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During a recent trip to Australia, my fiancé Matthew Baxter and I spent time on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. This health-conscious area is a haven for alternative medicine, especially chiropractic, homeopathy, naturopathy, and Bowen therapy (a massage technique pioneered by Tom Bowen). To appease the public preference for “natural” therapies, many medical doctors offer “integrative” services, pharmacies sell homeopathic products, and masseuses offer Reiki, Rolfing, reflexology and more.

As a gift, a relative paid for Baxter to have a massage with a masseuse who is known for dabbling in chiropractic and cupping. After the service, Baxter pulled me aside and spoke conspiratorially, “I don’t mean to appear ungrateful and don’t get angry, but look at my back”. He lifted up his shirt and to my horror, revealed that his back was covered in red rings and bruises. Clearly, he’d been cupped.

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A little more than a month ago I attended two conferences, NECSS 2012 in New York and the Freethought Festival in Madison, Wisconsin, where I represented the JREF, listened to speakers, and conversed with attendees. The conferences themselves were great: I met many awesome people, heard some great talks, and got one of my first looks at the skeptical community in action. For all the things that were congruent with a well-oiled skeptical machine, there was something troubling that I noticed, comparing the two events, something I am calling the skeptical disconnect.  

When I talk about skepticism, I believe that I am talking about something that encompasses many other similar philosophies like atheism, humanism, and freethought. By this I mean that atheism, for example, is a logical extension of skepticism. Anecdotally, most skeptics that I know are in fact atheists. However, the disconnect came when I expected the reverse of this observation to also be true, i.e., that most atheists are skeptics.  

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The JREF is proud to announce a new series on randi.org featuring articles by skeptical teachers exploring critical thinking in the classroom, using the investigation of the paranormal, fringe science, and pseudoscience to teach methods of science and reason. We welcome feedback, discussion, and further suggestions from educators and parents in the comments section. If you would like to be involved in this project, please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

 

Many readers of this blog are no doubt, like me, a bit disappointed (though not entirely surprised) that a creationist-friendly law protecting so-called “academic freedom” of teachers is now on the books in Tennessee. The “Monkey Law”, as has been labeled in honor of the famous Scopes Monkey Trial from 1925 , would seek to encourage teachers in the state's public schools to present the "scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses" of topics that arouse "debate and disputation" such as "biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming, and human cloning."

Indeed, as the National Center for Science Education notes:

"Maybe it has a no-religion clause," the Tennessean characterized the law's critics as arguing, "but it gives a wink to teachers looking to promote their beliefs in the classroom — a move that would launch costly lawsuits that history shows school districts tend to lose." Hedy Weinberg, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee, told the newspaper that her group is in touch with concerned parents across the state, "waiting for one to report First Amendment violations teachers could make under the mistaken notion that they now have full protection."

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

In an update to the story about the burning beach rocks, scientists have found that they were contaminated with combustable phosphorus that was likely manmade. But, the mystery remains of how it got there.

With the opening of the new Men in Black movie, will new reports of these mystery men who visit UFO witnesses become more popular? We ask paranormalist Jerome Clark about the differences between the “experience” and the “event”.

Many skeptics will recall the days of David Mabus flooding our social media and web sites with insults and threats of harm. The story of his troubles comes to light in this article about his recent suspended sentence for these charges.

The CDC sees fit to warn people not to panic over the rash of flesh eating incidents in the media. No, it's not a zombie invasion.

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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.  

Bleaching away what ails you (David Gorski) http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/bleaching-away-what-ails-you/ The so-called “Miracle Mineral Supplement” or MMS is claimed to treat everything from HIV to brain cancers. It is 28% sodium chlorite in distilled water, and it forms chlorine dioxide in the body, equivalent to industrial-strength bleach. Autism quacks are now subjecting autistic children to this nasty industrial chemical.  

“How do you feel about Evidence-Based Medicine?” (Harriet Hall) http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/how-do-you-feel-about-evidence-based-medicine/ In an online discussion, medical doctors answered that question in ways that revealed an appalling misunderstanding of science, for instance “Experience trumps EBM.” EBM has its problems, but it is clearly superior to personal experience, intuition, or any other method of determining which treatments are safe and effective.  

  1. Science Journalism
  2. Skeptic History: Armageddon!
  3. Hoaxes In The Classroom
  4. See James Randi in Washington, D.C.!