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Category: Latest JREF News
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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.

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Category: James Randi
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Friends,

Last year we at the JREF decided to test the waters with a year-end fund-raising campaign to help raise awareness both of our mission as well as new ways to advance it. We were inspired by your response to our appeal, so much so that this year we hope our Season of Reason campaign will continue to support the bright future for skepticism and critical thinking.Randi

We are focusing on our new educational efforts, as you will see here. But we now have a secret weapon that we're hopeful will make this end-of-year fund-raising campaign even more effective. An anonymous JREF member has made a very generous challenge donation to the JREF of up to $100,000. This means that whatever support you feel motivated to give to the JREF, this donor will match dollar-for-dollar up to a $100,000 limit!

Simply put my friends, there's never been a better time to put your money to work for skepticism and critical thinking, not only because every dollar you donate now doubles its value, but also because the JREF is doing more now to increase critical thinking in education than we've ever done in the past. The Amaz!ng Meetings are growing in size and number internationally, with record attendances, and we're seizing new opportunities to make a difference, such as digital publishing and smartphone "apps."

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Category: Swift
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In the current issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, a respected publication of the American Psychological Association (APA), veteran psychologist and sometime psi researcher Daryl Bem has published an ambitious paper describing nine experiments which he claims demonstrate precognition, the ability to know the future – or perhaps, a phenomenon in which the future somehow appears to affect the present.

The paper has received a fair amount of attention in the short time since it has become public knowledge, and there is no shortage of discussion around the blogosphere and among other interested outlets, from Psychology Today to Wired magazine.  Not the least of reasons why the paper is garnering such attention – the potential for shattering contemporary scientific knowledge notwithstanding – is the simple fact that a prestigious journal is publishing a paper about parapsychology at all, much less one in support of paranormal claims. Parapsychology hasn’t been in the news in any serious manner in quite a while – that is to say, outside of television screens and pop culture scenes, which both fuel and feed a gluttonous appetite for such fare, from dime-a-dozen talk-to-the-dead mediums to programs exploiting children by supposedly exploring their psychic abilities. (See: “Psychic Kids” on A&E for the most recent evidence that just when things seem to hit their lowest on the offensive and manipulative trash scale, someone finds a denominator a giant leap straight downward.)

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Category: Latest JREF News
Hits: 7786

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.

Details
Category: Swift
Hits: 20976

Perhaps you have seen TV commercials for a product called 5-Hour Energy. In one version, video and monolog imply that for pepping up sleepy office workers, the product beats a cup of coffee. But bring your nose to the screen, and you’ll see that the small type says the opposite: “Contains caffeine comparable to a cup of the leading coffee.” Then, as the video segues to people enjoying improved physical performance, dexterity and endurance, a new batch of small type says: “Not proven to improve physical performance, dexterity or endurance.” And, you’ll read that the product “does not provide caloric energy.” Interesting, since the energy that runs bodies is measured in calories.

Like many advertisers, the makers of 5-Hour Energy know they can safely and legally imply the bogus in large type as long as they properly disclaim it in small. My own term for such tactics is Clintonian advertising: messaging that is technically accurate but designed to mislead. Legislation can only do so much. While the ideal behind truth-in-advertising rules may be consumer protection, often the reality is a kind of arms race wherein marketers respond to new rules with an escalation of circumventive ingenuity.

  1. Believing in Santa
  2. Last Week at Science-Based Medicine
  3. DELUSION TO THE POINT OF SATURATION
  4. “Hereafter” Offers More Questions than Answers