25 Sep 2006
Leaked intelligence report rocks Bush election stance

You know, if this wasn't a serious news item, and if we hadn't lost so many good boys in this insane war, I'd put this in my 'Humor' category as a "Study in Stupidity"...

I was skeptical about this war from the beginning - it seemed like a needless distraction from the hunt for the folks who flew airliners into buildings. My reservations would've vanished in a heartbeat if Saddam had been caught with nuclear/chemical/biological pants around his ankles - but he wasn't. And the planning for this fiasco had been nothing short of abominable.

The US military has effectively proved that it can overrun and conquer at will: the US administration has proved that it can barely run the government in Washington, much less anywhere else. We've gone from "Mission Accomplished" to "Mission Impossible" in a little over three years - and the parallels between our intervention in Vietnam and this war have grown over the same period.

I think everybody in DC is beginning to understand the term "quagmire" right about now: if we announce a firm date for our withdrawal, we insure a violent and bloody civil war with the probable outcome being an Iraq dominated by it's large Shite neighbor, who incidentally really is working furiously on nukes. If we don't, we insure many more American (and Iraqi) causalities, and tie up so many resources that we won't have the moxy to deal with the aforementioned large neighbor with nuclear ambitions.

It's a rock and a hard place, and there's no good way out. Thanks, Dubya!

AFP - US spy agencies have dropped a political bombshell six weeks before national elections, with the leak of a classified report concluding that the war in Iraq has spawned a new wave of Islamic radicalism and increased the global threat of terrorism.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

07:16 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

24 Sep 2006
'Egg on your face' may be more dangerous than you think

A classic "Study in Stupidity"! How much "research" does it take to figure out that an egg tossed into somebody's eyeball can hurt them?

As the party conference season gets under way in the UK, research in Emergency Medicine Journal shows that lobbing raw eggs at people as a harmless form of protest or prank can actually result in serious eye injury. Between November 2004 and December 2005 researchers at one specialist department monitored more than 18,000 patients requiring eye treatment.

(link) [EurekAlert!]

14:19 /Humor | 0 comments | permanent link

Smokers may be at greater risk of HIV infection

Well, here's a doozy of a nominee for this weeks Study in Stupidity - I'm equally sure that you could make the statistical case (with enough number crunching) that smoking causes male pattern baldness, impotence, the heartbreak of psoriasis, chicken pox and was probably responsible for the election of Bill Clinton or George Bush depending on the political proclivities of the researcher ...

This is a really transparent ploy on the part of AIDS researchers to get some of that "anti-tobacco" money floating around - too transparent to be taken seriously.

Smokers may be at greater risk of HIV infection than nonsmokers, reveals an analysis of published research issued ahead of print in the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections.Cigarette smoking has already been linked to a higher than normal chance of contracting other infections generally, including those that have been sexually transmitted.

(link) [EurekAlert! - Breaking News]

07:23 /Humor | 1 comment | permanent link

30 Aug 2006
Brain scan of nuns finds no single 'God spot' in the brain

I could've subtitled this "looking for the gods in all the wrong places", but they were only looking at monotheist nuns remembering, not while actually having, mystical experiences. This may be a memory study, but it has nothing to do with detecting the divine.

So I hereby declare this a Study in Stupidity, and wonder aloud how many taxpayers dollars from the good citizens of Canada were wasted on this.

A new study at the Université de Montréal has concluded that there is no single God spot in the brain. In other words, mystical experiences are mediated by several brain regions and systems normally implicated in a variety of functions (self-consciousness, emotion, body representation). The study published in the current issue of Neuroscience Letters was conducted by Dr. Mario Beauregard from the Department of Psychology at the Université de Montréal and his student Vincent Paquette.

(link) [EurekAlert! - Breaking News]

07:55 /Home | 2 comments | permanent link

26 Jul 2006
Germans set up an apartheid-like society in Britain

Here's a prime example of a "researcher" pulling modern political prejudices into "science". Why, I had no idea that the (heathen) Anglo-Saxon conquerors of Britain were channeling P.W. Botha! Maybe I'm getting too thin-skinned in my dotage, but I think this comes from the same strain of academic political correctness that paints modern heathens, and indeed, white people in general, as racists - never mind that the "victims" here were white, too! And it's bad science, to boot! You'd think they could at least get that part right.

First off, Britain was not settled by "Germans" - the "invaders" were Angles, Saxons and Jutes, mostly from what we would not call the Low Countries. There were "Germanic" in language and religion, but "German" as a nation or an ethnic identity didn't exist for nearly another thousand years.

