Skepticism
sa smith | November 21, 2012Ask anyone who has stood up to quacks/charlatans/nutbars-- Crazy people be CRAZY.
Someone tries to educate the public, move their field, shine a candle in a demon haunted world, stand up for what they think is right, and they are rewarded with insane emails (check!), often including threats of physical violence (check!), badgering emails to ones employers (check, like, times eleventy!), which inevitably escalate into legal bullying (stifling free-speech by issuing false DMCAs, filing lawsuits with the intent of bankrupting the opposition, exploiting bullshit libel laws in backwards countries…
aardvarchaeology | November 18, 2012The former Swedish state church has been reasonably independent for twelve years. Now Juniorette's school plans to send the kids walking in festive procession with flaming torches to the Swedish church's local branch for an "Advent gathering". Good fun no doubt, and Juniorette would probably be most displeased if I made her stay in school with the more orthodox among the Muslim kids and a temp teacher.
I don't enjoy being pushed to make this call. So I've drafted a letter of protest to the headmistress where I point out that such non-educational favouritism for one of the country's many…
gregladen | November 5, 2012I’m a guy who “gets” nasty threats from haters. I receive anti-atheist threats and icky comments, I receive a LOT of nasty stuff from climate science denialists (and that often comes along with bogus threats of law suits), I receive nasty emails and tweets from the sexist and racist SlymePitters and those folks seem to spend more time than is healthy for them making Greg-hating memes and videos and comments on web sites I would not normally visit.
So, I receive nasty horrid verbal attacks from people who hate me and what I stand for, but do I get these nasty horrid verbal attacks in the way…
aardvarchaeology | October 8, 2012Let's make a list of religious prophets! But only the ones who, having convinced their faithful followers that they spoke the word of God, suddenly received revelations to the effect that God totally wanted them to fuck children or adolescents. I know of three to start with. Let's have some more, with references!
Muhammad, Islam's Prophet. In sura 33:50, God told the Prophet: “We made lawful for you [several categories of women]. Also, if a believing woman gave herself to the prophet—by forfeiting the dowry—the prophet may marry her without a dowry, if he so wishes. However, her forfeiting…
gregladen | October 8, 2012I knew this guy, can't remember his name, who practiced a combination of naturopathy and homeopathy (they are different) along with a few other suspicious arts, back in the 1970s. Other than the white muumuu that he usually wore, I remember two things about him. I remember that a few years before I ever laid eyes on him, he drove his Volkswagen Bug to Mexico to go on a spiritual journey, and within one day hit and killed a cow, and spent six months in jail for this, and was released back into the United States at the border. And, I remember that he almost killed Joe.
I have a friend, some…
sa smith | October 2, 2012How to do things, from someone who actually does things:
How to Protest a ‘Psychic’-- Dr. Caleb Lack
There is a big difference between writing and talking about doing something, and actually doing something in the Real World. Confuse the two at your own risk.
For instance, while it is fine and dandy to demand on your blog that all skeptic/atheist meetings have child care provided, it is another thing entirely to secure the necessary insurance for child care, find the money to pay for that insurance, find volunteers trained in child care/CPR/basic medicine, train all the volunteers in a…
gregladen | September 29, 2012The Secular Coalition of America is a lobbying group that represents several groups, including American Atheists, the American Humanist Association, Camp Quest, the Secular Student Alliance and so on. A few months ago the SCA made news, in a bad way, by appointing a former Bush White House Staffer, Edwina Rogers, as Executive Director. Many of us did not like that and we complained, and we were essentially told a) the decision is final and b) don't worry, everything will be OK.
But it is not. Much more recently, the SCA appointed as a co-director for one of its state groups a guy who has…
illconsidered | September 12, 2012I honestly think that while belief in creationism is the antithesis of scientific thought, it is still possible to be a good scientist and a creationist at the same time. This is for two main reasons. Firstly, creationism is a term that covers a wide spectrum of beliefs, from literal 6000 year old earth bible thumping denial of evolution to a more nuanced kind of mysticism that believes somewhere beneath the deep layers of complex and wonderful natural processes exists an unexplainable and supernatural foundation.
There is no practical difference between investigating how deeply "God's"…
oracknows | September 7, 2012Believe it or not, after nearly eight years blogging and around five years before that cutting my skeptical teeth on that vast and wild (and now mostly deserted and fallow) wilderness that was Usenet, I have occasionally wondered whether what I'm doing is worthwhile. Sometime around 1998, after I first discovered Holocaust denial on Usenet, and a year or so after that, I found the home of all quackery on Usenet, misc.health.alternative. From around 1998 to 2004, Usenet was my home, and that's where I fought what I thought to be the good fight against irrationality, antiscience, and quackery.…
sa smith | September 6, 2012OKC Atheists have done many, many things right.
On that list of right things (I encourage all atheist/skeptic groups to do this) is the way our groups support our 'local talent'. Every month, we have a meet-up called 'Disbelief Discourse', dreamed up and executed by my adventures-in-anti-vaxers friend CJ.
