Skepticism
pharyngula | December 31, 2010What is it with these loons? They've got nothing, but they're continually telling us what they could accomplish, if only they…what? I don't know.
The latest trend in kook blogs is to tell us all the things that would happen if we only accepted their weird premises. Here, for example, is Terry Hurlbut, explaining what America would be like if creationists controlled science.
This hypothetical creation-oriented society would take scientific education, research, and investigation in a new direction. Astronomers would stop looking for "dark matter" and "dark energy," and instead develop a uniform…
pharyngula | December 30, 2010People keep sending me this link to an article by Jonah Lehrer in the New Yorker: The Decline Effect and the Scientific Method, which has the subheadings of "The Truth Wears Off" and "Is there something wrong with the scientific method?" Some of my correspondents sound rather distraught, like they're concerned that science is breaking down and collapsing; a few, creationists mainly, are crowing over it and telling me they knew we couldn't know anything all along (but then, how did they know…no, let's not dive down that rabbit hole).
I read it. I was unimpressed with the overselling of the…
pharyngula | December 28, 2010Then it's not too late to get this fabulous ornament for it:
Even if you don't have a Christmas tree ever or any more, you can still help out with the James Randi Educational Foundation's fundraising campaign. The JREF has been awarding grants to teachers and students to promote critical thinking, provides lesson plans and curricula, and makes all kinds of tools available to educators, all to help improve the minds of people all around the world. It's a great cause, and they're struggling right now like all charities in a bad economy.
I've got one of those ornaments on my otherwise entirely…
aardvarchaeology | December 27, 2010
The Swedish Skeptics' annual awards for 2010 were just announced.
Ãsa Vilbäck, MD, receives the Enlightener of the Year award,
"... who has described diseases and treatments in an unbiased and informative manner on her TV show Dr. Ãsa on Swedish state television. By upholding a good popular science standard on her show, Ãsa Vilbäck has emphasised clearly the importance of evidence-based medicine. She has also warned viewers of dangerous alternative medical methods."
Enlightener Vilbäck receives a cash prize of SEK 25 000 ($3700, â¬2800).
The Stockholm Initiative lobby group receives the…
aardvarchaeology | December 21, 2010Dear Reader, are you of such a bent that you are not content with reading what I write in English? Is your inclination also to hear me speak in Swedish? Is that what you want, now? Is it? Say it! Is it?
Let's be frank. I think we both know what sort of pleasure-seeking little beast you are.
So head on over to Skeptikerpodden and hear their long interview with me about the Swedish Skeptics Society, ending with some views on archaeology.
[More about skepticism, podcasts, archaeology; podcasts, skepticism, arkeologi.]
pharyngula | December 16, 2010You've been wondering about that, too, haven't you? Prepare to be disappointed again, because the source of this bit of egregious misinformation is none other than that raving nutcase, Mike Adams of NaturalNews. He claims that astrology has a scientific basis:
Skeptics must be further bewildered by the new research published in Nature Neuroscience and conducted at Vanderbilt University which unintentionally provides scientific support for the fundamental principle of astrology -- namely, that the position of the planets at your time of birth influences your personality.
Hey, Vanderbilt is a…
pharyngula | December 16, 2010You've been wondering, haven't you. Good theories involve both substantiating evidence for a phenomenon and an explanation of the mechanism, and homeopathy has had neither: no evidence that it works (and plenty that it doesn't), and no rational explanation for how it works, unless you count gibberish like "memory of water". Now that has all changed. The way homeopathy works is nanotechnology.
Homeopathic pills containing naturally occurring metals such as gold, copper and iron retain their potency even when diluted to a nanometre or one-billionth of a metre, states the IIT-Bombay research…
pharyngula | December 10, 2010Funny business, this. Professor John McLachlan corresponded with the organizers of an international conference on integrative medicine, proposing some very peculiar ideas that he wanted to present. They were…intrigued. They asked him to flesh out his concepts in a formal abstract so that they could evaluate whether they were worthy of inclusion in their prestigious meeting, so he did, and here it is.
Abstract
Intensive study of the development of early human embryos indicates that there is a reflexology style homunculus represented in the human body, over the area of the buttocks. This…
pharyngula | December 5, 2010Gah, this is an awful and credulously reported story: Child's Nightmares and Memories Prove Reincarnation. There is no proof there. The story is simple: ordinary child plays video games, draws lots of pictures of airplanes in dogfights and dropping bombs, and has a few night terrors, so the parents leap to the conclusion that he's a reincarnated WWII pilot. When they contact a carrier crewman from the era, he conveniently provides more details to fill in the story, and soon enough, they've got a full blown delusion.