Secondly, "apartheid" is a modern political structure characterized by a caste-like stratification of society based on race. This was, of course, most associated with South Africa, where "blacks", "coloreds" (mixed race and South Asians) and "whites" were treated differently by law. The Anglo-Saxon law codes had nothing to do with "race" whatsoever (as a "Welshman" (Celt) was physically indistinguishable from an Anglo-Saxon) and everything to do with social class. The author comes close to admitting this:

In this society, people lived together in a servant-master relationship in a system akin to the apartheid system more recently found in South Africa.

Apartheid was not a "servant-master" system: it was a legal caste system that went into extraordinary detail to keep the various peoples from mingling in any way, much less interbreeding. I dare the author here to show me an ancient law code that forbade an Anglo-Saxon from marrying a Welshman. Their own research proves this: if there was no interbreeding, how did Anglo-Saxon Y-chromosomes become so allegedly prevalent?

We don't need to drag 20th century African politics into this, as there's a commonly known name for this ancient system: it's called "feudalism". Since the Anglo-Saxons were the "winning" invaders, they more likely had higher social status than the natives ("Welsh"), hence the higher weregelds. The only table of weregilds that I can find is here: note that the weregild for a "Welsh with five hides (of land)" is equal to that of a "Landless Thegn (Anglo-Saxon nobleman)". The weregild for a "King's Welsh Horseman" was actually higher than that for a Anglo-Saxon ceorl! This was based on class as well as language and nativity: it was a pre-feudal system of conquest law, very typical throughout the world in this period. But it was not racially based.

But leaving all this aside, there's the question of the science itself: the authors did a statistical survey with computer simulations to reach their conclusions:

Statistical analysis carried out by Dr Thomas and colleagues in previous studies suggested that the English gene pool was made of between 50 and 100 per cent Anglo-Saxon Y-chromosomes.

However, actual measurement of the Y-chromosomes of modern Brits done in 2003 paint a somewhat different picture:

A new genetic survey of Y chromosomes throughout the British Isles has revealed a very different story. The Celtic inhabitants of Britain were real survivors. Nowhere were they entirely replaced by the invaders and they survive in high proportions, often 50 percent or more, throughout the British Isles, according to a study by Dr. Cristian Capelli, Dr. David B. Goldstein and others at University College London.

Apparently, this new study did a computer enhanced statistical analysis on one part (the Y chromosome part - the original also studied mitochondrial DNA passed by the female) of the old ones and came out with a radically different conclusion. Given the deep understanding of politics and history shown by the authors of this new study, methinks that conclusion might have been a bit pre-determined. I find it like the glass that contains 50% of it's capacity being described as "half full" by one party and "half empty" by another. What was it Mark Twain said about this? He was quoting Disraeli, I think: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics!".

I think I'll put my money on real science and an understanding of history, as opposed to the kind of rabid (and very modern) political correctness that this Study in Stupidity represents.

An apartheid-like system existed in early Anglo-Saxon Britain, which wiped out a majority of original British genes in favor of German ones, according to research led by UCL (University College London).

(link) [EurekAlert! - Breaking News]

11:13 /Asatru | 0 comments | permanent link

19 Jul 2006
Children's ideas about fairness may depend on race

Now here's a dangerous 'Study in Stupidity', because it deals with a real hot button issue, and it's so easy to misinterpret the results. In fact, the researchers went so far as to define a new problem - "modern racism", as opposed, I suppose, to "traditional racism". What the Hel does that mean?

Note carefully the way the study was constructed, and what parameters were left out (gender is the most notable one). Check the "four different principles of justice": age entitlement, equality, equity and benevolence.

Now ask yourself how you can possibly expect a second grader to tell the difference between equality and equity. I'm not sure I could tell you the difference myself. And does "age entitlement" mean that the eldest should get more, or the youngest? I know my kids seemed to favor the latter, but I suspect the researchers made a typical adult assumption that reversed that parameter.

It might be interesting to see a study tracing the patterns of self identity from an early age: but this one ain't it! And it would be incredibly difficult to design such a study to return accurate results - I get the distinct feeling that this one returned exactly what the researchers were expecting... a result that demands more money for more research.

Researchers from Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania found that racial discrimination can appear in a new form labeled, "modern racism," which is exerted in a subtle manner present in today's youth. A hypothetical scenario was devised allowing second and fourth graders to determine the outcome that is most fair between three characters with the major variant being racial differences. The results imply the necessity of early intervention in order to discourage modern racism.

