- A teacher on the front line as faith and science clash: from the New York Times, a tale of teaching evolution in Florida schools.
- A short, illustrated history of the nerd.
- The Amateur Scientist stops in at cool scifi site Pink Raygun to debunk palm reading.
- 10 people with unbelievable medical conditions.
Mmm the woman who is allergic to modern technology… truly unbelievable.
In fact are any of them believable ?
..as for the man who can not feel cold ,surley a contender for photoshop disasters
http://photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com/
Unfortunately, the illustrated history of the nerd doesn’t answer the basic question: am I who I am because of nature or nerdture?
Hi guys and gals. I am a newbie here.
I stumbled upon some of these “skeptic” sites by accident doing various reading on-line. One of the sites has a very good summary of logically fallacious argument techniques, employed as a substitute for critical thinking. None of this is new to me, as I have a degree in physics and philosophy from a top University. It’s funny how way back when many of the top physicists were also top philosophers, because it was all about what you could prove or not prove. Of course proving the existence of god was a hot topic to these historic, great minds.
They never could quite pull that off. It was hard enough for Descartes to prove the existence of himself – let alone god.
What I find interesting about these skeptic sites is that it seems that this crowd is dutifully skeptical of all kinds questionable claims on the one hand, and yet on certain topics you exhibit a blind faith that would make a run-of-the-mill fundamentalist envious.
You do this even though the gods that you bow down to have proven themselves throughout history as unreliable and deserving of skepticism and critical thinking.
The two examples that stand out prominently is a remarkable uncritical acceptance of:
1. The “truth” emanating from the government.
2. The “truth” from the western medical community or even the science community.
Such blind faith in these institutions over the course of history leads to acceptance of such things as bleeding as a remedy, the earth is flat, and the North Vietnamese really did attack us in the Gulf of Tonkin – our government’s ruse for authority to wage the Vietnam War.
Am I missing some here?
Because I see an awful lot of blind, uncritical faith on these skeptic sites when it comes to authority figures, who are not only fallible from time to time, but also – believe it or not – abuse authority and power for their own purposes on occasion.
I just don’t see how such blind faith and acceptance is compatible with this claim to be skeptics.
the emf article in the Daily Fail quotes, “the pathology is now established. It has a huge detrimental physical effect and stops people living normal lives.'”
Really?
That paper doesn’t have its wonderful scientific reputation for nothing.
TrueSkeptic, please provide examples of how we, on this site, justified either the outline of 1 or 2 in your mind and we will defend that position, but please don’t generalize. If you read this site, you won’t see that we are all peons for the g’ment, since we have outlined many things that we see as wrong with it, but when it comes to things like the Moon Landing, Kennedy and 9/11 then all of the evidence is on their side.
As for Western Medicine, then I will simply say, it is the only medical establishment which requires and provides information on its efficacy. You don’t get that from Eastern Traditions, so we don’t say it doesn’t work, just that we have no evidence of it working.
I look forward to an open dialog with you.
@TrueSkeptic
Which top university graduated you? What branch of physics and philosophy did you study?
I don’t want to be rude but something about the tone of your post seems a little higgildy piggildy to me. I’m a bit skeptical of your statements.
The amateur scientist piece on palmistry was great. Was he making it up or did egyptian women really stuff their vaginas with aligator dung? Do aligators even have dung?
Gabrielbrawley: I think it was slightly more complicated than that (at least, I hope so, for those women’s sakes), but I do happen to know that the ancient Egyptians did use dung as a contraceptive.
Don’t ask me how I know that. I’m uncertain myself, and I’d like to stay that way.
Protesilaus,
I’ll just start by choosing one from your list: the JFK assassination, because it provides an easy example. One of the prominently featured “proofs” in the FBI’s case was their claim to have developed a new scientific investigative technique of being able to match the bullet fragments that hit JFK with the unspent cartridges allegedly left behind by Oswald, by means of microscopic analysis and comparison of the lead in each. This technique was created for that investigation, but was then commonly used for decades thereafter.
Now within the past few years, a whistleblower in the FBI came forward and has admitted that it was hoax. It was complete junk science. They just flat out made it up. Imagine that? In my line of work, you pull a stunt like that and you find yourself in a very, very big credibility hole where every other claim you make should be viewed with a very healthy dose of skepticism. Now for you to accept the government’s position on the rest of the story, which is improbable on its face, these people who employed junk science are the same people you have to trust in order to assert that the “evidence is all on their side.”
