HuckleB
HuckleB's Journal
The Ben Carson Contradiction: Why Intelligent People Can Be Stupid, Too
And, yes, there are the very big issues of deceit, although even there one can explore the issues of memory. Regardless, Carson's case is worth exploring on a human level. These two pieces cover some really interesting ground toward that end, IMO. Both pieces are written by MDs, offering some further exploration of the concerns about Carson.
The Ben Carson Contradiction by Steven Novella, MD
http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/the-ben-carson-contradiction/#more-8543
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I bring all this up in order to address a question – how can one person be undeniably brilliant in one sphere of their intellectual life, and shockingly ignorant and anti-intellectual in other spheres? I have heard this question often in recent weeks, pretty much every time a new revelation about Carson’s beliefs comes out.
I don’t think this is as much of a contradiction as it may at first seem. Carson is evidence for something that I have tried to emphasize often here – all humans suffer from similar cognitive flaws and biases. We can all be brilliant and stupid at the same time, and apparently have no difficulty compartmentalizing our beliefs in order to minimize cognitive dissonance.
I write frequently about the neuroscience of belief, because I think there is no greater insight we can have than how our own brains function, because that is the tool we use to understand the rest of the universe. Invariably, however, when I discuss a specific cognitive flaw or bias, the common reaction is the equivalent of, “Yeah, other people are stupid.”
Take, for example, the Dunning-Kruger effect. I almost universally hear this principle described as, “dumb people are too dumb to realize how dumb they are.” The data, however, does not support this conclusion. It does not reveal something about “dumb people,” but rather something about all people. We are all on the Dunning-Kruger spectrum, and we can be on different places on the spectrum with regard to different areas of knowledge, at the same time.
..."
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Ben Carson: A case study on why intelligent people are often not skeptics by David Gorski, MD
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2015/11/06/ben-carson-why-intelligent-people-are-not-necessarily-skeptics/
"As a surgeon, I find Ben Carson particularly troubling. By pretty most reports, he was a skilled neurosurgeon who practiced for three decades, rising to the chief of neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins. Yet, when he ventures out of the field of neurosurgery—even out of his own medical specialty—he routinely lays down some of the dumbest howlers I’ve ever heard. For example, he denies evolution, but, even worse, he’s been a shill for a dubious supplement company, Mannatech. Worse still, when called out for his relationship with Mannatech in the last Republican debate, Carson lied through his teeth about it. The pseudoscientific views he relates have been so bad that he led me to resurrect some old schtick that I had abandoned years ago about physicians denying evolution leading me to put a paper bag over my head in shame for my profession. I’m also reminded of it not just by media stories about Carson’s latest verbal gaffe but because I work within easy walking distance of the Ben Carson High School of Medicine and Science, a STEM-related high school designed to encourage high school students to pursue careers in the sciences.
...
As a physician and a surgeon, I never cease to be amazed at how brilliant physicians, who are so knowledgeable and skilled at medicine, can be so irredeemably ignorant about topics not related to medicine, and even, as was the case with Ben Carson’s dubious cancer cure testimonial for Mannatech, medical topics not related to their specific specialty. Indeed, Andy Borowitz nailed it well when portrayed Carson as “shattering the stereotype about brain surgeons being smart.”
Or did he?
...
It’s not surprising, then, that physicians might come to overestimate their ability to master another discipline, at least well enough to pontificate confidently on it. Of course we can! We’re doctors! We made it through the ringer that is medical school, residency, and board certification. Just give me enough time and enough Google and we can learn anything! Is it any wonder that physicians are particularly prone to the Dunning-Kruger effect? Not to me, at least not any more. The same seems to be true of many other high-achieving people. There’s a reason that most leaders in the antivaccine movement tend to be affluent, highly educated people. J.B. Handley, for instance, is a successful businessman who has basically said that he doesn’t need to listen to us pointy-headed scientists and physicians; he’s learned what he needs to learn about vaccines causing autism himself.
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Anti-GMOers Spread Baseless Fear About Possibly Non Existent Monsanto Bananas.