(link) [EurekAlert!]

11:50 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

18 Jul 2006
Another Study in Stupidity, with Media Distortion

This one goes into my general 'Musings' category rather than 'Humor', because it's not all that funny and it shows clearly the distortions applied to these bad studies by the media. Here's a more factual representation of the study from EurekAlert!:

Number of indoor swimming pools per capita linked to rise in childhood asthma across Europe

The prevalence of childhood asthma and wheeze rises around 2 to 3 percent for every indoor swimming pool per 100,000 of the population across Europe, indicates research published ahead of print in Occupational and Environmental Medicine.The researchers analysed the rates of wheezing, asthma, hay fever, allergic rhinitis and atopic eczema, reported in the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood (ISAAC), by video or written questionnaire.  (link)

Note that no connection was made between individual child asthma sufferers and indoor swimming: the study was strictly based on the number of indoor pools per capita. Which also indicates relative wealth, among other things.

Of course, the chlorine in the pools may be a factor, but this study certainly didn't address that issue at all, even indirectly. It's like a study showing the number of cases of syphilis is higher in countries with active volcanoes: it may be true, but so what? Which is what makes this a "Study in Stupidity".

But now look what the BBC does with this information:

Swimming pool 'link to asthma'

Children who use an indoor swimming pool may be at increased risk of developing asthma, research suggests. (link)

How do you spell "jumping to conclusions"? A complete lack of critical analysis, and an utter disregard (at least in the headline) for the actual contents of the study.

This is the reason that folks tend to get suspicious of the media - wild eyed spewing of "facts" with no context or background whatsoever is what passes for "journalism" these days.

Kinda makes you wonder about a lot of other stories reported by the MSM, eh?

06:49 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

17 Jul 2006
Clone 'would feel individuality'

This is in my Humor section for the "Duh!" factor ... they'd not only feel individuality, they'd be individuals! I can't believe that serious people actually took the time to "study" this, or that they prefaced their conclusions with "probably". My only solace is that it was British and Austrian tax monies that were wasted on this bit'o'stupidity.

A cloned human would probably consider themselves to be an individual, a study suggests.

(link) [BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition]

09:30 /Humor | 0 comments | permanent link

20 Apr 2006
Blood pressure readings lower when patients slow down

Not only is this another item for my 'Studies in Stupidity' series, it gives me an opportunity to relate a relevant tale from my past ... which in turn defines why "military intelligence" is often considered an oxymoron.

Everyone entering the military must undergo an induction physical exam. This is where they discover physically disqualifying factors, like boils on your butt or high blood pressure.

When we arrived they herded us into a locker room where we stripped to our skivvies. They took our medical history, looked for flat feet and obvious problems, and then came to the eye test, followed by a hernia exam (never pleasant for a young man) and a hearing test. After this they marched us into a large room and told us to form rows.

Once we were aligned in ranks, the doctor at the front of the room ordered us to drop our drawers, bend over and grab our ankles. The last thing we saw on the way down was an orderly handing the doctor a box of latex gloves ...

Following this, they took our blood pressure. Mine was so off the chart that I had to come back the next day and retake the blood pressure check. In fact, it turns out that almost 75% of us had high blood pressure on the first pass. And the rest were only marginally in range.

It's a wonder they ever met their quotas, draft or not. Timing is everything.

According to a new study from a team of nurses headed by Melly Turner, R.N., systolic blood pressure can be an average of 14 points higher when taken immediately after arriving in the exam room and sitting on an examination table rather than sitting in a chair with your back supported and feet flat on the floor.

(link) [EurekAlert!]

23:00 /Humor | 1 comment | permanent link

22 Mar 2006
Children's earliest words stem from what interests them

No shit! I guess this explains why your yearling typically talks about "Mama", "Dada" and "baaddle" rather than the impending nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula... but wait, there's even more stupidity:

"The exciting thing is that a lot of people weren't even sure that 10-month-olds were paying attention," she [co-author Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Ph.D.] said. But this study shows that not only are they paying attention, they're actually learning words.

Any parent could've told these folks that all children of all ages pay careful attention to their environments: it's called the survival instinct, and it's far more noteworthy when it fails (as in accidents) than when it operates successfully (which is most of the time). I wonder how many hundreds of thousands of dollars were wasted on this, and how many more worthy studies and projects died on the vine from lack of funding because somebody decided to pay these professional fools to hold forth on the obvious.