At these meet-ups, our own members do presentations on math, philosophy, politics, blogging, feminism, anything. Its a platform for us to find, encourage, support our local folks, while giving the local people an opportunity to practice presenting, interacting with audiences, etc. …
aardvarchaeology | August 21, 2012Kai gave me this lovely piece of old Scientology propaganda. The 1968 book Scientology: A History of Man is a re-titled edition of something L.R. Hubbard completed in 1951-52 and disseminated under the title What To Audit. After the formerly secret teachings about Xenu the evil space emperor etc., this is probably the most widely ridiculed text of Scientology. But with the fine cover image (apparently painted by Hubbard himself) and the new title, the book clearly aims to say something about humanity's ancient past – which is my job.
In the foreword Hubbard assures the reader that "This is a…
sa smith | August 20, 2012Via Coffee Loving Skeptic-- The laziest example of peddling snake-oil I have ever seen.
Revealed: Gorton church sells olive oil and blackcurrant squash as miracle 'cure' for cancer and HIV
M.E.N. reporter: After just 15 minutes I was offered church's ‘miracle cure’
Pastor: We are trying to help ... we aren’t hurting anyone
See, normally when people are scamming desperate people for money, the scammers put in quite a bit of effort on the front end, concocting a story for why their 'alternative treatment' is so fabulous. A good back-story can up your profit by orders of magnitude.
Its not a…
oracknows | August 10, 2012As the last full weekday of my vacation passes, I thought about whether I'd bother to post anything or not, given that I happen to be traveling. After yesterday's post, the subject of which was profoundly depressing to me because I hate it when quacks take cynical advantage of a grieving family to promote their antivaccine agenda, I thought I'd post something a bit more positive.
Nearly a month ago, I attended TAM, presenting there at one of the workshops and taking part in a panel discussion of "integrative medicine" (i.e., "integrating" quackery with real medicine). Leaving aside the…
sa smith | August 6, 2012There has been a ton of hilarious drama going on with the XMRV fiasco, but I havent been writing about it because I dont actually care. I 'cared' about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome because it was associated with a retrovirus. Turns out it was all a mirage-- The retrovirus known as XMRV is not infecting humans, and wouldnt be able to even if it wanted to.
So Judy Mikovits hiding on a boat and the Whittemores pissing of the Feds and the Mob, while fun for day-time soaps, is not real interesting for me as a science blogger (Note to Mikovits-- your shit was contaminated by XMRV plasmid or…
pharyngula | July 29, 2012Richard Muller used to be a doubter — he didn't think global warming was a concern, and he didn't think people were responsible for it. Now he has changed his mind, and he explains why.
Call me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the…
pharyngula | July 9, 2012No.
One other event I participated in was a "debate" with an ancient alien theorist. It was very peculiar, as you might guess. The way this came about was that Scotty Roberts, the alien astronaut fan, proposed a session on his wacky speculations, and the conference organizers didn't want such lunacy to sail through without a word, so they asked some of the people on the science & skepticism track to engage. Greg Laden and I agreed to sit on a panel with him and another person, with Desiree Schell to moderate. And then I just kind of ignored the prospect until the day of.
Greg Laden met in…
pharyngula | July 1, 2012Oh, it's another crappy television show put on by a purported science-positive network that I completely missed. National Geographic ran a show called "Chasing UFOs" on Friday, and since about the only television I ever watch any more is commercial-free movies on Netflix, I wasn't tuned in. Fortunately, Robert Sheaffer did, and found it "lurid and sensational".
A fellow named Kacey Simmons claimed to have seen UFOs in a particular forested area, so the UFO Chasers decide to go there to check it out. At night, of course. So they attach themselves to absurd-looking night vision equipment with…
gregladen | June 30, 2012Every now and then a news story comes along that makes me want to repost this particular thing I wrote a long time ago. And it has happened again. First, the news story:
National Geographic Channel has run a poll in which they found that 36% of Americans "believe UFO's exist." This is in line with previous results. There are other findings as well, but one item is new. The survey asked people who would do a better job of fighting off Aliens if they come to earth and, well, wanna fight. Obama killed Romney on that question.
So just keep that in mind when you are in the voting booth,…
pharyngula | June 10, 2012I completely missed the disgraceful hokum the Animal Planet channel aired last week, Mermaids: The Body Found, a completely fictional pseudodocumentary dressed up as reality that claims mermaids exist. You can watch it now, though, until Animal Planet takes it down.
It's genuinely awful. Total nonsense, gussied up with more nonsense: would you believe it justifies the story with the Aquatic Ape gobbledygook? Brian Switek has torn into it, and of course Deep Sea News is disgusted. How could the channel have so disgraced themselves with such cheap fiction?
Here's the answer:
ANIMAL PLANET…
gregladen | June 10, 2012Skeptics fight an up hill battle. This battle consists of deploying critical thinking across a range of cultural landscapes, implementing scientific thinking to solve problems, and the thoughtful evaluation of knowledge, while 90 percent of the world is out to stop you, or at least make it hard. Or so it seems. To be honest, I can't back up that 90 percent figure with any hard facts. Sorry.
But the Skeptic faces more than just uncritical thinking, incorrect facts, or poor scientific judgment. The Skeptic must also wrestle with ... The Anti Skeptic.
Of which there are several kinds.…