Posted by Mark Lynas on his Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Mark-Lynas-168122006568847/ :
"Just when you thought anti-GMO campaigners couldn't get any dumber, they come up with this gem - warning about the danger of GMO bananas in Hawaii. These 'Monsanto bananas' will apparently "cross-pollinate" with conventional ones, forcing farmers to pay Monsanto.
http://mauinews.com/page/content.detail/id/603710/GMO-bananas-threaten-diversity-of-crops-in-Hawaii.html?nav=18
Note to the crazies: all bananas are sterile clones, and produce no pollen. Better come up with a new argument quick! (Actually I suspect the entire story is false - it's the first I've heard of Monsanto working on GMO bananas.)"
Protesters Gather at 'Saturday Night Live' Studio to Oppose Donald Trump Hosting
"It is shameful for 'SNL' and NBC to think that racism can be repackaged as comedy."
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/donald-trump-snl-controversy-protesters-837264
"Pressure continued to mount on NBC to cancel Donald Trump's guest-host appearance on this weekend's Saturday Night Live as a coalition of advocacy groups delivered petitions to the network Wednesday calling for him to be dropped from the show.
The petitions delivered to 30 Rockefeller Plaza, home of NBC and Saturday Night Live, marked the latest attempts to dissuade the network from allowing the Republican presidential hopeful to host the show, with the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda earlier asking that NBC reconsider the decision.
"There's mounting evidence that Donald Trump's racist demagoguery is resulting in real-world violence and physical and verbal intimidation," said Mushed Zaheed, deputy political director of Credo Action, one of the participating groups, in a statement.
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Other participating groups included the National Hispanic Media Coalition, MoveOn.org and National Council of La Raza. About two-dozen protesters were on hand as the petitions were delivered to NBC's midtown Manhattan offices. Some chanted "dump Trump" and carried signs bearing the same phrase.
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Eff NBC. 
Religious kids are harsher and less generous than atheist ones, study says
http://www.oregonlive.com/faith/2015/11/religious_kids_are_harsher_and.html"When it comes to teaching kids the Golden Rule, Sunday school might not be the best bet.
A new study in the journal Current Biology found children in religious households are significantly less generous than their non-religious peers.
At the same time, religious parents were more likely than non-religious ones to consider their children empathetic and sensitive to the plight of others.
...
This study challenges those attitudes. It was the children in non-religious homes most likely to be generous toward a stranger. The longer a child had lived in a religious home, the stingier he was compared to his secular peers.
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FWIW.
The horrible consequences of seeking “natural” immunity: Naturopathy and Whooping Cough
https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-horrible-consequences-of-seeking-natural-immunity-naturopathy-and-whooping-cough/"If there’s one area of “alternative” medicine that saddens (and angers) me, it’s the antivaccine movement. Most alternative medicine only risks harm to the user. But antivaccinationists threaten public health. Their actions can harm the most vulnerable in our society – often children, and others who depend on the herd immunity that vaccination provides. After my last few naturopathy vs. science posts I thought I’d take a bit of a break with another subject. However, last week ex-naturopath (and friend of the blog) Britt Hermes flagged a post from a naturopath that stunned me. Here was antivaccinationism and naturopathy, all rolled into a blog post about three children with a parent that doesn’t vaccinate. Heather Dexter, who claims to be a “Board Certified Naturopathic Doctor” in Michigan, blogs at likemindedmamas.com. She recently used her blog to describe, in astonishing, horrific, gut-wrenching detail, how she let three of her children suffer with whooping cough without seeking proper medical attention. The post was pulled down after a few days, but has recently reappeared with some modifications. (The original post, which I am quoting from below, has been archived and can be found here or here). I strongly encourage you to read the entire post in its entirety. Because amazingly, not only did Heather Dexter let her three children suffer through weeks of pain with whooping cough, she also subjected them repeatedly to invasive (and useless) alternative medicine. Yet she claims to have no regrets.
Whooping cough is preventable. Antivaccinationists oppose this.
