Skepticism
pharyngula | September 7, 2010Two children are missing in Belize, and no one knows what happened to them. So a helpful 'psychic' declared that they had been fed to the crocodiles in a nearby sanctuary. The results were predictable.
Reports are that the mob shot and killed some of the 17 crocs held in captivity at the sanctuary. Also destroyed were the Rose's two story home that included a laboratory and nursery for baby crocs. One baby American Crocodile was to be flown to Chicago to the Wildlife Discovery Center in Lake Forest, Ill. USA for the first ever animal exchange program between Belize and the USA. Over $2,500 in…
pharyngula | September 6, 2010It's a ridiculous myth that sharks have magical properties that prevent cancer, but it's not true: sharks do get cancer. Furthermore, even if they did have low rates of cancer, grinding them up and powdering them and tossing them into your gut for chemical breakdown would no more cure your cancer than it would turn you into an unstoppable ferocious eating machine with gills.
Add them to the long list of species being exterminated on the altar of sympathetic magic.
aardvarchaeology | September 3, 2010There's a parliamentary election in Sweden on the 19th, and everybody's hoping that the country's little right-wing populist party won't get over the 4% threshold needed to grab any seats. The "Swedish Democrat" party mainly offers a We Hate Foreigners ticket, with some Law & Order and Respect Your Elders thrown in to attract voters in the early stages of Alzheimer's.
The SD is generally despised among mainstream political parties and the media. So I was surprised but entertained when I found the ailing Swedish Church trying to smear the Swedish Humanist Association by means of a far-…
pharyngula | September 2, 2010Here's a swami with his magic breathing advice for coping with throat cancer. How these guys can dispense bogus medical advice and not get lynched by angry cancer patients is a mystery.
At least he looks really goofy when he curls his tongue and breathes. Now if only there were some yogic enchantment that could do something about his creepy squink eye…
pharyngula | September 2, 2010Roy Peter Clark wrote a book about language which was savaged viciously on Language Log — in other words, the poor guy was publicly ridiculed and his work rudely trashed. He couldn't possibly have learned anything from that, could he? He has a guest post now in which he describes his reaction.
In brief, the criticism, some of it harsh and uninformed, helped me straighten out some crooked thinking about language, a process that resulted in the recent publication by Little, Brown of my book "The Glamour of Grammar: A Guide to the Magic and Mystery of Practical English." On August 22, Ammon Shea…
pharyngula | August 27, 2010I see that the don't-be-a-dick tone debate is still going on — I've been totally unimpressed with the arguments from the side of nice, not because I disagree with the idea that positive approaches work, but because they ignore the complexity of the problem and don't offer any solutions but only complaints (what are they going to do, break the fingers and gag anyone they judge as 'harming the cause'?) I side with Richard Dawkins' comment on the issue. We don't need to be trivially abusive, but on subjects we care about deeply, we should express ourselves with passion.
You know I've had this…
gregladen | August 24, 2010Is PZ Myers over the top? Is Phil Plait too nice? Is Chris Mooney right about framing? If I meet a Creationist, should I throw a fossil over his head?
A while back, I did a radio show with a skeptic who happened to be a musician. One of the main topics was whether or not being mean to people who did not agree with you was OK. I was on the side that it was often OK, certainly not the only way to do it, but that the entire conversation about being mean vs. nice had become too uni-dimensional and counter productive, that there were times and places for being stern and firm, and times and…
pharyngula | August 21, 2010I don't watch Oprah enough, so I haven't seen much open endorsement of the nonsense behind that unbelievable bestseller, The Secret. There must be a lot of closet believers, though, because that piece of well-whipped frothy BS sold 19 million copies. Now the author has cranked out another, similar excretion: The Power, nicely reviewed in Newsweek. Both have the same premise, that the Universe really, really loves you and wants to give you everything you wish for, if only you concentrate and ask.
The Power is a distillation of the central insight of The Secret: the "law of attraction." It's…
pharyngula | August 17, 2010I've never been a fan of SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. It's like playing the lottery obsessively, throwing down lots of money in hopes of a big payoff, and I don't play the lottery, either.
I'd really like to know if Seth Shostak is innumerate enough to play the lottery, though, because his recent claim that we stand a good chance of discovering extraterrrestrial intelligence within 25 years. All right, bring it: let's see your evidence for such a claim.
"I actually think the chances that we'll find ET are pretty good," said Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the Search…
pharyngula | August 16, 2010There ought to be some regulation of the kind of fraud some people peddle online. I'm tempted to try this one: BOOTY ENHANCEMENT Spell Cast by Powerful Wiccan Witch (note: bikini-clad bottom on display at that link), just to see what happens. Except that I know what will happen: nothing. Less than nothing, actually, since we're changing diet here and I expect my booty will be shrinking — the TrophyWife™ has actually put together a flavorful, low calorie, non-fat menu for me that looks pretty good already.
