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Evolver Zone
Darwin’s Brave New World (CBC)
A three-part series on the life and work of Charles Darwin on the CBC program The Nature of Things....
The Evolution of Charles Darwin (CBC Radio)
CBC Radio's program Ideas pays tribute to Charles Darwin in this four-part series....
*Special issue of Journal of Effective Teaching — Evolution education
A special issue of the Journal of Effective Teaching on evolution education....
A website that seeks to promote the teaching and acceptance of the biological theory of evolution by emphasizing one of its great lessons: that life on Earth is one big extended family....
*Special issue of Science — Ardipithecus ramidus
A special issue devoted to the early hominid species Ardipithecus ramidus....
EvoS — Evolutionary Studies Consortium
Tools and a community space for evolutionary training in institutions of higher education....
PodBlack Cat
…additional fond memories – being compared to the ‘Goddess Kali’ by Taslima Nasrin because of all the skull-themed clothing I wore and Dawkins cheekily scolding me for ‘laughing at him’ as he watched a YouTube video of one of his young fan’s adoration. As for comments about my presentation? People overwhelmingly...
Little Kitten – Celebrating Life Beyond Belief
Report in the Australian Newspaper: (I’ve been quoted!) THEY came from everywhere, the true unbelievers: from Perth, Sydney, Brisbane, the Sunshine Coast, New Zealand and beyond. There was a honeymooning couple from North Carolina who had met on an atheist internet site; and two friends from rural NSW, both extroverted women...
Survived. We did it. Atheist Con complete. Did I plug this site enough? Really? Really? :p Sheesh, sorry about that… it’s mostly because so much of my references and resources are hosted either here or on the podcasts, that it leads me to auto-answer ‘why yes! I have done X and...
Today you’re introducing Richard Dawkins. Get back to work....
Opening Speech For The Saturday #AtheistCon
Maybe you missed it and I mentioned your site (sorry that I don’t have the links up… when I’ve got the time, I’ll correct that)! Welcome ladies and gentlemen to the Saturday of the convention – with an early morning start. I’m certain that the coffee and the eye-searing...
You open your eyes and realise that you’re probably the only person awake in the city at this time, who is able to watch the Bolt Bridge from the bath. Mind, the traffic is pretty good at 6.45am. Really quite beautiful lights. However, from the floor you’re on, probably the best...
Fallacy Files
I've added a new contextomy to the "Familiar Contextomies" page....
"Intensional fallacy" is the name of a new fallacy, or perhaps a new name for an old fallacy. I came across the fallacy under this name for the first time in a long, fascinating book review by philosophers Ned Block and Philip Kitcher. I'll let them introduce the...
In his famous essay, "Politics and the English Language", George Orwell gives what he calls "four specimens of the English language as it is now habitually written" as illustrations of "the mental vices from which we now suffer". The following sentence, by Harold Laski, is the first of these...
I've complained previously about the tendency of the media to offer a skeptic a minute or two on a program, or a sentence or two in an article, when covering pseudoscience. Michael Shermer recently played this role on an episode of Larry King's show dealing with "near-death experiences", as...
Here's something I've never seen before. An ad for the new movie "Blood Done Sign My Name" has the single word "tremendous", followed by an exclamation point, and enclosed in quotation marks. So, it appears to be a critic's blurb, but it's not attributed to any critic or...
Manchester Metropolitan University in Cheshire, England has a conference on informal logic, critical thinking, and argumentation called "Where's Your Argument?" on April 12th and 13th. It has a terrific lineup of speakers......
A Photon In The Darkness
Let’s run the vaccine risk/benefit numbers!
While reading another ‘blog, I found - in the comments - one of the worst examples of “bad epidemiology” I have ever seen. I won’t embarass the commenter by name or by quoting, but the gist of their “argument” was that (in the US) the risk of vaccination exceeds the risk...
[Kudos to KWombles who alerted me to this story] This morning, when I went to find the Hewitson et al (2009) article in the journal Neurotoxicology - the article that had been the inspiration for my post “A ‘Made for Court’ Study?” - I found that it had been withdrawn (see here). Given that there has...
