Skepticism/Critical Thinking
oracknows | August 3, 2009Due to annoying stuff at work and good stuff personally, I didn't have time to grind out my usual bit of Insolence, either Respectful or not-so-Respectful, today. Fortunately, there is a long history on this blog, full of good stuff that I can repost. So, as I did when I went to TAM7, I'm picking a couple of posts for today that originally appeared in August. This one happens to have first appeared in August 2006; so if you haven't been reading at least three years, it's new to you (and if you have, I hope you enjoy it a second time).
I'll be back tomorrow.
Via Pure Pedantry, I've become…
oracknows | July 30, 2009It's that time yet again, time for another meeting of the Skeptics' Circle. This time around, Beyond the Short Coat hosts a nightmare. No, really, a nightmare. Remember Mitchell and Web's vision of what a Homeopathic A & E would look like? The 116th Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle goes way, way beyond that. Here's hoping I don't get injured or sick or injured any time soon.
Next up is Ionian Enchantment on August 13. Help purge this horrific vision of the future of medicine by lining up posts now.
oracknows | July 28, 2009You may have heard of the lunatic fringe contingent that thinks that Barack Obama is not a natural-born citizen of the United States and thus not eligible to be President of the United States according to the Constitution. They're incredible cranks, cooking up all manner of dire conspiracy theories about a doctored birth certificate and birth documents, all full of dark plotting, aided and abetted, of course, by the "liberal" press. They're very much like 9/11 Truthers, only not as coherent. (And, no, that's not a compliment to 9/11 Truthers, either.)
That there are kooky conspiracy theorists…
oracknows | July 28, 2009In discussions of that bastion of what Harriet Hall (a.k.a. The SkepDoc) likes to call "tooth fairy science," where sometimes rigorous science, sometimes not, is applied to the study of hypotheses that are utterly implausible and incredible from a basic science standpoint (such as homeopathy or reiki), the National Center of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), I've often taken Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) to task. That's because Senator Harkin is undeniably the father of that misbegotten beast that has sucked down over $2.5 billion of taxpayer money with nothing to show for it. It's…
oracknows | July 27, 2009Last week, I expressed my surprise and dismay that the Atheist Alliance International chose Bill Maher for the Richard Dawkins Award. I was dismayed because Maher has championed pseudoscience, including dangerous antivaccine nonsense, germ theory denialism complete with repeating myths about Louis Pasteur supposedly recanting on his deathbed, a href="http://oracknows.blogspot.com/2005/12/bill-maher-anti-vax-wingnut.html">hostility towards "Western medicine" and an affinity for "alternative medicine," a history of sympathy to HIV/AIDS denialists, and the activities of PETA through his…
oracknows | July 25, 2009Last night, I received an e-mail from a fairly well-known atheist (no, it wasn't Richard Dawkins, although that would have been totally cool) criticizing me for my post about Bill Maher's complete unsuitability for the Richard Dawkins Award. I'm not going to reprint my response to that part, because, well, his criticisms were pretty much a boilerplate of other blowback I've received from the post. What caught my attention more was that he noticed a couple of posts of mine about Jenny McCarthy.
I'll paraphrase, because I don't have this person's permission to post his e-mail. Not that that…
oracknows | July 24, 2009It's been a pretty good week on the ol' blog here, with lots of good material to draw from, finishing up yesterday with my expression of disdain for the choice of Bill Maher for the Richard Dawkins Award. I expected some blowback for my criticism, and I got some. However, I was surprised at how mild it was, at least from the one person I expected to defend the decision, P.Z. Myers. Quite frankly, his defense of the decision to select Bill Maher struck me as enormously half-hearted, in essence saying, "Sure he's a wingnut, but he's our wingnut, and, oh, by the way, all that quackery he…
oracknows | July 23, 2009Although I often don't agree with him and have cooled on him lately, I still rather like--even admire--Richard Dawkins. While it's true I've taken him to task for having a tin ear for bioethics, lamented his walking blindly right into charges of anti-Semitism (no, I don't think he's an anti-Semite), and half-defended/half-criticized him for seeming to endorsing eugenics. What's really irritated me about him in the past, though, is his use of the "Neville Chamber atheist" gambit that I so detest, so much so that I once featured Dawkins in a Hitler Zombie episode (albeit not as the victim). On…
oracknows | July 19, 2009While we're on the subject of pareidolia, it turns out that Mitchell and Webb have taken this topic on as well...
Awesome.
oracknows | July 18, 2009Everyone knows that I'm a bit of a connoisseur of pareidolia. Pareidolia, for those not familiar with the term, is a phenomenon where humans see patterns in various things, you know, like seeing Elvis in a flame or the Virgin Mary on a stain under a freeway overpass in Chicago or in a window blotch in Perth Amboy, or seeing Jesus on a shell, on the wall of a shower, on a sand dune, a potato chip, or (my personal favorite) a pierogi. Heck, there have even been Jesus sightings on a cat, a stain on a ceiling tile, and even on a rather odd location on a dog.
