New Rule, Bill Maher has to be for science, or against it.

I enjoy Bill Maher's show.  On specific issues, I agree with him more often than not.  But one of the hallmarks of his shtick is making fun of conservatives for being anti-science.  If the subject is climate change or evolution, he can be absolutely cutting when it comes to making fun of Republicans.  In his movie Religilous, he visited the Creation Musem in Petersburg, Kentucky and made fun of them for showing a Stegosaurus with a saddle on it.  An easy target for sure, but well executed.

More interestingly, he interviews the director of that museum and they talk about the scientific consensus behind Evolution.  Maher points out that if evolution wasn't true, than there must be a vast conspiracy among all of the scientists around the world to promulgate it.

That's a pretty convincing point.  But Mr. Maher simply does not apply this logic to those areas of science that he disagrees with.  The above YouTube Clip is from 2009.  In it, former Senator Bill Frist (R-TN), a physician, takes him to the wood shed about vaccines.  Maher simply ignores the scientific arguments put before him by a prominent Republican and clings to his vague superstitions about the "dangers" or vaccines, using a 50 year old quote from Jonas Salk.  It's every bit as pathetic as grown men saddling stegosauruses.

Two years ago Bill Maher repeatedly and passionately argued for passage of a law that would have required food makers to put labels on food containing Genetically Modified Organisms.  He did this despite the fact that there is NO scientific evidence that GMOs pose any increased health risk to humans.  None.

Last night Mr. Maher had on Christopher Leonard, a journalist who just wrote a book about the industrial farming practices of American meat manufacturers.  During the interview, Mr. Maher brought up a recent story about Azodicarbonamide, a chemical that is used to preserve bread, and is also used in non-food items such as yoga mats.  Maher said "I'm sure they have 'statistics' that say this stuff is safe in small doses but what about those of us who don't want any poison in our food?"

Cute line, Bill.  But you can not speak so derisively of "statistics" and misuse a term like "poison" and still claim to be a champion of science.  Azodicarbonamide may be difficult to pronounce, but it is not dangerous.  The fears about it being in food originate from a blog written by someone with no background in science.  She found a scary factoid- this chemical in my bread is also used in yoga mats, and got a major company to change the way they make their bread.  That sounds like a major accomplishment, but it's not one that will improve the public safety one scintilla.

Please read Dr. Steven Novella's blog entry on this subject to better understand the science behind the use of azodicarbonamide in food..  And the next time you hear Bill Maher makes fun of some back bench congressman from Georgia for saying something dumb about the origins of life on earth, feel free to laugh.  But remember that the joke is being told by someone who spreads fear of vaccinations out of pure superstition.  Mr. Maher needs to understand that some kinds of stupid are worse than others.  Creationism may be dumb, but it's not contagious.  Whooping Cough on the other hand, is.