Skeptico

Poor Babies

The Expelled nitwits apparently set up a MySpace page to promote their silly mocumentary. On it they had an online poll to ask readers if they thought Intelligent Design should be taught in schools. It seems no one was moderating the page over the weekend because up until this morning, 98% of those voting (over 400,000 people) voted “NO”.

Sometime today one of the Expelled twits finally woke up to this embarrassment and… (you know what’s coming) deleted the poll.

Aaah – the poor babies. Boo hoo. Couldn’t stand any dissent so they took their bat and ball and they’re going home so there. Wankers.

I took a screenshot of it Saturday when the “no” vote was only 273,000. I wish I’d taken another one Sunday now, but as PZ reports, the poll is still available here. And you can still vote.

Typical creationist liars and cowards. They make a film about how dissent is not allowed, and yet they’re the first ones to censor anything that dissents from their little fairy story world view. Expelled is right.

What’s Ben Stein Smoking?

I just watched Expelled presenter Ben Stein’s Thursday night appearance on the Craig Ferguson late night talk show. And I must say, it was strange. I was expecting him to talk about how “Darwinism” led to Hitler, and similar nonsense, but what he actually said was just weird:

[Expelled is] about the fact that people think that Darwinism explains everything and we want to say that Darwinism doesn’t explain the laws of gravity, Darwinism doesn’t explain the laws of thermodynamics..

and

We love [Darwinism], but it just doesn’t explain everything, and we don’t want people to be fired if they say the planets stay in their orbits maybe because of something other than Darwinism. And we don’t think Darwinism explains how the planets stay in their orbits..

and

[Darwin’s] followers claim it explains everything including astronomy…

He didn’t really give any other arguments. As I said – just weird. Which scientist thinks Darwinism explains astronomy? Which scientist would be fired for suggesting Darwinism doesn’t explain the planets’ orbits? Obviously none, but it was such an obvious straw man that I actually wondered if Stein realizes what a stupid film he’s made and is trying to distance himself from it – making out the whole thing was a big joke. It’s hard to believe even he thinks scientists are losing their jobs for suggesting Darwinism doesn’t explain astronomy (whatever “explain astronomy” means). Although admittedly with creationists it’s hard at times to tell their real claims from parody.

At one point he even said:

It is probably best to watch [Expelled] while high…

Maybe. Although I think it more likely they were high while making the film. Come to think of it, that would explain Stein’s performance on Thursday night.

Skeptics’ Circle

The latest Skeptics Circle has just been posted at Andrea’s Buzzing. 

Update – Neurodiversity Subpoena Quashed!

And get this:

Attorney Clifford Shoemaker is ordered to show cause within 10 days why he should not be sanctioned under Fed R Civ P 11 – see Fed R Civ P 45(a)(2)(B) which requires that a deposition subpoena be issued from the court in which the deposition is to occur and Fed R Civ P 45 (c)(1) commanding counsel to avoid burdensome subpoenas. A failure to appear will result in notification of Mr Shoemaker’s conduct to the Presiding Judge in the Eastern District of Virginia.”

I’m not a lawyer, but that doesn’t sound good for Clifford Shoemaker.

No news yet on Marie McCormack’s subpoena - her motion to quash was filed ten days after Siedel’s.

Further reading:

Lawyer Ken writing in the blog Popehat: Anti-Vaccine Thug Lawyer Gets Burned By Pro Se Blogger

Scientist Subpoenaed Too

There is an old saying in legal circles that if the facts are on your side, pound the facts; if the law is on your side, pound the law; if neither is on your side, pound the table.  Clifford Shoemaker, with neither the facts nor the law on his side, prefers to pound the table. Or more accurately, to pound his opponents with frivolous intimidatory subpoenas.

As I wrote two weeks ago in Bullying Attorney Thug, Clifford Shoemaker is the ambulance chasing attorney who makes his living filing claims in the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP). Unable to cope with honest criticism of his methods, and with few facts on his side, he issued a massively invasive and irrelevant subpoena to blogger Kathleen Seidel. Kathleen now reports that scientist Marie McCormick received a similar subpoena at the same time. As with Seidel, McCormick has also filed a motion to quash.

You may remember Dr. McCormick from Robert F. Kennedy Junior’s dishonest article about thimerosal and autism of nearly three years ago. McCormick was one of the scientists whom Kennedy quote mined to make them appear to be saying the opposite of what they actually said. Three years later, little has changed. The opponents of vaccines, still lacking actual evidence to support their case, still resort to dishonest methods to push their agenda. All proponents of free speech should hope that both these ludicrous subpoenas will be quashed. If they are not, I would imagine that independent scientists would in future be less willing to serve on committees the way McCormick and others have done.

Expelled – No Stork Theory Allowed

Ben Stein’s next project following his success with Expelled. It’s just a short clip. But funny. And it features Richard Dawkins!  Although who knew he was such a sex maniac?

Expelled Exposed

I thought I would add my name to the list of people linking to Expelled Exposed:

…a detailed look at the Ben Stein movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. We'll show you why this movie is not a documentary at all, but anti-science propaganda aimed at creating the appearance of controversy where there is none.

The site contains a list of links to reviews of Expelled from those who have seen it, as well as the truth behind Expelled’s claims, including the real explanations for those academics supposedly discriminated against for supporting creationism.

