Details
Category: Swift
Hits: 7790

I’m slowly recovering from four days of a fantasy adventure known as Dragon*Con, a gathering of weird and wonderful people from – literally – all over the Earth, a mixture of talents from the literary world, theatre, and art, their fans, and the hordes of misfits – those regular folks who come together annually in Atlanta, Georgia. They completely book out five major hotels there to celebrate their discovery that whimsy is the flavor of the week, that vampires and fairies can co-mingle along with wheelchair-borne guests as well as with the similarly-giddy security and maintenance staff. It’s a delight, an eye-opener, a circus, a fair, a blazing carnival, a delightful caprice, a great collection of human beings…

It’s Dragon*Con.

dc05

Details
Category: Swift
Hits: 11493

I continually impress upon my students that the most crucial element of critical thinking -- and, not coincidentally, the most difficult -- is the self-reflective interrogation of one's own assumptions. The act of discovering and evaluating cognitive biases is an ongoing one, and the critical thinker never reaches a place of skeptical enlightenment. (We inevitably believe that we have, which makes opportunities for metacognitive analysis all the more essential.)

Creating and seizing such opportunities is a major focus of my teaching, particularly in my "Critical Thinking, Reading and Writing" freshman English course -- or, as one of my students once dubbed it, "Skepticism 101." (This student later announced he would henceforth be known as "Confirmation Baez," which I will confess still gives me no end of pleasure.) The course gives students what is usually their first explicit exposure to such topics as logical fallacies, burden of proof, cognitive dissonance, cherry picking, pseudoscience, inattention and change blindness, source credibility, hypothesis and theory, hoaxes, urban legends, the Forer Effect, Occam's Razor, and other fundamentals of the skeptical approach to constructing knowledge.

Details
Category: Swift
Hits: 8792

Here is a rundown of the top stories in pseudoscience and paranormal news from the past week courtesy of Doubtful News.

There were two huge strange stories this week that went all over the Internet.

A man in Montana was attempting to prompt some Bigfoot reports by dressing up in a camouflage suit and jumping out on a dark highway. It turned tragic when he was hit by a car and run over by another. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Social media facilitated a scare over a lion sighting in Essex in the U.K. When some witnesses interpreted an animal in a field as a large cat, they reported it to police who launched a large search for the creature. Turns out, there was no lion.

Details
Category: Swift
Hits: 7641

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.  

Brief Announcement: Video of Panel on Alternative Medicine (Harriet Hall) http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/brief-announcement-video-of-panel-on-alternative-medicine/ The recently released video of the panel “The Truth About Alternative Medicine” from TAM 2012 features 3 SBM bloggers.  

The “central dogma” of alternative/complementary/integrative medicine (David Gorski) http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/the-central-dogma-of-alternativecomplementaryintegrative-medicine/ A central idea runs through much of alternative medicine: the belief that wishing for healing heals. Positive thinking is good, but there’s no objective evidence of “mind/body” effects on things like cancer survival, and it sometimes results in sick people blaming themselves for their disease.  

Details
Category: Uncategorised
Hits: 15678

Every day at the James Randi Educational Foundation, we hear about "psychics" manipulating people, financially and emotionally; we hear from families who have been burned by false mediums, clients who have been scarred (literally and figuratively) by unfounded alternative medicine procedures, and even violence commited in the name of the supernatural. It can be easy to be overwhelmed by these stories coming in from seemingly every corner of the globe. But what can you do about it?

Introducing a new weekly column, right here at Randi.org, "What You Can Do to Fight Woo." Every week, I will share with you new stories from around the world (and next door too), about unfounded claims and the people (and sometimes animals) they hurt. But most importantly, I will tell you a quick way you can fight back, and make a difference. Here's what's on our radar this week.

 

New Jersey "Psychics" Co-Opt the Tragedy of Witch Burning to Defend their Practices

NJ_psychicsThe Problem: "Psychics" Lee Van Zyl and Lee Ann LaRocca claim they have the ability to talk to the dead, converse with non-human animals, and have other psychic powers. Van Zyl, who once worked directly with remote villages in South Africa where people were assaulted and brutally killed for "witchcraft," used those experiences to defend her own alleged abilities. Of the comparison between witch burning and being ostracized for her own psychics claims, she said "I kind of saw what could happen if people were misinformed," in a recent article at nj.com. For $10-75 a class, you too can learn from Van Zyl and LaRocca how to perform reiki, channel a dead relative, or psychoanalyze your cat... or so they say. Their website even states that during a mediumship session, they will not demand a penny from you until they provide you with "proof of [the] identity and personality" of your dead loved one. Yet, not a single piece of scientific evidence currently supports the claim that mediums can talk to the dead.

What You Can Do: Ask Van Zyl and LaRocca to put our money where their mouth is! Challenge them to take the JREF's Million Dollar Challenge, to prove they have psychic abilities. If they win, they can give the winnings to the charity of their choice. Perhaps one that fights childhood witch burnings? Write to them at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call 973-866-0192. Always be brief and polite, for the best results. Simply challenge them to take the test and if they refuse, ask them to stop using the real tragedy of witch burning to defend their groundless claims. 

  1. New Videos from The Amaz!ng Meeting 2012: Eugenie Scott and Carrie Poppy
  2. Book Review: 'The Scope of Skepticism'
  3. This Week In Doubtful News
  4. Last Week At Science-Based Medicine