Skepticism/Critical Thinking
oracknows | September 24, 2006I realize that PZ and Skeptico have already posted this, but it's just too hilarious for me, as a bit of a connoisseur of pareidolia, to pass up, regardless of who might have posted about it before.
We've seen Jesus in many strange places, even on toast, but I bet you've never seen Him appear in a location such as this before. I'm not sure if the first part of the animated GIF is Photoshopped or not, but it is hilarious. (Warning: Not for the easily offended.)
Hallelujah!
And if that's not enough, Evolving Thoughts points out that new images of the infamous "Face on Mars" Cydonia confirm that…
oracknows | September 22, 2006With all the vaccination "skeptics" who've crawled out of the woodwork over the last couple of days in response to my two posts about Dawn Winkler, the Libertarian candidate for the Governor of Colorado who happens to be a rabid antivaccination activist, not to mention totally clueless and nasty about autistic children (and who even showed up to play the faux amusement bit on my blog), I briefly contemplated antivaccination woo as this week's topic. It would have fit well thematically and flowed naturally from previous posts and dicussion on the matter. After all, there is an incredible…
oracknows | September 21, 2006Skeptico explains why confirmation bias and the Forer effect make astrology seem like it might work when it's really a load of crap. As usual, he makes it plain why astrology is bunk, reiterating his Astrology Challenge.
oracknows | September 18, 2006Listen to this episode of Point of Inquiry. It includes an interview with Ann Druyan, Carl Sagan's widow, who cowrote Cosmos and Contact. That's good enough (although the sound quality of her connection is not so good), but what will really get you fired up is the last half of the podcast contains last public address for CSICOP, from its conference in Seattle in 1994. Entitled "Wonder and Skepticism," Sagan how he became interested in science and astronomy because of his sheer wonder at science and the stars, argues why science is the best way of looking at the world (his part about the…
oracknows | September 15, 2006It's about time it was Friday. No, it's not because it will mean any less work for me; in fact, this weekend will probably mean more, as I have to go to a workshop that's more like boot camp. It's more because the subject matter of this blog had become such a major bummer, with the fifth anniversary of September 11, followed by a rumination about aging, followed by two posts about the dismal funding situation at the NIH. The only thing breaking up the gloom was getting a chance to point out a lovely deconstruction of an HIV "skeptics'" misguided attempt at claiming the mantle of skepticism,…
oracknows | September 14, 2006I never knew that puppies liked logic and critical thinking. I always thought that they liked running, playing, eating, sleeping, and being petted. But, according to Janet Stemwedel, there is at least one puppy who is a budding skeptic, and bad reasoning and gullibility make him sad. She explains in the introduction to the 43rd Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle:
Welcome to the meeting of the 43rd Skeptics' Circle! Good logic and critical thinking never hurt anyone, but bad logic, gullibility, and uncritical acceptance of questionable claims causes distress to small, furry animals. I'm not…
oracknows | September 13, 2006With the latest edition of the Skeptics' Circle due to appear later today, I'd just like to point out that I've become aware of two new skeptical blogs:
Action Skeptics (I like its catchphrase, "Annoying stupid people, one woo at a time.")
The Antidote: Counterspin for Health Care and Health News
They're worth checking out, and I'll keep an eye on them to see how they develop. And while we're at it, I would be remiss if I didn't mention another skeptical blog belonging to someone who's become a frequent commenter here. That's right, I mean Amy Alkon, a.k.a. The Advice Goddess, who runs a…
oracknows | September 12, 2006Sometimes there are things that happen when blogging. You get accolades from unexpected sources, little ego boosts that make it all worthwhile. Such a thing happened yesterday, on the basis of my little blurb mentioning Skeptico's takedown of Hank Barnes's misuse of logical fallacies. The reaction, as reflected in the comments in Hank's blog, was quite hilarious. One reader whined:
Whenever somebody claims to be debunking something, it always means that somebody revealed an uncomfortable truth and now they've got to stuff it back in the bottle.
Well no, actually, the only thing "uncomfortable…
oracknows | September 11, 2006It never ceases to amuse me when a blogger known for his embrace of bad science anxious to claim the mantle of "skeptic" falls flat on his face doing so. For an example of just such an occurrence, check out Skeptico's latest post, A Straw Man Gets AIDS. In it, Skeptico systematically demolishes an AIDS/HIV "skeptic's" attempt to list what he thinks are supposed "logical fallacies" used by those who argue for the conventionally held scientific consensus that HIV infection usually results in AIDS. Yes, it's an old friend and occasional commenter, a tireless HIV/AIDS "dissident," and Skeptico…
oracknows | September 8, 2006As regular readers may have noticed, I was on vacation the last two Fridays in a row. To keep Your Friday Dose of Woo (YFDoW) going, I decided to resurrect a couple of posts from the old blog that would have made good installments of YFDoW installments, had YFDoW existed at the time when they were originally written. One thing I noticed upon coming back and approaching this first new YFDoW since getting back to work was that it seemed even harder than usual to settle on a specific topic this week. I looked back over some links that I had saved, but none of them fired me up enough to wade into…
oracknows | September 2, 2006This time, the Virgin Mary is on a tree:
LOCKPORT -- A Harvey Street woman claimed on Wednesday that she heard the voice of the Virgin Mary and has seen visions of the Mother of God in the trimmed branches of a maple tree in front of her house.
