This week, I’m simply going to share with you a video clip from a UK TV show, that I saw and thought that I should share. This clip comes from a show called That Mitchell & Webb Look. I’m not familiar with the show, other than this and a few other clips from [...]
President Barack Obama has unveiled his new budget for fiscal year 2011 at $3.8 trillion dollars. Staggeringly huge. Brobdingnagianly big. Almost inconceivable. Just how much is a trillion dollars? Here are some comparisons. The brain consists of about a hundred billion neurons, which is about the same as the number of stars in the Milky Way [...]
Climate science has turned from an obscure and forgotten discipline to the center of a raging world-wide controversy – something I don’t think climate scientists were prepared for. It has also become the third rail of skepticism – don’t touch it unless you want to get burned. The reason for this is probably obvious – skeptics [. […]
How sad that yet another medium has been given press approval. I could write a post on a different medium or phony psychic every week and never run out of material. This week’s entry into the never-ending cycle of mediums I predicted would be coming (see my post “ESP Boot Camp” of 23 Feb. 2009) is [...]
Don’t think for a minute that I didn’t know it would be controversial. When I recorded this week’s Skeptoid episode Did Jewish Slaves Build the Pyramids, I knew it was going to upset Christians who hold that belief dear. I wasn’t disappointed, as you can tell from the comments. As you may or may not know, [...]
(Hat tip to Phil over at Skeptic Money for passing this little gem along )
Below is some footage from a BBC show called Dragon’s Den, where would-be entrepreneurs make a sales pitch to the assembled judges about why their idea is worth funding. In this case, a homeopathic doofus pitches his “miracle water” to them using the standard alt-med, “natural is good” woo-woo, with disastrous results. What follows is, to me, an excellent example of in-your-face skepticism in action – with the perfect combination of hard questioning, demands for evidence & research, and moral outrage. Take a look…
So it seems that the folks living in Haiti have had quite a bad streak of luck lately. First, they get hammered with a devastating earthquake which kills thousands and leaves millions homeless, and in the process their government – for all practical purposes – collapses & is virtually non-existent to deal with the crisis that follows. After that, Uber-Asshole Pat Robertson heaps scorn upon them for their cultural heritage, and now this… the Church of Scientology has arrived to “save” the Haitians.
Our Scientology sources tell us there’s an interesting reason that some members of the church are swarming into Haiti. And it’s even more appalling than you might have thought — tragedy profiteering.
John Travolta arranged for one plane of supplies to get to Port-au-Prince, and personally flew another Boeing 707 there himself. Those planes contained much needed food and equipment and genuine doctors. But they also contained volunteer ministers, ready to spread the word of Scientology.
Many Scientologists, says one of our sources, a longtime veteran of the church, “genuinely think that only they can help in an emergency.” They are misguided, but well-intentioned. But there are others who “are just total buzzards.” Those, he says, are engaging in a vain attempt to profit from the tragedy — a tale corroborated by another former church member. This email is doing the rounds:
By ‘help’, they mean money. And if those seminars result in confused and vulnerable Haitians signing up for any further courses in Scientology — unlikely as that seems, given the poverty in that country — these Global Pioneers get a 12 per cent cut of their future course fees. Our source says that over 100 plan to go to Port-au-Prince, and that he gets email and Facebook spam all day from ‘Pioneers’ seeking donations.
UPDATE: It seems, according to a tipster, that this email had done the rounds before the earthquake as well, apparently, as after. As such it’s not the smoking gun we first thought. But this may be. It’s a press release from the Global Pioneers, sent by the same man who sent the above missive — a Cary Goulston — outlining their achievements in Haiti since the earthquake:
I’m all for people helping out the Haitians in their hour of need, but from these documents I get the eerie sense that the Scientologists are looking to use this tragedy as a way of 1) raising money for non-relief efforts, and 2) spreading their twisted ideology. One reason I say this is the constant reference in the above documents to VMs – also known as “volunteer ministers”. The VMs are the folks who will be spreading the Scientology doctrine among the vulnerable population in Haiti.
