Skepticism
Category archives for Skepticism
Everything you know is sort of wrong
Posted by Greg Laden on May 28, 2010 Today is the big day! And not merely because it is TGIF* day.
What if “Boob Quake” had been …
Posted by Greg Laden on May 3, 2010 “Dick Shake”
Boobquake: Valid science communication event or just a bunch of boobs … quaking?
Posted by Greg Laden on May 3, 2010 This is a somewhat stream of consciousness response to an interview of Michael McRae by Tokenskeptic followed by an interview with Desiree Schell of Skeptically Speaking. Please go listen to the podcast, it is quite good.
Do you find naked men wearing chains sexy?
Posted by Greg Laden on April 28, 2010 Well, OK, technically if a man is wearing chains he’s not really naked. Whatever. The question at hand is, was sex in skepticism before women showed up? And, when they showed up with their bobbies and all, did they ruin it for everyone? Read more.
If you don’t understand that there is message in the medium, then you may not be helping
Posted by Greg Laden on April 25, 2010 Notice that I didn’t say that the medium IS the message. Just that some of the message is in there. In the medium. I am forever amazed at how easily compelled my fellow skeptics, and/or my fellow atheists, and/or my fellow feminists, and/or my fellow anti-racists are to tell each other that they are doing…
Reminder: Skepchicon in Minneapolis in July
Posted by Greg Laden on April 21, 2010 The venue, Minneapolis, is well chosen as it is very hard to get an earthquake going on this nice stable bit of crust. I know it is a bit early, but I’ll remind you of this now and then … as you are making your plans for the summer, consider attending the Skepchicon track at…
What is skepticism?
Posted by Greg Laden on April 14, 2010 There are two things I’ve learned over the last year. 1) If you get a room full of self-described skeptics, gathered to converse skeptically about something, a minor tweaking of the conversation can cause an alarmingly large percentage of said “skeptics” to start spewing utter nonsense; and 2) Manyself-described skeptics seem to believe (yes, believe)…
Don Prothero is a Skeptic
Posted by Greg Laden on January 27, 2010 Hat tip: Monicks
Maybe the Skepchicks should just call themselves the Sexchicks!?
Posted by Greg Laden on January 23, 2010 They say a picture is worth a thousand words. In a recent post, I relied on this principle but I think it did not work for a lot of readers. So I want to try this again but using additional words to augment the pictures. This is about the sex-appeal of the skepchicks.
Are the Skepchicks too sexy? (UPDATED)
Posted by Greg Laden on January 22, 2010 I recently posted an appeal to support the upcoming skeptical track at the Minneapolis CONvergence organized by The Skepchicks, a group of hip female skeptical activists and some guys. The first comment on that post was a stern admonition that one might not want to support “understanding of science and scepticism” by donating to this…
James Randi and Global Warming
Posted by Greg Laden on December 16, 2009 Yesterday, James Randi put up a blog post in which he questioned the validity of anthropogenic global warming. He has subsequently made the statement that he probably has more thinking to do about global warming, and he admits that he really knows nothing about it. So Randi’s blog post is, essentially, a non-starter as an…
Empowering the individual does not equal ensmartening the individual
Posted by Greg Laden on December 14, 2009 Imagine the following scenario. Two guys are walking down the street, in different cities. Guy A has two PhDs, one in quantum physics with a focus on dimensionality dynamics, the other in astrophysics with a focus on relativistic aspects of gravity and black holes. She has published dozens of peer reviewed papers on both topics…
Are you a real skeptic? I doubt it.
Posted by Greg Laden on December 10, 2009 I mean, you might be, but I’m certainly not going to take your word for it….
Astrology vs. Astronomy
Posted by Greg Laden on December 7, 2009 Hat tip: Desiree Schell
When John Almost Died of Naturopathy
Posted by Greg Laden on November 15, 2009 Recent discussion of Canadian Naturopathy caused this old memory of mine to surface, regarding a friend who nearly died because he had a treatable illness but was attended to only by a Naturopath. A stupid, badly dressed Naturopath who couldn’t drive for shit.
