Skepticblog

I am no fan of Jenny McCarthy. I have called her a public health risk before, and I stand by that: her claim that vaccines cause (or contribute to) autism is nothing short of breathtakingly ridiculous.

And I’m not the only one who knows this to be true. Medical doctors Orac and Steve Novella have words about her, as does Skeptic Dad, and the Stop Jenny McCarthy site was created to expose her as the danger she is.

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On April 2, 2009 I was the keynote speaker for the University of California at San Diego Biological Science Symposium, giving my talk on “Why Darwin Matters” based on my book of that title. Earlier that day I awarded the winners of the “Why Darwin Matters” contest, in which students submitted entries on different ways to express their answer to the implied question in my book title. The winning entry was a fun rap song entitled Holla Atcha Boy Charlie Darwin, by “Missing Link Mel” and “HMS Beagle-licious Brian,” which you can watch here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHJVBbOii9M

Unbeknownst to me, in attendance (among the 900+ students and teachers) was famed “expelled” creationist Caroline Crocker, featured in the Ben Stein film Expelled as having been, well, expelled for simply mentioning Intelligent Design in her college course on cell biology at George Mason University. (You can read about what really happened to Crocker here: http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/08-04-23.html). I would like to comment on her review of my talk, which you can read in full here:

http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/2/2009/04/04/how_disappointing

Crocker says she was “disappointed” in my talk primarily because I discussed religion and especially because I used humor. In my experience, I find that humorlessness is a trait endemic to quacks and pseudoscientists, who take themselves and their unproven ideas far too seriously. (continue reading…)

The tag line is: “What Happens When the Numbers Run Out?”  It should have been: “What Happens when Hollywood Writers Run Out of Numbers Ideas?” The latest psychic-supernatural thriller to come out of Hollywood has been met with good critical reviews and I must admit that despite my avowed skepticism and a few quibbles, I really enjoyed this intense romp into the darkest realms of woo. (continue reading…)

Coming to you, not really live and quite indirect from a Courtyard Marriott in lovely Fremont CA: Ryan Johnson and another late night blog entry. I’m on location for another TV project, but the Blog must go on.

This one entitled: Skeptologists: The Pilot, Behind the Scenes Gallery #1

In continuing with a bit of a break on my rambling about the production of The Skeptologists TV pilot, I’d like to share a few behind the scenes stills that were shot during the production. Some of you may have seen before, others, maybe not. In any case I’ve always loved looking at people working on projects like this, and I wanted to find out if you would as well.

So while the networks continue their internal discussions about the fate of The Skeptologists behind those big polished mahogany doors, We on the outside will continue to cherish the time that we had working with some of the most talented and entertaining minds of our times: The cast and crew of The Skeptologists.

Enjoy!
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I was recently asked about a device for saving energy costs at home – a device for power factor optimization. I checked it out, and it indeed does have all the red flags for a juicy scam.

Techno Scams

One flavor of scam is to overwhelm a potential customer with technical information that sounds superficially impressive but which the customer is sure not to understand. There may be a kernel of truth to the science, but it just takes one technical fatal flaw to doom an otherwise plausible scheme. Examples include special audio cables that cost thousands of dollars, but do not produce any audible difference in sound quality.

A subset of these scams is to take a technology that actually has some advantage in specific industrial applications and then adapt them for residential or personal use, where they have not benefit. An examples of this is filling tires with pure nitrogen – this has a small but real benefit for trucks and large vehicles, but not for your family car.

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I just came back from a 10-day trip to my home town of Kota Kinabalu, capital of the State of Sabah (formerly North Borneo) in East Malaysia. It was a wonderful vacation.

Troupe of Proboscis monkeys

The purpose of the trip was to attend my high-school class of 1969 40th reunion. In addition to meeting up with classmates who stayed and made their lives in Malaysia, I met up with classmates from Canada, Australia, Singapore and the U.S.  A few of us made our way (45 min. flight, 5 hr. drive and 45 min. up river by boat) to the interior of Borneo and spend a few nights in the Kinabatangan valley to see for ourselves what was left of the virgin primary forest – and communed with orangutans, horn bills, proboscis monkeys and even a pygmy Borneo elephant.
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It is becoming increasingly clear that the Skepticblog call to arms for an all out assault on the media is receiving renewed impetus. My last post encouraged some good ideas. If you haven’t read it and are as fed up as I am, please read it and take heart. Our situation is nowhere near hopeless. There are ways to get involved that can make a difference. One at a time, in whatever ways we can, we will eventually reach a saturation point when the tide will turn. The world wants change and new directions. Let’s give it to them and face the fact that we can’t sit around crying in our beer waiting  for the very media that brings us yet another episode of “Dancing with the Stars” to wake up and smell “The Skeptologists.”  (continue reading…)

Moroni in action

Most Mormon temples are topped with a statue of Moroni, a character from the Book of Mormon, blowing his trumpet. According to the story, Moroni was the sole survivor of his people in an apocalyptic battle. He escaped with the gold plates upon which he and his forebears had inscribed their history (in a form of Egyptian, for reasons that are never made clear). He buried them in upstate New York, and then appeared in a vision to Joseph Smith and showed him where the plates were.

And so he is immortalized atop the temples. Something of a cult phenomenon has arisen over the question of which way he’s pointing. Browsing through LDS forums, I’ve seen proposals that (1) he always points east toward the rising sun; (2) that he points toward Jackson County, Missouri, where the faithful believe Jesus will make his second coming; (3) that he points any random direction that the individual architect preferred; and even (4) that he is aligned in such a way so as not to interfere with local radio and TV broadcasts. Because, you know, audio waves from that trumpet might disrupt the EM spectrum. (continue reading…)

So the vote was made, the standards were set, and now the dust is settling. And what do we see?

I see Texas being the laughing stock on a world stage, finally replacing the Kansas fiasco from the 1990s.

First, a brief intro: this last week, after months of discussion, the Texas State Board of Education voted on the science standards, the baseline scientific knowledge students going through school should know. They vary across grade level, of course, and while there are national standards, states set their own. In general, they use experts in both science and education to advise them, and many states simply adopt or adapt the national standards (I have some experience here– for six years I developed educational activities based on NASA science, and did lot of work with educators and the standards).

States should have this right. The problem is, school boards can easily get packed with creationists. And that’s where we get back to Texas.

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