Skepticblog

As a guest on a recent radio program, I took calls from people who’d had some ghostly experience. It’s not true that such callers are always trying to challenge the evil skeptic: “I saw my grandfather’s ghost at the foot of my bed, explain that, Mr. Skeptic!” In this case, most of the callers (I think) were genuinely hoping for some insight. Although I certainly couldn’t speculate about what their experiences might have been, I was at least able to avoid making some common mistakes that often cost skeptics their credibility.

First, you’re not going to convince a ghost believer by saying “We have no evidence that ghosts exist, nor is there any plausible hypothesis by which they might exist.” No ghost believer in history has ever heard that, said “Aaahh,” smacked themselves in the forehead, turned over a new leaf, and gone forth with a new perspective on reality. Logically, you have just as much evidence that ghosts don’t exist as they have that ghosts do exist. So it’s a weak argument. Thus, no good can come from starting off by contradicting their belief. The only thing it accomplishes is to establish an antagonistic tone. (continue reading…)

Many readers will recall a central scene in the action movie Die Hard, in which a group of brilliant thieves succeed in opening the seventh lock of a vault containing hundreds of millions of dollars. As the door opens, light spills across the awestruck faces of all present—and the soundtrack sweeps us forward into “Ode to Joy.”

That was almost exactly how I felt the first time I stepped into a university library. I mean, I actually made that comparison at the time, which isn’t entirely surprising; who at 18 does not believe they’re the central character of a Hollywood movie?

Stepping through those doors, I remember almost trembling with emotions as vast as they were pretentious. It’s a feeling I expect few young people in the developed world would have today—not because kids love knowledge (or pretension) any less, but because few in the internet era are so isolated from information. (continue reading…)

Bending a Spoon (again?) for the "Weird or What? shoot

Last Saturday Jim Underdown of CFI and I went to San Diego to be part of a new science program that Discovery Channel is producing called “Weird or What?” It was an interesting afternoon that gave both of us some hope that a bigger note of skepticism might begin to infiltrate the seemingly endless parade of paranormal prattle that has been bombarding us for the last ten years. It’s a start. (continue reading…)

Yeah, yeah, I know the Ray Comfort graffiti version of Darwin’s Origin of Species is old news. But this has been sitting in my folder of blog topics forever and if I don’t get it out now, I probably never will. The topic, to be more specific, has to do with a characteristic of the book that you don’t hear talked about very often: the font size.

For the few of you who have been on board the International Space Station and haven’t yet heard the news, the 150th anniversary of Origin of Species came along last year and some Young Earthers saw a chance to leverage this into propaganda. Since the copyright is long expired, the text is in the public domain, and any Joe Blow is free to publish it. This particular Joe Blow came in the person of evangelist Ray Comfort, who vomited a “Special Introduction” intended to discredit evolutionary biology into the front of Origin. He then published it inside a cover giving every indication that it was a legitimate copy of the seminal work. Regardless of whether he admits it or not, the whole charade was a deliberate attempt to trick students into reading Ray’s own mental diarrhea instead of the book they thought they were buying, and hopefully win over a few converts. (continue reading…)

Recently, we launched a new, wider-format version of Skeptic.com. Designed here in the Junior Skeptic studio by webmaster William Bull, this format offers something that speaks right to my heart as an artist: the chance to run honking big 3-column graphic banners. It’s taken skepticism a while to get on board with this “pictures are good” business. Here was a chance to have some fun with it.

We knocked around some ways to play with the format, but I always knew where I wanted to start. My own background is in visual art — portraiture in particular. To me, there are few things so compelling as a human face. And hey, “a human face” is just what skepticism needs more of. (continue reading…)

Texas is becoming a recurring spectacle of the triumph of anti-intellectualism and ignorance over science and reason. The substance of this spectacle is the Texas Board of Education (BoE) and the standards for public school textbooks. This is a local triumph, but it has widespread implications, as Texas is a major purchaser of textbooks, and so the industry generally caters to the Texas standards.

