Deeply disappointing.

" But it’s not a philosophical dispute. It’s a simple case of her making up false claims based on extremely elementary errors.
And this is why I am forced to be so mean. There are just a lot of people out there exerting significant influence over the political debate who are totally unqualified. The dilemma is especially acute in the political economic field, where wealthy right-wingers have pumped so much money to subsidize the field of pro-rich people polemics that the demand for competent defenders of letting rich people keep as much of their money as possible vastly outstrips the supply. Hence the intellectual marketplace for arguments that we should tax rich people less is glutted with hackery. "

"But McArdle, I think, doesn’t really care if she’s wrong or risible. Her real goal is to advance the notion that government action informed by reason and empirical knowledge is impossible. So here she just says that you can’t trust the analytical models — and even if they do turn up evidence of economic improvement, they don’t matter: who are you going to believe, me or your lying pocketbook? ... This isn’t about the stimulus, in other words, or appropriate tax policy. It’s about the impossiblity of governance. .., the key fact to remember is that McArdle’s lapses of reasoning and fact are features, not bugs. Remember the mission as declared by her home institution: “TheAtlantic – shaping the national debate on the most critical issues ....” McArdle is indeed trying to shape the debate, to constrain what might be possible in the exercise of government power. Mere logic, paltry fact may not be permitted to get in the way. She is Always Wrong™ — by design."

Wait, lobbyists actually drumming up an astroturf cause _before_ they had corporate clients? That's not how base & superstructure are supposed to relate!

And this, children, is how publicizing scientific findings actually comes to create myths.

I especially look forward to reading the bits about Larry Summers.

Oh this makes me feel ever so much better about going to the doctor.

Now, how _do_ I teach the 2nd part in 350?

In which David Frum is called on a public falsehood, admits that he's lying, and proclaims his intention to continue to keep on repeating the lie.

Merck paid Elsevier to gin up a mock peer reviewed journal pushing Merck's drugs. I have already given up on providing free labor to Elsevier in the form of refereeing, but now I am contemplating deliberately avoiding citing papers which appear in their journals.

"We now have data claiming that there is no difference in the quality of controlled clinical weight loss trials whether they are funded by industry or independently. The senior author on this comparative study is the very same person who was relieved of his responsibilities as head of a national obesity society because he wrote a letter opposing calorie labeling without disclosing that he was paid to do it".

"Steve Milloy -- the man deserves a statue, on which we could inscribe the words: "No one man labored harder or more successfully to propagate misinformation about global warming, tobacco's health effects, and DDT.""

Phil Carter on the "'military analysts' were Pentagon shills" story. Misses, oddly, the difference between _open_ propaganda and this, which hides it source, making it harder for citizens to evaluate, let alone hold accountable.