Iraq Army uses magic wands to detect bombs … instead of physical inspections
Posted by Greg Laden on November 6, 2009 Divining sticks that consist essentially of an antenna not even attached to a radio (which might make it slihgtly useful for listening to music and stuff), and costing between 16 and 60 THOUSAND DOLLARS each, are being used as the main technology for detecting bombs at check points staffed by the Iraqi army.
Let’s get a few things straight this morning.
Posted by Greg Laden on November 6, 2009 First off, Major Hasan, the Fort Hood Shooter is not dead. He’s in custody, wounded. Interesting how he was dead for much of the day yesterday. You’d think they’d get that straight.
The perfect Christmas gift: Telekineses machine!
Posted by Greg Laden on October 26, 2009 Calling all skeptics … So, what’s the story with this thing? They seem to be saying it uses Beta Waves. Remember Beta Waves? I wonder if these are a new kind of Beta Waves, or are they the Beta Waves that run my Ouija board? Here’s another video:
The podcast is available.
Posted by Greg Laden on October 19, 2009 In case you are interested, the conversation with Desiree Schell, Omar Mouallem, and me talking about “Getting Noticed” on Skeptically Speaking is in podcast form. Here.
Don’t forget to tune in tonight!
Posted by Greg Laden on October 16, 2009 Omar Mouallem, Desiree Schell and Greg Laden (that’s me) had a very interesting conversation Wednesday night about how skepticism gets noticed. Through comedy, music, blogging, scientific studies, and other outlets, how do we bring people on board? We decided blogging was irrelevant but that music was cool, we came down divided on what some call…
Global warming and the Minnesota Moose. Part IIa
Posted by Greg Laden on October 4, 2009 This is a continuation of a discussion on the role of Global Warming in the decline of moose populations in Minnesota. It is also a discussion of Global Warming denialism.
Dara O’Briain sets the record straight
Posted by Greg Laden on October 2, 2009 Put them all in a sack and hit them with a stick!
Why are women (slightly more) religious?
Posted by Greg Laden on September 24, 2009 Are women more likely to be stupid/gullible? That seems to be the assumption that the ungenerous of us might make when considering the 7% gap between men and women when it comes to religious affiliation…. … that was discussed recently in an ARIS poll. Earlier, I had pointed to Stephanie Zvan’s comments on this, and…
Gender Difference in Skepticism?
Posted by Greg Laden on September 23, 2009 Are women less skeptical than men? Follow that link to find Stephanie Zvan’s analysis of the recently reported study that is making its way around the Internet. Stephanie seems to buy into the study uncritically, you know, like chicks tend to do …… NOT!
The Night I Was Almost Abducted by Aliens in Boston
Posted by Greg Laden on September 19, 2009 Nineteen former pilots and government officials … told reporters their questions can no longer be dismissed …”We want the US government to stop perpetuating the myth that all UFOs can be explained away in down-to-earth, conventional terms,” said Fife Symington, former governor of Arizona… “Instead our country needs to reopen its official investigation that it…
Atheists are the cause of 911 – treat them accordingly
Posted by Greg Laden on September 13, 2009 Dave Mabus sent me this along with a threatening e-mail with a subject line I’ve used as the title of this post. The email was cc’ed to me, but meant of PZ Myers, and it says: Hey PZ Myers, you little fool… Just wanted to let you know this has been posted on every forum…
The anxiety of the threes
Posted by Greg Laden on August 23, 2009 So, bad things come in threes, right? Well, no, we don’t believe that. This discussion came up after the recent death of Michale Jackson. A rumor of the death of another celebrity came along (that rumor was incorrect) and this somehow sparked a discussion of there “needing to be” a third death to fulfill the…
Skepchick Karen Totally Sokalizes Haunted America Tours Blog!!!
Posted by Greg Laden on August 22, 2009 Karen Stollznow Soks the Haunted America Tours Blog. Karen came up with a totally lame (yet nonetheless titillating) explanation for sexual arousal, wet dreams, and AM erections, made up a totally fake academic cover, and sent a writeup of this explanation to the ghost blog which, in turn, took the bait hook line and sinker.…
, which is now available for the 
