Scepticism
It’s not often I spend a weekend with people happily clapping and speaking in awed tones about a venerable dude. But I overcame my fears of group thinking and circle jerking to go to the Australian Skeptics National Convention, featuring James ’The Amazing’ Randi.
Some friends of mine were pretty sceptical about the skeptics. Why, they wondered, would people be so overly eager to run around and interfere with other people’s lives and beliefs?
They have a point. There is such a thing as skepticfreude, the glee of ruining the fun of others, of punching holes in their treasured rituals and treatments. We (oh, OK, I) can be just a tad righteous.
Continue reading "Why wallowing in woo woo is bad for your health" »
Welcome to another edition of I Call Bullshit, a column dedicated to talking about all sorts of baloney and bunkum. Today we’re looking at Professor Richard Muller’s ‘conversion’ from climate change ‘sceptic’ to believer.
Conversions are big news. If someone finds religion or loses it, or someone prominent changes their mind on an important topic, it’s always interesting.
That person becomes a lightning rod, focussing the debate, delivering hope to whichever side they’ve switched to, and a blow to the other side.
Continue reading "ICB: Getting sceptical about claims of scepticism" »
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bananabender says:
Muller has never been a skeptic. His lack of skepticism is detailed here http://joannenova.com.au/2012/07/muller-the-pretend-skeptic-makes-three-claims-hes-half-right-on-one/#more-23014 Read more »
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Warwick says:
He Gecko, thanks for your link to the C3 website. When you combine this information with the fact that water vapour far exceeds CO2 as an element in the warming of the planet, the AGW hypothesis looks absurd. You get an indication of the absurdity of the AGW story from… Read more »
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