Dean Esmay and Orac

A while ago I pointed out that Dean Esmay had not bothered responding to Oracs excellent debunking of the pathology report produced by Dr. Al-Bayati. As it turns out, he probably won't as he has stated over at another analysis of the report at Catallarchy.

I tried reading Orac’s response, by the way, but it was so full of false accusations that I couldn’t get through it.

Of course, noting that Dean doesn't bother trying to support this statement and instead just dodges any of the points that Orac raised. In fact, Dean by accusing Orac of being dishonest repeatedly, never engaging any of his points that he raised just puts on a big hat labelled 'hypocrite'. This from a man who asked his opponents,

I wonder if the Suicide Girls or Orac Knows will show any class, decency or honesty on the subject now that we know the truth?

Which of course invoked the original response by Orac to Deans claims. The only problem was the 'truth' happens to be a little different than what Dean would have others believe. Where did Dean go in terms of actually addressing the arguments put forth by Orac after this point?

The man argues first and foremost through attacks on others’ credibility. I do not, for example, “wave credentials” at anybody, not for my friends or detractors. I note only that credentials do matter, and that in any area of science, a qualified scientist should be respected as having the right to a dissent, even if it’s a minority position, AND, that one shouldn’t treat qualified scientists as kooks or people who can be dismissed with an airy wave of the hand.

But of course Dean does, because he attempts to use Dr. Al-Bayatis credentials instead of if the man is factually correct as the support for the argument. According to Dean, you can be completely wrong on something but because of your credentials it should still be considered as a possibility? This sounds amazingly similar to other kinds of nonsense that gets put out, such as those pushing alternative treatments like crystal healing, the psudoscience of ID/creationists and holocaust deniers. Just because someone has a degree Dean doesn't make them right and neither does it make them credible in any respect. Of course, Dean claims that Orac 'dismissed' the report with an airy wave of the hand. You can go and read what Orac wrote for yourself and make up your own mind. The only person here dismissing anything with an 'airy wave of the hand' is Dean. I'm sure the irony is lost on him however.

Orac’s dishonesty in this leads me to the (admittedly ad hominem) conclusion that he can’t be trusted to be honest on anything else.

More like this is a brilliant way of avoiding having to actually formulate any form of response to Orac. Instead, Dean can claim the high ground first by claiming Orac is being dishonest (without explanation) and then not respond to the substance of any of Oracs points whatsoever. Of course, he still claims that the cause of death was anaphylaxis, even if there wasn't any associated pathology that indicates such a hypothesis except for grasping at straws (see Oracs or Catallarchy for reasons why that is).

Iron Crotch

I think we can put this onto the 'incredibly strange' category, but it turns out that a man who practices a branch of Qigone called 'Iron Crotch' actually managed to pull a truck with his jolly rodger.

Grandmaster Tu Jin-Sheng, best known for his Iron Crotch, attached himself not once, but twice, to a rental moving truck and pulled it several yards across a parking lot in Fremont. In lace-up leather boots and a black tank top, the 50-year-old tied a strip of blue fabric around the base of his penis and testicles and tugged to make sure it was on tight. An assistant kicked him hard between the legs before he lashed himself to the vehicle.

Now that is an incredibly impressive feat though I have a feeling it's not something I should be doing any time soon.

New Kansas University course

I certainly would sign up for this new course at Kansas University:

Intelligent design — already the planned subject of a controversial Kansas University seminar this spring — will make its way into a second KU classroom in the fall, this time labeled as a “pseudoscience.”

In addition to intelligent design, the class Archaeological Myths and Realities will cover such topics as UFOs, crop circles, extrasensory perception and the ancient pyramids.

Sounds like a really good idea and I would certainly attend it! Thanks to Pandas Thumb for the heads up on the issue (Well, it's where I saw it first anyway).

Twenty Second Skeptics Circle

The twenty second skeptics circle has been posted at milezero.org, so once again I suggest heading over there for a look at the best skeptical blogging around.

HIV spreading in New Zealand

It's always the same old story, a group of individuals becomes too complacent and start becoming more promiscuous, often with the mistaken belief HIV is 'cured' due to the available medication. Sure enough, the rates of HIV and associated cases of AIDS begin to rise dramatically and public awareness campaigns are run. Give it a few more years and people forget again, with the cycle repeating itself and so on. Really, just because there are effective medications available to treat HIV, doesn't mean that the virus itself just disappears all of a sudden and is no longer going to be a threat. The drugs themselves aren't even that pleasant to be on and have several particularly debilitating side effects (noting that they keep you alive, so it's not much of a choice sadly).