So there is just one example of government proffered science that you seem perhaps too willing to accept on blind, religious-like faith.
There are many other examples that I have seen on this site that appear to fall a little short of proper skepticism. A little short of proper critical thinking. But I’ll let you chew on this one first.
So do I take it that you defend the Warren Commission Report? Really? Wow. I personally know one of the US Attorneys who worked on the Challenger crash investigation. He related how at the outset the head of the investigation told the team: “We are going to do this right – this will not be another whitewash like the Warren Commission.” I mean for anyone in the know – including some of the actual Commissioners in later confessions – that investigation was a complete joke. This was all conceded before the FBI was caught fabricating scientific claims.
So Protes — are you “skeptical” yet on this one?
To quote from the Princess Bride: “You keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means.” : )
“Skeptic” … hmm … where is my dictionary? It’s not that any one conclusion is mandated on JFK, but that’s the whole point. The skeptic sites ridicule those whose skepticism prevents them from blindly following a discredited (and now admittedly fraudulent) investigation. Such irony.
JFK is not the example I would chosen, but since you did – there it is.
TrueSkeptic, all Protesilaus mentioned was the word “Kennedy.” I think you made more than a few assumptions about his exact opinions on the issue, and that’s not quite fair or polite.
You’ll find a LOT of different opinions on this site. Sometimes you might find opinions, definitely not excepting my own, that could use a bit more skepticism and critical reasoning. We’re open to discussion and correction – but why not try do it in a less aggressive way.
I don’t know very much about the JFK deal, but from your argument alone, it doesn’t make any more sense to me why I should be on your side of it. And I’m one of the most anti-government people on this site.
“Which top university graduated you? What branch of physics and philosophy did you study?”
Rice University. Just go on-line and look at the curriculum requirements for a degree in physics. I studied quantum mechanics, electrodynamics (the real tough stuff) as well as all the classical stuff. Of course there is a lot of rigorous math involved as well. Branch of philosophy – it was pretty much the Western tradition from the Greeks up through the 2oth century. Plato through Bertrand Russell and everyone in between.
My main purpose was to see if there was anything that was beyond my understanding put out by the greatest minds in history. There was nothing.
TrueSkeptic,
Cool, good university. Like I said, I’m not trying to be rude but whenever I see some one claim something like “top university” it makes me feel a little funny. Sounds like you did the hard work. Congratualations.
As for Kennedy, I don’t think there was a conspiracy. I’ve been to the book depository. You can look out the window and see the two x’s that mark the position of the limo when Kennedy was shot. It isn’t a hard shot. I could do it with a rifle with iron sights. The scope would just make it a lot easier. Also I am very skeptical about any conspiracy in general. People can’t keep secrets. A conspiracy to pull this off would need a lot of people and would leave a lot of evidence. It wouldn’t have worked and it wouldn’t have stayed secret.
Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy by Vincent Bugliosi
is a very good book on the subject. It is long and isn’t the easiest read but I found it very interesting.
Jen,
Sorry if I was less than polite. : )
I think Protesilaus’s point on JFK was pretty clear – you really don’t think so? I guess he can correct me, but it was pretty obvious he was referring to the government’s explanation. Look at the sequence – I mentioned trusting the government and he responded with the issue of the JFK evidence being all on their side. You think I made a bad assumption?
“I don’t know very much about the JFK deal, but from your argument alone, it doesn’t make any more sense to me why I should be on your side of it.”
Really – what is my side? You criticized me for making assumptions.
The only “side” I put forth was that one should be skeptical of the government’s side on this issue, after he offered up JFK as an exemplar. And you say I did not advance this case with my argument? Interesting.
I established that the Commissioners themselves who wrote up the government’s side derided it, as well as other insiders, and that the FBI fabricated evidence using bogus science.
But all of this does not, in your view, advance my point that the government’s story should, in fact, be viewed with skepticism – not blind faith. Once again – I find the use of “critical thinking” and “skepticism” to be curious on these sites.
Maybe the partying is good? : )
“Maybe the partying is good? : )”
Really?