Sorry to have been gone for so long, but I wanted to take extra time on this topic because….well, because it needs extra time and attention to detail. In growing numbers, people are taking their autistic children to “clinics” - in Costa Rica, in Germany, in Russia - to get “stem...
Yes! For lead poisoning. And probably as a treatment for mercury and cadmium poisoning (but not for assessing the body burden of mercury). And possibly as a treatment for arsenic and antimony poisoning. But as a treatment for autism, it hasn’t been shown to be either effective or safe, despite the titles of two articles...
This month, the journal Neurotoxicology published a study about vaccines, mercury and neurolgical delay: Hewitson L, Houser LA, Stott C, Sackett G, Tomko JL, Atwood D, Blue L, Railey White E, Wakefield AJ. “Delayed acquisition of neonatal reflexes in newborn primates receiving a thimerosal-containing Hepatitis B vaccine: Influence of gestational age...
Scepticon
A man is the sum of his memories, you know, a Time Lord even more so. The Doctor, in “The Five Doctors” We all know that our memories can’t always be trusted, time and life tends to erode the confidence we have in our memories. At least that is the case for...
Intelligence, Monogamy and Journalistic Licence
Last week news came out about a study linking intelligence with liberal attitudes and atheistic beliefs, oh and in men an increased tendency for monogamy. Today I read the NZ Herald’s short take on the study, a semi-chauvinistic piece pointing out how we evolved intelligent men can think our way...
New Zealand Pharmacy Ethics in Relation to Homeopathy in the Wake of Homeopathy Report
Earlier this year I wrote a post (along with fellow Sciblogger Grant) concerning the sale of homeopathic remedies in pharmacies. Monday night saw the release of England’s Science and Technology Committee’s “Evidence Check 2″ report on Homeopathy (also ably covered by Grant). One of the issues covered by the...
Facilitated Communication Case Fails to Deliver
The indefatigable Dr. Novella has been keeping track of the Facilitated Communication case of Rom Houben and via his blog I have learned that further investigation into the case has failed to deliver the goods. As a refresher, late in November last year the news broke of a man who had...
How is it that I’ve never heard this cool phrase before? Well not so cool for the species it applies to but still, someone was having a good brain day when that one was coined. The idea of an extinction vortex has been around for almost 25 years but I’m...
What is the Harm of Alternative Medicine?
Yesterday fellow Sciblogger Grant posted about homeopathic medications in pharmacies and questioned the legitimacy of reputable organisations selling such patent snake oil. The comments to this entry reveal one of the most frustrating aspects of speaking out against unscientific medicine and can be summarised thusly: “I’m far too sophisticated to...
williamlobdell.com
I’ll be at Cal State Bakersfield to give a talk Thursday, Jan. 14. If you are in the area, please drop by....
Rev. Pat Robertson can work miracles. He can get me out of semi-retirement. This effing douche commented on the Haiti 7.0 earthquake that killed more than 100,000 by saying: “Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it,” Robertson said on his Christian...
Cardinal Roger M. Mahony and a snake. So many photo caption possibilities …...
OK, gang. I’m back. Here’s what I love about Christopher Hitchens and his take on Christmas. I never cease to be amazed by how little the Bible-believing Protestants, who constitute most of the soldiery in the Christmas wars, know about their own tradition. Under the rule of the Puritan Revolution in...
“Losing My Religion” honored as one of the top 10 religious books of 2009
From Booklist: Lobdell’s trajectory from agnosticism to belief to atheism, prompted by covering religion for the Los Angeles Times, is fascinating, ironic, even astonishing....
(Another) smoking gun found in Cardinal Mahony’s mishandling of sexually abusive priests
Mahony ignored church policy and didn’t inform parishioners about allegations of clergy sexual abuse, one of his top lieutenants testified. In an institution that supposedly devotes itself to God and truth, you had to wonder: When would someone within Cardinal Roger M. Mahony’s inner circle break ranks and tell the truth...
Overcoming Bias
The probability of being sentenced to death is much greater if a defendant kills a white or Hispanic victim who is married with a clean criminal record and a college degree, as opposed to a black or Asian victim who is single with a prior criminal record and no college...
Our income tax system gives each of us a stake in the work of others – the more money others make, the more we each get via taxes. In principle we could use this fact to justify a great deal of intervention in everyone’s work lives. For example, one might...
