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Category: Latest JREF News
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Dr. Steven NovellaLOS ANGELES—The James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) has appointed renowned science educator and skeptic Steven Novella, M.D. as the Foundation’s Senior Fellow and Director of the JREF’s new Science-Based Medicine project.

Dr. Novella is an academic clinical neurologist at Yale University School of Medicine. He is the president and co-founder of the New England Skeptical Society and the host and producer of the popular weekly science show, The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe. His work with the JREF will include developing and directing JREF’s Science-Based Medicine project, providing the media and the public with trustworthy information about unproven alternative medical practices. The Science-Based Medicine blog, a group blog of healthcare professionals dedicated to issues of science in medicine, will become a joint project with the JREF.

"Steve Novella is a leading voice for scientific skepticism," JREF President D. J. Grothe said. "Through his work with Skeptics’ Guide and local skeptics groups, and his public appearances around the world, he has helped hundreds of thousands of people separate the myths from the facts about alternative medicine. We’re happy to bring him on board."

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Category: Swift
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Not really.  

Every time I try to assuage the misgivings of a friend or acquaintance who is worried about the supposed cell phone use/brain cancer link, I mention the selfsame facts that professor Robert Park is, I suppose, tired to repeat in his excellent What’s New newsletter: there’s no known mechanism that might allow radiation in the cell phone energy range to cause the kind of biological damage necessary to induce cancer.

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Category: Swift
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As skeptics, it is baffling to us that people can believe in so many different things that have little or no evidence to support them and often have plenty of evidence against them.  We tend to look at these people as cranks, kooks, or loonies.  There is a tendency to ridicule and make fun of these people and sometimes this is an appropriate response, but we need to remember what Leon Festinger had to say in his book, When Prophecy Fails:

 “…through the mocking and scoffing of nonbelievers there is usually established a heavy commitment on the part of believers. …the jeering of nonbelievers simply makes it far more difficult for the adherents to withdraw from the movement and admit that they were wrong.

The reality is that most of these believers are suffering from cognitive dissonance.

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Category: Amazing Meeting
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In an effort to make our extensive video library available online free of charge, The James Randi Educational Foundation is posting high quality digital video lectures and sessions from previous Amaz!ng Meetings and other events on randi.org. Check back often to see the latest video content.

Tim Farley of What's the Harm? offers plenty of practical advice for effectively using the internet to advance the message of skepticism in the Web 2.0 world in this talk presented at the Amaz!ng Meeting 6. 

 


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Category: Newsflash
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Here is a recap of the stories that appeared last week at Science-Based Medicine, a multi-author skeptical blog that separates the science from the woo in medicine.

  1. Homeopathy: No Ingredients, No Testing, No Facts
  2. Shoo!Tag Investigation by The Rev. Anaglyph
  3. Weekly Media Roundup
  4. The Long Debate and the Importance of Engaging with “Believers” on a Philosophical Level