Skepticblog

New Fledgeling Skeptic: Maria Myrback

On the heels of my last blog about how many practitioners of woo are beginning to see the light of skepticism, last week’s Amazing Cruise was not only a complete blast, the likes of which many of us on board had never seen, it also provided another powerful testimony. We are making big strides. Continue reading…

Yeah, yeah, I know the Ray Comfort graffiti version of Darwin’s Origin of Species is old news. But this has been sitting in my folder of blog topics forever and if I don’t get it out now, I probably never will. The topic, to be more specific, has to do with a characteristic of the book that you don’t hear talked about very often: the font size.

For the few of you who have been on board the International Space Station and haven’t yet heard the news, the 150th anniversary of Origin of Species came along last year and some Young Earthers saw a chance to leverage this into propaganda. Since the copyright is long expired, the text is in the public domain, and any Joe Blow is free to publish it. This particular Joe Blow came in the person of evangelist Ray Comfort, who vomited a “Special Introduction” intended to discredit evolutionary biology into the front of Origin. He then published it inside a cover giving every indication that it was a legitimate copy of the seminal work. Regardless of whether he admits it or not, the whole charade was a deliberate attempt to trick students into reading Ray’s own mental diarrhea instead of the book they thought they were buying, and hopefully win over a few converts. Continue reading…

A wave of reports is coming in from the town of Euclid, Ohio, from folks there who are seeing a mysterious light hovering over Lake Erie and Cleveland. The light, they say, is very bright, lasts for a couple of hours, stays near the horizon, changes colors, and keeps coming back to the same spot night after night.

Here’s an MSNBC report about it:

Could it be an alien visitor from another world?
Continue reading…

Recently, we launched a new, wider-format version of Skeptic.com. Designed here in the Junior Skeptic studio by webmaster William Bull, this format offers something that speaks right to my heart as an artist: the chance to run honking big 3-column graphic banners. It’s taken skepticism a while to get on board with this “pictures are good” business. Here was a chance to have some fun with it.

We knocked around some ways to play with the format, but I always knew where I wanted to start. My own background is in visual art — portraiture in particular. To me, there are few things so compelling as a human face. And hey, “a human face” is just what skepticism needs more of. Continue reading…

Texas is becoming a recurring spectacle of the triumph of anti-intellectualism and ignorance over science and reason. The substance of this spectacle is the Texas Board of Education (BoE) and the standards for public school textbooks. This is a local triumph, but it has widespread implications, as Texas is a major purchaser of textbooks, and so the industry generally caters to the Texas standards.

Last year our attention was drawn to the Texas BoE over the science standards, with particular attention to evolution. One member in particular, Don McLeroy (who was chairman but was removed) entertained (by which I mean frightened) us with phrases such as “someone has to stand up to those experts.” The particular controversy was over whether or not to insert language into the standards that opens the door for teachers to “question evolution,” meaning to insert creationist propaganda as science.

The new language that was put in includes that students must “analyze, evaluate, and critique scientific explanations” based in part on “examining all sides of scientific evidence of those scientific experiments.” Language was also put in to specifically question the age of the universe, the nature of stasis and change in the fossil record, and the complexity of the cell and information in DNA.

Continue reading…

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.