So, we have some interesting activities that people should join us for.

One, Dawkins joins us here at UVA November 3rd and 4th and we should get together to see his talk. Maybe bitch at him, maybe not, I haven't decided if I like this new atheism idea he has, it sounds like work.

An Inconvient Truth will be playing Thursday Nov 2nd 6:00pm at Newcomb hall.

And next Tuesday I say we spend the night in the bar watching election returns and drinking in celebration or misery.

What say you Give Uppers?

Oh, and after the elections I'll share with you my dream.

Our dear leaders have made a quantum leap into total insanity, with word that they are expanding "abstinence-only" funding to focus on horny 19-29 year-olds.

If you think it's hard convincing a 16 year-old still living with his parents and struggling with trig homework to keep it in his pants on a Saturday night, just think how hard it's going to be to convince a 25 year-old with his own pad and a freaking job. Most everyone thinks they've earned the right to bone in peace by that point.

The funniest thing to me, however, is that the guvmint's apparent reasoning for funding this education (and how are they going to educate all of us loose-moraled twenty-somethings, btw? I mean, I am so not in school anymore) is that the greatest increase in pregnancies by unmarried women is in the 19-29 age range.

Um -- call me crazy -- but I would think the greatest number of pregnancies by any women at all would be in the 19-29 age range. That is when most women, most of the time, tend to get pregnant. Peak childbearing years, those -- regardless of marital status. Durn those crazy facts!

The Times this morning has an article detailing some of the recent work in studying the link between caloric restriction and aging. Briefly, studies in organisms all up and down the evolutionary tree have shown that a reduction in daily caloric intake leads to an increase in lifespan, as well as an apparent increase in quality of life. In some of the lower organisms, they've even worked out a mechanism, and (of course) higher organisms (i.e. us) have varieties of all of the genes involved in the system.

Now they're seeing that monkeys on a reduced diet (less overall calories, but still nutritionally complete) have lower incidence of arthritis, cancer, etc, and they look and act far younger than their counterparts that eat more. Of course, getting people to eat less won't be an easy sell, but with the mechanism known it should be fairly straightforward to develop an artificial means to stimulate the system. Take this pill once a day and live an extra twenty years!

I think we'd all agree this is a good thing - who wouldn't want to feel healthy for longer? Well, Leon Kass for one:

As appointments with death are postponed, says Dr. Leon R. Kass, former chairman of the President's Council on Bioethics, human lives may become less engaging, less meaningful, even less beautiful.

"Mortality makes life matter," Dr. Kass recently wrote. "Immortality is a kind of oblivion - like death itself."

How about an idea: those who don't want to live longer don't have to take the drug. I nominate Dr. Kass to leave this planet a little sooner. I'd like to stay healthy longer, thank you very much.

This weekend several of us at Give Up Blog went to see Jesus Camp at the Virginia Film Festival (which had one of its best years yet).

This was an interesting movie, that depicted the authoritarian teachings of Becky Fischer, and her indoctrination of pre-adolescent youths through her summer camp. We had blogged about what her teachings sounded like before and their frightening resemblence to madrasses. But what is interesting is that in the movie, Fischer says that is her specific goal - indoctrination at the youngest possible age in order to insure that her kids, like the ones in madrasses, will "lay their lives down" for Jesus.

It starts by showing several of the kids about to attend meeting Fischer as she travels about promoting her camp and her youth ministry, and then shows these kids being "educated" by their homeschooling parents. The parents, using creationist textbooks, weren't only teaching the kids not to believe in evolution, but also that global warming was unimportant, and that science itself was unable to explain anything. This homenoschooling was worse than what Buck has been seeing on wife swap, because they were literally giving these kids a denialist education, not based on learning facts, the scientific method, or even a history of discovery but a set of tools they could use to glibly attack science whenever they hear it. It was the best argument for either forcing standards on homeschooling, or forbidding it I have yet seen.

The kids they profiled are great, they're smart, mature, and heartbreakingly damaged by this upbringing. Forced to doubt every natural impulse or desire to enjoy life for a focus on religion. One girl speaks of dancing and how she must concentrate on dancing for Jesus and not dancing "for the flesh" and she couldn't have been older than 11 or 12, which is a bizarre thing to be thinking about at that age. Kids at the camp were told to stop telling ghost stories because they didn't glorify Jesus (a common theme when just about anything fun was engaged in). Also, the tendency to stress the importance of obedience in the girls popped up several times in the movie.

Then the kids go to camp (which before they arrived was carefully blessed by the ministers who prayed over the chairs, the projector, but also Powerpoint, which was hysterical). They immediately start with a sermon in which Fischer attacks Harry Potter and says he essentially should be killed for being a warlock, and how none of the kids should read him no matter how much he fights for good, then proceeds to break down the childrens' spirits. The ministry focuses on making them cry, and shake, and speak in tongues, and repent sins, and oppose abortion, and generally create the ego collapse that is critical for any cult indoctrination. There is no discussion about the teachings of Jesus, the sermon on the mount, the need to protect the poor, to feel love, to prevent war, etc. It instead is about asking the kids to die for Jesus, and they quite clearly are being raised to be warriors, not peacemakers, as the generation the ministers hoped would be the one to bring back Jesus.

There are a few things about this movie that are frightening, like when Fischer basically says she wants to replace Democracy with a Christian theocracy, but I've got to say, I'm not as concerned as most. There were also many things I thought were funny as hell, like the idolatry when they pulled out the cardboard cut-out of George Bush and had the kids worship it. They all became commandment breakers and it was hysterical. I also loved the unintentional hilarity of Fischer saying that, "It's the devil that goes after children" when that was her specific stated goal throughout the movie which she follows very carefully.

But in terms of what this means for our country? Not much. This is child abuse, certainly. There is no excuse for this kind of treatment of children, which is essentially using the classic methods of cult conversion to create mindless followers. They had everything, the music hammering throughout the process, the pressure to conform (which kids are especially sensitive to), the breaking of the kids ego, instilling feelings of worthlessness, and then the emotional catharsis through the worship and renewal. They call this getting the spirit in them, but really what it is is brainwashing, cult-style.