All in all, a great resource on the reality of Expelled.

Autism’s Hidden Hordes Wrongly Diagnosed?

Anti-vaccinationists frequently a quote the recent (the last 10 - 15 years) increases in autism as evidence that vaccines cause autism. Since virtually all good science contradicts this idea, it seems there must be another explanation for this apparent increase. One possible explanation is a change in diagnosis - children who are now diagnosed as autistic would have been diagnosed with a different condition 20 years ago. Anti-vaccinationists ask, “where are the hidden hordes?” – the adult autistics who were not diagnosed autistic as children. Because, if increases in autism are merely a change of diagnosis, then there must be numerous adult autistics who were not diagnosed as such as children.

Professor Dorothy Bishop of the University of Oxford, led a recent study to examine this question. The study was published this month in the Journal of Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology, and its conclusion was indeed to suggest that many children who would now be diagnosed as having autism, were in the 1980s and 1990s diagnosed with severe language disorders instead.

From the abstract we can see that Bishop looked at 38 subjects (aged 15 to 31), who had, as children, been diagnosed as having developmental language disorder, rather than autism. She then applied to them, modern tests for diagnosing autism at age 4 to 5 years – tests that involved interviewing both the subjects and their parents. The result was that one third of the subjects met the modern criteria for autism. The interviews with the parents were especially revealing: the subjects’ parents recalled what we would now regard as autistic symptoms appearing in their children when they were very young.  The conclusion is that much of the recent rise of autism could be due to a change in the diagnostic criteria.

The result is consistent with this study in Pediatrics from 2006 that showed the growing autism diagnoses from 1994 to 2003 were associated with corresponding declines in other diagnostic categories.

Of course the study needs replicating with a much larger number of subjects than 38, before any firm conclusions can be drawn. But the study’s tentative conclusion is consistent with the total lack of evidence that autism is caused by vaccines. To be sure, the anti-vaccine crowd would have been quick to publicize this study if the results had been negative, but now they will probably ignore the study, or criticize the independence of the study’s authors. That is their normal tactic when faced with studies they don’t like but have no evidence to refute. But what they won’t have are valid criticisms of the actual study, or studies of their own that show there was, in fact, no change in diagnostic criteria.

It would be nice if CNN and Larry King would now have Professor Bishop on to explain her studies to the public, and undo some of the misinformation they recently helped put out. But, again, we can be sure this won’t happen. They get higher ratings showing the idiotic views of “Professor” Jenny McCarthy.

References

Abstract: Autism and diagnostic substitution: evidence from a study of adults with a history of developmental language disorder

University of Oxford: Rise in autism related to changes in diagnosis

Carnival of the Godless

Today’s carnival has just been posted at The Rational Response Squad.

Also, the carnival posted two weeks ago (yes, I’m late with this one) at Atheist FAQ.

Those Militant Stamp Collectors

The other week I got involved in a debate with a theist in the comments to this Depleted Cranium blog post. Commenter Jason insisted that atheism is a religion, to which I replied with “if atheism is a religion them not collecting stamps is a hobby.”  He replied with this:

If people organised groups around the theme of not collecting stamps, wrote books about the virtue of not collecting stamps and identified themselves as definitely not stamp collectors, while at the same time running around rubbishing stamp collecting as a deluded hobby practiced by idiots, most people would recognize the actions of somebody who has turned “not stamp collecting” into a hobby they have.

Jason’s reply is a fine example of someone who has thought part the way through an issue, but not all the way. It’s pretty obvious what he is missing. I replied that if stamp collectors demanded that people who don’t collect stamps obey their stamp collecting rules, started wars with groups who collected slightly different types of stamps, denied non-stamp collectors rights or discriminated against them, bullied them in school, claimed you had to collect stamps to be a suitable person to run for public office, tried to get stamp collecting taught in schools as science in opposition to real science, demanded that people be killed for printing cartoons that made fun of stamp collectors, claimed that non-stamp collectors lacked moral judgment, made up ridiculous straw man positions they claimed non-stamp collectors took, and then argued against those straw men positions etc etc, - then non-stamp collectors would probably criticize stamp collectors the way Jason suggested. And with good reason. Not collecting stamps would still not be a hobby though.

Thinking about Jason’s argument the next day, I had a feeling I’d heard it somewhere else recently. Then I remembered – I think Jason had been reading Dinesh D’Souza. That explained why his arguments were so lame. The thing is, if religious people just followed their religions without bothering anyone else, didn’t try to get creationism taught in science class, etc, I wouldn’t care over much. I’d still think they were a little silly. On the level of children believing in Santa Claus, perhaps. And I still wouldn’t want to listen to them prattling on about their delusions. (Look, the grownups are talking now. Go over in the corner and play with your bibles for a while.) But I wouldn’t care about it, not really. The problem with religion though, is that they can never just keep it to themselves. They insist that everyone respects their delusions and follows their rules. They are like militant stamp collectors. Join our stamp collecting club or else.  And that's the basic problem with religion.  That, and  the fact that it's mostly nonsense.

The rest of Jason’s arguments were against the convoluted straw man atheist he insisted we all are. Read the whole comments thread only if you are feeling masochistic.