Booted out of AutismOne

by

The AutismOne conference was greatly disrupted by a couple of skeptics who jumped up on stage carrying banners proclaiming “Death of all purveyors of Woo”, so they were ejected … er no, that is not quite right, so let us step back and get the facts right.

AutismOne is woo central for the anti-vax movement, this is the conference for the folks who believe that Vaccines cause Autism. There is one little problem with that belief, it is not true, there is no evidence for it. Many studies have been conducted and all conclude “No evidence”. Much of the current anti-vaccine hype comes from a chap called Andrew Wakefield who wrote a paper that linked vaccines to Autism, but a few serious problems later emerged. He had huge financial conflicts of interest and he also faked the data, so his paper was redacted and he was struck off the medical register for ethics violations (he cannot call himself a Dr in the UK anymore). So how did the AutismOne folks react when this happened last year? They gave him an award. Now that in itself tells you all you need to know about the credibility and ethics of these folks.

Read more

I’m a Climate skeptic

by

I’m a climate skeptic … however, what I do not mean is that I refute the concept of man-made climate change, because the evidence for that is clear. No instead I’m skeptical that we will do anything about it , but will instead carry on tinkering around the edges, doing a few small things, but will continue to not make the really big decisions. Its almost like the folks who pop a few vitamin pills, and by doing so create a false sense of security, and so carry on gorging themselves on mountains of junk food until they hit a tipping point and an overworked heart stops.

“Oh but wait”, you say, “we have lots happening, lots of meetings to agree targets, electric cars, we all re-cycle”. All true, but sadly it is simply not enough, the latest evidence I bring to the table is a leaked report that …. well here it is, read it for yourselves :

Read more

Catholicism and AIDS – Lying for Jesus

by

The manner in which the Catholic church handles the topic  of AIDS is quite frankly bizarre, and illustrates the degree of their utter moral bankruptcy. It is highly ironic, not only because they claim to hold the high moral ground, but also because they claim to have an exclusive direct line to God. This of course is a complete delusion, but I need not ponder on that, it is blindly obvious to any critical thinker.

The latest news is that a Vatican cardinal, Cardinal Tarcisio Berton, opened an international conference on AIDS with a speech that strongly defended the church’s two-pronged strategy against the disease – education of consciences and mobilization of Catholic health resources for patients.

Read more

Conscientiousness and longevity

by

There is an interesting study that went up on PubMed a few days ago. the abstract reads …

Objective: Conscientious individuals tend to experience a number of health benefits, not the least of which being greater longevity. However, it remains an open question as to why this link with longevity occurs. The current study tested two possible mediators (physical health and cognitive functioning) of the link between conscientiousness and longevity.

Method: We tested these mediators using a 10-year longitudinal sample (N = 512), a subset of the long-running Health and Retirement Study of aging adults. Measures included an adjective-rating measure of conscientiousness, self-reported health conditions, and three measures of cognitive functioning (word recall, delayed recall, and vocabulary) included in the 1996 wave of the HRS study.

Results: Our results found that conscientiousness significantly predicted greater longevity, even in a model including the two proposed mediator variables, gender, age, and years of education. Moreover, cognitive functioning appears to partially mediate this relationship.

Conclusions: This study replicates previous research showing that conscientious individuals tend to lead longer lives, and provides further insight into why this effect occurs. In addition, it underscores the importance of measurement considerations.

The abstract on PubMed can be found here.

Read more

The deal we dare not turn down

by

Sometimes it is simply appropriate to, coffee shop style, slap an article down and announce, “You must read this”. Well, this is one of those occasions, because Johann Hari says it far better than I ever could …

Sometimes, there are hinge-points in human history -moments when we have to choose between an exuberant descent into lunacy, and a still, sober voice offering us a sane way out. Usually, we can only see them when we look back from a distance. In 1793, the great democrat Thomas Paine said the French Revolution shouldn’t betray its principles by killing the King, because it would trigger an orgy of blood-letting that would eventually drown them all. They threw him in jail. In 1919, the great economist John Maynard Keynes said the European powers shouldn’t humiliate Germany, because it would catalyze extreme nationalism and produce another world war. They ignored him. In 1953, a handful of US President Dwight Eisenhower’s advisors urged him not to destroy Iranian democracy and kidnap its Prime Minister, because it would have a reactionary ripple-effect that lasted decades. They refused to listen.

Read more

Comment Policy

by

I’m off on a slightly different tack today, and am asking you, the reader, a question.

In essence … if you are a blogger, then what should the policy be regarding comments?

It should of course be very obvious, if something is not offensive, abusive, illegal, or spam then it should stay, so perhaps the real challenge is to come to terms with how you define those. Lets take a quick look at some:

Read more