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Blogging Personal Skepticism/critical thinking

Now entering the Twilight Zone

Every so often, as a blogger, I get e-mail. Well, actually, I get a lot of e-mail, much of which I just don’t have time to answer (nothing personal when it happens), but every so often an e-mail makes me feel as though Rod Serling should be popping up at the end. I got this […]

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Biology Evolution Intelligent design/creationism Science Skepticism/critical thinking

An intelligent design advocate asks: What should life look like? (The argument from “completeness”)

I was half-tempted to e-mail this one to P. Z. or Larry Moran, but my inherently merciful nature got the better of me. Because it was so idiotic, I was afraid that, after P. Z. and his regular readers got through with it (or even worse for this poor ID advocate, Larry Moran), there wouldn’t […]

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Paranormal Pseudoscience Skepticism/critical thinking

I know Halloween is coming up soon and all, but…

…I am as appalled as my fellow ScienceBlogger Mark over this horrifically credulous article on ghosts on This Old House at CNN.com. Here’s a small taste, which comes after a long discussion of how to choose a “good” ghost inspector: If natural explanations cannot be found, and it’s determined that there is indeed a presence […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Friday Woo Medicine Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Your Friday Dose of Woo: Who needs statins? Or: Sacrifice the teeth to remove those toxins!

Some woo is very, very complicated. The reason, of course, is that the often self-contradicting complexity of this sort of woo serves to make it harder for people without specialized training to figure out easily that it makes no sense scientifically. It’s more a matter of baffling ’em with bullshit than because such complexity is […]

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Announcements Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

The 72nd Meeting of the Skeptics’ Circle: Sister Mary Elephant strikes

This has been a bad week at skeptics’ school. Apparently, skeptical bloggers have been misbehaving left and right. Apparently we as the skeptical blogosphere have been very, very naughty indeed. Worse, the essays that we’ve handed in are apparently not pleasing to the teacher. Worst of all, we’ve been mischievously copying a screed against homeopaths […]