Skepticblog

We’ve all heard the infamous anecdote used in a multitude of advertisements for various flavors of woo, “I was a skeptic too until I tried (insert your favorite alternative woo product here).” It’s an effective and compelling sales pitch to laypeople, so much so that it’s become so old and hoary that it usually provokes a laugh from experienced skeptics.

Of course we answer “The last thing a skeptic would have done is rush right out and give their money to the (insert the salesman of your favorite alternative woo product here).” And here is where the heads butt. Believers often feel that a truly skeptical and scientific process would have tested the product by trying it firsthand. And, to the average layman, inexperienced in science, that sounds extremely reasonable.

This is going to be a very short blog post, because this question is very simple. No, trying a product personally is not a useful way to assess its value. A scientist understands that, a layperson does not; it sounds thoroughly counterintuitive. Continue reading…

I am pleased to write that the creationist and generally anti-reality Don McLeroy has lost his bid for re-election to the Texas State Board of Education!

Yay!

The man who ousted him is Thomas Ratliff, who is — gasp! — an actual educator who has vowed to try to remove the politicization of the board and also to actually – gasp again! — listen to educators when it comes to, y’know, educational topics. You may remember McLeroy is the goofball who infamously said, "Someone has to stand up to the experts!"

However, mitigating the good news somewhat are some things to consider:

1) McLeroy is still on the BoE for the next seven months before his term runs out. He can do a vast amount of damage to Texas schoolchildren’s education in that time.

2) Ratliff only won by a very narrow margin, meaning a whole lot of Texas citizens either didn’t know about McLeroy’s maniacal attempts at derailing the Lone Star State’s educational system, didn’t care, or actually supported him.

3) McLeroy and his crew of revisionist creationists have already done so much damage that it cannot be easily repaired. There is a cycle to the way standards and such are reviewed and updated in Texas, so it could be years before things are straightened out, if at all.

Still, this is good news, and so I won’t use the "Texas: Doomed" graphic. Instead, I’ll remind you not to rest:

Tip o’ the ten gallon hat to Robert Estes and the many others who emailed me about this. Originally posted on The Bad Astronomy Blog.

What’s the harm in believing nonsense? I get asked this all the time: “Oh come on Shermer, let people have their delusions, what’s the harm?”

I have a laundry list of retorts to this challenge, from the value of living in a rational world that is based in reality to tales of people who have died from discredited medical practices, such as “Attachment Therapy” — in April, 2000, 10-year old Candace Newmaker was smothered to death in blankets by therapists who were helping “rebirth” her so that she could properly attach to her adopted parents. Death by theory. (I wrote about this in Scientific American.)

What’s the harm? Ask the victims of the anti-Government nutter Joseph Stack, who flew his plane into the IRS building in Austin, Texas. It is one thing to be skeptical of excessive government intervention into private lives and businesses, it is quite another to take matters into your own hands, especially if those hands hold a gun. Continue reading…

A Utah company, Manna of Utah, is planning on building a plant in Odessa MO that will, among other things, build generators for home use. I wrote recently about another home generator company, Bloom Box, cautioning against accepting corporate hype at face value. Bloom Box appears to be a legitimate generator, surrounded by some misleading hype. But the generators promised by Manna of Utah seem to take the company name seriously, promising energy from heaven.

The generator they plan to build was designed and patented by another company, Maglev Energy, Inc. They claim to be able to generate electricity with magnets. Here is their description of their technology:

A running prototype using a new way to control attract – repel forces generated by permanent and electromagnet interactions.  Our unique configuration and intellectual property manipulates these forces to apply its product towards useful work. With chip technology, laser measuring devices, and MagLev Energy, Inc. (MEI) developed proprietary algorithms, this prototype produces clean, renewable, and better power conversion ratios than fossil fuels.

Most skeptics should instantly recognize this description as an utter scam – we are in Dennis Lee and Orbo territory here. You simply cannot generate free energy by cleverly interacting magnets. This seems to be the perpetual free-energy deception – whether self-deception or conscious fraud.

Continue reading…

A Fresh New Look

I’m not normally prone to mystical cats or too much Internet craziness, but since I’ll be off on the Skeptics of the Carribean cruise with Randi and lots of other fun loving folks next week, I thought I would leave you all with some silliness to ponder.