But then…the magic spell is only $8.95!
And this is the most dismal statistic of all:
99…
pharyngula | August 16, 2010This is a good way to do it: when the fortune-telling, pseudo-necromancer John Edward showed up in Vancouver to do his ridiculous cold-reading act, CFI met his deluded followers with information and honesty. It was a sad spectacle; many of the attendees were desperate, bereaved people, there for a little hope and getting fleeced instead (tickets were $200!)
It sounds like they did everything just right. The only reservation I have is…where were the media? This is the kind of event where contacting a few newspapers and television and radio stations beforehand, and publicizing the protest, is…
pharyngula | August 16, 2010…is an article by Vic Stenger. He addresses that weird old canard that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence", which has always struck me as bogus. Of course it is! It is just evidence of variable strength, from laughably weak (I have no evidence of a teapot in orbit around the sun, which isn't a very strong case since no one has looked for an orbiting teapot, and it's a tiny target in a vast volume anyway) to extremely strong (there are no dragons in my backyard; I have looked, and there are no large firebreathing reptiles gnawing on virgins back there).
I wonder if the source of…
tsmith | August 13, 2010PZ has some additional thoughts on the Bibleflugate retraction up at Pharyngula. Choice quote:
This is a serious concern, to my mind. Scientists are expected to be open and communicative about their work, explaining all the details about how we achieve our results. Yet then we hand that work over to a publisher (usually a for-profit organization), where it is subjected to an arcane process cloaked in mystery that they call peer review. And every once in a while, some strange fluke exposes the inherently arbitrary and chaotic nature of that process, everyone asks "how the hell did that get…
gregladen | August 13, 2010After I reported this recent and interesting research paper about urinary tract inflictions, a number of conversations broke out on that post, on my facebook page, and via email, and some of these conversations raised the question of cranberry juice and whether the idea that it prevents, reduces, or shortens the duration of UTIs is real or woo.
Added: After further discussion elsewhere, I would like to clarify what is being asked here: Imagine you are a person who drinks apple juice and cranberry juice as your main hydrating substance. Also, you are are a person who is concerned with…
tsmith | August 11, 2010Well, that was quick. Yesterday's post highlighting a really terrible paper in BMC's Virology Journal drew a lot of comments here and at Pharyngula, and attention at the journal (where it currently stands as the 5th most-accessed article in the last 30 days). The journal's Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Robert F. Garry, this in the comments section to my post:
As Editor-in-Chief of Virology Journal I wish to apologize for the publication of the article entitled ''Influenza or not influenza: Analysis of a case of high fever that happened 2000 years ago in Biblical time", which clearly does not provide…
pharyngula | August 10, 2010Come on, journals. What kind of garbage are you stooping to publish now?
This paper in Virology Journal has to be seen to be believed. The entire data set for the "study" is a few brief lines in the Bible, where Jesus heals a sick woman with a fever. From this, the authors conclude that she had influenza. Huzzah! A completely unjustifiable diagnosis from hearsay.
And even more absurdly, the journal editors thought this superficial noise was worthy of publication.
I will say, though, that my favorite parts were the bits where the authors noted that Jesus did not take her temperature because…
tsmith | August 10, 2010Via Bob O'H and Cath Ennis comes this truly bizarre article from the Virology Journal: "Influenza or not influenza: Analysis of a case of high fever that happened 2000 years ago in Biblical time".
Now, regular readers will know that I normally love this type of thing; digging back through history to look at Lincoln's smallpox; Cholera in Victorian London; potential causes of the Plague of Athens, the origin of syphilis, or whether Yersinia pestis really caused the Black Plague. I've even written a bit about the history of influenza. So analysis of a 2000-year old potential flu case? Bring…
aardvarchaeology | August 10, 2010Shortly after my buddy Jeff Medkeff died in 2008, a joint book review of ours was published in Skeptic Magazine. Here we criticised a book by Alan Bond and Mark Hempsell, two aeronautics engineers, where they claimed that a 7th century BC cuneiform tablet from Mesopotamia described an asteroid striking the Austrian Alps in 3123 BC. Their argument was in our opinion extremely speculative or pseudoscientific, regardless of whether you saw it from an astronomical, geological or archaeological point of view.
Bond & Hempsell self-published their book. But to my surprise, the summer issue of…
pharyngula | August 8, 2010If you were hoping to get into Skepticon 3, the fun free skeptics conference in Missouri, there's very good news: thanks to a donation from Polaris Financial Planning, they were able to book a much larger venue, expanding from a maximum capacity of 500 to 1800, and also bring in more speakers. Register now! Everyone is going to be there.
In tangentially related news, the filmographer for Skepticon, Rob Lehr, is trying to raise money for a documentary on poverty, and you can help by voting in a contest for $50,000. Take a look, if it's a worthy exercise, click on the little button and give it…