What Fischer doesn't realize is that cult mentality is somewhat fragile when it conflicts with the modern world, and she's set most of these kids up for a major crisis when they get older. The mindset she creates is so opposed to modernity that unless these kids withdraw to the point they're practically Amish, eventually they are going to crack. They will have to be sheltered from the world completely, essentially for their whole lives and well into adulthood for this mindset to stick. That means no public education, no friends not from the church, no secular activities away from a group to prevent the chance encounter with a Harry Potter fan, no college (unless it's Bob Jones - but they can't house all these poor souls), no TV, no movies, no magazines, no books (unless they're Christian-themed) etc. The state that is created is fragile, and once they start getting in those teenage years and the hormones kick in and the brain starts seeing the bullshit, the same thing will happen with pretty much every seriously indoctrinated person I've ever met. They'll either crack, or totally withdraw. They simply cannot interact with the modern world, and while they'll vote for assholes like George Bush, they can't interact well enough with nonChristians or even non-Evangelical Christians (which the kids would say belonged to "dead" churches because they don't shout in services) in order to be politically effective. And look at their so-called Christian leaders. Kuo's new book exposes their relationship for what it is. The Republicans they elect don't believe in this garbage (with exceptions like Brownback), but they use it to rile them up and get votes to cut taxes. Then when it comes time for "faith-based initiatives"? The budget gets cut, and the Evangelicals are ignored until the next election cycle.

These people, through their rejection of the modern world just reinforce their powerlessness. This will lead to two things: increasing political irrelevance and a greater tendency towards violence. We are certainly looking at our future terrorists, but not our future leaders.

Everyone has probably seen the kerfluffle over Rush Limbaugh's criticism of Michael J. Fox and his ad for Missouri's Democratic candidate, namely that he was faking or not taking his drugs.

Well, Crooks and Liars has the video of his interview with George Stephanopoulos, and I gotta say, Limbaugh is a total asshole. The camera pulls back several times during the interview and the problem is obvious.

Fox is on his meds. His meds are the problem. During the video the symptom you see is Levodopa-induced dyskinesias, not Parkinsons (although he shows a little tremor when he raises his hands). A side-effect of long term use of Levodopa are just those exaggerated movements that make Fox practically have to sit on his hands to keep them under control.

Limbaugh is a real asshole for this one.

As per tradition, the folks here at Give Up! gathered last week to carve of the gourdian flesh. Without further ado, here's the crop of this year's pumpkins:

There's the Reverend Doctor's Borat: [Rev Dr. Ed: You don't like my pumpkin I get execute.]

Princess Threepio's Stephen Colbert:

My George Orwell:

And the collection of all of them, including Casmall's Kim Jong Il:

And don't forget to check out last years pumpkins including Dick "go fuck yourself" Cheney and Harriet Myers (it was topical).

They're busted again!

The latest is that they've been labelling all information in their contracts and filings that would show how they've been scamming their government "business proprietary" so they can avoid oversight.

The special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction found that Halliburton's Kellogg, Brown & Root Services routinely marked all information it gave to the government as proprietary, whether it was or not. The government promises not to disclose proprietary data so a company's most valuable information is not divulged to its competitors.

By marking all information proprietary — including such normally releasable data as labor rates — the company abused federal regulations, the report says.

In effect, Kellogg, Brown & Root turned the regulations "into a mechanism to prevent the government from releasing normally transparent information, thus potentially hindering competition and oversight."

If you ask me that is their proprietary business model and it explains why they're profitable. Their model is screw the military, screw the US, screw the soldiers, screw the taxpayers, profit above all else. I say let's get a rope and deal with these war profiteers the old fashioned way.

Polling on VA Sen is showing good signs for Webb with a dead heat with Felix Macaca Allen.

And with ads like this:



it's only going to get better. That's the best political ad I've seen in a long time.

Tenacious D and the pick of destiny was awesome.



You know why I really loved it? No boring love interest. Just rock.

Everyone should check it out when it hits the theaters.

Today in the festival we've got a bunch of Robert Duvall stuff, and Jonestown. But really I'm just waiting for Sunday for Jesus Camp and The Dark Crystal.

Oh, and in case you thought Tenacious D was being a little sexist, they did make this for the ladies.

The latest is a Florida lawmaker who has been calling other lawmakers on the phone and leaving racist and threatening messages.

For months, state Rep. Rafael Arza has ducked accusations that he repeatedly used a racial slur. But last Saturday night, according to authorities, he was caught using the derogatory term for a black person on another legislator's voice mail, and what has been a long-running sideshow here has come to a political climax.

...

In a statement, Arza apologized for the phone message, blaming it in part on drinking. He is expected to be reelected on Nov. 7.

Quit blaming the booze! When non-racist people drink they don't call people up and yell racial slurs. They also don't blame all wars on the Jews, fondle little boys, or embezzle funds. Drinking doesn't make you a bad person, it only reveals the crappy person within.

And has anyone heard about this anti-Ford ad the Republicans in put out against Harold "I hate gays" Ford in Tennessee? Yeah, I think Ford is a fucking tool, and I won't be too upset if this guy's political career ends early, but playing the jungle-drums? C'mon, that's messed up.

And then there's this RNC ad which uses the whole "Black Harold Ford will fondle our white women" angle:



And here I thought the Republicans had disavowed their racist Southern Strategy.

That's what I think of when in the course of your job you help somebody else do something you might personally disagree with, because it's your freaking job.

Pharmacists who deny access to birth control because they disagree with it based on their medeival morality, should lose their job.

Doctors who refuse to provide the care that patients want, not for legitimate medical reasons but on moral judgements about their patients choices, should lose their job.

And now, cabbies who refuse to transport people carrying alcohol because it conflicts with their religion, should lose their job.