My advice: people of Haiti, beware. Fortunately, there is a silver lining, because it seems that Anonymous is on the case.
I just wanted to share the news with you about the first Chicago area SkeptiCamp – Skepchicamp – being hosted at the Brehon Pub on Saturday, March 6th – Yeehaw!!!
For those who don’t know, the basic idea behind SkeptiCamps is that they are informal, community-organized conferences borne from the desire for people in the skeptical movement to share and learn in an open environment. Everyone from casual skeptics to the experienced participate, give talks and get to know each other. Over the last couple of years, successful SkeptiCamps have been hosted in New York City and Denver and there are new ones planned in Atlanta, Ohio, and Vancouver, British Columbia… but our very own Skepchicamp is the first one to be hosted in the Midwest! Woot!!!
Please note that if you wish to attend, in keeping with the spirit of SkeptiCamp, you must contribute to the cause in some tangible manner – this doesn’t necessarily mean a monetary donation (though we like loot ), as some people donate their skills & labor to help the camp go off without a hitch. If you’re interested in volunteering to help out somehow, please contact the organizers of Skepchicamp. Here are the event details…
The Brehon Pub is an awesome venue for Skepchicamp! This River North bar is easily accessible by public transit, has a strong wifi signal, and great food and drinks. For one day, the Brehon Pub will be half-Irish, half-Chicago, and all Skepchicamp. We hope to see you there! Contact the organizers for more info!
In another example of the science vs. pseudoscience battles that rage across the Internet, there is currently an interesting clash between evolution and creationism taking place on Facebook.
Now what’s interesting about all of this is that the creationist page started off ahead because it got a jump start. If my records are correct (they start at January 14th, 2010), the creationist site was at about 3000 when the evolution page got started. But the creationists didn’t stay ahead for long – by about January 18th the evolution page passed the creationist one in fan number, and since then has left the creationists in the proverbial dust. In fact, a good skeptical friend of mine put together a nice graph of the population of each page as a function of time…
The vertical axis is the number of fans, and the blue series denotes the population of the evolution page whereas the red series denotes the population of the creationism page. To date (February 1st), the creationist page is at 26,300 whereas the evolution page is at 115,400! I wonder if this is the result of natural selection on the Interwebs?
Long story short: the evolution Facebook page is kicking the crap out of the creationists, but we shouldn’t get complacent because we know how sneaky they can be. Remember, the goal is to make it to 1,000,000 members by June, and we’re well on our way having already gotten over 10% of the way there. But we won’t make it by resting on our laurels.
So, to keep this explosive population growth going, I suggest we all spread the word and take a page from noted evolutionary biologist P.Z. Myers when he blogged about this over at Pharyngula. And, one last thing, let’s take a bit of advice from P.Z. on something about the word “believe”…
Don’t get all pedantic and academic over the word “believe,” either. We know that the nature of our belief in evolution is very different than the creationists belief in their god: we have a provisional, non-dogmatic acceptance of the overwhelming evidence for a powerful theory. It’s just that that phrase is ponderous and pretentious when “belief” is a simple English shortcut to the meaning.
I recently got an I-Touch, and I’m discovering a whole bunch of neat little apps for it. Among one of the most interesting I’ve downloaded recently is an app called “Telepath” made by skeptic Dr. Richard Wiseman, which allows you to give the illusion that the I-Touch/Phone itself (or the operator) is telepathic! Dr. Wiseman knows quite a lot about psychology and how easy it is to fool people – or in this case how easy it is for people to fool themselves. So he put together this little app in order to teach people a little lesson in critical thinking…
Of course, there’s no actual telepathy to it, but it is a really neat trick (it fooled me the first time I saw it). To learn more about it, check out this Youtube video that Dr. Wiseman put together…
In order to learn the secret behind the trick, you’ll have to purchase the app from the I-Tunes store – considering what it does, it’s a real deal for only 99 cents! So if you have an I-Phone/Touch, I suggest that you go pick up “Telepath” and start having some skeptical fun with it
This is a follow up to my recent “Suicide by Homeopathy?” post – and by calling the event a “miserable failure” I mean that it was the homeopathy that was an epic fail. Hundreds and hundreds of skeptics attempted to overdose on a variety of homeopathic remedies, and not one person was adversely affected. Which begs a question: why do homeopaths bother mentioning anything at all about dosage on their remedies when it is apparent that dosage doesn’t matter?