A few months ago I had a nice long talk with a smart high-ranking, well-published (ex-) military officer who focuses on soldier psychological issues. He said most war movies aren’t at all realistic. When I pressed him for a realistic film, he offered Catch-22, at least for emotional realism. This...
Tell pretty women they are smart, and smart women they are pretty. saying We prefer to be liked, vs. disliked, but we also care about which features others most like about us. For example, we might prefer to be liked for our sense of humor, rather than our looks. But it...
My January talk at Foresight 2010, Economics of Nanotech and AI, is now available: video, slides. Seems I had a habit of messing my hair while talking. Silly me....
If the ship is sinking, do you save yourself or risk your life to save others? The answer, it seems, depends on how long the sinking takes. If there’s enough time, you can switch from adrenalin-driven self-preservation to conscience-driven self-sacrifice. The insights come from a new comparison of survival data from...
Small Town Skepticism
In recent news, the Quebec Government has been getting things right.First they require that a student remove her headpiece for her government funded language course (or be kicked out of the class) - when she failed to do so, they kicked her out (and not only on one occasion, twice!)http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/niqab-wearing-woman-kicked-out-of-quebec-class-again/article1495112/And...
I don't want Robbie to fail, I want Robbie to fail miserably
This may come as a complete surprise, but I would be really happy if Robbie Thomas sold more tickets for his upcoming "Psychic Justice Tour". I really don't want that to be a failure. (Good news, too, he sold 2 more tickets! That's 38 booked so far. That's almost a...
Why Doesn't OHIP Cover Chiropractic? (And an update on Jeffrey Needham)
(I decided to write this blog a while ago but I never got to publishing it - since I recently posted about Jeffrey Needham's woo-woo seminar this weekend, I thought it an appropriate time to publish this - though it is not near the whole story that I wanted to...
Robbie's Latest Marketing Materials - And you thought he couldn't be a bigger slimeball?
As Robbie, personally, had sent this poster to a number of people, I thought it only appropriate that I send a friendly email to the list. Here is what I sent:Good afternoon to you! I thought I'd send a follow-up to Robbie's email about the upcoming Psychic Justice Tour. I know...
Psychic Robbie Thomas – Murder Victims are not Commodities
Unsolved Homicide of Karen CaughlinI thought it time we spoke publicly regarding the topic of psychic Robbie Thomas. Many concerned friends have contacted me regarding the publicity forum Mr. Thomas is using to promote his upcoming Psychic Justice Tour, which contains information relating to his phantom involvement with Karen’s homicide...
Crazy-ass Chiropractic - Woo-woo Overload
A blog follower just forwarded me the following images from what appears to be a local Chiropractor's mass email - and I figured that I'd post them prior to picking them apart (I do have a job that, oddly, expects me be effective (in other words, I'm not a chiropractor) for me...
The Lay Scientist
The idea of tough-dogs is a fluid concept and the breed du jour has varied with the era. When I was growing up, it was definitely German-Shepherds, then Dobermans. By 1976 this identity had been grafted onto Rotweilers, probably by people who had seen the demonic dog in the first...
Germany's Highest Court Rules On LHC: "Put Up, Or Shut Up!"
In February, Germany's Highest Court, the Bundesverfassungsgericht ruled on the motion of a German residing in the Swiss city of Zurich, to pressure the German government into trying to stop the operation of the Large Hadron Collider, the biggest machine ever built, and that also has an easy to...
Gillian McKeith is back. The show that she inflicted on Canada last year has reached the UK. Eat Yourself Sexy is not being shown on Channel Four, but is on the much less viewed Discovery Channel on Monday nights. This is the blog I wrote about the show last September when...
The Homeopaths Strike Back (The Times)
It's fair to say that 2010 hasn't been a vintage year for homeopathy so far. At the end of January, a mass public 'overdose' by critics aiming to demonstrate the fact that homeopathic remedies contain no active ingredients received widespread coverage. Weeks later, the Science & Technology Select Committee...
Biocontrol Trial Given Go-Ahead
A trial release of a tiny Japanese insect has been sanctioned by DEFRA to try to control the spread of Japanese Knotweed, a rapidly growing introduced plant that reportedly costs over £150 million per year to control. read more...
