Skeptic Pitied
Craig Schaffner, 46, a Fayetteville-area computer consultant, has earned the pity of friends and acquaintances for his tragic reluctance to embrace the unverifiable, sources reported Monday.
Craig Schaffner, 46, a Fayetteville-area computer consultant, has earned the pity of friends and acquaintances for his tragic reluctance to embrace the unverifiable, sources reported Monday.
Makers of the Q-Ray ionized bracelet say wearers will have less pain and more strength. But new research at Mayo Clinic Jacksonville suggests the biggest change is lighter wallets and that any benefit comes from something in people's heads.
What skeptical thinking boils down to is the means to construct, and to understand, a reasoned argument and -- especially important -- to recognize a fallacious or fraudulent argument. The question is not whether we like the conclusion that emerges out of a train of reasoning, but whether the conclusion that emerges out of a train follows from the premise of starting point and whether that premise is true.
This is a great resource for any skeptic who needs the means to deconstruct bunk into its baser elements. The examples are the best:
"meaningless question"
(e.g., What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object? But if there is such a thing as an irresistible force there can be no immovable objects, and vice versa)
Clonaid, Ra�l, and the media seem to have got things backwards, says Paul Kurtz, chairman of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP). It should have been science first, publicity second. Without a shred of corroborative evidence, the French UFO cult visionary Ra�l (formerly known as Claude Vorilhon) and his strange brand of extraterrestrial futurism were catapulted into the world spotlight by the suspect announcement that Clonaid, the human cloning company founded by Ra�l, had achieved its first success.
Now that it has become clear that the first alleged human clone will not be verified through DNA testing after all, several media watchers are sifting through the smoking wreckage of this crashed media cycle. Kurtz is one of them. In 1997, he debated Ra�l on MSNBC. CSICOP's official journal, Skeptical Inquirer, has covered and criticized many the previous claims and exploits of the Ra�lians.
Three Things in Life are Certain: Death, Taxes, and Failed Psychic Predictions, by Gene Emery
Claude Vorilhon, founder of the Raelian religion whose followers claim to have cloned a human for the first time, says its goal is to create eternal life through cloning -- and make a lot of money doing it.
Under the surface of Mars lies an ancient, nuclear-powered city left by Martian citizens. At least, that's what a group of space researchers think. And they're trying to prove it by invoking a little-known remnant of President Clinton's last days called the "Data Quality Act" that went into force in October of this year. The filing, dated October 31, 2002, gives NASA 40 days to address the complaint that there is faulty data on Arizona State University's THEMIS Web site.
It's a key belief of conspiracy theorists that the state has shady powers, and so it was remarkable to be told this week that Britain's head of state may share such fears. After the crown's role in halting Paul Burrell's trial, many suspected that the Queen might be the instigator of a conspiracy, but the butler now helpfully presents her as the possible victim of one. The claim by Princess Diana's ex-Jeeves that the Queen warned him about "powers at work in this country about which we have no knowledge" suggests that conspiracy theorists have infiltrated the very heart of British power.
The program, which offered such courses as Near-Death Experiences and Theories of the Paranormal through the College of Sciences, lasted five years and attracted hundreds of Southern Nevadans to classes and lectures.
Its death was handled without publicity by the university, which was criticized quietly by some faculty members shortly after the program's creation.
Thorne's not a scientist: He's a tour guide with Denver-based B.C. Tours. The B.C. stands for "Biblically Correct," and B.C. Tours conducts between 100 and 150 biblically correct tours of major Colorado attractions every year.