Skepticblog

Recently, science writer Simon Singh was sued by the British Chiropractic Association for having the audacity of telling the truth in a newspaper article about chiropractic: while it may have some small efficacy when treating back problems, there is exactly zero good evidence that it can treat illnesses, and in fact can be very dangerous when people get their neck manipulated.

The Australian Skeptics posted Simon’s original article so that it would get more attention. And it worked, kinda: like a fly to honey, one chiropractor took offense at what was written, and decided to send them a nearly logic-free letter. That’s fine, and pretty much what I expect from a vocal alt-med devotée. As justified, Eran Segev, president of the Australian Skeptics, responded.

All well and good, until…

… two weeks after responding we received a letter from the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission (HCCC) indicating Mr Ierano [the chiropractor] has lodged a complaint against Australian Skeptics. The letter attached to the complaint was the same one that Australian Skeptics had received and responded to.

Well, that’s a bit odd! I mean, why go to the trouble to pursue legal action against someone responding to your claims when it should be easy to present a simple rebuttal based on the evidence that chiropractic works?

… oh, right.

What’s funny is that originally, the BCA (the group suing Simon in the UK) tried to defend their position, and presented a poorly-researched, off-topic press release that somehow managed to make them look worse. Apparently, that’s a theme amongst chiropractors trying to support some of their less reality-based claims.

And while I’m using a light-hearted tone here, I’ll note that this is a very serious issue: there are people out there trying to stifle free speech. It’s that simple. The UK libel laws are draconian and designed to shut up any protest, making scientific objections and investigations into potential and real quackery very difficult. As Eran says on the AS page:

Australian Skeptics sees this complaint as lacking any merit even if it did not include some factual errors (e.g. the claim that a British court ruled Simon’s article is biased). We have prepared a detailed response to the HCCC and will be defending our right to publish articles relating to any scientific issue, as long as they are backed by scientific evidence.

Good on ya, mate!

Are you secular? Humanist? Even (gasp!) atheist? Or are you any one of the thousands of other non-Christian religions peppering the planet? And yet, do you celebrate Christmas every year, reveling during the moment, but feeling shamed and guilty on Boxing Day?

Then do so no longer. It’s OK to be non-Christian and celebrate Christmas. And for proof, you can read the 42 essays comprising the book The Atheist’s Guide to Christmas, edited by Ariane Sherine (Amazon UK and Amazon US).

Yes, that Ariane Sherine, the one who created the Atheist Bus Campaign in the UK. Ariane is a humor writer and a journalist, and is also a genuinely wonderful human being who is upset by the way nonbelievers are portrayed in the media, and decided to do something about it. The bus campaign was her first organized effort, and this book is the second.

She found 45 comedians, scientists, philosophers, story tellers, and artists — all of whom find the stories associated with Christmas to be, well stories — and asked them to write a short essay about what the holiday means to them. The result is a collection of funny, warm, and interesting journeys into the mostly secular festivities of the world’s most maligned demographic.

I’ll note that one essay in the book — Starry Starry Night — was written by none other than myself. I was flattered and honored that Ariane would ask me to write for the book, where my musings would sit along side those of Richard Dawkins, Derren Brown, Simon Le Bon (yes, from Duran Duran!), my friend Brian Cox, and many others.

None of us who wrote for the book were paid in any way (well, I got a free copy). All of us who contributed donated all proceeds to the UK HIV charity Terrence Higgins Trust, a secular group that provides information, advice, and support for HIV positive people in the UK. It’s a very good cause, and one that fits the reason for the season, don’t you think?

The history of the book is pretty interesting, too, and Ariane has been blogging about how she got this project started; Part 1 is here and the other parts are linked in her sidebar. She is a funny and warm writer, busting a lot of stereotypes about atheists as the spawn of Satan. After all, just look at this picture of these two notorious examples:

Doesn’t Ariane just radiate evil?

Go buy this book. Give a copy for Christmas, or just get one for yourself. You’ll be helping a good cause, and maybe, just maybe, you’ll find out that Christmas really is for everyone.

Originally posted on Bad Astronomy.

I used to write for the Huffington Post, an online news and blog collective. It was started by Arianna Huffington during the Bush Era as a response to all the far-right online media. I didn’t agree with a lot of what was on there — I am more centrist — but at the time I thought it was necessary.

Then they started to promote far-left New Age nonsense, and when it came to vaccinations, HuffPo started posting all kinds of opinions that amounted to nothing more than out-and-out health threats. While they do sometimes post a counter-argument, it’s still almost all alt-med, all the time.

Here’s the latest: a doctor named Frank Lipman is telling people not to get vaccinated against Swine Flu. Instead he says you should wash your hands a lot, eat well, and take homeopathic medicine.

Yes, seriously. (continue reading…)

Of course I scored 100%. Can you?

The bigger question is, how do the statistics play out? A lot of people scored far less than what I would consider acceptable, given that the questions relate to practical scie Will Txting Ex Make Him Not Want U Back nce that is getting a lot of attention in the news, and people are voting on these issues. I’d like to see these stats broken down by age and education level. I’d also like to see them by state, by voting party, and by religious affiliation (or lack thereof). All of those categories, I suspect, would make for interesting inspection.

Originally posted at Bad Astronomy.

Will Txting Ex Make Him Not Want U Back

I’ve been an active skeptic for many years now, and I’ve been able to find my voice on the internet and IRL. At the JREF and here at Skepticblog, we do a lot of work as well to spread rationality and reason.