Last year our attention was drawn to the Texas BoE over the science standards, with particular attention to evolution. One member in particular, Don McLeroy (who was chairman but was removed) entertained (by which I mean frightened) us with phrases such as “someone has to stand up to those experts.” The particular controversy was over whether or not to insert language into the standards that opens the door for teachers to “question evolution,” meaning to insert creationist propaganda as science.

The new language that was put in includes that students must “analyze, evaluate, and critique scientific explanations” based in part on “examining all sides of scientific evidence of those scientific experiments.” Language was also put in to specifically question the age of the universe, the nature of stasis and change in the fossil record, and the complexity of the cell and information in DNA.

(continue reading…)

I am pleased to write that the creationist and generally anti-reality Don McLeroy has lost his bid for re-election to the Texas State Board of Education!

Yay!

The man who ousted him is Thomas Ratliff, who is — gasp! — an actual educator who has vowed to try to remove the politicization of the board and also to actually – gasp again! — listen to educators when it comes to, y’know, educational topics. You may remember McLeroy is the goofball who infamously said, "Someone has to stand up to the experts!"

However, mitigating the good news somewhat are some things to consider:

1) McLeroy is still on the BoE for the next seven months before his term runs out. He can do a vast amount of damage to Texas schoolchildren’s education in that time.

2) Ratliff only won by a very narrow margin, meaning a whole lot of Texas citizens either didn’t know about McLeroy’s maniacal attempts at derailing the Lone Star State’s educational system, didn’t care, or actually supported him.

3) McLeroy and his crew of revisionist creationists have already done so much damage that it cannot be easily repaired. There is a cycle to the way standards and such are reviewed and updated in Texas, so it could be years before things are straightened out, if at all.

Still, this is good news, and so I won’t use the "Texas: Doomed" graphic. Instead, I’ll remind you not to rest:

Tip o’ the ten gallon hat to Robert Estes and the many others who emailed me about this. Originally posted on The Bad Astronomy Blog.

Even before I started writing Evolution: How We and All Living Things Came to Be I knew that it would very briefly mention religion, make a mild assertion that religious questions are out of scope for science, and move on. I knew this was likely to provoke blow-back from some in the atheist community, and I knew mentioning that blow-back in my recent post “The Standard Pablum — Science and Atheism” would generate more. And, I should have realized that I was muddying the water by packaging multiple related issues together in one post: the specific wording of a passage in my book; the question of whether that passage should have been included; and, the wider question of how science and skepticism relate to atheism.

Still, I was surprised by the quantity of the responses to the blog post (208 comments as of this moment, many of them substantial letters), and also by the fierceness of some of those responses. For example, according to one poster, “you not only pandered, you lied. And even if you weren’t lying, you lied.” (Several took up this “lying” theme.) Another, disappointed that my children’s book does not tell a general youth audience to look to “secular humanism for guidance,” declared  that “I’d have to tear out that page if I bought the book.” (continue reading…)

I’m pleased to say that the release of Evolution: How We and All Living Things Came to Be has been enjoying quite a bit of attention from skeptics — which has helped this full-color kids’ book get off to a great start. Perhaps the most rewarding moment for me so far was receiving a warmly positive quote from Dr. Eugenie Scott (Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education and 2010 National Academy of Sciences “Public Welfare Medal” recipient). Genie is one of the softest, yet most forthright and resolute voices in skepticism, and a great inspiration to me personally. You can imagine my elation when she said,

I am just so delighted with this book! Loxton hits the key concepts perfectly, and without being stuffy about it. A wonderful book to donate to your local library.

I was similarly honored to receive positive reviews from Phil Plait and from P.Z. Myers — both among the most popular science bloggers on Earth. I just about did cartwheels when P.Z. unexpectedly urged readers to “order a copy fast for the kids in your life!”

P.Z., did, however, dislike one subsection of Evolution:

I recommend it highly, but with one tiny reservation. The author couldn’t resist the common temptation to toss in something about religion at the end, and he gives the wrong answer: it’s the standard pablum, and he claims that “Science as a whole has nothing to say about religion.”

(continue reading…)