OpEds — editorials expressing opinions in newspapers — are sometimes a source of wry amusement. Especially when they tackle subjects where politics impact science, like evolution, or the Big Bang.

Or climate change.

Enter the OpEd page of the Wall Street Journal, with one of the most head-asplodey antiscience climate change denial pieces I have seen in a while — and I’ve seen a few. The article, written by Robert Bryce of the far-right think tank Manhattan Institute, is almost a textbook case in logical fallacy. He outlays five "truths" about climate change in an attempt to smear the reality of it.

I won’t even bother going into the first four points, where he doesn’t actually deal with science and makes points that aren’t all that salient to the issue, because it’s his last point that really needs to be seen to believe anyone could possibly make it:

The science is not settled, not by a long shot. Last month, scientists at CERN, the prestigious high-energy physics lab in Switzerland, reported that neutrinos might—repeat, might—travel faster than the speed of light. If serious scientists can question Einstein’s theory of relativity, then there must be room for debate about the workings and complexities of the Earth’s atmosphere.

Seriously? I mean, seriously?

It’s hard to know where to even start with a statement so ridiculous as this. For one, there is always room for questioning science. But that questioning must be done by science, using a scientific basis, and above all else be done above board and honestly. But that’s not how much of the climate science denial has been done. (more…)

I’m not a huge fan of the current US Supreme Court, but they recently did something right: Bloomberg is reporting the Court denied the revival of a lawsuit against mobile phone companies from a group claiming cell phones cause brain damage, including cancer.

The Court denied the claim for legal reasons — basically, the suit was filed under state law claims, but a court had already ruled that those laws were superseded by federal (FCC) regulations. So the Court ruled the claimant doesn’t get to sue mobile phone companies.

And while you might consider this ruling decided on a technicality, it turned out the right way. Mobile phones don’t cause cancer. Or, if you want to be technically accurate, studies of this topic have shown that any link between cell phones and brain damage is so weak it’s statistically indistinguishable from no link at all.

The exception would be if you’re using your phone while you’re driving. Then the likelihood of brain damage — and spleen damage, and kidney damage, and bone damage, and life damage — jump by a factor of four.

So you can use your phone and not worry about brain damage… as long as you use it intelligently.

Every month or so I sit down (virtually) with my buddy Seth Shostak, and we record a short interview for Skeptic Check, part of the Big Picture Science podcast/radio show. Seth’s on the road right now, so they’ve put a "Beast of Skeptic Check" online, featuring some of Seth’s favorite segments. You can also just hear the part I’m in (talking Moon Hoax) on the Big Picture Science blog.

If you’ve read this blog for more than a few nanoseconds, you know how incensed I am over the blatantly antiscience trend in the Republican leadership. As I have pointed out before, supporting the reality of global warming or evolution is akin to political suicide if you are a candidate for office in the GOP. The attacks on science by the far right are not new, but the openness and outspoken nature of it are fairly recent. Even Newt Gingrich, who used to a be a strong supporter of science, is making Michele Bachmann-level misstatements about it.

So I was very glad to read an article at the National Journal saying that older leaders of the Republican party are trying to re-establish the role of science in the GOP:

But quietly, many acknowledge a deepening GOP schism over the issue, as many moderates grow increasingly disturbed by their party’s denial of proven science. A number of influential Republicans who have left the battlefield of electoral politics are now taking action in an effort to change the GOP’s stance.

And we’re not talking about lightweights, either. People like former (under Bush I) Secretary of State George Shultz, who said this:

"My own opinion is that this [climate change] problem is very real," Shultz told National Journal. "I recognize there’s a lot of people pooh-poohing it. Whether they like the science or not, there’s a huge problem coming at us. There’s a huge melt coming in the Arctic regions. There’s melting taking place." Of Republicans like [Presidential candidate Rick] Perry who deny climate science, he said, "They’re entitled to their opinion, but they’re not entitled to the facts."

Oh my. That is very heartening to hear. Of course, they have an uphill battle ahead of them. And by uphill, I mean like climbing out of the event horizon of a black hole, given how loud the antiscience noise is. The article acknowledges this, saying these leaders have kept quiet

in part because acknowledging climate change puts them out of sync with the tea party base that has so energized their party, and because climate-change legislation stands no chance of passing Congress in the current political environment.

The far-right Tea Party is mired in a radical religious agenda, and has become the de facto voice of the GOP. I have serious doubts that the more moderate wing of the Republican leadership can do much about it; that whirlwind has been sown, and they are now reaping it… as are we all. Once an audience is whipped into a frenzy that is not based on reason, corralling it will be nearly impossible. Just look at the editorial climate scientist Michael Mann wrote for the Vail Daily, defending his research against oft-repeated falsehoods about it — which sometimes come from people as lofty as Congressmen in the House of Representatives. That kind of stuff won’t stop overnight, or even in the next few years. It’s a foregone conclusion antiscience will play its role in the 2012 election, too.

So while I’m glad to hear that some members of the Republican Party are fighting to get their party back, I despair of their chances of actually doing it.

Tip o’ the beaker to Steve Silberman (via JenLucPiquant), and reddit.

[Note: I'm anticipating some, um, interesting comments to this post. So, before you leave one, please read this post on my political thinking, and this one on political posts in general.]

I write quite a bit about how rabidly antiscience the political right in the US has become. From the attacks on science by the Bush Administration (and Newt Gingrich before that) to the political litmus test of needing to denounce evolution and global warming if you’re a candidate, the Republican party has planted its flag firmly in the ground of nonsense. At the bottom of this article is a section called Related Posts that has links to just a handful of the copious examples of this outrageous behavior.

