New Videos from the Amaz!ng Meeting 2012: Bruce Hood and Susana Martinez-Conde
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- Written by JREF Staff
- Category: Latest JREF News
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If you missed The Amaz!ng Meeting 2012, you can still catch great talks, panels, and workshops on science and skepticism given live at TAM 2012 on our YouTube page. Today, we are happy to share two more exciting talks.
Bruce Hood - The Self Illusion: How Your Brain Creates You
Psychologist Bruce Hood explores how the brain creates the illusion of the self.
Susana Martinez-Conde - Faithful Resemblances
Susana Martinez-Conde of the Barrow Neurological Institute explores the neuroscience of visual illusions.
Your Nervous System Can Fool You
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- Written by Sheldon W. Helms
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The following is a contribution to the JREF’s ongoing blog series on skepticism and education. If you are an educator and would like to contribute to this series, please contact Bob Blaskiewicz.
One of the most entertaining and impressive critical thinking lessons we can teach our students involves convincing them that their nervous systems can fool them. We often hear believers in the paranormal exclaim in their defense, “I saw it with my own two eyes!” or, “I know what I heard!” Anyone who understands the fallibility of the human nervous system knows that such statements are hardly convincing evidence. Luckily, there are some fun and interesting ways to teach people about why this is the case.
Although our brains and their adjoining nerves do their best to provide us with a clear and accurate depiction of the world, the human perceptual system is far from perfect. Not only is it limited in what information it can gather (e.g., most types of electromagnetic energy are beyond our perceptual range), but it also sometimes makes mistakes with the data it can collect. A good example of this is a phenomenon known as pareidolia, a perceptual error in which random, meaningless images or sounds are given apparent significance.
Last Week At Science-Based Medicine
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- Written by Dr. Harriet Hall
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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.
Can we finally just say that acupuncture is nothing more than an elaborate placebo? (David Gorski) http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/can-we-finally-just-say-that-acupuncture-is-nothing-more-than-an-elaborate-placebo/ A further analysis of the acupuncture meta-analysis reviewed last week by Dr. Novella. The results were not clinically significant; and rather than showing that acupuncture works, its findings actually strongly suggest that any effect of acupuncture is due to nonspecific/placebo effects and that the positive studies are due to residual biases.
This Week In Doubtful News
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- Written by Sharon Hill
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Here is a rundown of the top stories in pseudoscience, skeptical and anomalies news from the past week courtesy of Doubtful News.
Controversy! Ignited, flamed or doused, there was plenty of it this week. Several research announcements made the headlines.
A small scrap of papyrus is claimed to be evidence that Jesus had a wife. This has wide ranging implications for the rules about Catholic priests. But is the evidence worthy? Some have doubts.
Headlines of the week were full of reports of protests and riots over an anti-Muslim film trailer. Something is VERY suspicious about this. Is the trailer all there is? Is there no film? Deception and questions fill the background as fatalities and blasphemy rhetoric takes center stage.
A Survey of Ghost Hunting Groups
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- Written by Dr. Karen Stollznow
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Late last year, skeptic Rick Duffy had the idea to survey a number of ghost hunting groups to provide some insight into the current state of popular paranormal research. He was curious to find out where they do their investigations, the techniques and tools they use, and which kinds of services they offer. Rick aimed to not only canvass opinion among these groups, but also to prompt members to reflect on their own beliefs and procedures.
531 groups were contacted in total, and 113 groups participated in the survey. These groups span 32 states in the US, and other countries including Canada, Italy, the UK and Germany. Due to Rick’s considerable efforts, and the assistance of Bryan Bonner, the results are now in! The report of the Survey of Paranormal Research and Ghost Hunting Groups is now available online, but here’s a peek at some of the interesting findings.
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