It is not ok to link to the scam conspiracy page "Natural News!" Ever!

[HuckleB]

It is sad to see it at DU. Please don't go there.

http://debunkingdenialism.com/tag/natural-news/

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/NaturalNews

http://doubtfulnews.com/2013/07/natural-news-crazy-and-evil/

http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/2013/04/01/natural-news-mike-adams-adds-global-warming-denialism-to-hivaids-denial-anti-vax-altie-med-anti-gmo-birther-crankery/

I could go on and on, but it's so obvious that I should not have to do so.

Come on. We can do better.

Thank you.

[Kingofalldems]

1. Can you link the to the DU post?

[HuckleB]

2. See my PM to you.

[PasadenaTrudy]

12. Can you send it my way?

Can't find it. Thanks!

[OriginalGeek]

3. HA! I knew it was that one.

i hadn't bothered to read that thread bc I figured as much but I went and looked and yup.

[sharp_stick]

4. The number of times I've had to

try and debunk garbage from that site to family and facebook friends is astounding.

"Oh look everyone, they really have been hiding a cheap and safe cure for cancer all along!!" cue up Natural News garbage that I have to spend way too much time refuting.

[HuckleB]

8. And it has 13 likes, with plenty of added woo in the discussion.

That is embarrassing for DU. Ugh.

[sharp_stick]

9. Can you send me the link?

I don't think I've seen this most recent bit of craziness.

[sharp_stick]

11. Oh My

I wonder how many of those reccing it actually bothered to read the thing? There's so much wrong with the quoted text alone.

[HuckleB]

13. I doubt many did. All you have to do is use the term "Big Pharma," and the likes pile on.

[Eko]

5. Ever.

Ill take a link to it please.

[Nailzberg]

6. Folks love Natural News when it supports thier confimation bias.

Such and such pesticide is bad? Woo-Hoo, says so right here on Natural News! First page of Google.

That search return article is gold to them. Anti-vax and anti-agriculture types love Natural News. But they never seem to notice the articles about the government putting chemicals in food to turn people gay as a form of population control. Corporations and governments suppressing the cancer cure. Or chemitrailing the sky. The GMO mosquitoes.

If you ever stray off the original search that brought you there, and read the other articles, its scary. And its scary that people believe that shit.

[NobodyHere]

7. Well be did look into the possibility of the "Gay Bomb"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4174519.stm

[hunter]

19. Trouble is, in many ways pesticides are bad. Many modern agricultural practices are bad.

Medicine as it is practiced in the U.S.A. is often inappropriate, outrageously expensive, and frequently dangerous.

Too many pharmaceutical, hospital, and health insurance industry bosses really are sociopaths.

Absolutely, the War on Drugs is rotten to its core.

Yes, the U.S. economy is brittle and held together with duct tape. (The Obama administration is very skilled with the economic duct tape...)

But exploring those assertions in a logical manner is not what Natural News is about.

First they scare you, then they try to sell you shit.

Same as the Republican Party.

"Grifter" is a traditional occupation in the U.S.A. because it's profitable. Trump is a grifter.

Guys like Mike Adams or your average man-walked-with-dinosaurs-bible-thumping preacher are all cut from the same cloth. They'll tell you you are going to hell, and then for a few bucks they'll tell you how to get saved.

Inexplicably, the more outlandish the grifter's story, the more some people want to believe.

It's sad there are so many gullible, innumerate, and in many ways illiterate marks for these grifters. It's sad that some of these grifters believe their own spiel.

The actual observed and measured universe is a fantastic place, immense in time and space beyond all imagination, and filled with many wonderful realities.

I'm not so stuck up that I can't appreciate the art and "woo" and other quirks of human culture. But if somebody sells me a painting because I like it, that's one thing. If somebody sells me a painting claiming it will cure my cancer if I hang it in my bedroom on the south wall a little to the left and I believe that, then I'm in all reasonable probability a fool.

But we get into trouble there too. For all the traditional herbal medicines that didn't work when subject to open minded scientific scrutiny, a few did. And sometimes forces in a culture refused open-minded scientific scrutiny, which has very clearly been the case with cannabis. Unfortunately that indisputable fact has become part of the grifters' spiels.

[PasadenaTrudy]

10. Hear hear...

or is it here here? Whatever. Agreeing!

[muriel_volestrangler]

14. Far right Trump supporters, too

See eg http://www.naturalnews.com/052273_Donald_Trump_mainstream_media_surrogate_free_speech.html#
http://www.naturalnews.com/050815_Donald_Trump_surrogate_mouthpiece_truth_warrior.html

[HuckleB]

15. Yeah, I knew they were far right ijits.

I couldn't find a link when I made the post, and I didn't want to make the claim with proof.

THANKS!

[etherealtruth]

16. K&R .... although, you are preaching to the choir (in this thread) n/t

[HuckleB]

17. True enough.

It's so sad to see that post get so many likes, not to mention having more people add ludicrous statements, that are simply fallacious to the core. The lack of humility among people who don't understand how science works can be astounding to watch.

[etherealtruth]

18. The willfully ignorant are not sad, however ...

... in some of these posts there are responses from desperate people. I always try to remember "desperate people do desperate things."

My first degree was in nursing. I worked as an RN for approximately ten years ... much of that time for a Hospice. Intelligent, thoughtful people with an acceptable degree of science literacy could be pushed (by desperation) to make inexplicable choices and hold on to incredible beliefs.

Of course, what we are talking about, here, are the willfully ignorant.

[HuckleB]

20. Indeed.

It's amazing to see the things people will believe, especially when many of those around them also believe those things. It does lead to good providers believing in alt-med silliness in places like Portland. It may be the cause of such posts at DU.

Hmm.