Skeptics
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" »
December and January are generally slow news months in Australia. The pollies have gone home, cricket is on the TV and we can find time to relax. It can be a testing time for the media, with column inches and tabloid TV segments to fill. But all is not lost.
Enter the fortune tellers.
What does the year ahead hold for us? Let’s ask our resident astrologer/medium/psychic/mystic/clairvoyant.
Continue reading "Your 10-step guide to predicting the future" »
Latest 2 of 44 comments
View all comments-
Dave says:
Just write some more non stories its all you journalists do all day anyway. Read more »
-
stephen says:
What would you like to know ? Read more »
Welcome to this week’s I Call Bullshit. It’s a weird one. An email arrived in my inbox yesterday spruiking “Australian best-selling author Margaret Stuart”, whose gift lets her “see into the bodies and minds of people suffering from different illnesses and help them to remove the thoughts and fears that are literally making them ill”.
Bullshit bingo! I took a look at the website, chuckled that the ‘qualifications’ section included kinesiology, Thought Field Therapy, and advanced scaffolding and forklift driving, pulled the old ranty-pants out of the cupboard, lined up an interview, and was good to go.
Then a strange thing happened. Margaret Stuart seemed like a nice, genuine woman who just happened to have some beliefs I reckon are a bit kooky. She may think she can cure diseases with mind power, but she doesn’t tell people to stop seeing their doctors and she doesn’t seem to be making a fortune from it. The ranty pants chafed.
Continue reading "When skeptics go soft: A slightly different ICB" »
Latest 2 of 64 comments
View all comments-
Cars says:
@Dave. Sea sickness tablets aren’t placebos. Medicine has to go through blind trials where the placebo effect is ruled out. Read more »
-
JImBO says:
Acupuncture is quackery - sure is Read more »
In The Bible, Doubting Thomas famously put his hand into Jesus’ wound and had a good grope around to convince himself that the son of God had truly risen from the dead.
He was the only sceptic among the Disciples, the only one who didn’t rely on blind faith. He demanded evidence of an improbable event. For this, he copped it a bit. According to John 20:29:
“Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.”
Continue reading "Be a bit sceptical about the new breed of doubters" »
Latest 2 of 197 comments
View all comments-
BrawSquaree says:
hrhfw <a >cheap jerseys</a> , idtbm <a >cheap jerseys</a> , ausla <a >cheap jerseys</a> , ebguk <a >cheap nfl jerseys</a> , lzmbw <a >www.goodnfljerseysforsale.com/#5554</a> , ipqmz <a >www.wholesalecheapjerseys4you.com/#4143</a> , Read more »
-
pheroloEmbere says:
hJvpbbAhfa isabel marant spring pCejwtAqws http://www.isabelmarantspring.ewebsite.com/ wBguusGdzt etoile isabel marant spring 2012 nFgylwAiib http://etoileisabelmarantcoat.webgarden.com/ lQmtjoWwow isabel marant boot eFgixgIvro gZelzyUtmj http://isabelmarantfringebo.dmusic.net/ xLnzpyBaxp marc jacob outlet nVcnljSjik http://marcjacobsoutlet.dinstudio.com/ zEyxzkOqsv mulberry bag outlet fEsonmComp http://mulberrybagsoutlet01.overblog.com/ Read more »
The world - largely thanks to the internet - is getting overloaded with more pseudoscience, psychobabble and outright bullsh*t than ever before, and we need a groundswell of logical thinking to fight it.
Skeptics used to come under fire because people saw skepticism as inherently negative.
(It’s hard to work out whether that was because the critics just didn’t know the difference between cynicism and skepticism, or were just fundamentally ignorant of the philosophy of science.)
Latest 2 of 34 comments
View all comments-
Eran Segev says:
@Chemist: So climatologists and other scientists are part of the conspiracy to hide the truth from the public in order to save their jobs. How lucky we are to have the brave geologists, who are committed to science and won’t budge. Oh, wait! Perhaps it’s geologists who are simply out… Read more »
-
chemist says:
re: Eran. Geologists are sceptics because they think in terms of billions of years. They know that climate change is constant and often extreme. Geologists are also aware that their is absolutely no correlation between climate and atmospheric composition over the past 600 million years. In the past it has… Read more »
Facebook Recommendations
Read all about it
Punch live
Up to the minute Twitter chatter
RT @Dean_Moss: @farrm51 @ToryShepherd @KRuddMP's opponent Dr Bill Glasson tells Gary Hardgrave on @NewsTalk4BC that he supports marriage e…
RT @dogboner: every known thing had been sufficiently mocked and ironically retweeted. we placed our phones in the dirt and walked into the…
Recent posts
The latest and greatest
The Punch is moving house
Good morning Punchers. After four years of excellent fun and great conversation, this is the final post…
Will Pope Francis have the vision to tackle this?
I have had some close calls, one that involved what looked to me like an AK47 pointed my way, followed…
Advocating risk management is not “victim blaming”
In a world in which there are still people who subscribe to the vile notion that certain victims of sexual…
Nosebleed Section
choice ringside rantings
From: Hasbro, go straight to gaol, do not pass go
Tim says:
They should update other things in the game too. Instead of a get out of jail free card, they should have a Dodgy Lawyer card that not only gets you out of jail straight away but also gives you a fat payout in compensation for daring to arrest you in the first place. Instead of getting a hotel when you… [read more]From: A guide to summer festivals especially if you wouldn’t go
Kel says:
If you want a festival for older people or for families alike, get amongst the respectable punters at Bluesfest. A truly amazing festival experience to be had of ALL AGES. And all the young "festivalgoers" usually write themselves off on the first night, only to never hear from them again the rest of… [read more]Gentle jabs to the ribs
Superman needs saving
Can somebody please save Superman? He seems to be going through a bit of a crisis. Eighteen months ago,… Read more
Latest 2 of 218 comments
View all commentsAdd your comment