 050 -Senior Producers; 051 -Producers
Sent: Tue Oct 27 08:45:29 2009
Subject: RE: friendly reminder: let’s not slip back into calling it the “public option”

Thank you Bill

#3 on your list is the preferred way to say it, write it, use it.

Michael Clemente

SVP-News

212.XXX.XXXX

And after that, the phrase “public option” was hardly ever used on Fox. 

Related articles

• Fox News Memo: ‘Public Option’ Sounds Too Friendly, Stop Using It [Cable News] (gawker.com)
• Fox News Editor Forced Journalists to Use “Government Option” Instead of “Public Option” in Health Care Debate (alternet.org)
• FOX News boss slanted news reporting on health reform (dailykos.com)

News From Around The Blogosphere 4.2.10

1. Researchers find aging gene in worm -

Scientists funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) at the University of Birmingham have discovered that a gene called DAF-16 is strongly involved in determining the rate of ageing and average lifespan of the laboratory worm Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) and its close evolutionary cousins. DAF-16 is found in many other animals, including humans. It is possible that this knowledge could open up new avenues for altering ageing, immunity and resistance to stresses in humans.

Of course it will be years before any practical application to humans comes out of this, if ever, but it’s cool none the less.

2. Exorcist discovers Satan behind media’s accurate coverage of Catholic sex scandal – We’ve already gotten one exorcist to claim that Satan was possessing the Church leaders into performing the rapes in the first place. Now another exorcist, Father Gabriele Amorth, has publicly stated that the media’s desire to inform the public of these crimes, particularly at the New York Times, was “prompted by the devil.” I could have told you that. I mean, really, when was the last time the media was sincerely interested in honest journalism?

And speaking of demonic journalists. . .

3. Simon Singh reports once more in The Guardian – After winning his appeal, Singh wants to remind people that the battle for libel reform in the UK is only just beginning.

4. Filipinos celebrate this Zombie Weekend by crucifying themselves – This is an annual tradition in the Philippines on Zombie Weekend where many Filipinos choose to re-enact Jesus’ zombie-fication by actually nailing themselves to wooden crosses.

The Catholic Church disapproves of the annual ritual of devotion but says it cannot stop people in Asia’s largest Roman Catholic country from being voluntarily nailed to a cross or flagellating themselves, only educate them that it isn’t necessary.

Yes, the Catholic Church would much rather they celebrate in a more traditional fashion, by raping young boys and covering it up.

5. Scientists discover gene and part of the brain controlling gullibility, the WTF1 gene - And if you believed that then you have the WTF1 gene. April Fools!

Now speaking of April Fools. . .

6. Shroud of Turin is back in the news – Despite the fact that the face merely looks like the male model who happened to pose as Jesus in Renaissance paintings and despite its total debunking as a several hundred year old forgery, somehow someone has resurrected (hehe, see what I did there) the debate. And it couldn’t come at a more perfect time as it perfectly coincides with my April Fools piece in the Gotham Skeptic about the discovery of Jesus’ face in a Rorschach Test. Check it out.

Oprah: bad liar or worst liar?

Last week, Newsweek published a cover story that ripped Oprah Winfrey a new one, criticizing her for her endless support of anti-scientific medical quackery, particularly turning her show into an unchallenged platform for celebrity propagandists like Jenny McCarthy and Suzanne Somers.

Well now Oprah has responded to Newsweek’s  allegations, which isn’t surprising considering it’d be hard even for Oprah’s mostly brainwashed and braindead audience to miss Oprah’s image plastered on the cover of Newsweek, calling attention to a 6-page  indictment of the misinformation she regularly feeds them. And while Phil Plait hesitates to go as far as to call her response a lie, I have no such hesitation. Not only does Oprah lie through her teeth but her lies are so transparent that I almost applaud the audaciousness of them. Her lies are so blatantly false that it’s almost like Bush and Chaney back in the White House again:

For 23 years, my show has presented thousands of topics that reflect the human experience, including doctors’ medical advice and personal health stories that have prompted conversations between our audience members and their health care providers. I trust the viewers, and I know that they are smart and discerning enough to seek out medical opinions to determine what may be best for them.

