The Skeptics Society has retired Skepticblog (while preserving all posts online at their original urls for future reference), but we’re proud to announce our bigger, better new blog: INSIGHT at Skeptic.com! Dedicated to the spirit of curiosity and grounded in scientific skepticism’s useful, investigative tradition of public service, INSIGHT continues and exp […]
Some people say, "Oh, there's anti-science on both sides of the political aisle." But that neglects one important fact: in only ONE political party are the leadership and the party platform dominated by science denial.
Would you believe there is a patch of trapped garbage floating in the North Pacific bigger than the state of Texas? It's called the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch".
The Women Thinking Free Foundation, an organization of which I’m a board member, has come up with a great idea for skeptical activism: setting up NCAA tournament brackets and giving the proceeds to the promotion of vaccinations via the Hug Me I’m Vaccinated campaign! And how do I know this is such a great idea? Simple: because I know little to nothing about sports (and I don’t really care about them much either), and this got me to sign up for a bracket! Check it out and spread the word…
Do you like basketball? Do you hate deadly diseases? Have you been trying to find a way to use basketball to fight deadly diseases? Well, now you can by joining the Vax Your Bracket NCAA Tournament Pool. It costs a mere $10 to enter! Half of the proceeds go to the winner …and the other half go to Women Thinking Free Foundation to help us do things like run our Hug Me! I’m Vaccinated! pro-vaccination campaign. Check out http://www.hugmeimvaccinated.org/to see where the money will be going.That’s right! You can now combine sports with saving the world!
We’re using simple CBS Tournament rules and there will be prizes for the top 3 winners. Plus, did I mention that you’ll be helping to save the world by promoting vaccinations?
Prizes:
1st place: 1/2 of the $$ collected
2nd: Hug Me T-shirt or Hug Me bear
3rd: Money back
The directions are simple:
1. Go to http://www.womenthinkingfree.org/ and click on the “Buy Now” button on the bottom right.
2. Once we get your payment, we’ll send you an invite to the Pool at the email you provided. You’ll have to create an account with CBS Sports. The deadline for sending us payment to join the tournament is Wed March 14 at 9am.
3. Starting on March 11, you can log on to CBS Sports and make your bracket. You must make your bracket before the first tournament game is played on Thursday night.
4. Log into CBS Sports during the tournament to see where your standing is compared with all the other players. We also approve of trash talk.
5. Save the World!
I have written before on this blog about the scam called Power-Balance, and how that company has raked in huge gobs of cash by essentially lying to its customers. In fact, in Australia the company has basically been banned for false advertising, and fortunately more and more people are cluing in to this nonsense here in the United States. But to help along everyone’s critical thinking skills as well as expose the Power-Balance for the scam that it is, I want to pass along to you a wonderful opportunity to engage in some easy and fun skeptical activism. Dear reader, I give you the Placebo Band!
Have you heard about the “Power Balance” bracelet? It is a supposedly amazing device which, when worn, apparently confers to the wearer greater strength, balance, and flexibility! Amazing!!! Just watch this video “proving” the wonders of the Power Balance technology!
The Power Balance technology is supposed to work by…
… harnessing naturally occurring frequencies by programing them into a Mylar hologram.
That’s a quote directly from the Power Balance video above, and it’s complete and utter garbage. Firstly, as a physics professor, I can tell you that the goober in the video peddling this nonsense (and his bosses manufacturing and marketing it) don’t know the first damn thing about “naturally occurring frequencies” or “holograms” – if they did they wouldn’t be putting them into the same sentence.
Second, it is quite easy to definitively show that this whole Power Balance scheme is just a big, fat scam. Just take a look at how skeptic Richard Saunders and his crew at the SkepticZone demonstrate how the scam works…
Third, it’s not just skeptics like me and Richard Saunders pointing out the scam, but it seems the law in the United States is catching up with the Power Balance charlatans as well. Just look at this article at the Podblack Cat blog 🙂
And be a part of the nationwide class-action lawsuit against the makers of the Power Balance bracelet. …
Wow, that’s a triple whammy. Spread the word far and wide about this scam, because these charlatans are actively marketing & selling this bogus product to far too many gullible customers. Folks, you might as well burn your money for all the good it’ll do you. In short, I think it is appropriate to deliver the following message to the Power Balance company…
Okay, I just couldn’t pass this one up… I saw this video today on Yahoo Sports where they claim to show recent footage of the world’s longest basketball shot. I’m a bit skeptical, because such videos have been released to the Internet before and many are found to be digitally altered or tweaked. So it’s tough to take something like this at face value.
But I’m willing to be convinced – most especially because, if true, it’s a pretty damn cool feat! And it does make sense that, given enough attempts, something like this could be done – there is, after all, nothing in the laws of physics which would prevent it. With that, here are two videos showing the claimed shot…
So, my fellow skeptics, what do you think? Real or fake? Let the games begin! 🙂
The Skeptical Teacher 