However, I really, really have to…
oracknows | July 16, 2009If there was one thing about going to TAM7 last week, it was the opportunity to contemplate among a thousand fellow skeptics just what critical thinking and reason mean. If there's one thing about woo, pseudoscience, and conspiracy theories in all their forms, it's not just a lack of critical thinking and a plethora of logical fallacies. More importantly, it's the question, "How do we know what we know?" Certainly science is the primary means by which we explore the natural world and make conclusions about how it works, however imperfect they may be, but not everyone uses science, reason, and…
oracknows | July 14, 2009Before I close the book on the Science-Based Medicine Conference and TAM7 for 2009, I have a quick request of you, my readers. Specifically, I'd really appreciate it if any of you who were at the SBM Conference and/or TAM7 and took pictures, to send me copies, preferably full resolution. As you might guess, at the SBM Conference I didn't have time to take more than a handful of pictures myself, and obviously I couldn't take pictures of the Anti-Anti-Vax Conference at TAM7 because, well, I was participating in it. The e-mail address is orac@scienceblogs.com.
And thanks to everyone who reads my…
oracknows | July 14, 2009Rerun time is over.
Very early Monday morning, a plane touched down, a car drove along a dark and deserted freeway, and my wife and I found ourselves finally back at home. True, we did have a late night diversion to Denny's because we were starving, but by 2 AM or so we were back home. Time to go to bed. Time to go back to work. No more Las Vegas. No more The Amaz!ng Meeting.
Now what?
I probably should have written this yesterday, or on the plane. It's really amazing how fast impressions become memory and memory morphs and fades. But I was simply too tired. I used to be able to adjust to a…
oracknows | July 13, 2009Well, I'm back.
After my trip to TAM7, I'm back in the real world, jet-lagged and tired. So it may take me a while--hopefully only a little while--to get back to my usual prolific output, and there will be something later today. In the meantime, just let me say I really, really wish I had had this T shirt to wear at TAM7:
Well, actually I wish I had a G-rated version of the shirt to wear. I don't generally wear T shirts with profanity on them.
If such a shirt existed, then all I would need to complete my wardrobe would be this one:
That would be a problem, wouldn't it?
oracknows | July 12, 2009I've just returned from Las Vegas after having attended The Amazing Meeting.. Believe it or not, I was even on a panel! While I'm gone, However, my flight was scheduled to arrive very late Sunday night, and I'm still recovering. Consequently, for one more day I'll be reposting some Classic Insolence from the month of July in years past. (After all, if you haven't been following this blog at least a year, it'll be new to you. And if you have I hope you enjoy it again.) This particular post first appeared in July 2007.
I really shouldn't do it.
I really shouldn't go perusing the blog of the…
oracknows | July 8, 2009Today, I'm leaving for The Amazing Meeting in Las Vegas. I can't wait to get there. Believe it or not, I'll even be on a panel! While I'm there I'll probably manage to do a new post or two, but, in the meantime, while I'm away communing with fellow skeptics at TAM7, I'll be reposting some Classic Insolence from the month of July in years past. (After all, if you haven't been following this blog at least a year, it'll be new to you. And if you have I hope you enjoy it again.) This particular post first appeared in July 2007.
This sort of thing makes one wonder if the personification of…
oracknows | July 6, 2009Two of the major themes on this blog since the very beginning has been the application of science- and evidence-based medicine to the care of patients and why so much of so-called "complementary and alternative" medicine, as well as fringe movements like the anti-vaccine movement, have little or--more commonly--virtually no science to support their claims and recommendations. One major shortcoming of the more commonly used evidence-based medicine paradigm (EBM) that has been in ascendance as the preferred method of evaluating clinical evidence. Specifically, as Dr. Kimball Atwood IV (1, 2, 3…
oracknows | July 2, 2009Well it's here, just in time for the Fourth of July weekend holiday, a brand spanking new Skeptics' Circle. Given how many of our Founding Fathers were freethinkers, I like to think now is a perfect time for a shot of skeptical blogging. And our host this week has just the thing: On the Tendency of Skeptics to form Circles; and on the Perpetuation of Circles and Skeptics by Natural Means of Selection. Be sure to check it out.
Next up in two weeks is Effort Sisyphus. Be sure to start firing up your keyboards to provide the raw material, namely great skeptical blogging, to make next week's…
oracknows | July 1, 2009Remember Sharyl Attkisson?
She's the CBS reporter who can really bring home the crazy when it comes to vaccines and autism, laying down some serious crankery (complete with many logical fallacies) and hit pieces on Dr. Paul Offit. Indeed, at times she gives Mike Adams a run for his money when it comes to laying down the pseudoscience and crankery. Worse, she appears to be in bed with at least one of the bloggers at the antivaccine propaganda blog Age of Autism for the purpose of bringing antivaccination lunacy to the masses by assisting them in smearing Voices for Vaccines. Indeed, aside from…
oracknows | June 30, 2009I waited.
I knew it was coming. It had to. History was on my side. My quarry was nutty, but in a way exceedingly predictable. it wasn't so much that I knew exactly what he would do. He wasn't predictable in that way. It was that I knew he would do something crazy. Actually, on second thought, I did know what he was going to do. I had only to consider how ghoulishly he treated Tony Snow and Bernie Mac, and Tim Russert and how he leapt at the opportunity to abuse Christina Applegate. To him, when a dying celebrity like Patrick Swayze rejected quackery, it was more than he could stand. Whenever…