Skepticism
pharyngula | August 26, 2009Orac seems shocked that the University of Toronto is hosting a conference of autism kooks. Universities are not entirely benign institutions dedicated to honest scholarship — they have their fair share of grasping administrators who look for short term financial gain, and they are often beholden to wealthy donors who are usually more interested in chucking money into their favorite sport or other hobby horse, rather than serious intellectual endeavors. And more often than not, the biggest quacks are affiliated with the medical schools…not necessarily because doctors are suckers, but because…
gregladen | August 23, 2009So, 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 prophecy of the three ... because Farah Fawcett had died, then Michale Jackson, and then ..... OMG!! Who was going to be next!!!
Then, of course, it was pointed out that David Caridine had died earlier. Or was it Ed McMahon. Or someone else. And the whole thing got kind of silly.…
gregladen | August 22, 2009Karen 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. (Am I still en metaphor? OK, good, I think so.)
You must visit her blog post and read the details and explore the link.
Brilliant! I will sleep easy tonight.
aardvarchaeology | August 22, 2009The Department of Archaeology at the University of Lund is organising a panel debate about creationism on 30 August under the heading "Archaeology, the Bible and Charles Darwin -- a debate about evolution, creationism and archaeological evidence". On the panel are Neolithic scholar Kristina Jennbert, liberal ex-arch-bishop Karl. G.H. Hammar, author and polyglot philologist Ola Wikander and young-Earth creationist Mats Molén. I am not happy at all with this. The university shouldn't lend credibility to pseudoscientists like Molén by inviting them to public debates. He is in no way…
clock | August 20, 2009This is exciting! From Young Australian Skeptics: Skeptical Blog Anthology 2009:
Inspired by the annual The Open Laboratory, the Skeptical Blog Anthology is a printed anthology of blog posts voted the very best of 2009, managed by the Young Australian Skeptics in conjunction with the Critical Teaching Education Group (CTEG). The anthology is an attempt to bring a greater awareness of the skeptical content on blog sites and showcase some of the range and diversity in the blogosphere.
With an aim to provide text-based resources to classes and readers who may be interested or intrigued by what…
aardvarchaeology | August 20, 2009In Nazi Germany and its occupied territories there were many ways to get thrown into an extermination camp. But Friedrich Marby broke some kind of record: he was sent to Dachau for publishing too silly ideas about runes. He survived.
The Nazis themselves were no strangers to occultism, particularly Heinrich Himmler, whose neo-Pagan religious movement I've touched upon before. Movements similar to today's New Age, neo-paganism and occultism flourished in the early 20th century. But Marby was too much even for Himmler: he invented runic aerobics.
Marby's ideas took off from the cosmic and…
aardvarchaeology | August 11, 2009One of my pastimes is writing on Wikipedia. It's almost unavoidable since I use the encyclopedia daily and keep running into stuff to correct -- facts, spelling, stylistic mishaps. In the past, though, I've been really discouraged when trying to improve the articles about Falun Gong (a.k.a. Chinese Scientology). They used to be a battleground between Chinese Communist Party loyalists and Falun Gong devotees, both sides trying to cram as much propaganda into the articles as possible. Then the FGers managed to get the CCP guys banned from editing, which was excellent in itself. Unfortunately it…
pharyngula | July 31, 2009Jesus in a pita, Madonna in bird poop, gods speaking through the arrangement of viscera…we're used to ridiculous religious pattern seeking. A reader, Mike Barnes, wrote in to tell me about a scientist who has been playing the same game: Francis Collins sees DNA in stained glass windows.
Collins showed two images--a stained-glass rose window often seen in Christian churches, and an eerily similar graphic that he described as "looking down the barrel" of DNA's double helix.
"I'm not trying to say that there's something inherently religious" in the DNA image, Collins emphasized. "But, I think…
pharyngula | July 29, 2009Many of us have long noticed the truly awful quackery hosted at the Huffington Post, with acupuncturists, anti-vax fanatics, and general all-around kooks like Deepak Chopra given free rein.
Now Salon has pointed out the obvious, with some depth. Have you wondered why the HuffPo is so bad on science and medicine? The blame can be pinned directly on Arianna Huffington, who hand-picked with little discrimination or sense who the 'medical' contributors to the site would be. That's the scatter-brained, credulous brain of Arianna on display in that mess on HuffPo.
pharyngula | July 29, 2009(Note: this is the infamous article on chiropractic that got Simon Singh sued. It is being reposted all over the web today by multiple blogs and online magazines.)
Some practitioners claim it is a cure-all, but the research suggests chiropractic therapy has mixed results - and can even be lethal, says Simon Singh.
You might be surprised to know that the founder of chiropractic therapy, Daniel David Palmer, wrote that "99% of all diseases are caused by displaced vertebrae". In the 1860s, Palmer began to develop his theory that the spine was involved in almost every illness because the spinal…
aardvarchaeology | July 16, 2009In the West we shake our heads, and very rightly so in my opinion, at sharia, Islamic law rooted in the culture of 7th century AD Arabia. This is the body of thought that leads to judicial stonings and mutilations to this day.
