Line of the day – from Popehat, Junk Science And Marketeers and Legal Threats, Oh My! -
As a public relations move, firing Marc Stephens and hiring the Dozier Law Group is roughly like firing Jeffrey Dahmer as your sous-chef and hiring Hannibal Lecter to take his place.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Jacques Berlinerblau has some advice for US atheists.
The real priority for American Atheism concerns its political future, its ability to shape policy agendas so as to represent the interests of its constituency.
Does it? I don’t think it does – not (as implied) to the exclusion of other things. I don’t really think of atheism as having a “constituency,” or as expecting to be able to shape policy agendas so as to represent the interests of its constituency. That sounds like political operative talk, and while I do think atheism is political as well as philosophical (in the broad sense of the word), I don’t think it’s political in that way. It’s too specialized for that. Secularism can … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
The brains of children raised in violent families resemble the brains of soldiers exposed to combat, according to an article in Wired.
They’re primed to perceive threat and anticipate pain, adaptations that may be helpful in abusive environments but produce long-term problems with stress and anxiety.
“For them to detect early cues that might signal danger is adaptive. It allows them to react, to try and avoid the danger,” said psychologist Eamon McCrory of University College London. However, “a very similar neural signature characterizes quite a few anxiety disorders.”
Absolutely nothing surprising there. Bad things keep happening, so you develop a strong tendency to react quickly…and you’re stuck with it. A lifetime of feeling extra, exaggerated fear and dread. … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
“Why must the admission price to American Atheism be total nonbelief in God?”… Read the rest
The first step was a kosher-certified cell phone, approved by the rabbinical committee for telecommunications.… Read the rest
The brains of children raised in violent families resemble the brains of soldiers exposed to combat: primed to perceive threat and anticipate pain.
Taylor and Trevor-Roper dealt with controversy by simply getting stuck into the next round of acrimony and recrimination. Much better than a libel suit.… Read the rest
Beneath the ultramodern veneer of skyscrapers dotting Abu Dhabi’s desert landscape lies an illiberal society that severely curtails citizens’ fundamental rights.… Read the rest
Little money, turf wars, and tepid support bordering on neglect.… Read the rest
Sadia Sheikh left the family home to study after her parents tried to arrange a marriage with a cousin she had never met. She was shot dead on October 22, 2007.… Read the rest
One from the “how did I miss this?” file – Tony Blair is gobsmacked that it was government policy not to appoint a Catholic as ambassador to the Vatican.
The former prime minister tells a BBC Northern Ireland documentary – to be broadcast from Wednesday 17 February – that the policy of banning Catholics from the post was “stupid”, “ridiculous” and “discriminatory”.
Really? Is it discriminatory not to appoint a lobbyist for cigarette manufacturers to a health-related job? Is it discriminatory not to appoint a murderer to run a domestic violence shelter?
Has Tony Blair never heard of the concept “conflict of interest”? The question answers itself; of course he has. Yet the idea that Catholicism might be an interest … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Of course not. Marc Alan Di Martino looks at the accounts.… Read the rest
Some more on the Burzynski clinic and the Observer.
From Keir Liddle at the Twenty-first Floor on a perfect storm for skepticism.
… Read the restThe characterisation of skeptical bloggers as aggressive and sanctimonious is unfortunately nothing new and there are undoubtedly skeptics out there who benefit from reading Hayley Stevens post on the subject but I for one am fed up of how we are characterised. We are seen at best as spoilsports and at worst know it alls robbing the universe of beauty and people of hope. We seem to seen as the lackeys of either big pharma or representatives of some sort of scientific hegemony intent on unweaving the rainbow. But most skeptics aren’t like that in the slightest,
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Scotland for Marriage means marriage as a privilege from which some groups are barred – just as Focus on the Family means some families aren’t included.… Read the rest
Skeptical Humanities on the Observer on Burzynski:
Entire communities throw untold sums of money at the slimmest (nonexistent, really) hope that these patients will recover at the Burzynski Clinic, and the Observer finds this uplifting.
…
Uncritically giving a cancer quack uncritical press? How could we possibly have mistaken that for promotion? We should have just called it as it was: a shoddy, pathetic, and irresponsible attempt at journalism.
The Internet apologizes for not making this clearer.
Now do you f*cking job and protect Billie, her family, and your readers from this immense fraud.
RJB
Please consider donating to St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital. They turn nobody away, even if they can’t pay. Unlike Burzynski.
Quackometer on the Observer … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Entire communities throw untold sums of money at the slimmest hope that these patients will recover at the Burzynski Clinic, and the Observer finds this uplifting.… Read the rest
One or two points about that first Observer article, because that blame-the-bloggers not-pology is so annoying.
One, Stephen Pritchard wrote yesterday, truculently,
that concern should have been in the article, but because it was absent doesn’t mean that the paper was promoting the treatment, as some have suggested (“pimping” it, as one science writer so crudely tweeted).
No, the fact that the concern was absent doesn’t mean that the paper was promoting the treatment, but all the same, the paper (via the article) was to some extent promoting the treatment. Bainbridge called it “a pioneering treatment” when it’s a trial rather than a treatment, and “pioneering” makes it sound new and potentially promising as opposed to more than 30 … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
The Observer has responded to bloggers’ responses to its uncritical story about a fundraising campaign to send a child to the Burzynski clinic. Stephen Pritchard writes:
Yet what was intended as a gripping, human-interest story quickly drew a sustained attack on the paper for apparently offering unquestioning support for a highly controversial cancer treatment, known at antineoplaston therapy.
That seems like an unnervingly irresponsible way to look at the matter. However gripping a human-interest story may be, surely it’s irresponsible (at least) to report a campaign to enable a very expensive very dubious “treatment” as if it were just a gripping story.
Pritchard then explains that desperate parents are desperate, and then rebukes critics for not getting that.
… Read the restAnd
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
The response attempts to justify its coverage and blames bloggers for “aggression, sanctimony and a disregard for the facts.”… Read the rest