When will people learn :(

HIV denialism trounced

Although it may seem almost impossible to believe with the overwhelming evidence available that HIV causes AIDS, there is a small but incredibly vocal group that claim HIV is not the cause of AIDS. In fact, many HIV deniers claim that lifestyle choices, such as homosexuality, drug abuse (including using AZT, one of the drugs used to treat HIV) and other 'lifestyle choices' are what causes AIDS. If that sounds like the general load of codswollop that alties pull out with things like generic 'toxins' causing diseases then you'd be right.

Orac was recently prompted to write this incredible rebuttal to Dean Esmay who accused Orac (and others) of using the death of one HIV deniers child, Christine Maggiore as a 'political football' based on an extremely dodgy pathology report by one Dr. Mohammed Al-Bayati. Now backing up slightly for those not familiar with the story, Christine Maggiore is a well known HIV denier who is in fact infected with the disease. Unfortunately, she doesn't believe that AIDS can affect heterosexual normal people and only affects those with 'dirty' lifestyles like the poor and homosexuals. For her arrogance, she paid the ultimate price sadly and her second child, Eliza Jane died of what the L.A. county coroner described as 'AIDS related pneumonia'. Since then, Christine Maggiore and Dean Esmay have been trying to make any excuse to shift the blame from an AIDS related cause to that of an allergic reaction to amoxicillin the child was given or even other viruses entirely (see Oracs debunking above).

With the police and authorities breathing down Christine Maggiore for basically neglect and failure to provide proper care, she is desperately trying to pin down anything she can (except AIDS) for the death to stay out of prison. The only 'political grandstanding' occuring here is the rubbish coming out from the likes of Deam Esmay and the abysmally ridiculous report from Dr. Al-Bayati (who himself is a known HIV denier and has written books on the subject, surprised yet he used any tenuous evidence he could to link the girls death to anything other than AIDS?).

Now after the debunking of the so called 'expert' pathology report will Dean Esmay have the guts to actually address the arguments made from Orac? I'm going to bet that he probably won't, just like how the creationists seem to disappear when you provide them with solid scientific evidence for evolution.

Amazon Reviews of Jack Thomsons book

I've seen some hillarious explosions on Amazon before, namely that whole incident featuring Anne Rice from a while back but this new hoopla over Jack Thomsons new book Out of Harms way really takes the cake. Out of Harms way supposedly investigates the link to all of societies evils like murders, rapes and the like and promptly blames them on the entertainment industry. J. Thomson has been known for his incredibly overdone statements about the effects of video games, calling certain games 'murder simulators'. As a general rule, he's basically annoyed the entire gaming community with his various antics. Now review section for the book has turned into an utter firestorm with numerous users ripping Jack Thomson a new one. Reviews like this, awarding the book one out of five stars are pretty common:

Short on facts, long on hyperbole, should appeal to Kansas bible thumpers
who don't let facts mar their self-created belief system. I honestly
couldn't finish the book, wait for it to go on sale at the $1 table at your
local surplus book store if you just have to take a look at it.

Another example awards the book 5 out of 5 but not for any of its literary qualities:

I highly recommend you purchase and read this book. If not, I have it on good
authority that Jack Thompson will sue you. And your family. And your
grandmother

Speaking of suing, it turns out that ole Jack is already threatening to sue Amazon for allowing people to express their general dislike. He basically wants all of the negative reviews removed or he's going to sue them (though some of them can definitely be removed, while hillarious they are somewhat pointless and make no good point). Where this story will lead? Who knows I guess but it will be interesting to see if he actually does try to take Amazon on over this.

Good news about Tamiflu

Looks like giant corporations are prepared every so often to bow to common sense in the face of potential pandemics:

The main producer of Tamiflu, the drug thought to be the best defence against a flu pandemic caused by bird flu, has agreed a deal with the drug's inventor over worldwide production, the two companies said on Wednesday.

Basically this agreement will allow for greater supply of the drug, which will still probably be highly limited although it won't be quite so bad anymore. Additionally, they've made it easier for other 3rd party companies to manufacture the drug. While this isn't going to prevent a pandemic by itself it's a good decision and shows that companies can decide to disregard pure profits every so often.