My favorite part? The kid is always signing his drawings as "James", and they…
gregladen | December 2, 2010 There has been much talk about whether the recent Wikileaks leak of diplomatic cables will be a good thing or a bad thing. I would assume (and that is an assumption ... which is why I used the word assume) that there would be some of both, some forward movement of progressive ideals including honest government and reasonably transparent diplomatic policies that value human rights and the environment, etc., and some damage to ongoing diplomatic processes or exposure of ammunition that can be used for nefarious purposes by nefarious figures and organizations. But, since some of that would…
aardvarchaeology | November 28, 2010Excellent Swedish feature-journalism magazine Filter has a 17-page piece about the skeptical movement in its current issue (#17). Magnus Västerbro's take on the movement in general and the Swedish Skeptics Association in particular is supportive yet not uncritical. I've been a board member of the Swedish Skeptics (VoF) since 2004, and I think the article is excellent advertising for us. Västerbro's main message is that the Swedish skeptical movement has long been academic, small and low-profile, and is now becoming more youthful, more inclusive, more active and louder. I think he's pretty…
gregladen | November 26, 2010I was just glancing through the blog of Katheryn Schulz, author of Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error, a book about people who were wrong about stuff, often big stuff (for example, she talks about individuals who spent decades in jail owing to false convictions). Meantime, I'm working on posts related to the falsehoods and "Everything you know is wrong" series. And, as I do this, I'm thinking about a way in which people get things wrong that is often overlooked or, perhaps, not recognized as a specific category of irrational thinking.
This has to do with the idea of a fetish.…
pharyngula | November 21, 2010The current silly Skepticon controversy is easily resolved: just vote on it.
How much of a so-called skeptic convention can be about religion?
None 0% (0 votes)
No more than 25% 0% (0 votes)
No more than 50% 0% (0 votes)
Just so long as it isn't all of it 25% (3 votes)
All of it, why not? 75% (9 votes)
Nicely done. There's only one choice that isn't arbitrary and incoherent and unjustifiable; I'd like to see the complainers confront the specific details of their position.
Oh, and by the way, I haven't escaped Missouri yet — I'm stuck in an airport, waiting to fly out, and facing the…
pharyngula | November 19, 2010It's such a petty and trivial one, though, I can't be too concerned. I'm at Skepticon 3, and I just learned tonight that the convention has been a source of dissent…and when I read the argument, I was stunned at how stupid it was. Apparently, Skepticon has too many atheists in it, and is — wait for it — "harming the cause".
I'm not joking. Jeff Wagg, formerly of the JREF, has a long lament deploring that 3 of the 15 talks are explicitly atheistic, and that JT Eberhard, the organizer, emphasizes the problem of religion too much for it to be True Skeptic™ conference. It's utterly batty. Some…
pharyngula | November 19, 2010I didn't think so. I never did, either. But now at least you can get them for free: the JREF has a teaching module on ESP that you can download.
It's pretty good. The module strongly emphasizes good record keeping and rigor, which are important skills for young investigators. I was a little disappointed in the bit about statistics—it basically tells the students to use a table to look up values, don't worry about the math behind it, and trust us, getting 8 hits in 25 trials does not mean you have ESP. I would think the very best first module to throw at students would be an introduction to…
pharyngula | November 18, 2010Jebus, it's only the first night. Rebecca Watson, Bailey's, Amanda Marcotte, Red Stag, Vic Stenger, some random ale. I seem to have outlasted everyone else tonight, but I can't keep this up the next couple of nights.
This. Is. SKEPTICON.
I confess. It was pretty funny watching Vic Stenger trying to stagger out of the party room. And it was a wild conversation about the role of chance in physics and biology. You ought to be here.
I think I better curl up and get some sleep now. Let's see when I regain consciousness tomorrow. I might have to stand toe-to-toe with Richard Carrier and Rebecca…
pharyngula | November 14, 2010The A&E Channel has a new show coming up: Psychic Kids: Children of the Paranormal. Sounds awful already, doesn't it? But it's worse than you think: they're looking for disturbed kids who think they've got magic powers, and then they're flying in "professional psychics" to coach them in dealing with their awesome powers, i.e., indulge their delusions, get off on feeling superior to unhappy kids, and collect a paycheck for psychic child abuse.
They're putting kids in the hands of a creepy skeevo like Chip Coffey, all for your entertainment.
This is quite possibly the most loathsome thing…
aardvarchaeology | November 8, 2010
On Sunday 14 November at 1400 hrs I'm giving a talk on the aristocracy of the 1st millennium AD at the Town Museum of Norrköping, Holmbrogränd.
On Monday 15 November I'm speaking at a seminar in Gothenburg about social media and scientific and political communication. My talk will be some time between 1300 and 1600 hrs, and treat of how I as a professional research scholar take part in the writing of Wikipedia. The venue is most likely at the IT University, Forskningsgången 6 on Lindholmen.
On Thursday 9 December some time after lunch I'm speaking at a seminar in Stockholm about the…
pharyngula | November 5, 2010This is billed as a special news report: do angels exist?. I remember using "special" in exactly that way in grade school, too. Do Fox News reporters also ride the short bus to work?
I suppose I should be grateful that they brought in one skeptic to moderate it a bit, but otherwise…it's an excuse to quote the Bible a bunch of times and drag in some truly stupid people to testify. Joey Hipp ought to be in jail: after being told, he says, that his wife's spine was so mangled she might not be able to walk, he strolls up to her hospital bed, takes her hand, and makes her stand up…what kind of…
aardvarchaeology | November 4, 2010
Lately I've been thinking and giving some talks about Scandinavian pseudoarchaeological writers, that is, people who publish books on the past with unsubstantiated claims to scientific credibility. The beyond all comparison most famous of them is the Norwegian Thor Heyerdahl (1914-2002).
Heyerdahl is mostly known not as an archaeologist, but as a great navigator, being the organiser of numerous projects where he would have a reconstruction built of some ancient boat and make an ocean voyage with it. Most famously, he travelled by balsa raft from Peru westwards to Tuamotu in 1947 (with my…