I’ve noticed, especially more recently, how often someone I felt was intelligent, reasoned and logical will jump to erroneous conclusions, or profess an opinion that seems too divorced from the world we live in. Whether it is simply believing that person X said Y, with no evidence anywhere supporting this other than the believer just wants it to be true, all the way to someone arguing that person X should accept his or her position in a situation as though it were the believer’s position.
A recent example has been the Rebecca Watson situation. I’ve heard from far too many men, even those who I thought would have known better, that she was taking the action too seriously, and that she should shut up about it, even that she should take it as a compliment.
Continue reading Sometimes Skeptics are Completely Wrong
Firstly a quick appology to our none British readers, this blog post probably won’t have much bearing on you BUT you could also have a look a the charity thats doing it and see if there’s similar local to you.
There is a charity in the UK called Sense About Science, it’s focus is to equip people to understand science in the media and the like and one of it’s big things is raising awareness of bad science. I’ve now been to two skeptic type events where they’ve had someone present as a speaker, other aims of the organisation include promoting an evidence based approach and making sure that scientific enquiry is undertaken without stigma or censorship. Now oddly enough these aims are all things we here at SkepticTV think are jolly good and things that we all need to try and push for to try and deal with the various quacks, loons and peddlers of hokum.
Continue reading Reporting Dodgy Science – A New Sense About Science Campaign
Ok, I’m coming to this one a little late. It’s something Bair got me on to a while ago but I’m only just following up now. It started with a link to PZ Myers blog Pharyngula and it all snowballed (or should that be Wombled?) from there.
Everyone thats seen a creationist in action knows how slimey and duplicitous they can be, some are inept and don’t do it with finesse (think Nephy here) and others are dangerously slick and smooth (but it’s clear to those watching). This story starts with the Geological Society of Americas conference, one of the things us Geologists like to do at such gatherings is to go and find some hapless field locations to molest (and some pub action too). It turns out that one of the trips that was organised was put together by some well known American creationists…..
I commited no such fallacy. As my last email showed, the list of scientific disciplines I posted that support evolution was justified and I explained why. Using evidence is not a fallacy. It would have been a fallacy if I made such a list without being able to back up my statements.
For a couple of days I’ve been discussing Evolution and Creationism with Paul Taylor. Who used to work for the well known creationist site Answers In Genesis.
The exchange I have had so far has the usual arguments from creationists, dismissive of my arguments and often calling them logical fallacies.
Update: Creationwiki has unlisted abbynormal0ne as an atheist. In addition they also corrected some other errors in the listing that others have pointed out. Thanks for everyone who helped bring this to their attention and a thank you for Creationwiki for following up on it.
For a start I’d like to say that this entry will be a short one, I’ve got some things to do today but I’m also at a point where I can start pulling my head out of constant studying around work and get on with some blogging!
So there I was eating my lunch and perusing my facebook wall seeing what was happening in that sphere when I saw this lovely little article. In a nut shell it seems that legislation that was introduced to protect pregnant women from other people trying to harm their babies is now being use to arrest them for murdering their babies! Thats right boys and girls, if the mothers to be have consumed something that could be taken as causing them to miscarry or their child to be still born or to even die a short while after birth (note: this short while could even be days) then they get arrested for murder.
Continue reading When Miscarriages and Still Births are Murders….
Potholer54 has released another excellent video researching the claims made by Monckton and why they are wrong. Although this time with an added twist. As Potholer54 is getting tired of correcting these mistakes, and correcting them all would take at least another 3 videos, he issued a challenge to Monckton fans: Find something he [Monckton] actually managed to get right. It…
Steven Crowder has released a video where he makes fun of the current petrol prices and of the policies Obama has on it. And in it he makes a case for more drilling in the United States to lower oil prices.
CELEBRITIES EVERYWHERE! (Barack for Brazil)
This does sound a lot, 163 billion barrels of oil. But lets take a look at how they got this number.
The amount of proved reserves the United States has is mostly pegged around 20.6 billion barrels of oil. Crowder got the number of 163 billion barrels from the report “U.S. Fossil Fuel Resources: Terminology, Reporting, and Summary” released by the Congressional Research Service.
Tim Minchin has produced a 9-minute poem called Storm. It tells the tale of a sceptic meeting someone who is a bit more uncritical with her opinions and evidences used for them. As I’m also a sceptic to my very core, it’s a very recognisable situation. Especially trying not to be to harsh when dealing with something that can be…
