Skepticblog

I’ve always been fascinated by a little-known ghost story from racing lore. I must have read a small book about the tale a hundred times as a junior high schooler, a book I have tried to find since, but it seems to be as ghostly as its content.

The story began with the worst disaster in racing history. It happened at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in France, the famous race that runs through an entire night. A Mercedes 300 SLR was launched into the grandstands at Le Mans in 1955, killing driver Pierre Levegh and 80 spectators. The car, a ball of blazing magnesium, tumbled through the crowd so fast that many did not even know it had happened. Mercedes, in utter shell shock, did not race after that season for 30 years. (continue reading…)

There are a ton of really good skeptical podcasts out there, like Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe, Skepticality, Point of Inquiry, Skeptoid, George Hrab, and so on. These are generally professionally-done ‘casts made by people with long experience in the field.

But they had to start somewhere, right? At some point in the past, these folks were just people who had something to say and wanted their voices heard. So if you’re like that too — opinionated, willing to back up your claims, and dying to get the message out — but lack a platform, what can you do? Starting your own podcast can be daunting.
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So many of you have taken the time to respond to my blogs thoughtfully that I feel I should comment in kind. In looking through the many comments, however, I see that most of what I would say has already been said by people who responded to my critics. Nevertheless…

First of all, why is it okay to mix science and religion (with atheists eagerly do in debunking religious claims) but not okay to mix science and politics/economics? Why is it okay for liberal atheists to stick it to religious believers and twist the knife slowly, but when it comes to getting your own (political/economic) beliefs challenged, that’s off limits — NOMA (nonoverlapping magisterial) for science and politics? I don’t see how they are different in principle. Skeptic is a science magazine, not an “atheist” magazine; nevertheless, we routinely deal with religious claims and no one ever complains about that. The closest we have come to political/economic issues is environmentalism (Vol. 9, No. 2 — sold out), overpopulation (Vol. 5, No. 1), and global warming Vol. 14, No. 1). For all three we published several articles; in Vol. 14, No. 1, for example, we published articles both skeptical of global warming and accepting of global warming. So I don’t see what would be wrong with publishing articles pro, con, and neutral on political and economic claims. (continue reading…)

Genetically modified bacteria are already a common and useful component of chemical production. Many drugs, food additives, and industrial chemicals are churned out by engineered bacteria in large vats. Bacteria are little protein and chemical factories and we put them to good use.

But engineering a strain of bacteria to do exactly what we want is laborious and expensive. Traditionally engineers have tweaked one or two genes at a time and then looked for the results. But the production of many substances by bacteria may be controlled by 20 or more genes, and so the permutations of various mutations are enormous – to many to test individually.

But now genetic engineers have developed a new technique known as MAGE – multiplex automated genome engineering. What they do is to essentially evolve bacteria with optimized or at least greatly improved production of the substance of interest. The technique causes bacteria to rapidly mutate – causing thousands of mutations and billions of different strains.
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Last week my friend sent me a picture of a flyer he had seen on the street. It didn’t seem like much at first glance — just some hokum woo — but, on further investigation (because of course you have to investigate hokum woo!) it opened up a whole world of intrigue.

The flyer was for the ‘Vital Orbit™’ Personal Human Force Field.

Personal Human Force Field - note that all the contact tags have been removed

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Some more fine news from the “animal rights” extremists… I put that in quotes because they don’t really give a flying [censored] about animals, they really just hate people. This time they struck in my own back yard, at the University of California, Irvine. In fact, in my dad’s neighborhood.

Note that I’ve chosen not to promote the name of this particular group. Why? Because they can kiss my [censored]. This is an extract from the Orange County Register, by their excellent science editor Gary Robbins: (continue reading…)

In my first book, Bad Astronomy, I have a chapter about UFOs in it. I have the usual sort of debunking in it, but I made a point I had not seen anywhere else at that time: why don’t astronomers see relatively more UFOs than laypeople?

Think about it. Astronomers, both amateur and professional, are constantly viewing the sky. There are tens of thousands of amateurs out observing all the time: a large sample population, and far larger in observing man-hours than the regular population. If UFOs are so common, then why do we not see an unusually large number of reports from astronomers?
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What is knowledge worth? How can we place a value on education, on reason, on being properly informed? More importantly, if there was no monetary value on education and knowledge, would it have significance in our society?

In our fast-paced lives, surrounded by ever-speedier means to send and receive information, entertainment and knowledge, one question that I, as a content producer must grapple with is how much is this information worth to others?

The internet has no doubt revolutionized the way modern societies access and consume information. Right behind information is entertainment. With this paradigm shift is an important issue that people in the entertainment industry are facing, some gladly, others kicking and screaming. A few still have just buried their head in the sand (I submit that’s a start, they might as well keep digging into that sand) (continue reading…)