They have also become masters at spinning this, going on the attack against science they don’t like and using the media to sow doubt. One of the most aggravating of these tactics is the one of false equivalency. For example, in a post I might lambaste yet another Republican candidate saying creationism should be taught in schools, and someone in the comments will say, "Well, people on the left are antiscience as well!"

This is a common claim, but at best it’s a gross mischaracterization of what’s going on, and in reality it’s beside the point. Sure, some people on the left have issues (mostly anti-corporate or alt-med stuff like being against GMO, vaccines, and so on), but those are not the main planks of the left. And those issues are a drop in the bucket compared to what’s going on in the right. To say you think evolution might be true is political suicide if you’re a Republican candidate right now. It’s that simple, and that bad. I think that, like on the left, the majority of voters on the right are not antiscience, but if you look to the leaders in Congress, in State legislatures, and at the Presidential candidates, that’s all you see.

And that’s why you need to read an article by my friend Chris Mooney, "Unequivocal: Today’s Right is Overwhelmingly More Anti-Science Than Today’s Left". He lays out just how big this problem is, why the right has gone this way, and why they have solidarity among their candidates.

The chief reason the political right is anti-science is because it contains the Christian Right (and Tea Party, which is kind of the same thing). There is no force in American politics generating anywhere near so much unreality, in science or in other spheres, as this one. It is not just evolution, or the age of the Earth… When it comes to science, it is also anything having anything to do with abortion, reproductive health, and sexuality. Moreover, we are talking here about the willful advancement of dangerous falsehoods, and the clinging to them in the face of all evidence and refutation—because this is about unwavering certainty, and ultimately, about faith.

This is one of the most important political articles I’ve read in quite some time. Chris lays out the political reality of antireality in a stark way. The article is frustrating and infuriating, because it shows just how the right’s leaders have lost their grip on reality, and is a grim reminder of just how important the elections next year are.

To be clear: I am not saying that anyone who calls themself a Republican is antiscience. I am saying the leaders of the party and their mouthpieces are, and Chris does a good job of showing that this is now the mainstream thrust of the party. If you are a conservative person who is pro-science, it is up to you to talk to your leaders about this issue. The GOP used to be pro-science, but was hijacked by the antiscience fringe many years ago. I can talk about this all I want and try to raise awareness, but your voices must be heard. Speak up.

In late August, sea ice extent was way below average for that time of year, and it was predicted we were headed for at least a near-record low this year. Those predictions have, unfortunately, turned out to be true. On September 9, sea ice extent reached its yearly minimum, the second lowest since satellite records began in 1979 — and so close to the record low in 2007 that it’s a statistical tie.

NASA has posted series of pictures of sea ice this year taken by its Aqua Earth-observing satellite. Here’s the Arctic ice as it was in March (top) and September 2011 (bottom):

They put together a series of the images into an animation that really gives you a clear picture of what’s going on:

Of course, you expect more ice in the winter and less in the summer and fall, so by itself those pictures don’t tell you what this means. You need to compare the current extent with how things were in the past. As it happens, the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder does just that.

(more…)

The antiscience stance of the Republican candidates for President is getting so chaotic I swear I need a scorecard to keep it all straight. The latest: Michele Bachmann goes antivax.

No, seriously. Generally associated with the far left, antivaccination rhetoric reared its head at the latest Republican candidate debate. In 2007, Governor Rick Perry of Texas — and current front runner of the cohort of White House contenders — issued an Executive Order mandating the Gardasil vaccination for girls. This vaccination prevents girls from getting the human papillomavirus, or HPV, a virus that is a major factor in contracting cervical cancer later in life. This cancer has a greater than 30% fatality rate once contracted, and is a horrible, horrible condition. 20 million people in the US alone carry the virus.

Mandating vaccinations is actually something of a difficult topic, and my stand on it is somewhat nuanced (though I do lean towards saying "yes, they should be under most circumstances").

Representative Bachmann is not quite so subtle. During the recent debate, she tried to hammer Rick Perry on this issue, saying it’s wrong to mandate vaccines, saying that Gardasil "can have very dangerous side effects".

That’s pretty misleading. Gardasil’s dangers are minimal, and have been grossly exaggerated by the media. But Bachmann is going for broke with her claims; she’s now saying this:

"There’s a woman who came up crying to me tonight after the debate," Bachmann said after the debate, where she had told Perry on stage that she was "offended" by his decision. "She said her daughter was given that vaccine. She told me her daughter suffered mental retardation as a result of that vaccine."

There has never been a single confirmed case of anything like this happening (in fact, a bioethicist has offered Bachmann $10,000 if she can come up with some evidence for her statement; no word from her campaign so far). Some people do have adverse reactions to vaccinations, but they are rare (like a girl who had an extraordinarily rare mitochondrial disorder which might — might — have caused a vaccine-related problem). But mental retardation from Gardasil is totally unheard-of.

The source is incredibly suspect, too. A unnamed woman came up to Bachmann and told her this unsubstantiated story? And Bachmann goes on national TV to score points with it? The line of evidence breaks down at every step here. Bachmann saying this during a nationally televised debate is nothing short of shameful. And reckless.

She’s not the only one making hay of this, either. A PAC backing Ron Paul has a video that calls Gardasil "an STD vaccine". That a pretty cynical spin on it; the issue of vaccinating against HPV is not about sex, it’s about health. However, because HPV is contracted through sexual contact, this also plays into the far-right’s morality issues.

Generally speaking, antivaxxers tend to be to the left of the political spectrum. I doubt Bachmann is sincerely trying to woo that vote. More likely, she is just displaying more of her antiscience predilections like creationism and global warming denialism.

I also doubt Bachmann would’ve gotten the Republican nomination even before she said something like this, but mirroring the thinking of the far-left could very well sink her once and for all inside her own party. We’ll see. But don’t forget: even if and when she’s gone, we’ll still have a coterie of antireality candidates to deal with on that ticket.