Categories
Politics Skepticism/critical thinking

President Straw Man

Now here’s something you don’t see every day: a news analysis article pointing out a politician’s love of a logical fallacy: WASHINGTON – “Some look at the challenges in Iraq and conclude that the war is lost and not worth another dime or another day,” President Bush said recently. Another time he said, “Some say […]

Categories
Bioethics Medicine

New project: The Ethics of Vaccines

Since I’ve found myself drawn into blogging about vaccines and the antivaccination movement so much, I was interested to learn of a new project dedicated to discussing the ethical issues involved with vaccination being launched at the University of Pennsylvania: The Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine announced the beginning […]

Categories
Politics

Senator Frank Lautenberg: Xenophobe or pandering to xenophobes?

While driving into work this morning, I was a bit disturbed to hear a news report about a speech New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg gave yesterday to a group of dockworkers in Newark who were protesting the proposed takeover of several U.S. ports by a company owned by the United Arab Emirates. Quoth the Senator […]

Categories
Bioethics

EneMan in danger?

I can understand wanting transparency regarding the gifts that pharmaceutical reps give doctors, particularly those of the more expensive variety, but this is ridiculous: At least nine states are considering bills that would require drugmakers to publicly report how much they and their sales representatives give to doctors, hospitals and pharmacists each year. A few […]

Categories
Evolution

Ohio rejects intelligent design

As someone who lived in Cleveland for 8 years and whose wife grew up in Toledo, it does my heart good to see that the Ohio Board of Education finally got something right. They voted to strike language in their state science standards singling out evolution for a “critical evaluation: COLUMBUS, Ohio, Feb. 14 — […]