With the advent of new technologies such as the Internet, Facebook, and Twitter, the skeptical movement has been able to make great strides in connecting, networking, and growing over the years. Unfortunately, various woo-based anti-science groups are doing likewise, often clogging up the ol’ Intertubes with all manner of nonsense.
In a recent example of this tension on the new media, Twitter is holding a contest called the Shorty Awards, where Twitter users can vote for their favorite Twitter users in a variety of categories. Right now there is intense competition for the top spot on the Shorty Award health category between Dr. Rachel Dunlop and alt-med woo-meister Dr. Mercola.
Dr. Dunlop, or DrRachie as she likes to be called, is a great advocate for skepticism and science-based medicine, and it would be a shame to see her lose out to the likes of Dr. Mercola, who dismisses much of modern medicine as part of a conspiracy by Big Pharma to cover up “the truth” of various “natural cures” via his website Mercola.com.
The vote is pretty close now – with DrRachie ahead by about 100 votes – and it closes today. So if you’re on Twitter, take a moment to go vote for DrRachie!
If you’ve followed the battle against creationism over the years, then you’ve no doubt heard the oft-repeated claim by fundamentalist creationists that one cannot accept the science of evolution while also holding religious beliefs. This is a variation on the bogus “evolution is atheistic” claim made by creationists, and it is clearly a false dichotomy, as I know many people who are both religious AND accept evolutionary science. And, despite my own atheism, I more than welcome any allies – religious or not – who are willing to fight the battle against anti-science fundamentalism.
This mean-spirited tactic is clearly meant as a method to intimidate & scare religious people into choosing between their beliefs and modern science, while at the same time painting those who support evolutionary science and atheists as somehow “evil”. Well, the creationists are just plain wrong…
In an effort to put a more public face on battling against this misconception pushed by creationists, there is a group called the Clergy Letter Project made up of over 12,500 Christian clergy, 450 Jewish rabbis, and 200 Unitarian clergy who have signed the following statement(s)…
Clic aquípara leer la carta en español
Cliquer ici pour la version francaise
Clique aqui para ler a carta em português
Within the community of Christian believers there are areas of dispute and disagreement, including the proper way to interpret Holy Scripture. While virtually all Christians take the Bible seriously and hold it to be authoritative in matters of faith and practice, the overwhelming majority do not read the Bible literally, as they would a science textbook. Many of the beloved stories found in the Bible – the Creation, Adam and Eve, Noah and the ark – convey timeless truths about God, human beings, and the proper relationship between Creator and creation expressed in the only form capable of transmitting these truths from generation to generation. Religious truth is of a different order from scientific truth. Its purpose is not to convey scientific information but to transform hearts.
We the undersigned, Christian clergy from many different traditions, believe that the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist. We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests. To reject this truth or to treat it as “one theory among others” is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children. We believe that among God’s good gifts are human minds capable of critical thought and that the failure to fully employ this gift is a rejection of the will of our Creator. To argue that God’s loving plan of salvation for humanity precludes the full employment of the God-given faculty of reason is to attempt to limit God, an act of hubris. We urge school board members to preserve the integrity of the science curriculum by affirming the teaching of the theory of evolution as a core component of human knowledge. We ask that science remain science and that religion remain religion, two very different, but complementary, forms of truth.