We all need some time off and after the last few weeks with all its slings and arrows, I need some serious rest and relaxtion. Too much investigation and no play makes Mark a dull boy. I’ll be back with a fresh new outlook – and plenty of stories to tell.

Please watch this video and remember that just like John Edward; with the right editor, even a cat can appear to have mediumsitic abilities.

Yes, kitty is a very BAD medium, but aren’t they all really?

Until Next Time,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bTbAsmPOKo

Meeeooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

Even before I started writing Evolution: How We and All Living Things Came to Be I knew that it would very briefly mention religion, make a mild assertion that religious questions are out of scope for science, and move on. I knew this was likely to provoke blow-back from some in the atheist community, and I knew mentioning that blow-back in my recent post “The Standard Pablum — Science and Atheism” would generate more. And, I should have realized that I was muddying the water by packaging multiple related issues together in one post: the specific wording of a passage in my book; the question of whether that passage should have been included; and, the wider question of how science and skepticism relate to atheism.

Still, I was surprised by the quantity of the responses to the blog post (208 comments as of this moment, many of them substantial letters), and also by the fierceness of some of those responses. For example, according to one poster, “you not only pandered, you lied. And even if you weren’t lying, you lied.” (Several took up this “lying” theme.) Another, disappointed that my children’s book does not tell a general youth audience to look to “secular humanism for guidance,” declared  that “I’d have to tear out that page if I bought the book.” Continue reading…

I’m pleased to say that the release of Evolution: How We and All Living Things Came to Be has been enjoying quite a bit of attention from skeptics — which has helped this full-color kids’ book get off to a great start. Perhaps the most rewarding moment for me so far was receiving a warmly positive quote from Dr. Eugenie Scott (Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education and 2010 National Academy of Sciences “Public Welfare Medal” recipient). Genie is one of the softest, yet most forthright and resolute voices in skepticism, and a great inspiration to me personally. You can imagine my elation when she said,

I am just so delighted with this book! Loxton hits the key concepts perfectly, and without being stuffy about it. A wonderful book to donate to your local library.

I was similarly honored to receive positive reviews from Phil Plait and from P.Z. Myers — both among the most popular science bloggers on Earth. I just about did cartwheels when P.Z. unexpectedly urged readers to “order a copy fast for the kids in your life!”

P.Z., did, however, dislike one subsection of Evolution:

I recommend it highly, but with one tiny reservation. The author couldn’t resist the common temptation to toss in something about religion at the end, and he gives the wrong answer: it’s the standard pablum, and he claims that “Science as a whole has nothing to say about religion.”

Continue reading…

I am often asked if skeptics and skeptical organizations should undertake first-hand investigations. Of course, it depends upon what your goals are. But I think the question can be re-phrased to mean – is there any value or benefit to first hand investigation, and to this the answer is a definite “yes.”

But this is not to denigrate the value of skeptical review from the comfort of your computer chair. This kind of activity has sometimes been referred to as “armchair skepticism” – meant to be derogatory. While I see the value in going out into the field, armchair skepticism has a valuable and complementary role to play.

In fact, these two activities mirror what real scientists do, and are roughly analogous to peer-review vs experimental replication. Continue reading…

The results are in: alcohol and telepathy don’t mix. At least they didn’t this past Saturday, when after over two years of negotiations with alleged telepath Regan Traynor, his test ended in a complete wash-out for him and his “receiver” Fernando. Continue reading…

The ATLAS detector at the LHC. Photo courtesy of CERN.

As Skeptoid listeners know, occasionally I like to go the Listener Feedback files to hear what people have to say. I found a note from Nick from Albuquerque, who disagreed strongly with the way I discussed the safety of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. I offer my response to his criticism herewith. He began:

I find it disheartening that someone who purports to be a common-sense skeptic of zany theories is completely incapable of making a logical, evidence based argument.

Now, I think it’s fair to say that I’ve established a decent reputation for making good, rational arguments (see this page for a bandwagon fallacy supporting this assertion). When someone starts an email to me with the statement that I am “completely incapable of making a logical, evidence based argument”, it tells me something about what to expect in their following paragraphs. I was not disappointed: Continue reading…