Skepticism
pharyngula | March 11, 2011The Oregon House has passed a bill removing the special protections for faith healers. Sorry, god-botherers in Oregon, you don't get to claim the approval of gods to justify torturing, maiming, and killing your children with neglect.
It passed unanimously, too, although of course a couple of Rethuglicans had to voice reservations. Why? Because they're idiots.
Rep. Jim Weidner, R-Yamhill, said he worried "we might be heading down a slippery slope." He said he prayed earlier in the day about his son's severe tonsillitis. His wife took his son to the doctor Thursday morning, he added, but "am I…
gregladen | March 9, 2011I'm reminded of Boobquake because of this
Obligatory photograph related to Boobquake:
Photograph from "A Fatwa on Purdah"
When boobquake happened, I checked the USGS for earthquakes and found, if memory serves, a quake of about 7.0 magnitude. Such quakes happen just over once a month, so that seemed important. However, either memory does not serve or the magnitude of the earthquake was adjusted (initial estimates are often revised) and it turns out that the only 6+ earthquake to occur over the three day period before, during, and after April 26 2010 was a 6.5 magnitude quake (on Boobquake…
gregladen | March 8, 2011Jen McCreight writes the blog Blag Hag and became famous last year for attempting unsuccessfully to prove that if a large number of women wore low cut shirts there would be a major earthquake. (It turns out that there was a 7-point-something earthquake on "Boob Quake" day, which requires that the experiment be repeated.)
(It is interesting to note that most people seem to have not noticed that earthquake for some reason. And they call themselves Skeptics!)
Anyway, Jen will be a guest on Atheist Talk Radio this coming Sunday, March 13th.
I predict that if an atheist talks about how god does…
pharyngula | March 6, 2011It's in the works: Skepticon IV will be held in October, and the organizers are straining to bring the resources together they need to make it happen. If you'd like to donate, this is a good time, since Polaris Financial is providing matching funds for any contribution made in March.
They haven't announced the speakers at the event, but look at the list of past speakers to see how it has grown.
pharyngula | March 2, 2011Below is a news clip from our local Fox station. I feel very, very sorry for Leif Reffsgaard, who is being rewarded with a lot of attention for being gullible. He's a third grader who claims to be able to heal his friends by waving his hands around.
Third-Grader Heals Friends with Qigong: MyFoxTWINCITIES.com
There is some small hope for the poor deluded kid. Here's what he thinks about his 'powers'.
I just think magic is really cool…I feel like I'm a wizard using the healing spell.
Maybe someday he'll wake up to the fact that magic doesn't work in the real world. Or maybe about the time he…
aardvarchaeology | March 1, 2011
Jack Chick is an insane Christian cartoonist. Howard Phillips Lovecraft was an atheist horror writer who wrote about people being driven insane. In Fred Van Lente and Steve Ellis's brilliant 2000 tract, Chick and Lovecraft are made one.
Thanks to Kalle Bäcklander for the tip-off.
pharyngula | February 27, 2011This is an experiment. Take care, readers, you might experience symptoms of distress and nausea if you actually watch this video.
Wow. "Quantum". "Vibrational frequencies". "Higher planes". "Vibratory medicine". Attractive young lady waving her hands over people. Did you know Melissa Hocking has a double degree in…Science? Really, it's true — check out the Quantum BioEnergetics website if you don't believe me. It's got testimonials.
Many clients, adolescent, adult and child, have reported healings from Cancers, Mental illnesses, Depression, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Physical injuries, a…
pharyngula | February 26, 2011It's all very confusing, and I'm not quite sure how they managed all these years…all those Irish children must have been the product of some amusing and peculiar accidents. At least the quacks are profiting from the confusion — here, for instance, is a mysterious bottle of an over-the-counter "organic" menopause relief remedy.
It's the limitation that is the stumper: "Do not use if pregnant." Are there many women bumbling about in the pharmacy thinking that they need to be relieved of this problem of menopause?
And then there's this headline, "I'd lost my baby then somehow fell pregnant…
aardvarchaeology | February 16, 2011
When skeptical darling George Hrab released his latest album, Trebuchet, he placed a golden ticket in the sleeve of one copy that went into regular distribution. On the ticket was Hrab's phone number and a promise to come and play a gig for free at the venue of the recipient's choice. When the call came, it was from a guy in Helsinki.
Upon Hrab's mentioning this on his podcast, I suggested to my fellow board members of the Swedish Skeptics that we might make the trip worthwhile for the man and organise some Swedish gigs. Everybody liked the idea, and Hrab was happy to oblige. Then the…
pharyngula | February 15, 2011Those two wretched words are "faith" and "homeopathy". Please go kill it. Kill it, then burn it, then piss on the ashes, then use the ashes to fertilize a field and grow a tall stand of grass, then burn that, and then use the field as a fecal lagoon where you toss the waste from raising pigs, which you turn into bacon, thereby salvaging something useful from it.
