The ignorati rise
Chapman University recently published the results of a depressing, but hardly surprising, survey that shows American believe in codswallop continue to rise. Not political codswallop – this is the supernatural,…
superstition
Ghostly claptrap
Does the Large Hadron Collider Actually Disprove Ghosts? That’s the question asked in a recent article posted on Gizmodo. Well, of course it doesn’t. The LHC doesn’t disprove invisible pink…
Modern Credulity Sucks
People believe a lot of crazy things. I’m talking about really seriously bat-shit crazy stuff that somehow people you thought were normal believe and now you look at them like…
Conrad Black: Wrong on Religion, Again
Atheists renounce and abstain from religions; they don’t reform them. So said Conrad Black in a recent National Post column. Black seems to be increasingly theological in his writing; perhaps…
Jade Helm 15 and the Madness of America
For a guy who gets great entertainment from reading the wild and wacky conspiracy theories that sprout like mushrooms online, I was surprised that I missed the rapid growth of…
Extraordinary Claims
As the poster for the Centre for Inquiry notes, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. It’s a popular catchphrase for the skeptical movement, but should be an intellectual policy for everyone.…
Camping’s madness carries on
Harold Camping has been dead for almost a year, but his legacy lives on. Not just in the broken dreams of his deluded followers, but in the many lives he…
Debunking Homeopathy. Again.
Homeopathy. It’s absolute bunk. But you already know that. All those forms of ‘magic medicine‘* are bunk, of course, but homeopathy has a special place reserved for it in the…
The Food Babe and other nonsense
She’s been called the “Jenny McCarthy of food.” That’s not a compliment and should warn anyone with half a brain to beware of her. She’s a New Age wingnut helping…
The dangerous idiocy of the anti-vax movement
Measles is on the rise in Canada. There have already been many cases in 2014: in PEI, London, Ottawa, southern Alberta, Regina, Qu’Apelle, Calgary, Fraser Valley (320 cases), Hamilton, Halton,…
Debunking the Adam Bridge
A story popped up on the internet in late 2013, recycled in early 2014, claiming “NASA Images Find 1.7 Million Year Old Man-Made Bridge.” Claptrap. It’s not a…
2014 predictions always good for a giggle
I had barely finished writing my post on the failed 2013 predictions of the self-described “psychics” and “clairvoyants” who are the media darlings du jour, when the sorry lot of…
Psychics 2013: the silly, the scams, the failed predictions
Action News, an ABC affiliate, ran a late-year story with the headline “Psychics interpret pets’ thoughts.” No, it’s not April Fools’ Day: this was December 26. Yet the reporter treated…
American belief in evolution is growing: poll
A new Harris poll released this month shows that Americans apparently are losing their belief in miracles and gaining it in science. The recent poll showed that American belief in…
Pyramids in the Ice: Hoax
What is it about pyramids that excites the imagination? Their shape? Their size? Height? Age? The complexities and difficulties in their building? Or the sheer grandeur of them? And what…
THE DARK SIDE OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY
The Dark Side of Christian History The Dark Side of Christian History by Helen Ellerbe: Morningstar and Lark, Orlando Florida, 1999 ISBN 0-9644873-4-9 This is the sort of book that…
THE DARK SIDE OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY
The Dark Side of Christian HistoryThe Dark Side of Christian History by Helen Ellerbe: Morningstar and Lark, Orlando Florida, 1999 ISBN 0-9644873-4-9 This is the sort of book that I…
THE DARK SIDE OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY
The Dark Side of Christian History The Dark Side of Christian History by Helen Ellerbe: Morningstar and Lark, Orlando Florida, 1999 ISBN 0-9644873-4-9 This is the sort of book that…
THE DARK SIDE OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY
The Dark Side of Christian History The Dark Side of Christian History by Helen Ellerbe: Morningstar and Lark, Orlando Florida, 1999 ISBN 0-9644873-4-9 This is the sort of book that…
Measuring ghosts
MEASURING GHOSTS A recent article in Science Translational Medicine asks the question "Can We Measure Autism ?" To my mind this begs the question, "is there really something called "autism"…