Microbes and resistance

Tara C. Smith over from Aetiology discusses another example of bacteria developing resistance to new forms of antibiotics. In this case, researchers planned to use small peptides that are found in the immune systems of many organisms (including us) as novel antibiotics. Unfortunately, one of the researchers had a somewhat overconfident idea that bacteria would not be able to develop resistance against these peptides. Thankfully he was challenged on it and found that indeed, resistance would develop in these bacteria if they were exposed.

This was the question asked in a new study by Dr. Zasloff along with colleagues Gabriel Perron and Graham Bell. Following publication of his 2002 paper where he called evolution of resistance to these peptides “improbable,” Bell challenged Zasloff to test this theory. Zasloff took him up on the offer, and they’ve published their results in Proceedings of the Royal Society.

As I alluded to above, the result was the clear development of resistance to the peptides. So much for improbable I guess. What intrigues me is that it was already understood that resistance had already emerged in several bacterial pathogens previously. As T. Smith notes;

For example, resistance to antimicrobial peptides has been shown to be essential for virulence in Staphylococcus aureus and Salmonella species, but we didn't *witness* that resistance develop--therefore, it might simply be that those species have physiological properties that render them naturally resistant to many of these peptides, and were never susceptible in the first place.

I think one of the first examples of resistance was Salmonella enterica serovar typhimurium which is resistant to several antimicrobial peptides. I'm not sure why anyone would have been so confident to think that bacteria wouldn't develop resistance. If some organism had done it in the past (like Salmonella spp) you can almost be certain of them doing it agian. In fact, that would be one of the sorts of tests you could use in the whole ID vs. evolution 'controversy'. If bacteria could not develop some form of resistance again against a new antibiotic, when other species had in the past it would indicate there was something incredibly special or unusual about the previous resistance development. Evolutionary theory would very much predict the redevelopment of resistance even in a completely new species. This development doesn't have to be the same kind of resistance determinant of course, much like if you replayed evolution again flight might evolve in an entirely different way the second time.

Additionally, I think a lot of medical bacteriologists could use some of E. O. Wilsons thinking and fast. It's becoming very clear that individual bacterial species are irrelevant in the big game of evolution. The whole entire 'genome' of the population of bacteria in an area are more critical. If one organism has a mechanism for resistance against an antibiotic, it puts massive selection pressures on plasmids, bacteriophages and other roving DNA elements to aquire it. Quite frankly, I wonder how easily the existing resistance genes could start spreading under selection. It's too dangerous to consider bacteria just having to develop resistance because many of them probably won't. The simple reason is they won't have to, they can grab it from a friend instead.

That is scarier to me. Not the concept of one organism developing resistance, but one organism either having it to begin with or producing a new mechanism and then spreading it around to all of its friends.

Blogwars and comments

Having read that Orac was clarifying his blog comment process, I decided to follow the comment trails to what prompted him to do it in the first place. It turns out that after a rather heated disagreement on two blogs (story here and here) led to eventually legal action being taken and people getting generally upset. I suppose seeing this I'll clarify my general comment posting policy as well. Generally I will only delete a comment if someone is being an asshat or going utterly off the topic. I reserve the right however to delete whatever I feel like if I feel like it, however this is not a collection point for sycophants or an echo chamber so I will do my best not to remove comments. If it comes down to deleting peoples posts I will do so however and I will not always provide an explanation either.

Then again, as I said this is not a dictatorship or anything else like that. I welcome discussion (especially from those who disagree with me) and so long as you're courteous and don't insult myself (and especially other users) you're unlikely to get posts deleted.

Streptococcus pyogenes, so cute!

Giant microbes are indeed as awesome as advertised.



So cute!

Allan (Winace) has died.

One of the common posters in the creation/evolution debate arena was a fellow called winace. He ran several well known pages such as Fundies Say the Darndest things. Sadly, he has died recently of cystic fibrosis at the mere age of 20 years. This is a real shame and a big loss to the communities he was a part of (such as IIDB).

My condolences go to his family.

What is science?

Weebl appears to have the answer and in flash form as well! I could use a few boxes now that I think of it.

Hydrogen bond angles and...cancer?

Occasionally alties throw out some really wierd things, but this just takes the cake I think:

Fifty years ago the hydrogen bond angle in water was 108° and you rarely heard of anyone with cancer. Today, it's only 104° and, as a result, cancer is an epidemic!! By using our machine you can increase the bond angle to 114° and, unlike any other water, doctors can see an immediate change in the red blood cells under a microscope! It's truly amazing!!

Hmmm, that certainly does sound convincing to me! Who would have thought that hydrogen bond angles would be the cause of all those pesky cancers. Who would have then guessed that someone had come up with a solution for it that you could easily pay for right now! Orac gives this little piece of nuttery the shake down over at his blog.