It's your freaking job people, do your job!

New Jersey, despite paying out more in federal dollars than they get back, far more than any other state, has decided to show they believe in basic human rights.

If only every state would follow this example, or even a majority of the blue states.

Here in Virginia they've added a ballot-initiative designed to prevent two people of the same sex from forming contracts that in any way create similar rights as a marriage. It's so retarded my head hurts, who tries to pass such unconstitutional laws? Then my brain kicks in and I realize it's just a way to drag George "Felix-Macaca" Allen's supporters to the polls.

I'm so embarrassed for Virginia right now. It could almost be a blue state, we elect Democrat governors who have balanced the books and started investing more in infrastructure, but we're held back by gay-bashing right wingers, we've got one of the few remaining obviously racist senators, we've got all the crazy evangelical leaders like Robertson and Falwell in Alexandria and Virginia beach, it's just a mess. Maybe one day soon, Virginia will decide to join the modern world rather than just dip a toe in.

We forgot to celebrate the 18th of October as Give Up Blog's 1st anniversary. Here was our first post on Harriet Miers, teen pregnancy and abortion.

It's been a good year. We've jumped to a Technorati rank of 23-25k, and consistently get about 80k hits a month. One of these days I'll get off my ass and install a real tracker that will tell me how many are unique and where they come from, but for the most part people find us from my misbehavior on the Scienceblogs, occasionally Kos, the Hitler or Coulter quiz of course, and when we get linked for things like our denialism post which generated a lot of interest.

I will endeavor to come up with some new maps and update some of the older ones for which there is new data. Happy Give Up day!

KBR, the evil wing of Halliburton (and damn that's evil) is wasting money right and left. Somehow I knew this NY Times article would end up being about KBR.

Overhead costs have consumed more than half the budget of some reconstruction projects in Iraq, according to a government estimate released yesterday, leaving far less money than expected to provide the oil, water and electricity needed to improve the lives of Iraqis.

The report provided the first official estimate that, in some cases, more money was being spent on housing and feeding employees, completing paperwork and providing security than on actual construction.

Those overhead costs have ranged from under 20 percent to as much as 55 percent of the budgets, according to the report, by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. On similar projects in the United States, those costs generally run to a few percent.

The highest proportion of overhead was incurred in oil-facility contracts won by KBR Inc., the Halliburton subsidiary formerly known as Kellogg Brown & Root, which has frequently been challenged by critics in Congress and elsewhere.

...

The report did not explain why KBR’s overhead costs on those contracts - the contracts totaled about $296 million - were more than 10 percent higher than those at the other companies audited. Despite past criticism of KBR, the Army, which administers those contracts, has generally agreed to pay most of the costs claimed by the company.

I think I can tell them why, KBR is nothing but a bunch of war-profiteering criminals who would be strung up if it weren't for their connections to the Vice President.

The NYT has analyzed LiebesBush's statements over the last few years and the result is LiebesBush will say anything at any time if it suits him politically.

A close examination of hundreds of Mr. Lieberman's statements on Iraq over the past five years shows that while he repeatedly praised President Bush, he was far more likely to criticize him. But those critiques dropped off markedly in the last two years, even as the insurgency in Iraq gained strength.

At the same time, Mr. Lieberman made negative comments about fellow Democrats three times as often as he made positive comments, particularly after his failed campaign for his party's presidential nomination in 2004.

Near the end of this year's primary, Mr. Lieberman ramped up his criticism of the Bush administration's handling of the war, and soon after his loss, called for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to resign. More recently he has called for "bringing the troops home." Yet he continues to strongly oppose setting a timetable for withdrawal, echoing the position of the White House.

As the battle of interpretation continues, The New York Times sorted 362 of Mr. Lieberman's war-related comments since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks into content-related categories, and found that he has alternated his arguments about the parties and the war's prosecution, shifting tone at critical points as political circumstances have evolved.

Saying he has been "shifting tone at critical points" is just a nice way of saying, "Lieberman will say whatever it takes to get elected." Especially considering his more left wing statements before the primary and his shameless appeal to GOP voters subsequent to losing the Democratic nomination.



The question is, which is the real LiebesBush? I think the picture above indicates it's the Republican LiebesBush.

Following MyDD's lead.


--AZ-Sen: Jon Kyl

--AZ-01: Rick Renzi

--AZ-05: J.D. Hayworth

--CA-04: John Doolittle

--CA-11: Richard Pombo

--CA-50: Brian Bilbray

--CO-04: Marilyn Musgrave

--CO-05: Doug Lamborn

--CO-07: Rick O'Donnell

--CT-04: Christopher Shays

--FL-13: Vernon Buchanan

--FL-16: Joe Negron

--FL-22: Clay Shaw

--ID-01: Bill Sali

--IL-06: Peter Roskam

--IL-10: Mark Kirk

--IL-14: Dennis Hastert

--IN-02: Chris Chocola

--IN-08: John Hostettler

--IA-01: Mike Whalen

--KS-02: Jim Ryun

--KY-03: Anne Northup

--KY-04: Geoff Davis

--MD-Sen: Michael Steele

--MN-01: Gil Gutknecht

--MN-06: Michele Bachmann

--MO-Sen: Jim Talent

--MT-Sen: Conrad Burns

--NV-03: Jon Porter

--NH-02: Charlie Bass

--NJ-07: Mike Ferguson

--NM-01: Heather Wilson

--NY-03: Peter King

--NY-20: John Sweeney

--NY-26: Tom Reynolds

--NY-29: Randy Kuhl

--NC-08: Robin Hayes

--NC-11: Charles Taylor

--OH-01: Steve Chabot

--OH-02: Jean Schmidt

--OH-15: Deborah Pryce

--OH-18: Joy Padgett

--PA-04: Melissa Hart

--PA-07: Curt Weldon

--PA-08: Mike Fitzpatrick

--PA-10: Don Sherwood

--RI-Sen: Lincoln Chafee

--TN-Sen: Bob Corker

--VA-Sen: George Allen

--VA-10: Frank Wolf

--WA-Sen: Mike McGavick

--WA-08: Dave Reichert

After bad news about the benefit of drug-eluting stents Johnon and Johnson and Boston Scientific aren't going to be happy about the news that drug-eluting stents, besides not being significantly more effective than non-coated stents, are generating safety concerns about risks of clotting in the drug-eluting stents.