Vaccination has likely prevented more deaths in the past 50 years than any other health intervention. Infectious diseases that used to kill millions have been fully or almost completely eradicated – all through the effectiveness of vaccines. Smallpox was a ruthless killer that took 300 million lives, just in the 20th century alone. Today it’s gone – eliminated forever. And now there are now over two dozen diseases that are vaccine-preventable. They should be an easy sell, and to most people, they are. There is an effective vaccine is for pertussis – whooping cough. Pertussis is caused by the bacteria Bordetella pertussis, and infections can be serious – particularly in infants. It causes rapid, violent coughing and then a sudden inspiration of breath – the “whoop” sound. If you’ve never seen it before, go watch some videos of it so you know what it looks and sounds like. It’s upsetting to watch, and can terrify parents. Pertussis can kill infants. In older children, it can cause coughing spell so violent children can pass out – or fracture ribs. They often end up with bruised eyes and broken capillaries – like the picture above – simply due to the intensity of the coughs. Having watched the videos, I find it difficult to accept that a parent wouldn’t choose to prevent this disease in their child. Because you can, easily. The DTaP vaccine protects against pertussis. The introduction of a vaccine reduced the incidence of pertussis infections by 99%. It is highly effective (98% after the 5 doses) and the pertussis vaccine has no serious side effects. None. The statistics demonstrate the effectiveness of the pertussis vaccine – this disease has almost been eliminated, and so have the harms (like residual lung damage), the misery, and the deaths. Just this week there emerged new evidence that suggests a relationship between pertussis and epilepsy; children who have had hospital-diagnosed pertussis were almost twice as likely to subsequently be diagnosed with epilepsy. While this does not establish cause and effect, it suggests that there may be more damage caused by a pertussis infection that initially thought. All the more reason to be vaccinated, and further evidence against the idea that “natural” immunity is somehow superior to the immunity conferred by vaccines.
Naturopaths and advocates of “natural medicine” have long opposed vaccination, dismissing it as “unnatural” for as long as vaccines have been around. Benedict Lust, who introduced naturopathy in the United States, stated his opposition to the smallpox vaccine in 1918, in his Universal Directory of Naturopathy. Lust introduced the core tenets of the naturopathic belief system: natural is better; vaccines are unnatural (and therefore bad); we’re being poisoned from within (i.e., you need to detox); and naturopaths treat “root causes” while medical doctors don’t. None of these concepts have any basis in reality. The eradication of smallpox, due to the vaccine, had no effect on naturopath practices. That’s because naturopathy is a belief system, rather than a science-based practice. Naturopathy is based on the idea of vitalism, a pre-scientific belief that biological organisms are fundamentally different that non-biologic organisms. Today naturopaths call it the “vital force” but the meaning is the same. Naturopaths believe their treatments restore this “vital force”. The practice of naturopathy has evolved over time into a mix of disproven or unproven health practices that including homeopathy, acupuncture, “detoxification” and herbalism, along with the occasional science-based belief repackaged as “alternative”. To be clear, not all naturopaths are antivaccine today – but the evidence demonstrates that antivaccination sentiment persists. The longer naturopaths are in naturopathy school, the less supportive they become of vaccines. One survey of naturopathy students found only 12.8% were supportive of the full pediatric vaccination schedule. Care from a naturopath is associated with fewer vaccinations and a greater likelihood of vaccine preventable disease. And a survey of Massachusetts naturopaths and homeopaths noted that most did not recommend vaccination. Additionally, a survey of children’s records from an Ontario naturopathic clinic identified 8.9% of children had not been vaccinated. And a year ago, I blogged about the president of the College of Naturopathic Doctors of Alberta, Allissa Gaul, who refused to endorse vaccination – even as that province was facing an outbreak of whooping cough and measles. While naturopaths claim to be primary care providers, their continued hostility to vaccination, and their persistent use of unproven and disproven therapies has raised questions about their ability to provide care based on an accepted medical standard.
..."
Aleksandar Hemon: ‘It’s the end of America. They just don’t know it yet’
Interview: The Bosnian-American writer’s new novel is a comedy with tragedy at its heart: the main characters have all been destroyed by state-sponsored conflicts
http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/aleksandar-hemon-it-s-the-end-of-america-they-just-don-t-know-it-yet-1.2411564
"It’s not every day you read a novel that moves effortlessly between references to the philosopher Baruch Spinoza, eruptions of the crazed undead, a po-faced TV image of George Bush, sidewinding literary references – “Did the Wife of Bath drink soy milk chai lattes?” – and a joke that begins: “John Wayne goes to Sarajevo . . .”
The Making of Zombie Wars, the new novel from the Bosnian-American writer Aleksandar Hemon, doesn’t so much move as whizz the reader from the heights of creative whimsy to the depths of human tragedy – and back again – with barely time to draw breath.