I wonder how people come up with this stuff though.

Rothschild pwnage

The prosecution lawyer Rothschild, came out with an excellent pwn (again) against Michael Behe at the Dover trial now that I've managed to find the time to slog through the transcripts. During a discussion on the origin of the flagellum, Behe was asked about the scientific dialogue concerning possible evolutionary pathways from the type III secretion system:

Q. Okay. But scientists, as they do with many
subjects on which there's disagreement, may continue to
be making arguments and writing papers and submitting
them to peer review journals and doing experiments to
see if they can come up with a consensus answer on the
subject?
A. Sure. And they may write books to try to come up
with an answer, too, as well.
Q. That's how you get the royalties, right?
A. (No response.)

ZING! I wonder what sort of look Behe gave...

More Behe fun

This trial is a never ending source of pure comedy from Michael Behe. First he tries to redefine the term "Peer review" and now he's trying to redefine the term "critical reviewer". This comes from the cross examination by the prosecution lawyer Rothschild when questioning Behe over his role as a 'reviewer' of the ID textbook of Pandas and People.

Q But you actually were a critical reviewer of
18 Pandas, correct; that s what it says in the acknowledgments
19 page of the book?
20 A That s what it lists there, but that does not mean
21 that I critically reviewed the whole book and commented on
22 it in detail, yes.
23 Q What did you review and comment on, Professor Behe?
24 A I reviewed the literature concerning blood
25 clotting, and worked with the editor on the section that
OFFICIAL COURT REPORTER
BEHE - CROSS
27
1 became the blood clotting system. So I was principally
2 responsible for that section.
3 Q So you were reviewing your own work?
4 A I was helping review or helping edit or helping
5 write the section on blood clotting.
6 Q Which was your own contribution?
7 A That s -- yes, that s correct.
8 Q That s not typically how the term "critical review"
9 is used; would you agree with that?
10 A Yeah, that s correct.
11 Q So when the publishers of Pandas indicate that you
12 were a critical reviewer of Pandas, that s somewhat
13 misleading, isn t it?
14 MR. MUISE: Objection. Assumes that he understands
15 what their purpose for listing him as a critical reviewer.
16 THE COURT: He just answered the question that
17 that s not a critical review, so the objection is overruled.
18 You can ask that question.
19 BY MR. ROTHSCHILD:
20 Q Advertising you as a critical reviewer of this book
21 is misleading to the students, isn t it?
22 MR. MUISE: Objection, that s argumentative.
23 THE COURT: It s cross examination. It s
24 appropriate cross. Overruled.
25 THE WITNESS: I m sorry, could you repeat the
OFFICIAL COURT REPORTER
BEHE - CROSS
28
1 question?
2 BY MR. ROTHSCHILD:
3 Q Telling the readers of Pandas that you were a
4 critical reviewer of that book is misleading, isn t it?
5 A I disagree. As I said, that s not the typical way
6 that the term "critical reviewer" is used, but nonetheless,
7 in my opinion I don t think it is misleading.

So Pandas has blatantly false information in it and yet it is not being 'misleading'? I guess Behes definition of 'misleading' must be similar to his definition of 'Peer review'. In other words, one that nobody else happens to share.

Behe castrates himself at ID trial

As with all creationist attempts to insert their babbling into classrooms, it always ends up being decided in court because they are unable to convince anyone in the normal 'peer review' systems all other scientists do. Michael Behe, author of the somewhat interesting work of fiction Behes Black Box (or was it Darwins Black Box?) has claimed on the stand his book went through:

peer review for Darwin's Black Box was analogous to peer review in the [scientific] literature

Oh really? One of the reviewers that Behe cited for this 'peer review' was a Dr. Michael Atchison, who is the head of biochemistry at the University of Pennsylvania vetinary school. Of course, I would immediately point out if you're going to criticise evolution in your book, wouldn't it be best to have reviewers who are evolutionists to begin with? Anyway, discrepancies aside let's look at an article published by Dr. Atchison around the same time that the prosecution then presented:

While I was identifying myself as a Christian in Philadelphia, a Biochemist named Michael Behe at Lehigh University was writing a book on evolution. As a Biochemist, Behe found the evidence for Darwinian evolution to be very thin. In fact, when he looked at the cell from a biochemical perspective, he believed there was evidence of intelligent design. Behe sent his completed manuscript to The Free Press publishers for consideration. The editor was not certain that this manuscript was a good risk for publication. There were clearly theological issues at hand, and he was under the impression that these issues would be poorly received by the scientific community. If the tenets of Darwinian evolution were completely accepted by science, who would be interested in buying the book?