A stent is used to open up an artery, usually the coronary or carotid vessels, that has become stenotic or closed, and restore blood flow. The problem is that after the vessel is opened, cells from the vessel wall will often proliferate and migrate into the stent causing the vessel to become stenotic or occluded again. The solution, many thought, was to coat the stents with drugs that would prevent proliferation and clotting. Bad news though, the drugs don't seem to be providing a significant benefit (news from the NEJM articles), and may actually increase the risk of clotting long-term.

From Business Week:

They're listening now. Over the past two years, doctors have noticed that patients with the new stents sometimes suffer fatal heart attacks months or years after the devices were inserted. At her nonprofit laboratory, the cvpath Institute in Gaithersburg, Md., Virmani, 64, has vivid microscope slides showing why: The victims' stents are totally blocked by clots. New analyses of the data from clinical trials, reported at a meeting last month in Barcelona, show that such late-occurring clots form more often with the new stents than with old bare-metal ones. In its own trials with its Cypher drug-eluting stent, J&J's Cordis division said in a written response that five patients have had late clots, compared with zero for bare-metal stents. The company says the difference is not statistically significant, but that "it is an important clinical challenge.

Prominent cardiologists like Nissen are calling for a large, long-term trial to figure out the size of this problem. The Food & Drug Administration terms it "a small but significant increase in the rate of death" and is convening a panel to examine the risks. Cardiologists estimate that the drug-coated stents may be causing 5 to 15 more clots per 1,000 people than the bare-metal stents. That's not a big number, but such a clot "is a catastrophe," explains Dr. Robert S. Schwartz of the Minneapolis Heart Institute; "100% of patients will have an infarction, and 20% to 40% will actually die. With millions of stents, that's a lot of catastrophes--10,000 to 30,000 patients per year."

And from the Times article:

Today’s reports, presented on Day Three of the annual Transcather Cardiovascular Therapeutics show here at the Washington Convention Center, included results from independent re-evaluations of death and heart attack data from clinical trials. The trials had been conducted by from Johnson & Johnson, Boston Scientific and a third company, Medtronic, whose Endeavor stent is sold in Europe but has not yet been submitted for approval in the United States.

There was also new data from two major studies in Europe, which tracked the outcomes for thousands of patients treated in Spain, Italy and Germay.

Reporting surprising findings from one of those studies, Dr. Alaide Chieffo, a researcher from Milan, said that Italian and German doctors who tracked more than 3,000 patients with drug-coated stents from 2002 through the end of 2004 found that the drug therapy widely thought to protect such patients from clotting had no beneficial effect after the first six months.

Many doctors, particularly in the United States where the drug-coated stents until recently represented nearly 90 percent of the market, commonly put patients on a regimen of aspirin and the anti-clotting drug Plavix for a year or longer. When Boston Scientific and others first reported evidence that long-term clotting seemed to be a rare but real risk with drug-coated stents, they said that risk could be managed by continuing that drug regimen.

Time to reconsider drug-coated or drug-eluting stents as a therapy. They are more expensive, require a more expensive drug regimen, and may not be providing a significant benefit, despite high-hopes they would be a revolution in percutaneous coronary interventions.

It looks like Obama can be divisive too, apparently some even think he's the antichrist.

Damn, that was a short honeymoon period.

According to an article published in Science on Friday, when given math tests, women who are not confronted by negative gender stereotypes out-perform those who are.
Maybe we should also stop telling men that they are naturally more violent.

In other news, we might actually get textbooks in pubic schools. Republican Bill Crozier, a candidate for Okalahoma state superintendent of schools, has officially gone on record saying that public school students should have books. No, not to read, to deflect bullets during school shootings. Now that's compassionate conservatism. He points out that we wouldn't need to invest in new books for the kids, used textbooks will work just fine. Maybe we could send some to the troops.

-DevilBubbles

Promising news in the generation of insulin-secreting beta cells of the pancreas from stem cells that may replace the cells damaged in Type I (or insulin-dependent) diabetics.

The generation of insulin-secreting beta cells from ES cells has not been easy (review) but these and other recent results indicate it's just a matter of tweaking the system. I think it would be easier to generate the cells via embryoid body aggregation and subsequent purification of beta-cells via a selection gene or sorting process.

Either way, the prospect of progress in generating a cure for diabetes from ES cells is far more likely than Parkinson's or Alzheimer's cures, simply because this idea we're going to shove ES cells or their progeny into the brain and create anything but more of a mess seems unlikely. I wish advocates for ES cell research would focus more on Type I (also called Juvenile or insulin-dependent) diabetes simply because it's something that shows promise for being the easiest disorder to cure with these cells (except maybe some hematologic disorders). Significant progress towards a real cure would likely lead to more public acceptance of the technology, or at the very least, would make the vocal minority of critics shut up. After all, the pancreas is not that complicated an organ, and the beta cells don't even necessarily have to be placed inside the pancreas, all they would need is access to some blood supply and they could act as a cellular insulin pump, monitoring the blood sugar and releasing insulin as needed.

Deregulating utilities doesn't work. Stop acting like the market is a solution to problems already. We tried these ideas, they failed and nearly destroyed the country. We have regulation, in almost every case, because of failures of the market. This deregulation crap is just repeating history.

Oh, and if you want to see me antogonize libertarians, it's a hobby of mine I pursue in various forums.

I'll take Obama.

He's inexperienced, but hell, he can win. And I'm still pissed at Hillary for criticizing my Grand Theft Auto.