The story begins as Hemon’s central character, Joshua Levin, is attending a screenwriting workshop, where his best effort at a screenplay is the eponymous Zombie Wars. The text of this fledgling movie (in which people who irritate Joshua tend to get eaten by zombies) is woven through the novel, as are the high-concept film pitches that Josh obsessively notes down in his laptop, like attacks of narrative hiccups.
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Has he ever. “The Bush years?” he begins. “The damage is just immeasurable. The destruction is enormous. And what is even more damaging is the inability to address that in its fundamentals. This perpetuation of denial of the facts, including the fact that the United States is no longer a superpower. It has failed miserably. Part of the point of the Iraq war was to assert American power and its right and ability to fix things around the world, and they’ve f***ed it up beyond any measure. Plus, no one has paid any price for that. None. Never mind jail and torture and extraordinary rendition and all that: just, ‘Do you know what you’ve done, Mr Rumsfeld?’ None whatsoever.”
..."
Hemon is an incredible author, and this interview is fantastic. Please give it a read.
Opponents of Washington state anti-tax measure eyeing court action
http://registerguard.com/rg/news/local/33676616-75/opponents-of-washington-state-anti-tax-measure-eyeing-court-action.html.csp"Longtime tax foe Tim Eyman’s latest effort to limit Washington lawmakers’ ability to raise taxes appears to be headed to victory. But opponents are already promising a court challenge.
The latest returns Wednesday show Initiative 1366 has about 54 percent of the statewide vote. The measure was passing in most counties but trailed in King County, the state’s most populous. Because Washington is a vote-by-mail state, ballots will be trickling in for days.
The measure would decrease the 6.5-percent state sales tax to 5.5 percent unless the Legislature approves a constitutional amendment to reinstate a two-thirds legislative majority requirement, which would go to voters on the November 2016 ballot.
Currently, taxes can be raised through a simple-majority vote of the Legislature.
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I hope they can do something. Washington voters really screwed up on this one. Sheesh.
Rare Omura’s whale caught on camera
http://www.dansvilleonline.com/article/ZZ/20151103/SHAREABLE/151109962"One of the most mysterious whales in the ocean has been captured on film for the first time. In fact, the footage comes from the first confirmed observations of the species in the wild.
Omura's whales were long mistaken for another species. Genetic data confirmed their uniqueness in 2003, but all of the information came from dead samples -- whale bits left over from Japanese whaling expeditions and carcasses found stranded on shore. Small (between 33 and 38 feet long) and inconspicuous, live whales remained elusive.
In a study published recently in the Royal Society Open Science Journal, researchers report encounters with 44 groups of Omura's whales off the coast of Madagascar. When they first spotted the species in 2011, the marine biologists thought they must be mistaken.
"From the little information on their habitat and range, Omura's whales were not supposed to be in that part of the Indian Ocean," lead researcher Salvatore Cerchio of the New England Aquarium said in a statement.
..."
Ben Carson Versus Those Highfalutin Scientists
http://www.germantownnow.com/blogs/communityblogs/340106781.html"...
According to several recent national polls, the current Republican presidential front runner is retired surgeon Dr. Ben Carson. An October St. Norbert poll found that Carson also leads in Wisconsin. How does the current GOP presidential leader measure-up on comprehension of basic science? Surely someone with a medical degree has been exposed to enough basic science courses to at least have an appreciation and rudimentary understanding of science. Right?
Wrong. In instance after instance, Ben Carson has exhibited not only an appalling ignorance of basic science, but an outright denial of it. For example, in a revealing 2012 speech, Carson rejected one of the cornerstones of modern Astronomy, the Big Bang theory.
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Even in medicine, Carson's grasp of science is suspect. He has come under fire for his role as a spokesman for a quackish supplement company that claims to have a cure for autism and cancer.
So Ben Carson, the current GOP front runner-a man who wants to make technological decisions for the US, a man who would oversee the spending of $135 billion in R&D-thinks the devil had a hand in Darwinian evolution. He thinks that the Big Bang is a fairy tale from some highfalutin scientists. He thinks that there was a worldwide flood. He doesn't believe in the fact of human-caused global heating. He was a spokesman for a quack medicine company. He thinks that much of modern science is "propaganda".
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