You’re being very passive-agressive.
TrueSkeptic
“My main purpose was to see if there was anything that was beyond my understanding put out by the greatest minds in history. There was nothing.”
Arrogant much?
spurge: Arrogant, pretentious, and passive-agressive, all at once!
Thanks for the kind words on my palmistry article at PinkRaygun.com and to Skepchick for linking to my site, AmateurScientist.org, in the past.
I feel I must agree with TrueSkeptic on the government question. While it’s true that maintaining a massive conspiracy of silence between thousands of self-interested individuals over several generations becomes less and less possible with every passing minute after the conspiracy is born, you “skeptics” must understand that the government is not, in fact, a mass of self-interested individuals. Indeed, this is the greatest scam the powers that be have pulled over on the public since President Taft told America he had a 32″ waist.
The word “government” is actually a watered-down version of “Guvmat”, the name of the Sumerian tentacle demon that currently controls all of society. I won’t go into all the details (they involve lots of controversial claims, not least of which being the Pope-as-Guvmat-sperm-pod Theory), but you must understand that all of those government “employees” and “elected officials” you so naively believe exist are actually products of Guvmat’s ancient glamour magicks. (You know it’s ancient when it’s spelled with a “k”.)
Sadly, Ron Paul (or Ruanpol the Illuminator) is the only one who knows the truth of Guvmat, but due to prehistoric law these truths must be hidden between the lines of badly Xeroxed, semi-racist newsletters.
“Arrogant much?”
It’s really not as hard as might think. In the end, it really all breaks down to 2 + 2 = 4 and then building upon that.
To help pay my way through school, I use to tutor inner city kids, who were having trouble. They would tell me they did not understand the the class material. So I would just keep going farther and farther back until we reached a point in the subject that they did understand. And I would then tell them “Oh you understand this? Well if you understand this – then the rest will be easy.” You just find their confidence level and take as small as steps as you need to get where you want to go.
If I cannot teach you everything that I learned, then that means that I probably really do not understand it myself. Since I think I do understand it – that means I think you could too.
So I am not really separating myself from you. It’s just a question of confidence and interest.
Trueskeptic
I chose the Moon Landing, FBI, and 9/11 because they are the big 3 of government conspiracy. Now as for the bullet fragments, information that you are claiming, can you sight what you are talking about please. It will be much easier to analyze what you are saying. I’m not sure if you are talking about Neutron Activation Analysis, Bullet Fingerprinting or what have you.
Second, you say a whistleblower came forward, and it was complete junk science, one question, if it was used in a lot of other cases, why haven’t they been overturned?
Thirdly, do you make any claims about the events of that day. You seem to point to a second shooter, by the stance in your previous statements, but the Zapruder Film clearly shows a gunman in the Book Depository.
As for the Warren Report, I will not defend the project as a whole, but if you wish we can debate the individual claims made in it. My only assertion is that, there was a single gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald who fired the shots that struck and killed JFK.
I likewise am suspicious of this woman who’s allergic to EMF. You can find people who claim it all over the place, but to my knowledge most cases that have been investigated fail a simple blinded test. That sort of allergic reaction can be just as easily caused by a psychosomatic response as being an actual result of EMF.
But if she is really allergic to EMF, we should be able to determine it easily with a blinded test. Furthermore, it should be possible to determine the parameters of the allergy. Is there a specific frequency band that triggers the allergy? What’s the signal strength threshold to the allergy?
Also, what’s the connection with the BMW? Why does the BMW trigger her allergy when supposedly it’s EMF she’s allergic to? It’s only a suspicion, but I’m willing to bet the BMW has a GPS receiver mounted in it. That doesn’t emit any EMF, but it’d trigger an “OMG TECHNOLOGY” response from her.
Also, note that the problem began when she moved into a new apartment. Another possibility is that she was genuinely allergic to something else in that apartment. I know from personal experience that it’s possible to be allergic to one species of dust mite but not another, so that’s one possible explanation. Or it could have been an additive in the paint. Either way, once she got it in her head that EMF was the “real” problem, it was inevitable that, after moving, the improvement in her condition would be attributed to the anti-EMF regimen rather than to change in location.
P.s.: AmateurScientist wins CoTW, hands down.
