Deadline Tomorrow!
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- Written by D.J. Grothe
- Category: Latest JREF News
- Hits: 6884
Tomorrow is the last day to make a tax-deductible donation for 2012.
Send your year-end gift now and it will automatically be doubled!
Dear JREF Supporter,
The JREF works to expand the impact of what James Randi has been doing for many decades: promoting critical thinking by reaching out to the public and media with reliable information about paranormal and supernatural ideas so widespread in our society today.
Most of our annual support comes during this critical year-end period, and we couldn't continue fighting charlatans and promoting skepticism in the public interest without such support.
Unless we can count on your generous financial help right now, our plans to increase our impact may have to be placed on hold.
Please donate now to help us meet our funding goal.
Your contribution right now will help us equip more educators to teach students skepticism, support more grassroots campaigns to fight the fakers, and challenge more public figures and organizations that promote dangerous paranormal and pseudoscientific nonsense.
Beat the deadline, double your impact, and make your most generous gift today.
Thank you,
D.J. Grothe
President, James Randi Educational Foundation
The Legacy of the Anti-Psychiatry Movement
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- Written by Dr. Steven Novella
- Category: Swift
- Hits: 11376
The dramatic and horrific events at Sandy Hook elementary school have spawned a wave of useful discussion (in addition to speculation and pontification) about the causes of such actions. The effectiveness of current gun control regulations, treatment of mental illness, violence in our culture, and excessive media coverage have all been targeted. We will likely never be able to unravel the peculiar mixture of thoughts, feelings, personal and cultural factors that lead to the brutal murder of 26 people, mostly young children, but perhaps we can stand back and ask bigger questions about our society.
Of the issues above, I want to focus in this article about our current attitudes and treatment of those with mental disorders. In doing so I am not making any statement about the relevance of this factor in the Sandy Hook tragedy - I am simply using public attention after this event to ask the bigger question: how are we doing as a society in providing treatment and services to those with mental illness or disorders?
Charity Begins At The Pub
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- Written by Dr. Karen Stollznow
- Category: Swift
- Hits: 5303
People around the world are celebrating the fact that the end of the world didn’t occur on 12/21/12. Not that we were surprised. Like many other skeptics, the Denver “Mile High Skeptics” held a tongue-in-cheek “End of the World Party”. Don’t worry if you missed the opportunity, there’ll be another failed Armageddon to celebrate soon enough.
For this special occasion just before the holidays, we wanted to do more than just eat, drink and be skeptical. We decided to invite guests to bring along a gift of clothes or non-perishable food items to donate to a local charity.
People really are hurt
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- Written by D.J. Grothe
- Category: Latest JREF News
- Hits: 6836
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Dear Friend of Scientific Skepticism: People really are hurt when they believe supernatural nonsense, and that's why James Randi and the JREF advocate for critical thinking and skepticism as a form of intellectual self defense. We stand between those taken advantage of and the charlatans who abuse them, and provide credible expertise – both to the public and to the media – about irresponsible and harmful pseudoscientific and paranormal claims. 2012 is quickly coming to an end (even as the world didn't) and as you would expect, the JREF is busy with our plans for 2013. But it is only with your much-needed support that we will be able to continue battling unreason into the New Year. We have only a few days left in our Season of Reason campaign to raise the support we’ll need to continue fighting the fakers and enabling people to defend themselves from paranormal and pseudoscientific scams. Please join with Randi and our team at the JREF as we stand up for reason and continue battling for you and other science-minded folks in the coming year.
Read more: People really are hurt
In an attack titled, “The Problem with James Randi,” published in the Las Vegas Weekly some time ago, someone named Skylaire Alfvegren ran on in delight on how poorly informed she is about me and my claims. This was recently forwarded to me for my comments. First, I strongly suggest that my reader go to http://rense.com/general69/ Read that…? Okay… First, Ms. Alfvegren dubs me a “dogmatist.” She fails to provide any example of this, so her designation is unproven. Moving along… Second, when I began “futzing with a deck of cards” as a kid, I knew well in advance that conjuring was a “world of smoke and mirrors,” a deception. And the “connection between stage magic and skepticism makes sense” from any perspective, Ms. Alfvegren.
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