In addition to the letter writing campaign, the Clergy Letter Project holds public outreach events every year to celebrate the birthday of Charles Darwin while promoting good science education. They call this event Evolution Weekend, and I’m happy to say that this year there are almost 800 Evolution Weekend events planned around the world, more than ever before!
If you are a supporter of science, whether you’re a religious believer or non-believer, a scientist, clergy, or just a concerned citizen, I encourage you to check out the Clergy Letter Project and Evolution Weekend websites and pass them along to others. Together, we can stand up to the forces of anti-science
The Skeptic’s Circle comes rolling along for another round of skeptical goodness from all corners of the Interwebs – this round is being hosted by the SkepVet Blog, a place where “A Vet Takes a Science-Based Look at Complementary and Alternative Medicine”. Read on to soak up the awesomeness
Classical homeopathy originated in the 19th century with Samuel Christian Friedrich Hahnemann (1755-1843) as an alternative to the standard medical practices of the day, such as phlebotomy or bloodletting. Opening veins to bleed patients, force disease out of the body, and restore the humors to a proper balance was a popular medical practice until the late19th century (Williams 2000: 265). Hahnemann rejected the notion that disease should be treated by letting out the offensive matter causing the illness. In this, he was right. On the other hand, he argued that disease should be treated by helping the vital force restore the body to harmony and balance. In this, he was wrong. He rejected other common medical practices of his day such as purgatives and emetics “with opium and mercury-based calomel” (ibid.: 145). He was right to do so. Hahnemann’s alternative medicine was more humane and less likely to cause harm than many of the conventional practices of his day. …
Homeopaths refer to “the Law of Infinitesimals” and the “Law of Similars” as grounds for using minute substances and for believing that like heals like, but these are not natural laws of science. If they are laws at all, they are metaphysical laws, i.e., beliefs about the nature of reality that would be impossible to test by empirical means. Hahnemann’s ideas did originate in experience. That he drew metaphysical conclusions from empirical events does not, however, make his ideas empirically testable. The law of infinitesimals seems to have been partly derived from his notion that any remedy would cause the patient to get worse before getting better and that one could minimize this negative effect by significantly reducing the size of the dose. Most critics of homeopathy balk at this “law” because it leads to remedies that have been so diluted as to have nary a single molecule of the substance one starts with.
And this is the real rub with a notion as loony as homeopathy. We already know from modern science-based medicine that, in the case of drugs, there must be a certain amount of active ingredient in the drug in order for it to have the desired effect. Of course, there are dangers from using medical drugs: one of the most common is that of over-dosing. If someone takes too much of a certain active ingredient, it can be harmful or – in the worst case – fatal. For example, we all know about stories of people committing suicide by over-dosing on sleeping pills.
However, with homeopathy, this is all turned completely on its head. Homeopaths, invoking their magical “law of infinitesimals”, insist that by diluting the active ingredient to the most ludicrous extreme (i.e., imagine diluting a solution so much that only one molecule of active ingredient remains in it) this will somehow transfer the healing power of the ingredient to the patient and actually make the solution more potent.
A classic example of debunking this particular woo-woo claim has been performed numerous times by James Randi as he lectures on the topic of homeopathy & other quackery. As he lectures, usually for roughly an hour, Randi will consume an entire bottle of homeopathic sleeping pills that he’d purchased earlier from a nearby pharmacy. Needless to say, despite performing this feat numerous times, James Randi has yet to die from such an “over-dose”.
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), as some people donate their skills & labor to help the camp go off without a hitch. If you’re interested in volunteering to help out somehow, please 
Samuel Christian Friedrich Hahnemann (1755-1843) as an alternative to the standard medical practices of the day, such as phlebotomy or bloodletting. Opening veins to bleed patients, force disease out of the body, and restore the humors to a proper balance was a popular medical practice until the late19th century (Williams 2000: 265). Hahnemann rejected the notion that disease should be treated by letting out the offensive matter causing the illness. In this, he was right. On the other hand, he argued that disease should be treated by helping the 