From the Ada Lovelace website: Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging (videologging, podcasting, comic drawing etc.!) to draw attention to the achievements of women in technology and science. Women’s contributions often go unacknowledged, their innovations seldom mentioned, their faces rarely recognised. We want you to tell the world...
denialism blog
Dear Readers, we've been completely derelict in maintaining Denialism Blog. Please accept our apologies. Mark is training to be a surgeon, and Chris recently had an enormous baby! We hope to get back blogging soon. Please excuse our absence until life is back in order. ...
Great Insight into the Randtards in the New Yorker
Check out this week's New Yorker for a well-put insight into the Rand-infected mind. Nick Paumgarten writes about John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods and his attitudes towards unions: ...His [Mackey's] disdain for contemporary unionism is ideological, as well as self-serving. Like many who have come before, he says that...
Chris Anderson's provocative new book, Free: The Future of a Radical Price, argues that in the digital world, "free" pricing is a realistic and normatively good approach to pricing information products. Unlike the physical world of "free" products, which is plagued with fraud and tricks, the properties of the...
Want to be a wind up china doll?
Take Pristiq. Warning: side effects include becoming a fat wind up doll. Read the comments on this post......
This day in Crankery, November 16th
So who here has actually read the health care bill?. I've been devoting a bit of time each week to peruse more and more of it, and while there are endless obstacles to a complete understanding of it (including legalese and the annoying tendency of legislation to contain edits...
Get the H1N1 Vaccine Where the Poors Are!
The Viking and I ventured out early this morning to get the H1N1 vaccine and found long lines in the tony neighborhoods. SF Gate reports that the Marin public vaccination clinic was swamped. (The irony!--Marin is a hotbed of the anti-vaccination movement.) So where can you get...
Skeptic Zoners
Skeptic Zone At The Global Atheist Convention
If you’re heading to Melbourne – look out for Dave the Happy Singer and Kylie Sturgess! The 2010 Global Atheist Convention – Melbourne, Australia 12-14 March at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre Presenters will include: Richard Dawkins, Catherine Deveny, Phillip Adams, Taslima Nasrin, Peter Singer, PZ Myers, Dan Barker, Stuart Bechman, Sue-Ann...
10:23 Event – Filming In Perth With The Skeptic Zone
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10:23 Event – Filming In Sydney With The Skeptic Zone
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A tale of blue green algae, attacking birds, Hollywood and dementia
Many listeners especially Australians, would be familiar with “blue-green algae”. In particular, if you have spent any time in South Australia, you may recall periodic government alerts warning against drinking the water or using it for recreation during outbreaks or “blooms”. The term algal ‘bloom’ describes an increase in the number...
Skeptic Zone 2009 Survey – Help Us To Help Our Show!
How did we do in 2009? What can we improve on? What have you liked so far and what would you like to see more of? We’ve done it before – and we’re doing it again! Please enter in for the Skeptic Zone 2009 Survey. This fairly basic demographic survey will help...
Richard Saunders in an LA Pub – January, 2010!
More details and RSVP at Meetup.com! From Skeptoid’s own Brian Dunning: Australian skeptic Richard Saunders, from the Podcast The Skeptic Zone, will be in town early this January and would like to hang out with us in a place of imbibification (that’s fancy talk for “drankin”). Be sure to save the date...
Epsilon Clue
Chapter 6 of the book of Judges in the Bible is the beginning of the story of Gideon. The Midianites are being murderous dicks again, Israel appeals to God, God picks Gideon as Israel’s champion, all according to formula. An angel performs a couple of miracles, Gideon is impressed and...
VA AG tells universities to be more bigoted The WaPo reports that the attorney general has urged colleges and universities in Virginia to rescind their policies against discrimination against gays. You might think the Post got it wrong. That he’s saying that Virginia has no laws against discrimination against gays; that universities...
For those who hadn’t heard, last year DC passed a measure legalizing gay marriage. It’s scheduled to take effect tomorrow. This was a bit of a nail-biter, since Congress had threatened to repeal the law. But thankfully, the federal legislature is so dysfunctional that two and a half months weren’t...
