Skepticism

Comment o’ the Whatever!

(Nominate your favorite comments by logging in, clicking the little arrow next to them, and writing “COTW” somewhere in your response!)

I know I know, it’s been ages! Here are some recent comments deserving of mention:

Buzz Parsec offers an insect’s guide to combatting evil:

I had a thankfully very brief, and hopefully not recurring fantasy about sucking all the blood and digestible protein out of Glen Beck and strapping his lifeless corpse to my back to protect against all the forces of evil and woo. And maybe going after Sylvia Browne next.

Maybe this was exacerbated by listening to Bug Girl on SGU yesterday.

Sorry for sharing.

Joshua came up with a great movie pitch:

And here I was, picturing something like The Great Escape… IN HELL!

Goddammit, Hollywood, get your collective thumbs out of James Cameron’s ass and make this happen.

This needs a bit of set-up. First, Jen reported that the Air Force is now accepting of witchcraft. Mikespier pointed out this passage:

“Say you have cancer, and someone does a healing spell for you. It doesn’t mean the cancer disappears overnight. It could mean your doctor thinks up a different treatment.”

Scribe 999 replied thusly:

Say you have an orc in an adjacent 5×5 square, and I wanted to cast Otiluke’s Icy Sphere on him…it doesn’t mean the Orc’s hit points necessarily disappear immediately. It could mean you came up with a better way of stabbing him with your +1 flaming longsword.

Siveambrai single-handedly defended the social sciences. Click here to read it all cuz it’s long but worth it. Here’s her TL;DR:

I guess the tl;dr of this is don’t mess with a PhD student who’s favorite class was philosophy of science :D

Finally, James Fox has something worth copying and pasting for any trolls that drop by Skepchick:

Perhaps you could start your own bog where your goals and arguments are the topics of discussion. Your attempts at discussion here have been tedious, lacking in substance, and clearly confrontational for no good reason. So if your goal is to destroy atheism I’m not sure why you’re expending the energy to accomplish nothing more than irritating some nice folk who enjoy civil productive discussion. A trait you will notice is fairly consistent here is that people understand the difference between an opinion and a position based on the best available evidence. A lot of our discussions are about how we deal with our own views when we are confronted with evidence that indicates we are wrong. Part of the skeptical world view is a willingness to admit you are wrong and adjust your views when you learn new information or the available facts show you are wrong. The process of adjusting your views to fit the available facts or admitting that an opinion absent supporting facts or evidence is nothing more than a personal possession, often with little value in the skeptical marketplace, seems to have escaped you. You may not think you are a troll but you have trollish behaviors and will be treated accordingly or ignored by many of the regular posters here as long as you persist in those behaviors.

Happy Friday everyone!

Rebecca Watson

Rebecca is a writer, speaker, YouTube personality, and unrepentant science nerd. In addition to founding and continuing to run Skepchick, she hosts Quiz-o-Tron, a monthly science-themed quiz show and podcast that pits comedians against nerds. There is an asteroid named in her honor. Twitter @rebeccawatson Mastodon mstdn.social/@rebeccawatson Instagram @actuallyrebeccawatson TikTok @actuallyrebeccawatson YouTube @rebeccawatson BlueSky @rebeccawatson.bsky.social

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8 Comments

  1. I am more of a hard science person, but I love the defense on social science. I believe it has done great contributions to our knowledge.

  2. I actually really liked that “bog” typo. Trolls might live in bogs, you never know. The “troll under a bridge” stereotype must die!

  3. Woo! I feel like I can die fulfilled now :)

    Sorry I ranted and then abandoned that thread. I love that topic a lot.

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