Technically migrating the content to Real Sceptic was already done on the 21st of last month. And on the 27th the domain settings for SkepticTV were changed so that skeptictv.net now points to this website. That day marked the official end of SkepticTV.
One step of the migration I didn’t execute, which was migrating email and WordPress subscribers to Real Sceptic. This turned out to be a bit of a hassle and I wouldn’t be able to migrate all the subscribers. Considering there were just a few subscribers I decided not to do this.
Continue reading SkepticTV Content Migration Is Complete
Anyone familiar with Watts Up With That will have noticed that anything published on it that mentions Skeptical Science often displays a rather obvious dislike for Skeptical Science. Both for the Skeptical Science website and the people who are involved with it.
It shows with the language used and all the attacks on the materials created or used by Skeptical Science. Often it doesn’t really matter if it’s valid criticism as long as it in some way critiques or undermines what was released. Especially when it’s something that is easy to understand and helps with communicating the science behind global warming. Which showed with the attacks towards the Cook et al. paper that measured the scientific consensus on global warming in the scientific literature.
I’ve always liked getting comments with feedback, criticism, or that give interesting commentary. It has helped me learn new things, hone my position, and helps me correct statements. It also acts as a great source for inspiration for new blog posts.
As long as you abide by some simple rules everyone is welcome to engage me on YouTube and my blog. It’s the reason why my comment sections are filled with critical comments and my responses and/or corrections to those comments. I especially appreciate feedback that points out a statement that isn’t correct, because they help me weed out incorrect positions and prevents me from inadvertently spreading incorrect information.
Several months ago Cook et al. released a paper in which they analysed the scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming (AGW) in the peer-reviewed scientific literature.
What they did in that study is examine 11,944 abstracts from 1991 to 2011 that included the words “global climate change” or “global warming” in their abstract. What they found after analysing these abstracts is that among those that expressed a position on global warming, 97% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming.
Not a surprising result at all as this was a bigger literature survey than the one done by Oreskes in 2004. It found that all the selected abstracts (928 in total) that stated a position on the cause of global warming said humanity is to blame.
Continue reading The 97% Climate Science Consensus Reality
For this blog I already have the Mail Call series for messages that I receive that I want to respond to publicly. Strangely enough I didn’t have anything similar for the comments I get on YouTube. Despite me already having reacted to those comments on this blog. There’s more than enough material in my comment sections that I can use as inspiration for blog posts.
So lets kick off this new blog post series with one comment that already starts with one of my pet peeves:
Continue reading YouTube Comments: The Scientific Consensus Rejected Heliocentrism
After a good run of almost 3 years SkepticTV will sadly cease to exist (I was the broadcast technician for them). The past 3 years were extremely fun and eventful with our show, the many guests we’ve had, and us appearing as guests on other shows. We also made a difference through the fundraisers we held.
But unfortunately a lot of us had trouble finding the time for keeping the show, website, and our social media accounts running. It takes a lot more time to run a 2 hour live show about scepticism than most people realize. Most of us also have their our own projects, jobs, education, and other real life obligations competing for time. As it wasn’t fair to burden those that still had some time with the sole responsibility to keep SkepticTV running the decision was made to discontinue the show.
After a good run of almost 3 years SkepticTV will sadly cease to exist. The past 3 years were extremely fun and eventful with our show, the many guests we’ve had, and us appearing as guests on other shows. We also made a difference through the fundraisers we held.
But unfortunately a lot of us had trouble finding the time for keeping the show, website, and our social media accounts running. It takes a lot more time to run a show about scepticism than most people realize. Most of us also have their our own projects, jobs, education, and other real life obligations competing for time. As it wasn’t fair to burden those that still had some time with the sole responsibility to keep SkepticTV running the decision was made to discontinue the show.
The website Watts Up With That run by Anthony Watts always was a website that uses conspiracy theories to support their argument that global warming isn’t a cause for concern. They try to keep what they publish on the website somewhat scientific, but that’s just a thin layer. That they are a conspiracy theory website sometimes becomes very obvious.
For both my website and YouTube channel I have some very strict moderation rules. For both the rules say you need to stay civil, you answer questions when asked, provide citations (or give them when asked), don’t make claims that are demonstrably wrong, don’t spam, and the comment has to be on-topic. If the comment you place doesn’t abide by those rules you will either get a warning from me or if it crosses the line too much I’ll just remove it.
Repeated violations will lead to me banning you on my YouTube channel or my website. With the intermediate step on my website that all comments from you will go into my moderation queue before they appear. These rules are quite strict compared to what is the norm on most websites, but I’ve found them to be necessary.
When I just had started writing for this website and creating my videos I was very lenient towards commenters. Everyone could say anything in whichever way they wanted. This almost always resulted in very unpleasant and unproductive exchanges. My frustration with people not engaging me in an honest and civil way was what lead to me creating the rules that I now have.
Continue reading The Perfect Example For Why I Moderate My Comment Sections
The time of year has again arrived in The Netherlands that we’re looking forward to our annual Sinterklaas tradition. Especially the children are looking forward to the arrival of Sinterklaas as this means candy and presents. What’s not to like about that when you’re a child?
For us adults it’s fun to see all this as we remember how it was for us when we were little. Every adult also knows someone who has helped as a Zwarte Piet or Sinterklaas. These are roles that are taken very seriously as we have fond memories of this tradition. Especially of Zwarte Piet who always was fun to be around, especially as that was the person you could get candy from (they often carry really big bags filled with candy).
Continue reading The Dutch And Zwarte Piet (Black Pete)
Technically migrating the content to Real Sceptic was already done on the 21st of last month. And on the 27th the domain settings for SkepticTV were changed so that skeptictv.net now points to this website. That day marked the official end of SkepticTV.
Anyone familiar with Watts Up With That will have noticed that anything published on it that mentions Skeptical Science often displays a rather obvious dislike for Skeptical Science. Both for the Skeptical Science website and the people who are involved with it.
Several months ago 
For this blog I already have the 
The website Watts Up With That run by Anthony Watts always was a website that uses conspiracy theories to support their argument that global warming isn’t a cause for concern. They try to keep what they publish on the website somewhat scientific, but that’s just a thin layer. That they are a conspiracy theory website sometimes becomes very obvious.
