skeptics
oracknows | January 15, 2016I feel as though I'm experiencing an acid flashback to 2011, and I've never in my entire life once tried acid—or any mind-altering substance other than booze.
What am I talking about? Let's take a trip down memory lane, if you will, back to those halcyon days of—oh—five years ago. That was the time when I first took an interest in the Polish oncologist wannabe named Stanislaw Burzynski. Although I had mentioned him before because he featured prominently in Suzanne Somers' 2009 paean to quackery Knockout: Interviews with Doctors Who Are Curing Cancer–And How to Prevent Getting It in the First…
oracknows | March 13, 2013Film producer Eric Merola seems to think that there is a conspiracy of skeptics (whom he calls The Skeptics) hell bent on harassing his hero, Brave Maverick Doctor Stanislaw Burzynski. According to his latest film Burzynski: Cancer Is A Serious Business, Part 2 (henceforth referred to as Burzynski II, to distinguish it from Merola's first Burzynski movie, to which I will refer as Burzynski I), there is a shadowy cabal of Skeptics out there just waiting to swoop down on any Burzynski supporter who has the temerity to Tweet support for him, any cancer patient being treated by Burzynski who…
oracknows | January 22, 2013While I'm using my blog as an announcement platform today, I would be remiss not to mention that tomorrow is Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski's birthday, and the Skeptics for the Protection of Cancer Patients are still raising money for St. Jude's Children's Hospital in order to try to get Dr. Burzynski to do something good for cancer patients for a change. The beauty of it is that, even if Burzynski declines, as is likely, there'll still be a nice big donation to a real cancer center that does real good for children with cancer, which is in marked contrast to Burzynski. Harriet Hall has joined in the…
sciencepunk | August 7, 2010This is an adaptation of the talk I gave at Westminster Skeptics in the Pub on Monday 2nd August. You can hear an audio transcript of the talk at the Pod Delusion website.
I was invited to stage the talk again at the Winchester SITP, a recording of which is here.
I'm very much a child of the skeptical community. I started writing about bad science in 2004, in a scissors-and-glue zine titled War On Error (a very droll play on words at the time, and a lot easier than coming up with a twist on Overseas Contingency Operation). Eventually this moved online, morphing into SciencePunk. Over…
sastyk | February 25, 2010Mother Jones notes that in private interviews, Glenn Beck, fiery loon of the right, privately seems to believe in anthropogenic climate change.
Last week he mocked climate scientists for being "alarmists" who believe that "we're all going to die in a fiery flood." Not long ago he touted the global warming chapter of his An Inconvenient Book as "kryptonite against your Gore-worshipping psycho friends." And in May 2007 he hosted an hour-long television special, Exposed: The Climate of Fear, featuring an all-star lineup of climate change denialists and promising the "other side of the climate…
oracknows | January 24, 2010Mike Adams is confused.
I know, I know. Such a statement is akin to saying that water is wet (and that it doesn't have memory, at least not the mystical magical memories ascribed to it by homeopaths), that the sun rises in the East, or that writing an NIH R01 grant is hard, but there you go. Speaking of writing an NIH R01, that's exactly what I'm doing now, hence the decreased blogorrhea over the last few days, but sometimes trying to cram a five year project into the 13 pages (one page for specific aims and twelve to describe the project) makes my head hurt so much that reading and…
grrlscientist | June 4, 2009
Who: journalist and author, Nina BurleighWhat: free public presentation, "Biblical Forgery"Where: SLC Conference Center, 352 7th avenue (between 29th and 30th streets), 16th floor, room D4When: Thursday, 4 June 700-830pm
Join CFI and the Secular Humanist Society of New York to meet journalist and author Nina Burleigh, who wrote the recently published book, Unholy Business: A True Tale of Faith, Greed, & Forgery in the Holy Land. Her book tells the story of the unraveling of a Bible relic forgery scheme in Israel, and gives a glimpse into the intriguing world of biblical archaeology and…
grrlscientist | June 3, 2009
Who: journalist and author, Nina BurleighWhat: free public presentation, Biblical ForgeryWhere: SLC Conference Center, 352 7th avenue (between 29th and 30th streets), 16th floor, room D4When: Thursday, 4 June 700-830pm
Join CFI and the Secular Humanist Society of New York to meet journalist and author Nina Burleigh, who wrote the recently published book, Unholy Business: A True Tale of Faith, Greed, & Forgery in the Holy Land. Her book tells the story of the unraveling of a Bible relic forgery scheme in Israel, and gives a glimpse into the intriguing world of biblical archaeology and…
illconsidered | August 20, 2008I poke into Jennifer Marohasy's blog from time to time, though I am no longer a regular commenter. I gave that up a couple of years ago but still take any special cases as opportunities to chime in again. She's one of those standard types of sceptics, the "scientist" from another discipline just "honestly" investigating an important issue about which she has no preconceptions.
Well, a recent post prompted Deltoid's Tim Lambert to shake his head in consternation as Jennifer gives a soapbox to yet another crackpot pseudo-science post where we are told that the concept of radiative equilibrium…
illconsidered | October 31, 2007"Bright Scientists, Dim Notions" is the title of a NYT article from a few days ago prompted by the recent controversy over scientifically unfounded and racist remarks made by James Watson about the supposedly inherently inferior intelligence of the African race as compared to Caucasians.
The article is an interesting review of a few other notable examples of scientific crack-pottery in one field coming from the mouths of scientists who have in fact achieved brilliance in there own fields. There is also some speculation as to why this happens and why it is different when a famous scientist…
illconsidered | October 30, 2007Okay, that headline should really say "What if...", but hey, this is one of "the internets" and I'm just one of those irresponsible activist bloggers, so what do I care? But let's get to the point...
Today's Dilbert cartoon offers some sound advice to Exxon Mobile, half of which they are already following.
Now, true to my vile, hate-spewing nature, I must say "I can't wait til they get to the second half" or something similar...but I just don't have the committment and follow-through required to reach blogger bigtime.