“Second, you say a whistleblower came forward, and it was complete junk science, one question, if it was used in a lot of other cases, why haven’t they been overturned?”
There is a project in place to review all criminal cases where the fraudulent lead matching technique was a substantial factor in criminal convictions and many of these convictions are being overturned and innocent people being set free. The last I heard on it — the review process is suppose to be comprehensive. There are FBI admissions and scientifically peer-reviewed papers on the topic. It’s not hard to find. You really need me to help you on this?
“You really need me to help you on this?”
It is not our job to back up your assertions.
As am I. My first stop shop on extraordinary claims is generally Carroll’s Skeptic’s Dictionary. He’s got a good writeup on EMF, and quite a lot of other things as well.
The hardcopy is excellent as well, for those that don’t own it.
I am looking into it now, and its baring on the case as a whole, but so far I see no bearing on how this proves a conspiracy or another gunman. Listen, you seem to be doing anomaly hunting, please, if you want to make a claim make a claim. I will ask you to take an actual position here. Do you think there was another gunman?
I will restate my position:
My only assertion is that, there was a single gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald who fired the shots that struck and killed JFK.
Also, please don’t be so testy that I am asking you to defend your position or to take an actual position. I have made no claims to my intelligence/greatness nor said anything about your position and I do not plan on doing that. If you want to have a discussion on all of the facts about the case, I am open to hear and review them. The case is over 40 years old and I am sure there going to be new evidence, which is why I will not defend the Warren Report as a whole, but I will only be defending the position that I stated above. At least let me know what your position is on the events of the day.
I think TrueSkeptic is referring to the now largely discredited Compositional Analysis of Bullet Lead (CABL) technique used by the FBI since the 1960s as proof that two or more bullets came from the same batch based on spectrographic analysis of elemental composition (stop yawning at the back). The “whistleblower” appears to be William Tobin, a retired FBI forensics expert specialising in metallurgy who co-authored a paper questioning the validity of CABL and was featured on a 60 Minutes report in November 2007, see: (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/16/60minutes/main3512453.shtml)
It should be noted that Tobin produced the report after he left the FBI and does not appear to have been or, to be fair, to have claimed to have been privy to any secret FBI cabals “flat out making up” flawed forensic methodology in order to cover up huge assassination conspiracies. Nor was Tobin “admitting” anything or at any point referring to a “hoax.”
The use of CABL was reviewed by the US National Academy of Sciences (Board on Chemical Science and Technology) in 2004 and (summarising considerably here) concluded that whilst the technique may offer some value for analysis of ballistic evidence it was not sufficiently precise, due to the nature of bullet lead manufacture, to confirm that two or more bullets came from the same batch or the same box (or for that matter, the same factory). Those without a life can read the full report here: http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10924&page=R1.
The link with JFK comes from an article in the Annals of Applied Statistics, co-authored by Tobin, which questioned the methods used by Professor Vincent P. Guinn in his evidence to the Warren Commission and concluded the recovered bullet fragments “could have come from three or more separate bullets and, therefore, more than one shooter.” Or to put it another way: could have come from one shooter firing three bullets. This study would appear to indicate that if there were multiple shooters in Deeley Plaza they were firing ammunition that could not have been definitely proven to have come from the same batch. It doesn’t prove that there were multiple shooters. An interesting point to note is that Tobin’s article claims that the possible second shooter (only two? In Oliver Stone’s JFK there were at least three) actually managed to miss Kennedy, too much foliage on the grassy knoll maybe. It seems odd the Mafia, the CIA or the industrial/military complex couldn’t find a second sniper who could shoot straight. You can access a Washington Post article on this here, along with a pretty detailed rebuttal that I can’t be bothered to summarise right now: http://aine.newsvine.com/_news/2007/05/17/723873-scientists-cast-doubt-on-kennedy-bullet-analysis-multiple-shooters-possible-study-says
I, of course, stand to be corrected. Maybe there’s another whistleblower I couldn’t find in my exhaustive ten minute google search.
“Also I am very skeptical about any conspiracy in general. People can’t keep secrets. A conspiracy to pull this off would need a lot of people and would leave a lot of evidence. It wouldn’t have worked and it wouldn’t have stayed secret.”