See? I can too be an optimistic dreamer.
Do you have faith in homeopathy?
Yes: it works 68%
No: it's nonsense 26%
I've an open mind on it 5%
pharyngula | February 15, 2011John Beddington, Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK government, has had enough and isn't going to take it any more. He's urging a more vigorous response to the creeping woo.
"We are grossly intolerant, and properly so, of racism. We are grossly intolerant, and properly so, of people who [are] anti-homosexuality... We are not—and I genuinely think we should think about how we do this—grossly intolerant of pseudo-science, the building up of what purports to be science by the cherry-picking of the facts and the failure to use scientific evidence and the failure to use scientific method."
"One…
pharyngula | February 13, 2011Ray Kurzweil is a genius. One of the greatest hucksters of the age. That's the only way I can explain how his nonsense gets so much press and has such a following. Now he has the cover of Time magazine, and an article called 2045: The Year Man Becomes Immortal. It certainly couldn't be taken seriously anywhere else; once again, Kurzweil wiggles his fingers and mumbles a few catchphrases and upchucks a remarkable prediction, that in 35 years (a number dredged out of his compendium of biased estimates), Man (one, a few, many? How? He doesn't know) will finally achieve immortality (seems to me…
pharyngula | February 13, 2011Hi, Ben!
Ben is my neighbor, and I think he's on his way to being a good skeptic. He found this book at the library book sale and had to share it with me — although he had a hard time holding back the laughter as he tried to describe it, and now that I've read it, he's right…it's hilarious.
We are doomed, according to V.M. Rabolú. There is a giant planet called Hercolubus, or the Red Planet, which is going to collide with Earth and destroy the human race entirely. Rabolú is warning us, not that there's much we can do about it.
How does he know this? He's an astral traveler. You can trust him…
pharyngula | February 9, 2011I previously mentioned that the Science Museum in London is peddling quackery — they have exhibits that purportedly present nonsense like homeopathy and acupuncture as reasonable potential alternative treatments for some people. Since then, the Science Museum strove pitifully to cover their butts with some excuses, excuses that fall flat. I've seen photographs of the exhibits, and they go beyond objective anthropological reportage to uncritical acceptance of woo and the presentation of anecdotes as validating evidence. They should be deeply, horribly embarrassed, and should be looking into…
pharyngula | February 8, 2011Homeopaths have another opportunity to get rich quick: all they have to do is show that it works, and Randi will give them a million dollars.
This is what Randi demands:
Randi issued a one-million-dollar challenge to the manufacturers of homeopathic products to prove their claims, and challenged major drug retailers like CVS, Rite-Aid, and Walgreens to stop tricking consumers into paying real money for fake medicine.
I noticed that my local grocery store is selling generic chain-labeled homeopathic "remedies" for colds and flu and other common ailments. Somebody is making a lot of money…
pharyngula | February 2, 2011I had no idea that ions combined to produce fungi and bacteria in water — I guess spontaneous generation isn't dead after all. That's one of the claims of a con artist named Peter Goodgold who sells magic water ionizers that cure all illnesses…because, as he says, there is actually only one disease, acidosis. It's complete nonsense as the video below explains.
His gadget can't work, and has to be doing a lot of things to the water that he isn't telling anyone about. How does he respond to the demonstration of his incompetence and dishonesty? Why, he threatens to sue and files complaints to…
pharyngula | February 2, 2011Actually, I know they got a lot wrong. The Mail reports that a study "proves" students believe everything they read on the internet. They cite some work done with the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus site, which they claim was created as part of a study to test student gullibility. This is wrong; that site has been available for years, and it's a satire and humor site; look at the rest of zapatopi.net to see what I mean.
Also, I actually use the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus every semester, in the first lecture of our introductory biology course! After giving an overview of the scientific…
pharyngula | February 2, 2011Laugh anyway. It's a cartoon illustrating what would happen when a bunch of astrologers wielding homeopathic rays and perpetual motion engines encounter Captain Sagan in a starship armed with Science. The results are a bit brutal, but I guess that's what happens when fantasy and reality collide.
pharyngula | February 1, 2011Several people have sent me messages of despair lately. They're working in universities which, like every university in the country, is struggling with tight budgets and declining support from the state government, and a citizenry that seems to be a sucker for every pseudoscientific scam some scoundrel will sell, and what is the academic administration doing? They're joining in the con!
Look here at the University of Maryland School of Medicine: they've opened something called the Center for Integrative Medicine, where prospective doctors can go to learn how to gather Qi, or how to relieve…
pharyngula | January 31, 2011This time, for real. I keep promising to tell you how it works, and somehow the explanations always look ridiculous, but finally I found an authoritative video that gives you the specific molecular details.
See? Is everything clear now?