So Daniel Loxton comments on his tent. I found it exceptionally revealing, just not in the way he probably intended. (From another commenter) Again, it would result in much less heat to declare that atheism/religion in not wiyhin your focus or interest, rather than insisting on a controversial position that plenty of scientists apparently don’t …
Category Archive: Skepticism
May 09 2013
John Shook weighs in now
And he offers a historical perspective on Skepticism and Religion. Enlightenment theologians had to strike a bargain with scientific skepticism since they were terrified by a different, far older kind of skepticism: ancient Greek Skepticism. This rationalistic skepticism demanded high standards of provability before accepting anything as knowledge. The basic idea for a rationalist skeptic during …
May 09 2013
“Testable claims” is used as a “religious exemption”
The skeptics are circling the wagons. I knew they would. It’s what they always do to defend their naive version of “science”. Stephanie Zvan has a good post rebutting Daniel Loxton’s defense of the skeptical delusion that atheism is “unscientific”. I can summarize his argument briefly: “I’m an atheist, skeptics have gone after some religious …
May 07 2013
The tent metaphor gets a workout
Ophelia reports that CFI, at least, has the right idea. ANY large group who feels like they have a particular beef with religion (or pseudoscience, or other wacky beliefs) has a legitimate interest in addressing that problem as a group. At CFI-L.A., we’ve hosted Black Skeptics, Spanish-speaking atheists, gay and lesbian humanists, and others who’ve …
May 05 2013
Confession time: dental hygiene edition
In comments on PZ’s “divorce” post, Antiochus Epiphanes sez: Skepticism™ the movement and skepticism, the practice of thinking critically, shouldn’t be conflated. The latter is no great intellectual achievement and should be in the skill set of grade schoolers. That it isn’t may be the motivation of the former, but we shouldn’t expect any intellectual …
May 05 2013
I officially divorce myself from the skeptic movement
Thanks, Jamy Ian Swiss, you’ve opened my eyes and I will no longer consider myself a “skeptic”. I am a scientist, and from the talk he gave tonight (which was pretty much exactly the same as his TAM talk, except for the additions where he called me stupid and a liar), it is clear that …
Apr 25 2013
I’d watch it
But only to laugh at it. Some new pseudoscientific ‘documentary’ has been released this week, titled Sirius, which apparently has everything in it: conspiracy theories galore, ancient astronauts, zero point energy, pyramids, UFOs, antigravity, war, top secret government agencies, and aliens. One alien at least; the big feature proving the existence of aliens from outer …
Apr 24 2013
It’s an experiment, OK?
I’ve been told by a lot of people over the years that I need to start making youtube videos (some of them may have changed their minds once they learned of my low opinion of most youtube commenters), but the hurdle has always been the learning curve — I could just yell at my camera, …
Apr 20 2013
So, so touchy
Richard Wiseman, Jon Ronson, and Rebecca Watson went on a road trip a while back, checking out American weirdness. One thing they did not check out, though, was the Creation “Museum”, because as Rebecca explains, they were sensitive about being mocked. Now Ken Ham verifies that by indignantly posting that they are not sensitive to …
Apr 19 2013
Oh, look what I’m going to be doing in October
I think I’m going to be a lonely little realist wafting through a cloud of woo. You’ll be getting full reports from the scene!
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