Ah yes, the old “obviously I don’t promote anti-scientific propaganda because I’ve been on TV for 23 years and have said many things that weren’t propaganda defense.” I guess by that logic Charles Manson couldn’t possibly have killed all those people because there were times in his life where he definitely killed no one at all. Riiiiight!

There’s so much silliness in this defense that it’s an insult to the intelligence of all who read it. Oprah has clearly devoted whole shows to the likes of Jenny McCarthy and Suzanne Somers, where she’s allowed them to endlessly spout out their crap without even any token skepticism to challenge those beliefs and without even Oprah herself showing she’s done the slightest bit of research on the subject to challenge such fringe claims. Further, because Oprah never herself really plays the devil’s advocate on her show, she appears on each occasion to tacitly support what they’re selling. In fact, Oprah played a pivitol role in securing Jenny McCarthy her own show, which is only slightly less well known than the fact that pretty much every product or personality Oprah has publicly endorsed has instantly turned into an overnight success. If tomorrow Oprah called Kim Jong Il “The One”, I have little doubt he too would become a huge hit with Oprah’s audience.

For Oprah to downplay her svengali-like influence and claim that she trusts her audience to do the proper research on their own time, think critically about the program’s content, and to properly discern the truth on their own is at best horribly naive and at worst incredibly dishonest. As someone with a Masters Degree in Media Studies, I feel pretty confident saying that that would be a tall order for the audience of ANY television program, but for Oprah’s demographic, given her shows demonstrable power to rot the brain, to see that kind of critical thinking would be a damned miracle.

Fortunately, Forbes magazine just announced that Oprah’s lost her title of most powerful celebrity to Angelina Jolie. Who would have thought an atheist could unseat Oprah as the queen of celebrity influence? Suck it, Oprah!

People for the Exploitation of Tragic Atrocities

Yup, PETA’s in the news again for some over-the-top, callous, insensitive, and tasteless stunt. We have a name for such days. We call them “Tuesdays.”

It seems that Ingred Newkirk and her pals have gotten into their heads to take advantage of the George Tiller murder and use it as a jumping off point for their latest ill-conceived billboard campaign in Kansas.

Actually, this was the brainchild of PETA’s campaign manager, Lindsay Rajt. And yes, given PETA’s long history of worst ad campaigns ever, I was as shocked as anyone that PETA actually has a campaign manager, someone who presumably gets paid by the organization and who apparently hasn’t been fired for previous PETA ad campaigns.

The 2 new billboard slogans read:

“Pro-life? Go vegetarian”

. . .and . . .

“Pro-choice? Choose vegetarian”

Now on their own, at any other time period, these ads seem benign enough not to stir outrage. But these ads didn’t emerge at any other time. They are specifically inspired by a tragic murder, are designed to exploit the strong emotions associated with that tragedy, and all before the body has even gotten cold.

“The discussion of the value of life is front and center right now in the public conversation,” Rajt said today. “We think we would be irresponsible if we don’t talk about how we’re all guilty of extreme cruelty to animals every time we sit down to a meal that includes meat.”

And the response from Wichita?

PETA has been criticized for the style and content of its campaigns, including a 2003 “Holocaust on Your Plate” exhibition, which juxtaposed images of the Holocaust with images of factory farming.

News of the group’s plans in Wichita drew fierce response from many in the community Tuesday. Some who posted comments to a story on Kansas.com called the campaign tasteless and opportunistic; others urged Wichitans to ask billboard companies to reject the PETA billboards.

“How long was PETA hoping for a doctor to get killed to get these signs up?” wrote one person.

Rajt said the timing or content of the billboards may be controversial. But as of late Tuesday, her group had no plans to cancel the campaign.

“If our billboards leave a bad taste in anyone’s mouth, we just think they might give a thought to what animals feel when they go to the slaughterhouse,” she said.

Yup, the ends justify the means and whatever gets attention. Who cares if it’s tasteless and actually turns people away from your message? Well congratulations Rajt! [applause] If publicity is all that you crave, than that is what you shall receive. Hope you like it. Thanks PETA. Stay classy.