Articles exposing logical fallacies and other errors in others’ work.
Mainstream skepticism is for the most part what could be called cargo cult skepticism. The term comes from the practice of ritualistic acts by indigenous peoples. These acts involved the mimicking of the behaviors of colonizers in the hope that […]
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Fake skepticism is a scourge. Yet I enjoy discussions with fake skeptics. Why? The same reason an entomologist studies bugs. To others, bugs are excruciatingly stupid, repulsive and boring but for whatever reason, the entomologist has developed a fascination with […]
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How often have you heard some rabidly smug pro-vaccination fanatic proclaim that “vaccines don’t cause autism”? There are several ways that this statement is wrong. It’s Unscientific No competent conscientious scientists would ever make the claim that “vaccines don’t cause […]
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A few years ago the great “skeptic” Michael Shermer publicly committed a hasty generalization fallacy[1]. In his tweet he said: ‘Sandy Hook truthers (as bad as 9/11 truthers) vandalize memorial, taunt victim mother claiming it was a “hoax.”‘ What he […]
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This April I was excited to finally be contacted by a mainstream skeptic podcast inviting me to be on their show. I had contacted just about every such podcast and radio show I could find. The rest either ignored me […]
Continue reading »The Shill Gambit is a type of faulty reasoning in which a person’s argument is dismissed by proclaiming that the person is on the payroll of some agency. Such an argument definitely is fallacious. It is a form of ad […]
Continue reading »This spring I was able to secure two online debates with official 9/11 story believers. One with Dave Thomas of New Mexicans for Science and Reason starting in April[1] and the other in June with Dr. Steven Novella of “The […]
Continue reading »Imagine a violent neo-nazi skinhead spewing profanity-laced anti-Jewish statements on a Jewish Holocaust remembrance forum. Internet trolls are a serious problem. Putting it simply, Internet trolls are people that deliberately post offensive comments on-line with the sole intention of upsetting […]
Continue reading »The false fallacy fallacy occurs when a person’s argument is falsely claimed to be a logical fallacy when it is actually logically valid. This fallacy is a form of straw man argument. A straw man argument occurs when a person’s […]
Continue reading »Skeptic Magazine’s latest bumbling foray into promoting “science and critical thinking through the use of humor, wit, and satire” is the video called “You Can’t Handle the Truther”.[1] The gut bursting irony here is that the video consists entirely of […]
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