Bush assembles his generals to provide window dressing for his continued failure to address the catastrophic idiocy of his Iraq policy. Meanwhile, Moqtada al-Sadr's militia has gone ahead and fulfilled the last requirement of civil war, that is, seizure of a geographic territory, if only briefly.

And Shiite Iraqis, more disturbingly, support Sadr's militia as they see it as more effective in protecting them from attacks by Sunni insurgents. So, we're in a catch-22. We cannot secure the country by disarming the militia, since the people aren't being protected by the Iraqi government and there is popular demand for the militias to remain armed. We either need to dump 200k more troops there to actually secure the country, or make the Iraqi security forces capable of providing security. If we can't realistically meet either of these two goals (and I think it's clear we can't), it's time to leave, now.

So, driving around Virginia today and I see this.



I apologize for the poor quality since it was a phone-pic, but let me point out the features of this photograph.

First, the circle around the American flag, we've got a patriot.

Second, the square around the "support our troops" ribbon. I consider this a pretty ridiculous statement, since it isn't like anyone doesn't "support our troops", or that having this ribbon actually leads to more support. But hey, he likes the troops, we get it.

Third, the underlined sticker is a Confederate flag. Note the complete idiocy of putting a Confederate and U.S. flag on the same car, kind of an oxymoron in flag form. But hey, he's a southerner, they think we don't know it's just a not-so-subtle indication of racism (people from the South know that "southern pride" is just a pathetic cover story).

Fourth, and most beautiful, the arrow points to a "Has it been 4 years yet" bumper sticker! Holy crap! The uber-patriotic, Confederate flag loving, support-our-troops guy is asking when we can kick Bush to the curb!

The Republicans are in trouble.

After spending yesterday discussing feminism and literature/violence with three lovely feminist ladies I feel inspired to report on this article in Science on stereotype threat - the finding that reminding susceptible groups to stereotypes about them impairs their performance in various ways. In this case, it was stereotype threat in a cohort of women. Since it's a subscription article I'll paste liberally.

Here's the abstract:

Stereotype threat occurs when stereotyped groups perform worse as their group membership is highlighted. We investigated whether stereotype threat is affected by accounts for the origins of stereotypes. In two studies, women who read of genetic causes of sex differences performed worse on math tests than those who read of experiential causes.

So, how was this study designed?

Our studies manipulated participants' beliefs regarding the source of gender differences in math and measured their subsequent math performance (Fig. 1). In study 1 (7), women undertook a Graduate Record Exam–like test in which they completed two math sections separated by a verbal section. The verbal section contained the manipulation in the form of reading comprehension essays. Each test condition used a different essay. Two of the essays argued that math-related sex differences were due to either genetic (G) or experiential causes (E). Both essays claimed that there are sex differences in math performance of the same magnitude. Two additional essays served as a traditional test of stereotype threat. One essay, designed to eliminate underperformance, argued that there are no math-related gender differences (ND). The other essay, designed as a standard stereotype-threat manipulation (S), primed sex without addressing the math stereotype. Controlling for performance on the first math section, we used analyses of covariance to demonstrate that women in the G and the S conditions exhibited similar performances on the second math test (F < 1). Women in the E and the ND conditions, although not different from each other (F < 1), significantly outperformed women in G and S conditions (all P values ≤ 0.01).

So, simply put, if you interrupt somebody's GRE with an essay on how women are genetically inferior in math skills, or merely made them think about their sex, they performed more poorly (ostensibly because the identification of poor math skills with women is pervasive) when subsequently tested in math, and the control group, either not reading about being women or reading how women are just as good at math genetically performed better. Here's the figure:



To summarize figure one women who were presented with stereotype-threat got 20-50% more answers incorrect than the control groups (and the results were statistically-significant by a wide margin).

This is very interesting and shows how important it is to consider that when "math is hard" Barbie came out, people were pissed at feminists for demanding that the doll be fixed. Well, here's proof the feminists were right. When you tell women that they aren't good at math, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. And, as we discussed before this applies to other susceptible groups.

From today's Post:

Larry the yellow Lab sleeps on a memory foam mattress. Paddy the Irish wolfhound laps from an automatically refilling water dish. Olga and Oslo, two Rhodesian Ridgeback-mix puppies, sprawl on a radiant-heated floor in Zen-like bliss.

They are among 80 homeless hounds inhabiting a new animal shelter that is ritzier than many day spas. These mutts exude the contentment of society housewives detoxing at an ashram, soothed into near total silence under a glass skylight skimmed by cascading sheets of recirculated water, the room aglow with daylight streaming through glass walls and thrumming with piped-in harp music.

[...]

Pet lovers find the "holistic" shelter inspirational. Workers show no embarrassment over a place fancier than many of their homes. But Haisley knows he must defend it.

"Of course, people will say it's nicer than some shelters for people," Haisley said, stopping to scratch Tate, a Labrador retriever mix, between the ears. "I understand that, but I don't run a human shelter. And if I did, it would have all this.

I'm sure it would.

In case you didn't know already, God is retarded.

Seriously, if He's been inspiring Rumsfeld we're going to have to put him on the short cloud.

...he's a good man.

Casmall informed me of this bullshit article from the Scientist about a week ago, and I figured it was just a matter of time before someone picked it up and mocked it, or worse yet praised it as Jake Young at Pure Pedantry did. Don't let Jake's Scienceblog status fool you, he's a sucker for any inversion - that is any article that seems to throw a commonly held belief on it's ear - and was similarly suckered by the H2 superior to Prius nonsense being peddled as science by a PR firm a few months back.

Anyway, this article is entitled "Sizing Up Bush on Science: Is the 43rd President of the United States really science's worst-ever enemy?" and is a pathetic apologia for the vehement anti-science of the Bush administration. I think, after reading it and based upon Casmall's suggestion, we should approach it as a denialist argument. After all, the data is in, this administration is the worst for science, ever.

Let's do it!