The editor shared his concerns with his wife. His wife was a student in my class. She advised her husband to give me a call. So, unaware of all this, I received a phone call from the publisher in New York. We spent approximately 10 minutes on the phone. After hearing a description of the work, I suggested that the editor should seriously consider publishing the manuscript. I told him that the origin of life issue was still up in the air. It sounded like this Behe fellow might have some good ideas, although I could not be certain since I had never seen the manuscript. We hung up and I never thought about it again. At least until two years later.

So in other words, this 'peer review' that Behe claims comes down to 10 minutes on the phone with someone who has never read the actual book. Behes response to this?

Rothschild (Prosecution lawyer): "Is this your understanding of the kind of peer review that Dr. Atcheson did of your book?"

Behe: "No"

Rothschild: "he didn't review it carefully, he didn't review it at all."

Behe: "My understanding is different."

Oh your understanding is different is it Behe? I'm sure it is, just as your understanding of the evidence for evolution concerning things like the immune system and bacterial flagella is different too? Very well done Behe, you just ruined whatever remaining credibility the ID movement had left in one fell swoop. You should feel really proud because it's not often that someone just completely pwns themself in that manner in one fell swoop and in court.

For more trial shenannigans go to the ACLU blog on the case. It's hillarity the whole way through as the ID proponents get eviscerated, usually with their own words too.

A rare personal type post.

Finally completed the last of my main hurdles before the end of the year with my oral exams being finished today. Now I'll have plenty of time for blogging and other aspects of general internet fun. Of course it's time to start looking for a job, considering options for moving onto a PhD and importantly deciding if I want to go overseas for a bit. Although I would have liked to walk in the graduation ceremony in december I missed out due to being busy with other things (so forgot to submit the form, doh!). Oh well, the ceremony in may sounds more attractive anyway because all of my other friends who are still studying will be around to see me graduate.

Overall I've found my time at Otago University to be extremely enjoyable. I've learnt a lot in the four years I've spent there, and developed considerably as both a person and as a scientist. Additionally I've met a lot of great people along the way and made excellent friends. Sometimes things have become a little disconnected as I started originally trying to do multiple degrees (biochemistry and microbiology at first), which just unfortunately made for too much of a workload that certainly didn't help the old stress meter.

19th Skeptics Circle has been posted

Nurse Kelly has gone with a carnival themed skeptics circle this week over at time to lean. Once again there are some excellent examples of skeptical writing available for your edification.

Arachnids faking it during sex

I've always had a fascination with the way that spiders decide to mate with one another. Being heavily armed predators by having webs, a bad temper and a nasty bite, mating is a very dicey affair at the best of times. Male spiders pretty much face an up-hill battle as the female is usually bigger, meaner and hungrier than he is. Worse, many species of spiders are almost blind or their eyesight isn't the best meaning males have an even harder time. This has resulted in males often having odd mating behaviours or very elaborate dances so that they avoid being eaten.

A recent paper published online in Biology Letters discusses the mating behaviour of Pisaura mirabilis males. These spiders use a strategy where the male attempts to distract the female by giving her a 'nupital gift', which consists of an insect he's caught and wrapped up in silk. While she dines on his gift, he sneaks in to mate and then gets away as quick as he can. Unfortunately, this strategy doesn't always work and instead of going for the tasty gift, she decides the male would be a more tasty snack!

The clever male however has a devious way of getting around this problem, he falls into thanatosis (plays dead) putting her attention back on the gift and not him. When she moves on to dine on the snack, he slowly gets up and proceeds to sneak in a mating while she isn't paying attention. This strategy works remarkably well as most males succeed in mating by doing this. Of course, the male sacrifices any form of defence he may have previously had and is more open to being cannabalised than he was originally. Additionally, the male also doesn't get as long to mate with his rather bossy mate as one who succeeds in the original courting.

Interestingly, playing dead is a relatively uncommon strategy among spiders and many other invertebrates as well. This is probably due to the large amount of risk that is involved, particularly as it does leave the male utterly defenseless and with some predatory insects it might not be overly much of a defence (female would attack anyway). Overall, it's yet another file to add in the kinky sex files of spiders.


Quite cute! (Picture found here, which also has pictures of other spiders as well. The site is in German though).