I’ve written in the past about finding your voice, linking to the really good Rational Moms piece about that. But let’s say you’re ready to go, and you’ve got yourself all ready to go. Where can you find out what else is going on, so you can sign up to help?

Have I got the site for you: Grassroots Skeptics is the place to be. It’s a compendium of skeptical events for, well, grassroots efforts to make the world a more rational place. They have a calendar with events listed, a forum and links to other venues as well. They’re just starting out, so there’s not a huge amount of info there yet, but this is a really good idea and could use your support. So go over there, poke around, and send them suggestions on what else they can do.

Make your voice heard!

Recently, I spoke at Gnomedex, a tech conference, about online skepticism. A little bit of my talk (along with others) was covered on PBS’s Media Shift blog.

My friend and skeptic D. J. Grothe from the Center for Inquiry posted an article on his blog about my appearance at Gnomedex — apparently, my talk was covered on the CNN live stream! Wow. I wonder how many people saw that?

And in fact that’s a legit question. During a break at Gnomedex I went into the lobby to grab some coffee. I was chatting to a couple of attendees, and they complimented me on the presentation I gave. One of them said something that made me laugh a tad ruefully: he said that he wasn’t all that interested in skepticism, but found that he liked the talk and became interested because of my enthusiasm.
(continue reading…)

Via Orac comes this tale of religious kneejerking that shows just how big a problem it is in America.

I urge you to read the whole thing, but the basic story is a band made t-shirts with the theme "Brass Evolutions" using the famous cartoon sequence of a monkey changing into a man. It’s a cute idea, and no big deal, right?

Right?
(continue reading…)

Skeptic card for Phil Plait

The ever-traffic-begging Crispian Jago has created a set of Simspons-style gaming cards based on the most beloved and good-looking of skeptics, and then made an exception in my case.
(continue reading…)

The Daily Mail is a UK newspaper that has a tendency, oh, every so often, of printing articles that sometimes don’t exactly represent reality.

This is one such article. It links vaccinations for the swine flu to a neurological disorder called Guillaine-Barré Syndrome, or GBS. The article inflates the danger from vaccinations and may scare people into not getting their inoculations.

And you know how I feel about that.
(continue reading…)

One of the funny things about the Universe is, there’s only one way to be right, but an infinite number of ways to be wrong. For example, I know that the science of astronomy is getting better every day at describing the overall state of the Universe, approaching the ability to describe just how things work. We may never achieve that ultimate goal, but we get ever closer. Moreover, I know that astrology is completely wrong, and provably so. Even better, there are a hundred different flavors of astrology, each of which claims to work, yet none of which actually does.

See? One way to be right, lots of ways to be wrong.

So once you slip off that narrow path of reality, you are surrounded by an infinitely deep fog of nonsense which just gets thicker and more difficult to navigate the farther off the path you stray. I suspect there is no actual wrongest thing in the vast reaches of antiscience, because its illogic goes on forever.

But if I had to choose, I bet reverse speech would be in the Top Ten.

You know this idea; you take what someone says, reverse it, and find out that Paul McCartney is actually Bigfoot. Or something like that. The people who claim this is real — and yeah, they’re out there, and just as earnest as any other zealot who kneels at The Pulpit Of Nonsense — never give a reason why this works, or a mechanism that explains how reversing the time variable in a recording should yield anything but comical noises.

And we know why this stuff seems to work when it’s presented to you: if someone primes you with a phrase that they want you to hear when speech is reversed, it really does sound like what they claim. Of course, if they don’t tell you what it is, ten different people will come up with ten different phrases.

But why should logic, reason, and mechanics stop someone from just making stuff up?

Which brings me to the hilarity that is the EVP Reverse Speaking website. They claim that by reversing your speech you can learn The Great Truths (which, if it were true, would be that reverse speech is really, really silly). They even have examples! And what examples they have, oh yes indeed.

On this page, they reverse my own speech. Yeah, me, your host and Beloved Internet Personality™. And not just me, but also sound bites from Randi and Michael Shermer, just to hit a skeptical trifecta.

Now, I hate to make fun of people, but at some point, really, it’s simply impossible not to. In this case, this stuff is truly well and remarkably ridiculous.

An example: they start with an interview I did with Randi at TAM 5. They take the audio, reverse it, and make claims that are… well, here. Listen for yourself:

Forward.

Reverse.

Did you listen? Try again, a couple of times. What did I say, reversed? They claim I said, "Their walls hit," clearly meaning Randi hit an astral wall when he had his heart attack a few years ago.

Uh, yeah.

Funny. To me it sounds like I’m saying, "They’re all sh*t," which, had they made that claim, might actually sway me to their side. Just a little bit.

And the best part? They didn’t even excerpt the whole sentence I said! They cut the last bit of the sentence out, so what they use is, "Thanks a lot, Rand." Note the missing i at the end; not Randi, just Rand. So they had to edit out part of Randi’s name to make their point… whatever the heck their point is.

The rest of the site is full of incomprehensible gobbledygook just like that. It’s like someone took a bunch of ideas, wrote them down on postcards, cut them up into bits, rearranged them, and then created a website based on what they found. I suggest, dear reader, that you take a look around there. It will remind you of just how silly claims can be, and just how far we skeptics have to go.

!drawrof revE