On a typical day in the Oval Office, the US president, tired of simply watering down reports and testimony that contradict something he supports, decides to simply disband his scientific advisory positions. Along the way, he eliminates the office of presidential science advisor.

To many of the scientists who have been bemoaning what they call an attack on science by the current administration, led by George W. Bush, this may sound like a scenario from the not-so-distant future. It's not. Richard Nixon declared "war" on cancer and established the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), but he also severely punished scientists who didn't share his views.

The author, McCook, starts with a red herring that is so bad it actually hurts her argument. Are you really trying to justify the current president's behavior because Nixon did it too? And Daddy Bush? This is a pretty silly way to begin an article designed to make people think more highly of Bush on science, unless you were to say that Nixon was worse, which she doesn't.

But the next bit is even better, what's usually the best thing most people can think of to distract from legitimate criticisms of Bush? A diatribe against Clin-ton of course:

Even Bill Clinton - now admired by many scientists for overseeing a doubling in the NIH budget, among other measures - appeared to ignore science for his own political gain. In 1997, the EPA's science advisory board recommended that Congress immediately consider ways to reduce emissions of mercury because of its effect on health and the environment. The Clinton administration delayed release of a scientific report about the dangers of mercury for more than a year, and didn't issue recommendations to reduce emissions from coal-fired plants (the largest source) until three years later, the day after then-vice president Al Gore conceded the 2000 election to current president George W. Bush. However, the EPA set forth a proposal to cut emissions by a drastic amount, which Clinton perhaps knew Bush would have to loosen, enabling his opponents to decry his environmental record. Clinton also publicly denounced the creation of embryos for research.

So, Clin-ton's dodge of a political hot-potato until he was a lame duck is now the equivalent of George "the jury is still out on evolution" Bush's anti-science agenda? Let's think of how many things are wrong with this. First, it's a bit of an ad populum argument, or "every president does it" as a justification for Bush's behavior. Second, I think this justifies a "Selectivity" criticism, as they're pulling incidents from Clin-ton's administration out of context and making them sound evidence of an anti-science bias in Clin-ton. In reality, Clin-ton dodged these things because they were politically explosive, and once there were no political consequences, he let the science out because Clin-ton believed in science. I think that's hugely different than suppressing data, packing advisory panels, and loading scientific commissions with false-experts while suppressing data on global warming from James Hansen just because you're in bed with the oil industry. Clin-ton probably always wanted to release those results, but because of political consequences in an election year, didn't want to create another fight. Finally the worst instance of quote-mining and selectivity yet? Saying Clinton's stance against the creation of embryos for research is the same as being against hES research. That's not the same thing as using IVF embryos that already exist, which Bush opposes, and Clinton supports.

Oh, but McCook doesn't have a problem with industry experts, and actually finds an expert that tells us that panels entirely composed of experts with conflicts of interest isn't abuse of science.

The UCS Web site has also compiled a list of reported Bush administration abuses, ranging from adding information linking breast cancer to abortion on a National Cancer Institute Web site (despite scientists' objections), suppressing reports about climate change and publicly misrepresenting the data, and dismissing from advisory panels scientists whose views oppose those of the administration. "When you get to the 10th, or 20th incident [of politics interfering with science], and they're in six or seven different areas," it starts to feel pervasive, says Sidney Shapiro of Wake Forest University. The current administration has been "egregious in cherry-picking information, distorting information, and withholding information" in a way that has "far exceeded" previous presidencies, according to Jane Lubchenco, former president of both the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the International Council for Science.

In general, however, the word "abuse" is sometimes overused in this discussion, Sarewitz notes. The list of examples of abuse of science gathered by the UCS includes an incident involving a panel charged with setting safe levels of lead in drinking water, when staff-picked scientists were replaced by people with ties to the lead industry. According to Sarewitz, there is a big difference between altering scientific conclusions and putting someone from the private sector on an advisory board. The first instance is a clear manipulation of science and the scientific process, he says, while the second is not.

Sorry Dr. Sarewitz, packing a board with industry-hacks that will refuse to operate in the public's interest for the sake of protecting the economic interests of corporations is a textbook manipulation of science. It's the old "false expert" tactic. It is a clear manipulation of science to pack advisory board with interested parties, that's a total no-brainer.

In case you thought McCook was done with red herrings, next we have this beauty:

And it's not just 20th and 21st century politicians who've been tough on science: In the later 19th century, some politicians (including southern Democrats) argued that funding of basic science that had no direct public benefit to the nation's farmers was a misuse of federal dollars and best left in the hands of private funders, which led to significant cutbacks in federal funding. Imagine trying to do basic research in that climate, says Daniel Kevles, a science historian at Yale University in New Haven, Conn. Anyone who believes that political interference with American science is worse now than ever before has "some degree of historical ignorance," Kevles notes.

The 19th century? Are you fucking kidding me? Government was a miniscule fraction of the size it is now with nothing even resembling the scientific agencies we have now like FDA, NIH, NASA, EPA etc. There was no scientific infrastructure to undermine. But even so, what is the relevance of this claim that some southern farmers didn't care much for basic science over 110 years ago, is she trying to imply a rich history of anti-scientific anti-intellectualism is a justification for it now?

What else can we say, how about molecular biologists are whiners?

What may be adding to the perception that the Bush administration is harder on science than ever before is that in recent years, biology has borne the brunt of political interference in science, which is a decidedly unfamiliar experience for many life scientists. "So far, most of [biologists'] experience with Congress has been showing up and asking for money and going home," says Henry Kelly, president of the Federation of American Scientists. Now, politicians spend less time talking about atomic energy and space exploration, and more time debating issues related to climate science, biodiversity, reproduction, and molecular biology. So for biologists, it's natural to wholeheartedly believe that politics is interfering more in research, because it's something they largely have not encountered for years, says Kevles. Especially for young scientists, who have only the NIH boom of the 1990s as a comparison, what's going on "is kind of a shock."

