Skepticblog

I wasn’t going to write about this, since it’s really just schadenfreude, but so many people have sent it to me via email I figure it’s touching on some level of skeptical consciousness.

Moon hoax conspiracy promulgator, astronaut stalker, and Buzz Aldrin punching bag Bart Sibrel was recently arrested for vandalism. Apparently, someone took too long to get out of a parking space he wanted. He parked nearby, got out of his car, and then repeatedly jumped up and down on the offending car, doing over $1400 worth of damage.

Now, there is certainly a vast array of snark just quivering to be let loose here. Sibrel is largely responsible for the dumbosity of the Moon hoax still being around, and has used arguably slimy tactics to keep it so. He has lied about me, and still says things that are provably wrong even when I have told him to his face (well, over the radio) that they are factually wrong. Yet he keeps on saying them.

And, of course, there is the potentially huge ad hominem about a conspiracy theorist who goes ballistic over such a minor issue as a parking space. It’s certainly easy to assume he’s a nutsoid goofball who’s just a NASA photo away from losing it completely. But that should be avoided: I know I myself have daydreamed of what I would do to people who take too long to pull out of a parking space — generally at some point large electric shocks applied to delicate body parts are involved.

But the difference, of course, is in idly fantasizing about something versus actually doing it. The real irony here is that Sibrel’s Apollo claims are fantasy, and aimed against people who actually did do something.

So I won’t go out of my way to engage in beating this particular zombie horse. Instead I’ll let you idly daydream about it. Try not to write anything slanderous in the comments, but the best "parking space travel" joke will get the kudos of the Skepticblog community.

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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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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I’ve been reading a lot about Apollo lately — the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11 is almost upon us — and of course the Moon is in my thoughts anyway with the advent of NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter now snapping away as it circles our cosmic neighbor.

I’ve done some interviews about this, and been asked about it endlessly: will the LRO’s incredibly high-resolution images of the lunar surface, including, eventually, the Apollo landing sites, finally quell the lunacy of the Moon Hoax believers?
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So Texas had its brief shining moment of light when the state Senate rejected creationist goofball Don McLeroy’s bid to once again head up the Board of Education. McLeroy was the guy who famously said, "Someone has to stand up to experts!" when talking about the science advisors contacted by the BoE to advise them on, y’know, science.

And even in that very post I said that this win was at best temporary, since the same Governor Rick Perry who picked McLeroy in the first place would pick his replacement.
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Are you an exhausted antiscientist? Has railing against the mainstream science paradigm got you down? Making up "facts" is tough, and it’s tiring CONSTANTLY TYPING IN CAPITAL LETTERS, using different color fonts, and don’t forget all those exclamation points!!! Not to mention comparing scientists to Hitler and Himmler, and yourself to Galileo and Einstein.

And of course, your mind is soft and not used to real work, so you need to take constant breaks.
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I love me some Captain Disillusion. He does a great job debunking the bunk, and his sense of humor slays me. And in this particular video, well, he’s simply Amazing.

Captain D will be at TAM 7, I hear. Doesn’t that make you want to attend even more?

In the video, you can see my book over his shoulder. Awesome! And I’m dork enough to know he got the music at the end right, too.

Dan Loxton is something of a go-getter. He’s editor of the Junior Skeptic portion of Skeptic Magazine, and was the driving force behind "What Do I Do Next?", a practical guide to active skepticism.
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Simon Singh is a journalist in the UK; he writes for the Guardian. Moreover, he’s a science journalist, and a good one who, like so many of us, prefers reality the way it is.

The British Chiropractic Association, however, prefers reality to bend to their will. They’ve been making some outrageous claims lately about the efficacy of their "treatment", things that are clearly wrong. Simon wrote about this in a column, saying,

The British Chiropractic Association claims that their members can help treat children with colic, sleeping and feeding problems, frequent ear infections, asthma and prolonged crying, even though there is not a jot of evidence. This organisation is the respectable face of the chiropractic profession and yet it happily promotes bogus treatments.

Unsurprisingly, the BCA took a dim view of this. So of course they produced copious variable-controlled double blind studies with statistically significant testing procedures to back up their claim.

HAHAHAHAHAHAhahahahahaha! No, that would be silly! Of course they didn’t do that. They sued him instead.

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Some UFO stories are sillier than others. Among the very silliest are claims that NASA not only has evidence that the Space Shuttle is buzzed by flying saucers, but that they have video of it and this video is commonly released by NASA.

OK, can we first screw our heads on straight here? If you’re claiming that astronauts routinely take video of alien spacecraft, and that NASA is desperately trying to cover them up, why in the frak would they release the video?

Hello, McFly? I mean, seriously?

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