Skepticblog

Senior scamming is on the rise. Anyone of any age could be taken in by the nefarious scams taking place across America, but because of their inherent isolation or shame of losing money to these schemes, seniors are even more prone to becoming victims. The Babyboomer Generation growing into senior status at a rate that is staggering. I won’t go into the exact numbers and statistics, but approximately 78 million Americans will become seniors in the next ten years. That’s a lot of people. It’s a safe bet that not all of them are thinking critically. Add in the general economic climate and growth of the Internet, and we have a prescription for disaster in the coming decade. (continue reading…)

Last week’s news of the teenage boy with spinal and brain tumors resulting from stem cell therapy broke just in time. A failure for stem cell therapy in the eyes of the media. Opponents of embryonic stem cell research now have new ammunition against the recent FDA decision to allow clinical embryonic stem cell trials to progress.

But, would they still have the ammo if the story had been told a different way? What if the researchers hadn’t used the words “neural stem cells” in the title of their paper? Maybe a tale of reckless research methods would be better for everyone. (continue reading…)

A listened wrote recently to inform me that 980 KKMS, a Minneapolis-St. Paul based Christian radio station, brought on Dr. Jonathan Wells from the Discovery Institute, the nation’s leading proponent of Biblical Young Earth fundamentalism. They played several segments of my 2007 Skeptoid podcast How to Argue with a Creationist for Dr. Wells, and had him respond to it point by point. The web page is here and the free MP3 file is here. (continue reading…)

I met Alom Shaha last year while in London; by coincidence, really. He was working with my friend Gia filming an interview with her, and I tagged along (I got to use the clapper to start the clips!). Afterwards we went to a diner and had a great conversation. Gia and I left, and I figured I’d never hear from him again.

Wrong! Alom had an idea, and it was a good one: get scientists and science popularizers to write essays and make videos, saying why they thought science was important, and put them on a website called, oddly, Why is Science Important. Alom asked me to do one, and I kept blowing him off until he I felt way too guilty, so I finally caved and made a video.

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The latest & ultimate in slimming & health technology. SPA Capsule.

So I’m going to veer off the subject of The Skeptologists Pilot Production this week in favor of throwing a nice juicy steak into the yard of ravenous dogs.

In my piles of junk email and notifications of millions of dollars and Euros, (still waiting for those checks) and right before I hit the junk/delete button without a thought, I paused and scanned a particular email.  I immediately dismissed it as ridiculous trash, but, sad as it is, I thought to myself that someone’s actually buying these things! I read through it a bit more, and the whole thing got more and more funny and sad at the same time. So I thought that I would share: (continue reading…)

Last month I was approached by someone to help out with an “ESP Bootcamp.” Sound interesting? It did to me. My mind immediately went to work imagining rubbing shoulders with remote viewers, having good natured contests with bootcampers moving objects around with their minds and perhaps even influencing a few random number generators. You should know by now I can’t resist sticking my nose into such folly. If I can find out for myself what kind of intellects are behind these operations, I’m only happy to step up and play the game. Knowing what I know about psychic fairs, (or “faires” in some parts of town) psychic house parties, corporate seers and the tangled webs they weave, I was cautiously intrigued. (continue reading…)

Atlantis is one of those enduring myths that is so tenacious it provokes speculation about what is it, exactly, that makes it so irresistible. It certainly appeals to the imagination – wondering what an ancient yet advanced civilization might have been like. It also appeals to the little explorer in each of us. At a time when we can go on the computer in our living room and see high quality satellite images of the entire planet it may seem like there is nothing left to explore – no edge of the map beyond which there be dragons. A little mystery can be fun – perhaps there are hidden archaeological and historical treasures to be found, at the bottom of the ocean or under Antarctica, whatever your preference.

Ironically, Bernie Bamford, an aeronautical engineer from Chester, UK, claims he found an aerial map of Atlantis on Google Earth. What he found was what appears to be a grid-pattern of lines covering an area about the size of Wales about 620 miles off the coast of West Africa (here are the Google coordinates: 31 15’15.53N 24 15’30.53W.  Bamford is quoted as saying that the grid pattern “must be man-made.” Some reports characterize the pattern as “perfect.”

Certainly perfectly straight lines and right angles are not features common in nature and they do indeed suggest a human technological origin. If you look closely at the photo you will see that the lines are not perfect – but to be fair they are close enough that the non-natural argument still holds.

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(Some makes and models of cars mentioned have been omitted to protect the guilty!)

I’m going to sound like a conspiracy theorist – it’s my grumpy rant about oil-change interval for our much beloved automobiles. I don’t know why, but I get terribly bugged by this every time I happen to buy a new car – which I did last month.  I just feel liked being “bullied” into not making the right decisions about our environment and my pocket book. (continue reading…)

Hollywood isn’t too worried about getting the science in its movies right. It’s more concerned about finding useful publicity angles. Case in point:

A couple of weeks ago I recevied a PR email from Summit/Zoom Werks, the production company responsible for the movie Push (which was quite thoroughly reviewed by Mark last week).

“I wanted to touch base with you to see if you might have any interest in the subject of “Remote Viewing”? We are working on a motion picture about this subject and we have a professional Remote Viewer, Jack Rourke, who is consulting with us. Mr. Rourke has had extensive experience in this arena and has conducted work for government and law enforcement agencies.

As you may know, Remote Viewing (RV) refers to the attempt to gather information about a distant or unseen target using paranormal means or extra-sensory perception. Typically a remote viewer is expected to give information about an object that is hidden from physical view and separated at some distance.

It is a fascinating subject and apparently governments around the world employ individuals with this ability. I don’t know what the success ratio is for a Remote Viewer in accomplishing his/her assignments but it triggers a most interesting debate.” (continue reading…)

The other day I received an email from a listener who suggested a claim I’d not heard before. The government’s evil plan to switch everyone over to digital TV is actually to make darn sure there’s a set-top box on every TV in America, because (and this was news to me) set-top boxes contain a camera that lets Uncle Sam keep an eye on your private activities.

Tear open any such boxes, and shazam, there’s your camera. (continue reading…)