That's why we have a problem with Bush. It's not the promotion of abstinence in Africa to fight AIDS, or the banning of meaningful hES cell research using federal dollars, or his unwillingness to accept evolution, it's that we're just pissed that we have a harder time getting grant money. It's true, we are pissed about that, but what does that have to do with Bush's general anti-science approach to governance? What does that have to do with suppressing research on global warming? Like forcing NASA to invest in idiotic moon missions rather than focusing on climate (and even removing the study of earth from their mission statement)? Or putting a lackey in charge of NASA who suppresses or Blodgerizes scientific reports? What does that have to do with his wretched public health policies? Clearly nothing, we're just whiny biologists, and when we don't get paid we apparently just generate a battery of anti-science policies out of thin air.

If all this wasn't bad enough, here's what McCook thinks is good news:

The private sector has kept its R&D funding flowing in recent years, reaching its highest estimated level of close to $40 billion in 2005, only among companies that are members of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA). The current administration has encouraged this growth by continuing an R&D tax credit that lets companies write off a portion of their R&D expenses. (The credit expired last December, however, and was also in place for much of recent administrations.) "The President has a very strong record of support for private sector science," according to the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), led by Marburger.

The Bush administration's prescription drug plan, Medicare Part D, which began in January 2006, has also helped industry science by increasing the number of people who can buy prescription medications, says Jayson Slotnik, the director of Medicare reimbursement and economic policy at the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO). Pharmaceutical companies "are more profitable now; they have more people using the products," says Slotnik. "They have more money and they can spend it more on R&D."

OMFG! She just found an industry hack to say that the biggest bilking of taxpayers of all time, Medicare Part D, which the administration lied to congress about the cost of to get it passed, is good for science? And why? Because it dumps so much money into drug companies pockets (I hope they have extra room) that it may trickle down into more research. Let's see, what are some problems with this argument?

1. Drug companies spend more on marketing than R&D.
   
2. Since the legalization of Direct-to-Consumer Advertising (DTCA) prescription costs have been surging, with drug companies already making an absolute fortune.
   
3. Drug companies are not innovators (see Marcia Angell's writings), they mosty make "me-too" or "sibling" drugs, and aren't responsible for the majority of basic research that leads to revolutionary drugs.
   
4. This is just so stupid it makes my head hurt.

The next stupidity? Because foundation spending on science has increased, Bush is not anti-science, because he didn't stop charities from spending money on science. I'm not kidding.

Foundation spending on biomedical research has also increased in recent years, from $1.4 billion in 1994 to $2.5 billion in 2003, according to the JAMA report. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which funds biomedical research along with education and other programs, awarded $330 million in grants by 1998; by 2005, that cumulative number had risen to $10.2 billion. The Bush administration has been "neutral to positive" towards foundation spending on research by not "getting in the way," says Hamilton Moses, first author of the JAMA paper, based at the Alerion Institute in Virginia, which monitors research productivity.

Well, isn't that sweet of him. It's also very kind of him for not being disappointed in us lazy scientists for not fully understanding the genome the year after we decoded it. Again, I shit you not.

Even if NIH funding stays flat, there are many signs that the government supports science, and takes scientists at their word. The scientific community has "done very, very well, and the federal government gives them a lot of leeway," notes Greenberg. Marburger says that he can attest from "personal experience and direct knowledge that this Administration is implementing the President's policy of strongly supporting science and applying the highest scientific standards in decision-making."

For instance, biologists have not been taken to task for promising huge, still unrealized benefits to spending taxpayer dollars on decoding the human genome. The two most expensive NIH awards in 2005 went to projects aimed at further decoding the genome, suggesting that, despite the lack of clinical results, the government still believes the advice of scientists who say this is an important project. "I don't have any reason to believe the administration is not committed to building on what the genome has taught us," says Frankel.

Gosh, the generosity. They'll give us another few years to figure out the biggest puzzle on the planet before they take the genome project and scrap it.

Ready for another red herring? Apparently scientists are meanies because they don't believe in a Democracy of facts.

Part of what may be fueling many scientists' distress over the Bush administration's attitude to science is that many scientists don't understand that politicians have to consider more than just science, and take advice from more than just scientists. This is how policy works, notes Lubchenco, now at Oregon State University. "Some scientists seem to imply that 'if the science says X, then the policy should follow blindly.' And I don't think that's true," she says. Scientists often act "as if the science automatically tells you what you should do, which it doesn't," and making a decision that's not responsive to scientific input doesn't necessarily mean a politician is "anti-science," notes Sarewitz.

In politics, certain facts are debated, which is an unfamiliar (and uncomfortable) experience to some scientists, but quite familiar to anyone who has inhabited the halls of Congress, says Kevles. Anyone who presents a view that interferes with a politician's vested interest will receive scrutiny, whether they're talking about science or not, he adds. "Politics is debate, it's negotiation... you can't just expect to issue some kind of declaration from the mountaintop."

Oh yeah, we scientists, we never debate. Our simple little minds can't understand something as difficult as a disparity of ideas.

This is BS. The scientific unwillingness to debate scientific fact is not arrogance or ignorance, it's the age old adage that you are entitled to your own opinions but not your own facts. This conflation of fact with opinion is another old denialist saw. She might as well have said, "It's just a theory, and congress doesn't need to pay attention to any little old theory." Sounds like freaking creationism!

Then there's this lovely chart:



Hey everything is ok because industry is getting more money! Notice, Bush gets credit for the increase in industry R&D even though the slope of that line hasn't changed since the early 90s, while the NIH budget line looks like it got whacked with a frying pan.

Oy. Well, let's see, we've had red herrings, selectivity, and false experts (Marburger and this BIO guy - as well as the justification of packing panels with false experts). What are we missing? Impossible expectations (or magnification of doubt) and ... conspiracy theories! I don't think she whips out the magnification of doubt arguments, but she does end up with a whopper of a conspiracy theory.

