Science Journalists Are Only Telling the Stories Which Make Science Look Good, But Science that Guides Public Policy Must Also Be Informed By the Lessons of Science’s Mistakes The unspoken truth of modern science is that many of the ideas […]
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Appeal To Ockham
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 […]
Continue reading »Review: Principles of Curiosity
“Principles of Curiosity”[1] is a documentary by Brian Dunning and Ryan Johnson. Brian Dunning is the “skeptic” who was sentenced to 15 months in prison for committing wire fraud[2]. Fraud in this context involves stealing from others by way of […]
Continue reading »Be Reasonable?
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 “Anomaly Hunting” Red Herring
A common claim of mainstream skeptics is that people they believe are “pseudo-science advocates” regularly engage in anomaly hunting. Stephen Novella has championed this notion.[1] The idea here is that uncritical thinkers attempt to disprove established consensus beliefs by actively looking […]
Continue reading »The Great GMO Deception
The debate about genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is one that involves faulty reasoning on both sides. Each side tends to attack overly simplified versions of the other side’s arguments and ignores important problems with their own side. I personally don’t […]
Continue reading »How I Survived Debates with Two Official 9/11 Story Believers
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 »Faith-Based vs Evidence-Based Skepticism
A good way to understand the difference between pathological skepticism and healthy skepticism is to look at it in terms of how the skepticism is based. Pathological skepticism is based on faith. Healthy skepticism is based on evidence. Evidence in […]
Continue reading »Review: “Is There a Pseudoscience Event Horizon”?
On November 12 Steven Novella wrote an article on what he believes pseudo-science involves.[1] In the simplest terms though, pseudo-science is anything presented as science when it is not. Here is the single actual characteristics of pseudo-science: 1 – Pseudo-science […]
Continue reading »Séralini Study Fuelling Fear of ‘Frankenfood’ Retracted
The pseudo-skeptic blogosphere was abuzz in celebrative glory after a damning study to Monsanto’s GMO corn was recently retracted.[1] The same irrelevant talking points were repeated again and again. See the following for a few examples: Sharon Hill at “Doubtful […]
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