Shooting the Message, Not the Messenger
Today, White House staff met with a group from the Secular Coalition for America, an association of disparate atheist and secular groups, to discuss policy (USA Today, by way of RichardDawkins.net. McClatchy article). Apparently the meeting went pretty much as I expected: brief meeting with White House staff (but not the...
We’ll Have Ample Warning of the Apocalypse
People have been arguing for ages now that the end of the world, as foretold in John’s shroom trip the book of Revelation, will be upon us any minute now. But I think the Bible makes it clear that we’ll have ample warning — thousands if not millions of years —...
A Step Forward for Marriage Equality in Maryland
According to the Baltimore Sun, the Maryland Attorney General has released a paper saying that “same-sex marriages performed in other states could be recognized by Maryland’s legal system.” Now, there are some big caveats: the AG isn’t a judge, so this paper doesn’t have the force of law, the way a...
Skeptical Monkey
Jenny McCarthy’s Son May Not Be Autistic
After all her hemming and hawing over MMR vaccines, some folks are wondering if Jenny McCarthy's young son ever had autism is the first place....
“Respected” Psychic Mistakes Fake Photo For Actual Ghost
An Australian psychic told a woman that her photograph contains evidence of--not one, but two!--ghosts. Guess he found out too late that the picture was a hoax....
The New Orleans Saints, along with athletes all over the world, are quick to thank god when things go their way. But does god really care who wins a football game?...
Parents Can Relax: Vaccines Do NOT Lead to Autism
The Lancet medical journal published a study in 1998 suggesting the link between autism and the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine. Now, they've issued a full retraction of the original paper....
Skeptical Monkey’s Predictions for 2010
In response to the oft-posted predictions of "psychics" at the start of each new year, we at Skeptical Monkey decided to make a few predictions of our own....
Halloween Origins: Those Ancient Celts Sure Were Crazy…
Halloween began thousand of years ago, when the ancient Celts lit bonfires to celebrate Samhain. What exactly did these people believe?...
New Urban Legends
Is your pet snake sizing you up as its next meal?...
Photograph purportedly shows a pregnant woman waiting to welcome home a husband who couldn't have fathered the child she's carrying....
Rumor claims WalMart has authorized U.S. law enforcement to enter their stores and arrest any illegal immigrants found within....
Video clip purportedly shows a wrecking ball smashing into a passing van....
Rumor claims President Obama has announced plans to ban recreational fishing in the U.S....
Musician finally masters extraordinarily difficult guitar part he heard on a record, only to learn the recording had been made with more than one guitar....
Dispatches from the Culture Wars
Rob Boston of Americans United for Separation of Church and State has an article about the Freshwater case in their magazine, Church and State. This situation, you'll recall, involves a science teacher in Mt. Vernon, Ohio who burned a cross into the arms of students with a Tesla coil and...
Humanist Arrested for Anti-Islam Book
The leader of the Indian chapter of the Center for Inquiry, a group I belong to, has been arrested in India for writing a book critical of Islam. The Center for Inquiry's New Delhi, India contacts have reported that CFI/India President Innaiah Narisetti , as well as two other...
Catholic Charities Ends Spousal Benefits
Jim Burroway reports that Catholic Charities of Washington DC has ended its spousal benefits to make sure that they don't have to give benefits to the spouse of a gay person at some point in the future: In a bid to avoid inadvertently providing spousal benefits to gay men and women...
Yes, this is the beginning of so many tragic stories. Here's another one, from Columbus, Missouri, where a SWAT team busted into a house, shot two dogs -- including a corgi, for crying out loud -- in full view of a 7 year old child, and found...a little pot in...
Here's a very cool clip from Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival in 2007. It's Jeff Beck doing Cause We Ended as Lovers. And yes, that is the incomparable Vinnie Colaiuta on drums and Tal Wilkenfeld doing a great solo on bass. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments...
GOP Fundraising Document Shows Contempt for Donors
Politico reports on a Republican fundraising document that was given to them, a Powerpoint presentation on how to convince wealthy contributors to cough up the cash through simplistic fear-mongering. The Republican National Committee plans to raise money this election cycle through an aggressive campaign capitalizing on "fear" of President Barack...