Debunking Denialism
Modern life presents us with an apparent paradox: science has a strong cultural authority, yet primitive darkness is coming back in the shape of creationism, quack medicine, opposition to vaccination, HIV/AIDS denialism, anti-psychiatry and so on.
Debunking Denialism takes on the enemies of reason.
Article Library
If you want to read more content from Debunking Denialism, check out the article library, or the main content below.
Main Content
- Debunking Alternative Medicine
- Debunking Anti-psychiatry
- Debunking Opposition to Vaccines
- Debunking Biotechnology Fear Mongering
- Debunking Climate Change Denialism
- Debunking Holocaust Denial
- Debunking Conspiracy Theories about 9/11
- Debunking Creationism
- Debunking HIV/AIDS Denialism
- Debunking Physical Punishment of Childen
- Debunking Race Realism and Racism
- Debunking Misuse of Statistics
Additional Content
In the Spotlight
Recent Articles
- Shattering Academic Philosophy
- Swedish Anti-Vaccine Infection Parties for Measles and Rubella
- Fraud Psychic Sylvia Browne Proven Wrong Yet Again
- The Robustness of Scientific Skepticism
- Scientific Skepticism and One-liners
- How Skepchick Rebecca Watson Misuses Statistics
- Cold Facts about Gardasil? More like Intellectual Rigor Mortis
- Why Stephen Bond’s Case Against Skepticism Is Profoundly Unconvincing
- The Failure of Mysterian Complaints about Neuroesthetics
- The Statistical (but not Scientific) Ignorance of Phil Plait
- The Blow Job Refutation
- Questioning Evolution…by Spouting the Same Old Creationist Canards
- Evidence-Based Debunking
- An Intellectual Re-evaluation of the “Schrödinger’s Rapist” Analogy
- Responding to Incoherent Anti-Psychiatry Drivel
Links
- Academics Review
- AIDS Truth
- Bad Astronomy
- Bad Science
- C0nc0rdance
- Climate Denial Crock of the Week
- Correcting the AIDS Lies
- Deborah Lipstadt’s Blog
- Debunking the 9/11 Myths
- Evidence for Common Descent
- Evolutionsteori.se
- Expelled Exposed
- Holocaust Denial on Trial
- Homebirth Death Statistics
- How to Talk to a Climate Sceptic
- Hurt by Homebirth
- James Randi Educational Foundation
- Less Wrong
- Mayo Clinic
- National Center for Science Education
- NCSE Climate
- NeuroLogica Blog
- Oppose Naturopath Licensing
- Potholer54
- Potholer54debunks
- Quackwatch
- Real Climate
- Respectful Insolence
- Richard Carrier
- Science-Based Medicine
- Screw Loose Change
- Sense about Science
- Seth Kalichman's Blog
- Skeptical Science
- Skepticblog
- Stanford Encylopedia of Philosophy
- Talk Reason
- TalkOrigins Archive
- The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
- The Loom
- The Panda's Thumb
- The Skeptic's Dictionary
- The Skeptical OB
- Understanding Evolution
- Understanding Science
- Vaccininfo
- What's The Harm?
History
Spread the Word
Quotes
"I realize that 'complementary and alternative medicine' (CAM) or, what quackademics like to call it now, 'integrative medicine' (IM) is meant to refer to 'integrating' alternative therapies into SBM or 'complementing' SBM with a touch of the ol’ woo, but I could never manage to understand how 'integrating' quackery with SBM would do anything but weaken the scientific foundation of medicine."
- David Gorski, cancer surgeon and debunker of pseudoscience (source).
"Denialists [...] replace the rigorous and open-minded skepticism of science with the inflexible certainty of ideological commitment."
- Michael Specter, author and responsible science journalist (Denialism, pp. 2-3).
"If I am ignorant about a phenomenon, that is a fact about my state of mind, not a fact about the phenomenon; to worship a phenomenon because it seems so wonderfully mysterious, is to worship your own ignorance; a blank map does not correspond to a blank territory, it is just somewhere we haven’t visited yet"
- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky, rationality expert and AI researcher (source).
"As an aside, it is ironic that CAM proponents often simultaneously tout how individualized their treatment approach is, but then claim that one product or treatment can cure all cancer. Meanwhile they criticize the alleged cookie-cutter approach of mainstream medicine, which is actually producing a more and more individualized (and evidence-based) approach to such things as cancer."
- Steven Novella, neurologist and founder of the New England Skeptical Society. (source).
"While Galileo was a rebel, not all rebels are Galileo."
- Norman Levitt, mathematician and critic of anti-science postmodernism (quoted in Paul Offit's Autism's False Prophets, p. 37).
"If chiropractic manipulation of the neck had been a pill, it would have been pulled by the [regulatory authorities]. Even if the risk for vascular injury is low, the risk is not outweighed by the a demonstrated benefit."
- Mats Reimer, Swedish pediatrician, scientific skeptic and blogger (source, my translation).
"It is so addictive to make videos to people like Fringe [an unreasonable race realist - Emil Karlsson's note] simply because of that pleasing wet snap that you hear inside your head every time you smash up their worldview and show it to be based on bullshit and half-truths. It is enjoyable. It is better than most drugs and I think that is why I make Youtube videos. It is interesting to see how people's minds work when they have a preconception they start with and then work from there as oppose to enter into something trying to actively not acknowledge any preconception and go were the evidence leads them."
- TheSkepticalHeretic, Youtube skeptic and debunker of race realists (source).
Although I can appreciate your frustration with attempting to engage in actual discussion on denialist blogs, I disagree. Years ago, I became interested in skepticism preciously because of skeptics’ challenges posted on the forums of some now rather embarrassing websites I used to visit as a college student.
Specifically, I disagree with your second point. Many people fall into the trap of denialist websites while genuinely trying to gather information on a topic. You should not view your comments as targeted towards hardcore fringe supporters, but rather at those naive, curious individuals in danger of being grossly misinformed and manipulated by denialists.
It’s certainly an anecdote on my behalf, but you do not have any reliable evidence to support your view that fence sitters do not read comments. However, if you can support this claim, I’d be glad to reconsider my position.
Sure, maybe fence sitters do read comments.
How do you weigh the prospect of convincing fence sitters who happen to read your comment against the possibility of getting edited to appear foolish?
There certainly is no guarantee against your comments being edited. It would simply be wise to check if your comments have been edited. If they have been, then do not post there.
This is generally good practice, but especially with potentially intellectually dishonest websites: I would recommend making the comment, but also to copy your comment text *before* you post (generally, to prevent randomly losing it down the inter-tubes), and saving it locally on your computer, or even preemptively posting it on your own blog/website with a comment to the effect of: “Just in case such-and-such website deletes or modifies my comment, here it is for all to see.”
You can (and often should) also save a copy of their own comments/threads, especially the particularly outrageous ones, in order to be able to hold them accountable if they after-the-fact edit their own comments to remove or modify context.
It is actually quite a good counter-tactic to use for showing folks just how intellectually dishonest some sites/groups are: it shows that not only are they wrong, but they have some conscious awareness of their wrongness (even if they won’t admit it), and have gone to extra-ordinary lengths to cover it up. You might be surprised at how often their deceit blows up in their own faces if you just take a few steps to preserve the evidence, so to speak.
I know of one service that can be used for that called WebCite. Have you tried it, or something like it?
No, I haven’t. Is it worth the time investment?
I found it fairly good to create an external cache that can be linked to any time. Also, there is really no time investment if you use the Boomarklet (don’t have to register at all).