Skepticblog

So it seems Bonnie Vent is more than a little bent out of shape about her claim to be able to talk to the deceased Michael Jackson.  The real question is not one of legality of freedom of speech as far as I’m concerned. (See Steve Novella’s follow-up blog written in response to Vent’s threat to sue myself, Steve, the Skepticblog, and the Skeptics Society if we did not remove my opinion of her claims).  It’s more about taking a stand against blatant exploitation of a deceased individual; namely, Michael Jackson.  (continue reading…)

Like any good audience member, I’ve always been impressed by magician David Blaine’s 2008 world record feat of holding his breath underwater for 17 minutes. I’d never given it much more thought than the observation that a young, healthy guy can probably achieve any given world record if he dedicates enough resources to the effort, and Blaine certainly appeared to have done so.

I received a forwarded email from the University of Pittsburgh’s Critical Care Medicine Group email list:

Absolutely enthralling video of David Blaine explaining how he held his breath for 17 minutes! Interesting the assistance he received from the medical fraternity, including trying liquid ventilation with perflurocarbons.

Video here <http://www.ted.com/talks/david_blaine_how_i_held_my_breath_for_17_min.html> (continue reading…)

At some level, I understand the motivations of people who promote "alternative medicine". They may very well be altrustic, seeing what they perceive as a massive failing of so-called Western medicine, and feeling strongly that they know how to fix the situation, if only people would seek alternatives. I know that when I feel strongly enough about an issue, I feel morally obligated to speak up.

The problem is that for a lot of this so-called alternative medicine, there is no evidence it works, and in fact evidence it doesn’t work. Worse, a lot of its biggest purveyors actively try to denigrate real medicine, the stuff that, y’know, works, in an attempt to bolster their alt-med claims. And you have to be a little suspicious when they hawk their wares on their sites, too.
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A review of Creation: The True Story of Charles Darwin. Starring Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly. Jon Amiel Director, Jeremy Thomas Producer, John Collee writer. Recorded Picture Company with BBC Films and Ocean Pictures. Based on Randal Keynes’s book Annie’s Box. In general release January 22, 2010.

Creation is one of the most beautifully produced, artfully directed, factually accurate, and powerfully acted biopic films ever made. Full stop. It stars Paul Bettany as the Charles Darwin almost no one knows (and looking almost eerily similar if you match him to portraits of Darwin at that time), and Jennifer Connelly as the Emma Darwin almost invisible to history (and whose stunning Hollywood beauty is forgotten as she morphs into a realistic portrayal of a 19th century Englishwoman). The script is based on Randal Keynes’s biographical work, Annie’s Box, a moving portrait of the middle-aged Darwin—after the five-year voyage of the Beagle and before the white-bearded sage of Down basked in scientific triumph—as he struggled intellectually and emotionally to put the pieces of natural history together into a cogent theory. It is also about Charles Darwin the man, husband and father, besieged by health problems that curtailed his work days to only a few hours, stressed by the normal strains of marriage, and agonizing over the death from a mysterious disease of his beloved 10-year old daughter. (continue reading…)

As the activist skeptical movement grows and increasingly networks, thanks largely to social media, we seem to be irritating those who are the targets of our critical analysis. This is a good thing. It’s a sign that we are doing our job and having an impact.

Recently there has been an increase in those attacking skeptics and skepticism. One tactic is to attempt to intimidate critics and silence public debate through libel lawsuits or the threat of such suits. The blustering by Bonnie Vent and her minions following Mark Edwards’ latest post is a good example. Clearly, they are not familiar with libel laws in the US, or they hope that we are not, or they simply don’t care.

To be clear, we take very seriously our responsibility to be fair and factually accurate, and we will happily correct mistakes if they are pointed out to us. The original version of Mark’s article contained the word “apparently” to refer to second-hand information. This was probably enough of a qualification, but we strengthened it to “allegedly” just to be sure, and even added the caveat about the original source. (Read the post for details.)

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Well is didn’t take long for the Michael Jackson channelers to crawl out of the woodwork as I predicted correctly back on my post “Dead Celebs Rock!” of September 19th. It didn’t take a psychic to see them coming either. I did the first seance for Jacko at TAM7 for Skeptics Guide to the Universe. What more do you media people want? Now we have a “well known psychic and paranormal researcher” getting all the press. It’s just not fair! Bonnie Vent even has a group called Genesis Creations Entertainment and wow can she entertain! As of January 15th, Bonnie has allegedly started charging Michael Jackson’s bereaved fans for private fifteen minute sessions. (The source on that has mysteriously disappeared, and Vent denies this claim, so I will do some further investigation and follow up.)  Isn’t that special? (continue reading…)

The James Randi Educational Foundation has teamed up with the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science and a dozen other secular groups to set up a way to donate money to help out the people of Haiti after the huge earthquake last week.

As Randi says,

We at the JREF are very proud to be part of the concerted effort to aid Haiti to recover from this catastrophic event. To my mind, there is nothing more disturbing than hearing the distressed cries of children who are subjected to grief and/or injury, and my personal contribution has already been added to the encouraging total that mounts hour by hour. Please be generous and help us to reach out to Haitians of all ages, of any and all philosophical orientations.

Richard Dawkins will cover $10,000 of PayPal fees, so if you use that method 100% of your donation will go to help.

You can donate here. Please help.

I’m excited to announce the release of my new book Evolution: How We and All Living Things Came to Be (from Kids Can Press). Years in the making, this full-color, illustrated hardcover book based upon Junior Skeptic is available now!

• view the Skeptic.com listing >

(Also available from bricks & mortar booksellers throughout North America, and from Amazon.com)

The Project

Evolution: How We and All Living Things Came to Be is a straight-ahead introduction to the fact of evolution, to its mechanisms, and to the misunderstandings that surround it. The book aims to explain how evolution works — and how we know for a fact that it happens. It is suitable for readers aged 8 – 13.
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A person who I will call for purposes of anonymity “one of my students” sent me an interesting email the other day. She was upset. Apparently after I had shown her a few of the basic lines in the palm and how to “cold read” those lines to fit any person, she was suffering a strange sort of skeptical guilt:

“I’m not sure if I have gotten in over my head or not.  I’m not sure even how it happened.  I was talking with several people there and we all started talking, we were talking about Facebook Friends and somehow I said, ‘well I could find that out if I could read your palm’  And a friend stuck his hand out.  I haven’t ever done a palm reading but I’ve wondered if I could bluff it.  But I was awesome, at least in their eyes.  I just gave him a reading based on the things I already knew about him, and just general things that are common to most people like “you would love to travel more but just can’t seem the time to go” and I also told him things that I had heard as gossip about him.  He agreed to everything and was totally amazed.  I had told him that some of the things I was seeing are kinda personal and maybe I shouldn’t say them, he said, “no, tell me, I don’t care”

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Here is a link that you’re all going to want to bookmark:

http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/email/oc/buyonline/buyonlineform.cfm

Selling crap online, and claiming that it has medical value, is illegal. This is just and proper, because it’s wrong to con sick people out of money. Yet it’s so profitable to do so that it remains a flourishing business. And those sellers who may genuinely believe their product helps people also deserve to be turned in and prosecuted. They’ve heard the research already, they’ve just chosen to ignore it. Well, they may find it a little harder to ignore a warning letter from the Food & Drug Administration. (continue reading…)