The legislative assemblies of Ireland and Lithuania, each just a short boat ride from Swedish shores, have recently shown that the mindset they cultivate is certainly not that of AD 700. They are aiming for Old Testament times, 700 BC or earlier.
In Ireland, blasphemous speech is now illegal. "Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will…
pharyngula | July 6, 2009I know! He's dead! But that's one corpse that you know isn't going to rest easily.
First, the ghouls are out in force. "psychic" ghoul James Van Praagh says he's been having conversations with Jackson's ghost; ghoul enabler Oprah Winfrey has quickly snatched him up to appear on her show and make the entire country disgusted.
Sylvia Browne, quick to gnaw the scraps off the bones, now claims that she has been chatting with the dead guy. Coming in second means she gets the consolation prize of appearing on the Montel Williams show.
There is now a video circulating about that claims to have…
pharyngula | June 24, 2009The boy who was in the news recently for his Hodgkin lymphoma that his family wanted to treat with ineffectual homeopathy and herbs is actually getting better — now that the courts have ordered him to continue the medically functional chemotherapy treatments.
He doesn't like chemotherapy, though (and who would?), and there are these interesting rationalizations going on.
Daniel Hauser was not at the court hearing but later told The Associated Press he had hoped he would be able to stop chemotherapy, which he said makes him ill.
"I get really sick when I do it," the teen said during an…
grrlscientist | June 23, 2009
Who: CFI-NYC Executive Director, Michael De Dora, Jr.
What: free public presentation, "CFI and the State of Science and Reason"
Where: Shetler Studios, 244 West 54th Street between Broadway & 8th Avenue, 12th floor, Penthouse 1.
When: 830pm Tuesday, 23 June 2009
What exactly is the Center for Inquiry? What does CFI stand for? How does CFI carry out its mission? What does CFI -- specifically the New York City office -- have to offer to society? And how can you get involved with CFI and the movement? Come hear the new CFI-NYC Executive Director Michael De Dora Jr. address all these…
grrlscientist | June 22, 2009
Who: CFI-NYC Executive Director, Michael De Dora, Jr.
What: free public presentation, "CFI and the State of Science and Reason"
Where: Shetler Studios, 244 West 54th Street between Broadway & 8th Avenue, 12th floor, Penthouse 1.
When: 830pm Tuesday, 23 June 2009
What exactly is the Center for Inquiry? What does CFI stand for? How does CFI carry out its mission? What does CFI -- specifically the New York City office -- have to offer to society? And how can you get involved with CFI and the movement? Come hear the new CFI-NYC Executive Director Michael De Dora Jr. address all these…
aardvarchaeology | June 19, 2009
The Swedish Humanist Association is currently running our version of the Atheist Bus Campaign in the Stockholm subway. Gud finns nog inte -- "God probably doesn't exist". It may seem a little gratuitous in a country where few people are religious any more, but the ads make the point that there's a lot of quiet Christian influence still around in society. For instance, the country's flag carries a cross. Anyway, the campaign isn't making much of a splash as far as I'm aware, though Göran Rosenberg (a liberal columnist who contributed to a pro-Anthroposophy anthology five years ago) wrote…
pharyngula | June 16, 2009It's called Zicam Cold Remedy Nasal gel. Unfortunately, it doesn't do a thing for colds…all it can do is destroy your sense of smell. It wasn't caught before it was put on the market, because, get this:
The FDA said Zicam Cold Remedy was never formally approved because it is part of a small group of remedies that are not required to undergo federal review before launching. Known as homeopathic products, the formulations often contain herbs, minerals and flowers.
Minerals. Like lots of zinc, which can cause nerve damage.
grrlscientist | June 16, 2009
Who: CFI-NYC Executive Director, Michael De Dora, Jr.
What: free public presentation, "CFI and the State of Science and Reason"
Where: Shetler Studios, 244 West 54th Street between Broadway & 8th Avenue, 12th floor, Penthouse 1.
When: 830pm Tuesday, 23 June 2009
What exactly is the Center for Inquiry? What does CFI stand for? How does CFI carry out its mission? What does CFI -- specifically the New York City office -- have to offer to society? And how can you get involved with CFI and the movement? Come hear the new CFI-NYC Executive Director Michael De Dora Jr. address all these…
pharyngula | June 16, 2009A short while ago, the blogosphere was irate over the outing of the identity of a pseudonymous blogger, Publius. The outing followed the usual pattern: pseudonymous blogger annoys right-winger who can't cope, right-winger lashes out by revealing the name behind the pseudonym (as if that somehow addresses the criticisms), then right-winger sits back and starts defending himself: "he deserved it", "he shouldn't expect to be anonymous", "anonymity is bad, anyways". It's so damned stupid.
I have no problem with people using pseudonyms, especially since, as in the case of Publius, there was a…