Wendy Pollack the liar

Posted on February 11, 2011 by Michael

I wrote about a quack by the name of Wendy Pollack almost two weeks ago. She has gone over to Tanzania in order to tell people with serious illnesses lies about the efficacy of homeopathic ‘medicine’. She is going to do no good.

But I wasn’t the only one who mentioned this quack. PZ made a post about her first. This resulted in a number of people going to her website and leaving comments. To my surprise, at least on one of her posts, many of the Pharyngulites were generally, dare I say…respectful. (Or at least as respectful as those of us on the side of science can be when faced with blatant anti-science nonsense.) Most granted that Pollack had good intentions – and I’m positive she does – but they all lamented the fact that she wasn’t going to help anyone. If anything, her presence will cause harm because people will believe they’ve actually been helped; good feelings are nice, but they’ve never cured HIV. One person even offered directions on how to contribute to people using real medicine. (Go here for a version of that post.)

But Pollack is a quack. And as any regular FTSOS reader knows all too well, alt-med quacks aren’t especially interested in open discussion. Take a look at the comment section of one of Pollack’s posts. Currently there are 4 comments. There used to be at least 20. The quack went through and deleted every bit of criticism (including the directions on how to make worthwhile contributions). Anything pro-malarkey, however, was left. Take a look at this post:

Gail said…
The human body and spirit has a remarkable ability to heal itself.Homeopathic meds facilitate this. I have first hand experience of being cured twice from conditions that conventional meds could not cure. In one I suffered for over 20 years & it was cured in days.As for the naysayers on this blog,don’t knock it if you haven’t tried it.

February 8, 2011 6:59 AM

Strange how someone would mention “naysayers” on a blog that doesn’t feature an ounce of criticism, no?

But maybe that isn’t good enough. After all, this is just based upon what I’m claiming to remember combined with some circumstantial evidence from a random person on the Internet. I could just be making it up, really. And I would agree with you. I need better evidence than just my word and plausibility. I need something like Google cache.

Gabe Ortiz said…
If you would research homeopathy with a truly open mind, you would understand that it does not work. A homeopath nearly killed my sister by treating her with ineffective, useless fake medicine when she needed real medical attention. This is exactly what you will be doing to these poor people. Your misguided intent WILL kill people, and you will have to live with that for the rest of your life. Please, reconsider.

February 2, 2011 9:00 AM

and

laura said…
I know you believe in what you do,but there is no evidence that homeopathy works.

One day,you will realise this,and you conscience will weigh very heavily on you. i feel sorry for you,i would not like to look back on my life and see how much harm i had caused others by my unsubstantiated beliefs …sad

February 2, 2011 2:14 PM

and

Just zis Guy, you know? said…
Hey, homeopaths for health! So, are you pooling your takings from peddling psychotherapy to the credulous and sending some doctors down there? Oh, no, wait, you’re going on a jolly and handing out sugar pills to sick people. Well that’s a bit of a bummer for them, still, I am sure you will show real empathy when they die of medically preventable (but homeopathically unpreventable) diseases like cholera, typhoid and malaria.

February 2, 2011 3:49 PM

Do your own Google search to find the cached pages and compare them to Pollack’s scrubbed versions. It’s almost fun to see how poorly these types of people react when challenged.

But I guess I’m not surprised that a quack would try and destroy the criticism on her site. I’m just frightened to know the other facts she’s going to try and hide while she’s “treating” people over in Tanzania.

Filed under: Pure bullshit | Tagged: , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Follow-up

Posted on February 11, 2011 by Michael

I forgot to include a graphical representation of that god damned middle-aged person in class who won’t shut the hell up.

Notice this is not included under “Humor”.

Filed under: Pure Rage | Tagged: | 5 Comments »

The irony of Limbaugh

Posted on February 10, 2011 by Michael

It only took about 3 minutes today before I heard Rush Limbaugh say something so ironic it was stupid. He was talking about President Obama’s response to Mubarak and in the course of making stuff up he said that Obama wants Mubarak to fail. Then he called Obama “the worst person in the world” for that (among other things, including being black, but I digress). Wasn’t it Limbaugh who said he hopes this president fails?

Filed under: Humor | Tagged: , , , | 6 Comments »

Dear middle-aged person in class,

Posted on February 10, 2011 by Michael

Shut up. Shut the hell up. No one cares about how some historical event relates to your life. In fact, your relevance to the subject matter of the class approaches zero.

Filed under: Misc | Tagged: | 4 Comments »

Good news from Senator Jon Kyl

Posted on February 10, 2011 by Michael

This may be the first good thing he has ever said.

Republican Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona is expected to announce his retirement Thursday, David Catanese and Jennifer Epstein report for Politico, opening up a seat he’s held for three terms and complicating Republican efforts to hold it.

Kyl will make his official announcement at a press conference this afternoon in Phoenix.

Filed under: News | Tagged: , , | 2 Comments »

Thought of the day

Posted on February 9, 2011 by Michael

I try to listen to conservative views pretty often. I think it’s only fair to hear some of the points the other side has to make, even if most of them are only grounded in ideology. But I’ve had to institute a new personal listening policy: Whenever I hear a conservative start ranting about death panels, that’s where I turn off the TV or radio or click out of the article. I could have sworn that blatant lie had been thrown away long, long ago.

Filed under: Misc | Tagged: , | 10 Comments »

Same-sex marriage in Maryland

Posted on February 9, 2011 by Michael

If there’s one thing we know about the U.S. constitution, it’s that none of our laws are allowed to support any particular religion. And by “we”, I mean those of us who haven’t been blinded by, well, a particular religion. For that other group – you know, the irrational one – things aren’t so clear.