A recent study has found that younger babies learn words for new objects based on how interested they are in the object. Older babies attach more importance to whether the speaker is interested in the object. The study was conducted with 10-month-old babies. These findings suggest that parents should talk more about what their babies are interested in rather than what they, the parents, are interested in.

(link) [EurekAlert!]

00:00 /Humor | 0 comments | permanent link

27 Feb 2006
Predators keep the world green, ecologists find

Yep - it's time for another Study in Stupidity. The leader of the "research team" is a professor of environmental science at Duke - and to reach this "startling" conclusion they studied a Venezuelan valley flooded 20 years ago for a hydroelectric project.

I could've saved them a lot of time and travel expenses if they'd have just asked. Hel, they could've asked any farmer, rancher, hunter or woodsman and gotten this answer. They could've visited beautiful Brown County State Park in southern Indiana and seen the effect a hunting ban had on the forest. Here's a hint, fellas: too many deer can deforest a parcel of land quicker than a horde of lumberjacks with a portable sawmill. Ditto for cows. Ditto for anything that eats plants. I've never seen a tree run away from a foraging goat, have you?

The only irony here is that university professors (and other "intellectuals") seem to have such a problem with the obvious.

Predators are, ironically, the key to keeping the world green, because they keep the numbers of plant-eating herbivores under control, reports a research team.

(link) [EurekAlert!]

00:00 /Humor | 0 comments | permanent link

19 Feb 2006
Organic diets lower children's exposure to two common pesticides

At last - another Study in Stupidity! I'm shocked, shocked I tell you, to learn that eating foods that aren't coated with pesticides reduces the pesticide concentration to non-detectable levels...

What's next for this study's authors? How about "not swimming in motor oil reduces motor oil exposure"? Or "not eating lead paint chips reduces lead levels"? I wonder how much this "study" cost us - it was funded by the EPA.

Organic diets lower children's dietary exposure to two common pesticides used in US agricultural production, according to a study by Emory University researcher Chensheng Alex Lu, PhD. The substitution of organic food items for children's normal diets substantially decreased the pesticide concentration to non-detectable levels.

(link) [EurekAlert! - Breaking News]

00:00 /Humor | 0 comments | permanent link

06 Feb 2006
Home paper shredders pose serious injury risk to toddlers

May I present the latest "Study in the Stupidity" in the "Completely Obvious" division - if a toddler's parents can't figure out that a kid could get himself shredded in one of these contraptions, they probably shouldn't be reproducing in the first place...

As our environments change over time with technology, pediatric emergency specialists are continuously challenged to observe possible trends and prevent more injuries by educating the public. In a new case report published in the February issue of the journal Pediatrics, researchers at New York University School of Medicine discuss the serious injury risks posed by paper shredders, which have become increasingly common household items.

(link) [EurekAlert!]

00:00 /Humor | 1 comment | permanent link

22 Dec 2005
Alcohol is a strong trigger of criminal violence

Today's "Study in Stupidity"... it must've been the booze. The fact that a majority of the offenders were men with psychiatric diagnoses doesn't mean anything!

Here's a theory of my very own with a similar "leap of logic" conclusion: carrots are fatally poisonous! The proof is the fact that every single human who ate a carrot before 1865 is now dead!

A study at Karolinska Institutet of 133 violent offenders in Sweden shows that 78 (58%) had consumed alcohol within 24 hours before the violent act. A large majority of the offenders were men with psychiatric diagnoses and most of the victims were known to them.

(link) [EurekAlert!]

00:00 /Humor | 0 comments | permanent link

09 Sep 2005
New study shows high-carb, vegan diet causes major weight loss

I'm shocked, shocked I tell you, to discover that a study funded by this bunch of animal rights wingnuts has found that vegan diets produce weight loss! This is science in the service of political agendas at it's worst.

This isn't a "Study in Stupidity", it's a Study in Deception. And I'd trust it just about as much as I'd trust a "study" from the American Dairy Association that "proved" eating 50 pound of cheese a day cured impotence!

A low-fat, plant-based diet is more effective at helping women lose weight and improve insulin sensitivity than an omnivorous diet, shows a new study appearing in the September issue of The American Journal of Medicine. The study, involving 59 overweight, postmenopausal women, was conducted by Neal D. Barnard, M.D., president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), together with colleagues at Georgetown University Hospital and George Washington University.

(link) [EurekAlert! - Breaking News]

00:00 /Agriculture | 1 comment | permanent link

Previous 15 entriesNext 9 entries