Apparently the UCS is just a bunch of hateful Democrats! They're not scientists, just liberal quacks out to get the president!

For instance, most scientists are Democrats and are public about it. In the 2004 election, the group "Scientists and Engineers for Change" endorsed Democratic candidate John Kerry. When scientists publicly align themselves with Democrats, some Republicans may suspect scientists of having an agenda, says Pielke. Furthermore, Democratic scientists are more likely to criticize a Republican president, given that they likely disagree with him ideologically, not just about science, says Sarewitz. An interesting poll would compare opinions of President Bush between Democratic and Republican scientists, to determine how much of an influence party affiliation may have, adds Sarewitz (who voted for Bush's opponent, John Kerry, in the last presidential election, and has donated money to the Democratic Party). [Note this "interesting poll doesn't exist, it sure would be interesting though!]

It's also always in scientists' interest to say there isn't ever enough funding for research, but those cries for money don't necessarily reflect a crisis, says Greenberg. "Anytime [scientists] don't get 110% of what they ask for, they act like doomsday has arrived," he notes. It's an understandable reaction. "No group that receives money from the federal government says, 'we have enough,'" he adds.

...

In the 1970s, biologists dealt with public and political concerns about recombinant DNA technology, with critics suggesting that the technology could create powerful viruses or resistant bacteria, and also violated ethics by manipulating DNA. However, over years, scientists gradually helped craft a compromise that enabled them to conduct the research, eventually developing a series of life-saving medicines, such as recombinant insulin and erythropoietin. And last August, the FDA approved over-the-counter use of Plan B in women 18 years of age and older. Scientists can convince politicians and the public of their opinions, but it takes time and effort, says Kevles. "This is something [scientists] have to do day after day, month after month, year after year."

You here that? We're a bunch of grant-seeking Democrats that won't let any ethical boundary stop us from getting our precious science done (she makes us sound like mad-scientists). However, I must have lost the anti-Bush Democrat-Scientist newsletter that tells me that Bush is an anti-scientific hooligan because he's a Republican. It's either that or my antenna that downloads instructions directly from Howard Dean at the DNC must be broken.

This is such BS. Scientists didn't form the UCS or the SEA because we hate Republicans, we didn't do it under Reagan, or Ford, or Nixon, or George Sr. We formed these groups because he's an anti-scientific asshole. It's not a political conspiracy you freaking nut. It really is about the science!

Ok, I think she gets a 9 out of a possible 10 on the denialism index since she had multiple BS experts (esp Marburger, what a hack), multiple red herrings and illogical arguments, as well as the selectivity. That last conspiracy theory was the icing on the cake bringing her from 6/10 to 9/10. What a joke.

The Rev. Doctor loves the 19th Century. He loves its quaint ethnic stereotypes, its quack theories, and its excessive use of spats. Thus, he should be pleased to know that a eugenicist crackpot straight out of an HG Wells novella has been expounding on humanity's future over at the BBC. Beware of morlocks!

Also, PZ Myers explains that I, a human female, am not simply an ingeniously disguised chimpanzee. This comes as quite a relief.

Also, is it just me, or does the Y chromosome look all sad and blobby? By contrast, the X appears to be a mighty shag rug of genetic potential.

This post is incredible. He should cross-post this as a diary at Kos or some other blog interested in keeping integrity of elections.

We haven't heard from Chris's blog in a while, but now it's back, he's posting about interesting things under the moniker, "A Brown Study Blog." I realize a brown study is one of pointless abstraction, but I can't help thinking of the brown note.

Oh well.

Bill Maher vomited this at viewers on Real Time last week. It's quoted in full, because every single word is divine:

And finally, New Rule: If you think the worst thing Congress doesn't protect young people from is Mark Foley, then wake up and smell the burning planet. The - the ice caps are cracking, the coral reefs are bleaching, and our poisoned groundwater has turned spinach into a "side dish of mass destruction." Read the labels on your food. It turns out the healthiest thing you can put in your body is Mark Foley's penis.

But that's America for you: a red herring culture, always scared by the wrong things. The fact is, there are a lot of creepy, middle-aged men out there lusting for your kids. They work for MTV, the pharmaceutical industry, McDonald's, Marlboro, and K Street.

And recently, there's been a rash of strangers making their way onto school campuses and targeting your children for death. They're called military recruiters. More young Americans were crippled in Iraq last month than any month in the last two years. And the scandal is that Mark Foley wants to show them a good time before they go?

When will our closeted gay congressmen learn, our boys aren't for pleasure, they're for cannon fodder? Why aren't Democrats and the media hammering away every day about who we're supposed to be fighting for over there, and what the plan is? Yes, Mark Foley was wrong to ask teenagers how long their penis was. But at least someone on Capitol Hill was asking questions.

You know who else is grabbing your kids at too young an age? Merck, Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline. By convincing you that your kids are depressed, hyperactive or suffering from ADD. In the last decade, the number of children prescribed anti-psychotic drugs in America increased by over 400%. Which means either that our children are going insane-which we might look on as a problem-or more likely, we have, for profit, created a nation of little junkies.

So, stop with the righteous indignation about predators. This whole country is trying to get inside your kid's pants, because that's where he keeps his wallet.

I don't care - I don't care if Mark Foley had been asking boys to describe their penis because I have some sad news for you: your kid is so larded out on Cheetohs and YooHoo, he can't even see his penis. So many of our kids are fat drug addicts nowadays, it's almost as if Rush Limbaugh had puppies!

So we can pretend that the biggest threat to our children is some creep on the Internet, or we can admit it's us. Because when your son can't find France on a map, or touch his toes with his hands, or understand that the ads on TV are lying, including the one where the Marine turns into Lancelot--then the person f***ing him...is you.

It's amazing that weeks before the elections that are showing all signs of a giant Republican spanking that Bush continues to show he is living in another world. In his world, al Qaeda is going to attack from space.

I realize that the PNAC conspiracy theories are a bit of a joke, but doesn't this sound like t