Antonia "Toni" Filipertis, 84, a devout Catholic, comes to tears when she relates the story which began about 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday. Her family firmly believes her.
Neighborhood children and adults see and wonder. Several teachers from John Pound Elementary School came across the street to take a look. Principal Roberta Donovan could not swear to the…
oracknows | September 1, 2006While I am on vacation, I'm reprinting a number of "Classic Insolence" posts to keep the blog active while I'm gone. (It also has the salutory effect of allowing me to move some of my favorite posts from the old blog over to the new blog, and I'm guessing that quite a few of my readers have probably never seen many of these old posts.) These will appear at least twice a day while I'm gone (and that will probably leave some leftover for Christmas vacation, even). Enjoy, and please feel free to comment. I will be checking in from time to time when I have Internet access to see if the reaction…
oracknows | August 31, 2006Rapidly dwindling vacation or no vacation, I have to plug the Skeptic's Circle.
Some of you may have wondered where the host of this week's Skeptic's Circle has been. After all, a few of you commented that his blog hadn't been updated in three months, even with a notice for the Skeptics' Circle. Fear not! Our intrepid host had to overcome even more than you think (in his mind, that is). Let him tell the tale in this brief excerpt:
Welcome to the 42nd meeting of the skeptics circle. Many of you have wondered where I have been over the past months and what has exactly been going on down in the…
oracknows | August 29, 2006While I am on vacation, I'm reprinting a number of "Classic Insolence" posts to keep the blog active while I'm gone. (It also has the salutory effect of allowing me to move some of my favorite posts from the old blog over to the new blog, and I'm guessing that quite a few of my readers have probably never seen many of these old posts.) These will appear at least twice a day while I'm gone (and that will probably leave some leftover for Christmas vacation, even). Enjoy, and please feel free to comment. I will be checking in from time to time when I have Internet access to see if the reaction…
oracknows | August 29, 2006While I am on vacation, I'm reprinting a number of "Classic Insolence" posts to keep the blog active while I'm gone. (It also has the salutory effect of allowing me to move some of my favorite posts from the old blog over to the new blog, and I'm guessing that quite a few of my readers have probably never seen many of these old posts.) These will appear at least twice a day while I'm gone (and that will probably leave some leftover for Christmas vacation, even). Enjoy, and please feel free to comment. I will be checking in from time to time when I have Internet access to see if the reaction…
oracknows | August 28, 2006While I am on vacation, I'm reprinting a number of "Classic Insolence" posts to keep the blog active while I'm gone. (It also has the salutory effect of allowing me to move some of my favorite posts from the old blog over to the new blog, and I'm guessing that quite a few of my readers have probably never seen many of these old posts.) These will appear at least twice a day while I'm gone (and that will probably leave some leftover for Christmas vacation, even). Enjoy, and please feel free to comment. I will be checking in from time to time when I have Internet access to see if the reaction…
oracknows | August 28, 2006While I am on vacation, I'm reprinting a number of "Classic Insolence" posts to keep the blog active while I'm gone. (It also has the salutory effect of allowing me to move some of my favorite posts from the old blog over to the new blog, and I'm guessing that quite a few of my readers have probably never seen many of these old posts.) These will appear at least twice a day while I'm gone (and that will probably leave some leftover for Christmas vacation, even). Enjoy, and please feel free to comment. I will be checking in from time to time when I have Internet access to see if the reaction…
oracknows | August 28, 2006Even though I'm on vacation, I would be remiss if I didn't post a reminder to all skeptics and skeptical bloggers out there that the latest edition of the Skeptics' Circle is due to be posted this Thursday. It's being hosted by Joseph at Immunoblogging (although he tells me by e-mail that he may use this carnival as a kickoff to a new blog that he is working on, which would be cool if he pulls it off; you may notice that there hasn't been a post on his present blog in three months--either way, I'll post the link here on Thursday, as always). In any case, it's not too late to submit examples…
oracknows | August 27, 2006While I am on vacation, I'm reprinting a number of "Classic Insolence" posts to keep the blog active while I'm gone. (It also has the salutory effect of allowing me to move some of my favorite posts from the old blog over to the new blog, and I'm guessing that quite a few of my readers have probably never seen many of these old posts.) These will appear at least twice a day while I'm gone (and that will probably leave some leftover for Christmas vacation, even). Enjoy, and please feel free to comment. I will be checking in from time to time when I have Internet access to see if the reaction…
oracknows | August 26, 2006The other day, in the wake of D. James Kennedy's dishonest documentary Darwin's Deadly Legacy, which blatantly tried to blame the Holocaust and Nazi racial hygiene policies to Darwin's theory of evolution in a totally dishonest way. Particularly ridiculous was Richard Weikart's emphasison the observation that the Nazis used the term "selection" when doctors met each new train transport of Jews at the entrances to the camps to choose who would go straight to the gas chambers and who would survive a while to work, most likely to die in a matter of weeks or months of a combination of starvation…