Supporters of same-sex marriage came to Annapolis on Tuesday armed with personal stories, emotional pleas for equal treatment and arguments about how allowing gay couples to marry could help Maryland’s economy.

Opponents countered with biblical verses, research suggesting that children are better off with both a mother and a father, and warnings that “redefining marriage” could undermine other social institutions.

Emphasis added.

As for the rest, there is no research which says children are better off with a mother and father versus with two mothers or two fathers. This is exactly what I was talking about when I lamented the abuse of science. It’s so ugly when science is abused to support bigotry. The only silver lining here is that this makes it all the more clear that the bigots have no real arguments; their dogma demands they resort to just making it all up.

Fortunately, according to the people on the right side of history, this bill has a good chance.

Before the proceedings, Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert) put the chance of passing a same-sex marriage bill by his chamber at 60 to 70 percent, saying a vote could come next week.

If the bill clears the Senate, then the House of Delegates, typically the more liberal chamber on social issues, would take up the issue, deciding whether Maryland should join the District and five states that allow same-sex marriage.

I don’t know what the state’s citizen appeals process looks like, much less how many bigots populate the state, but all the reports make it sound like it’s just a matter of time until Maryland becomes the newest state to treat more of its citizens fairly – and with absolutely no ill consequences, just like in every other instance.

Filed under: Rights, Same-sex marriage | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Adding two blogs

Posted on February 8, 2011 by Michael

I’ve added two blogs to the widgets on the right side. The first is Nate’s Congress Shall Make No Law… The second is Michael’s Young, Hip and Conservative. Both are commenters here. I’ve placed them under “Teh Conservatives” just because they don’t fit the general theme I have going on under “Blogroll” right now.

I added Nate because he shows a degree of pragmatism that I generally find refreshing. We disagree on a lot of things, but he makes some good posts. Plus he likes The Liberal Cup. I added Michael because he makes a lot of intelligent posts. We actually do agree that there is no God and that gays shouldn’t be persecuted, but we diverge significantly on economics. “Conservative” for him doesn’t carry with it all the things it does when we refer to, say, any given FOX News employee.

But don’t worry. FTSOS is still the grand liberal bastion it has always been.

Filed under: Administrative | Tagged: , , , | 4 Comments »

The Harry Baals Government Center

Posted on February 8, 2011 by Michael

What’s wrong with Harry Baals?

A former Indiana mayor who won four terms in the 1930s and 1950s is proving less popular with modern-day city leaders, who say they probably won’t name a new government center for him because of the jokes his moniker could inspire.

Harry Baals is the runaway favorite in online voting to name the new building in Fort Wayne, about 120 miles northeast of Indianapolis. But Deputy Mayor Beth Malloy said that probably won’t be enough to put the name of the city’s longest-tenured mayor on the center.

And yes, he pronounced his last name “balls”.

Filed under: Humor | Tagged: | 1 Comment »

The abuse of science

Posted on February 8, 2011 by Michael

We see creationists distort science all the time. They usually do it when the topic is something they really don’t understand; they’re driven by an ugly agenda. Sometimes that agenda is to explicitly undermine real science. Other times it’s to abuse science. This post is about an instance of a creationist engaging in that abuse.

New study links father absence to increased bullying – so when people want to reduce bullying in schools across the board – instead of just protecting their favored students – remind them how important stable one man / one woman families are.

This comes from Neil, that religious nutbag who doesn’t know the difference between the scientific concept of development and his subjective declaration of “humanity”. Committing the same error as his source, he draws inappropriate conclusions from the study. Fortunately yours truly is here. As someone who isn’t interested in distorting science for my own gains, let me explain what the study actually said.

This research investigates the relationships among bullying behavior, mother’s and father’s work hours, and early adolescents’ perceptions of whether they spend sufficient time with their parents. In cross-sectional models, we find maternal work hours are modestly associated with increases in bullying behavior. However, in more rigorous change models, our findings indicate that over time maternal work hours bear no direct relationship to bullying behavior. Moreover, in our final models, an interaction between father’s work hours and perceptions of time spent with him has one of the most robust associations with bullying for adolescents. When paternal employment is full- or overtime and youth perceive they do not spend enough with their fathers, bullying behavior increases. Other important factors that shape bullying behavior are the quality of the home environment and the adolescent’s school performance.

That’s just the abstract; the rest is behind a paywall. More information can be found in the ScienceDaily article.

Basically what the study showed was that when kids had their fathers around, they were less likely to be dicks. Great. What the study didn’t do was compare children of gay couples who had both parents around. It is logically, scientifically, and morally inappropriate to conclude that same-sex marriages produce kids who tend to bully more. We have no evidence even suggesting as much.

It really bothers me when people take these sort of studies and then try and use them to denigrate gay marriage. It isn’t that the bigotry behind it all is frustrating – though it is. It’s that, hey look, we have this scientific study here that was done by a lot of hard-working people with a lot of experience and knowledge, their methods are good, the conclusions are interesting, and there are some clear things we can draw from it all. But then there are these anti-scientific, lazy people with no experience or relevant knowledge, no understanding or appreciation of the methods used, and they aren’t interested in the conclusions at all; it’s all about abusing the science for some petty point, a point that isn’t even on the right side of history.

I’m all for applying our scientific knowledge in how we run ourselves as a society, how we consider our worldviews. I just don’t want to see it all get abused for political points. That’s what happened to this study. It’s unfortunate. We have this serious issue of bullying being considered by a group of serious individuals, and we have these good results that tell us kids are more well adjusted in a particular category when they perceive their fathers, married and heterosexual, as being around more, but then someone has to come around and piss all over everything. All we know from this research is what is says about kids with married, heterosexual parents versus other kids with married, heterosexual parents. Claiming it tells us something different or more is an abuse of science.

Filed under: Religions | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

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