Archive for the 'Skepticism'

It’s just looking worse and worse. Ars Technica discusses the Dunning widget to stuff cookies, and reveals something damning. It was coded to avoid planting cookies in computers in San Jose or Santa Barbara, where the eBay headquarters are located. If he considered this perfectly acceptable behavior in eBay’s eyes, why did he need to conceal his activity? Bottom line is that he stole $5.2 million dollars over two years. I did my taxes last week, and realize that at my current salary I’ll have to work for the University of Minnesota for a century to earn that much money — that’s a colossal sum, wealth beyond my imagining, and I’m a fairly prosperous fellow. This was not a minor crime. There are kids robbing corner grocery stores for a handful of dollars who face greater penalties than this white collar criminal who slithered away with a small fortune at little risk. What I also find dismaying is those members of the skeptical community who are closing their eyes and trying to pretend that their friend was a good guy. He was a thief. It’s that simple.

Brian Dunning, the voice behind the Skeptoid podcast, has pled guilty to wire fraud. In a clever scheme to essentially defraud eBay, visitors to his site had a cookie planted on their computers that did no harm to the visitors, but was recognized by eBay as a flag to credit Dunning as an affiliate referrer. When I’d first heard of this case, I thought it could be an innocent error — I have no idea about half the stuff this site is shuttling back and forth to you readers, for instance — but now it looks clear that this was intentionally programmed to game the system. The company in which Dunning was part owner, Kessler’s Flying Circus (KFC), was bringing in a rather noticeably large sum of money from this one little trick. 7. KFC was a member of the Affiliate Program. In 2006, KFC received approximately $2,000,000 in compensation from the eBay Affiliate Program in the United States. Between January and June 2007, KFC earned approximately $3,300,000 in compensation from the eBay Affiliate Program in the United States. As of approximately June 2007, KFC was the number-two producing account in the Affiliate Program. . . . I’ve met Dunning, I’ve followed his podcast, and he’s a nice, personable fellow who actually has contributed useful information to the skeptical community…but this is a serious ethical lapse. It is criminal behavior. And now he faces possible penalties that include several years in prison. Everyone seems to be regarding this as a great tragedy and the loss of a hero, and I agree that there is an element of that — it certainly is a personal tragedy for Dunning. But maybe we should also recognize it as a gain, the exposure of a criminal and the cessation of illegal activity. People aren’t one-dimensional heroes or villains, and Dunning, like everyone, is a bit of both. Let’s hope he comes back from this with that little piece of a bad guy in him suitably chastised, and that...
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Take a look at the “advertorial” featuring Oz. Just the word “advertorial” should chill you, but there’s more! “Fat-busting”. Seriously, if ever there’s a phrase that should make you recognize that a diet pill is garbage, it’s that one. Then, in the video, Oz promises that this dietary supplement will make you lose weight with “no exercise, no dieting, no effort”, and to prove it all, he has his assistant pour a pitcher of milk and sugar into a balloon, and then he prances in front of a video wall which has animations of blobby cartoon fat cells shriveling away. The man has no shame at all. He’s a quack pitchman for fat pills now.

At #QEDcon (which sounds like a marvelous conference from the enthusiastic tweets resounding everywhere) there was a panel discussion yesterday that I’m looking forward to seeing appear on youtube. Brendan O’Neill, professional conservative ass, put his opening remarks, “Is science becoming a new religion?” online. It’s a bizarre tirade — it cusses out this new-fangled trend of demanding evidence and expertise for policy decisions, probably because such demands cut him off at the knees. Robin Ince, professional comedian and science advocate, has put his reaction online, titled “The fascism of knowing stuff”. He’s a bit incredulous that anyone in a culture that uses technology more sophisticated than a buggy whip could be against knowledge. As someone who has often been called a fascist, you can guess which side of this argument I favor.

When we’ve got bad news, we get comparisons that show how deluded people are on other subjects. The NRA has been doing a great job promoting less gun control, and one of their tactics has been the myth of woman empowerment by gun…when on average, women are far more anti-gun than men. But do I really need to be reminded that 29% of Americans believe in little green men? The data on guns isn’t so good for the ladies. A 2003 study by The American Journal of Public Health found there was “no clear evidence” that owning a gun reduced women’s chances of being killed. An analysis this year by Mayors Against Illegal Guns found that “in states that require a background check for every handgun sale, 38 percent fewer women are shot to death by intimate partners.” Six times more women were murdered by intimate partners than by strangers in 2010. A study published in the Journal of Urban Health in 2002 found that women were 4.9 times more likely to be murdered by a gun in states with high gun ownership than in states with low gun ownership. Of the 10 states with the highest rates of female homicide, five are in the South. Southern white men are the most likely to own guns, at 61 percent. Southern white women are the women most likely to own guns, at 25 percent. That’s 5 percent more than the percent of American women who believe aliens exist.  Aliens: More real than the myth that more guns means women are safer. Or how about this: we get the good news that public support for gay marriage is rising, but get reminded that belief in creationism has been steady, and right now, only 44% disapprove of gay marriage, while 46% think the earth is 6000 years old. What is going on? The Supreme Court hearings on the challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act and California’s ban on same-sex marriage suggest barriers to legalisation will fall eventually. Growing public support for...
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