Well let’s test your theory about conspiracies:
1. I suppose you can tell me who killed Jimmy Hoffa and where the body is buried? Do you think that was a successful conspiracy? Or a random, unexplained act of senseless violence. Let’s not be too naive here. : )
2. The Pentagon engineered a “false flag” attack on American Warships in the Gulf of Tonkin that was a complete fabrication, which hundreds must have known about, and it was successfully concealed for about 40 years. McNamara has recently admitted it. — So are we suppose to wait a certain amount of decades before concluding that we would have heard something by now?
E. Howard Hunt – CIA – in a recorded statement taken by his son on his death bed admitted that Oswald did not kill JFK. Now I am not saying that he should be believed – but it is simply not true that people have not come forward.
Look – you cannot make blanket statements about “conspiracies.” I go after financial fraud conspiracies for a living. They often involve lots of people and they often succeed, without the protection of the government. If law enforcement agencies want to help them – which occasionally happens – then it can be very problematical to get at the truth.
Blind trust in the government is a very, very dangerous thing. The founding fathers understood this. One should be naturally skeptical of the government and none too quick to accept what it says on blind faith – particularly where the exercise of government power is involved. History has proven this over and over and over again.
I just find it strange that religious faith in the government should be a theme on a skeptics’ site. Just seems backwards.
1. No, I don’t know who killed Jimmy Hoffa but I don’t think this is quite the same thing. I am sure that Jimmy is dead and probably went through a meat processor and wound up in a pack of hamburger meat. But this wouldn’t have had to be a huge conspiracy. Two or three people could have taken out Hoffa and then one could have killed the others. This could leave you with a single person knowing the truth. Or it could be something else that I didn’t think of or know.
2. We know about this, we have known for a long, long time. We knew it years before that trajic joke of a “police action” was over. Heck, we knew it before LBJ was out of office. The same way that we know Bush deliberatly lied and mislead America and the rest of the world into the current trajic joke of a war.
What do you do for a living. This has nothing to do with the rest of this I’m just curious about someone who did physics working financial fraud. I went from criminal justice to accounting. Just curious you can tell me to fuck off if it is out of line. I won’t mind.
Also I agree that we shouldn’t have blind faith in government. I wasn’t advocating that. If it sounds like I was then that was poor communication on my part. Also I haven’t ever seen anyone advocating anything like religious faith in the government on theis sight. I have seen a lot of criticizim of the government. I just haven’t seen any convincing evidence that anyone other than Oswald shot JFK.
Appleman,
Excellent work.
And you make absolutely valid points about what Tobin did and did not conclude publicly about how the phony bullet matching science came about.
But let me do that on my own. You cannot accidently invent this false science, which they did for the first time in the JKF case. If they properly tested the theory at the time, they would have seen that it was invalid.
There are two possibilities – either they knew the science was wrong or they knew that they did not know one way or the other — i.e. did not do basic testing to back up the theory. In law, both are fraud.
So the FBI committed a fraud and the FBI otherwise predominately took possession of and controlled the evidence — time to start being skeptical.
There is a taped conversation of LBJ imploring one of the members of the Warren Commission to join, in which he states there won’t be any real work to do – the FBI has already figured it all out.
Oswald said he was a “patsy” — that’s on odd thing to say – don’t you think? Right before someone strolls up to him and executes him.
Any skeptics out there?
Yes,
Were just skeptical of the conspiracy hypothesis.
@TrueSkeptic posted
Who here claimed to trust the government blindly?
You made the accusation without any supporting evidence.
Tell us specifically what skeptical blind spots people here have and the evidence you have to support this assertion.
TrueSketpic,
There are two possibilities – either they knew the science was wrong or they knew that they did not know one way or the other — i.e. did not do basic testing to back up the theory. In law, both are fraud.
This is a blatant false dichotomy. There are hundreds of studies that are overturned every year by new evidence. Are you postulating all of them are committing fraud?
Also, I will no longer research any of the information you provide unless you start to provide references. I don’t want to keep jumping from one source to another. Trying to do the work you should be doing when you make claims.
Lastly, I will add, the “notes” were never seen by anyone other than “Saint John”, and the audio was broadcasts on Coast to Coast AM without any voice analysis. People make up your own mind about the E. Howard Hunt confession.