I agree so much with this:
Ridiculous part is I've adopted critical thinking into my daily life & yet the skeptic community irrationally defends rapists & misogyny! :O
— The Legend of Kav P (@kav_p) March 14, 2015
Ridiculous part is I’ve adopted critical thinking into my daily life & yet the skeptic community irrationally defends rapists & misogyny!
The 2014 annual Edge question was “What scientific idea is ready for retirement?”. That’s an interesting question, but as usual, there are a few answers that are complete bullshit. This year’s big dumb answer comes from Douglas Rushkoff, a media consultant, who suggests that science needs to get rid of The Atheism Prerequisite. It’s entirely a whine about a false premise.
We should do away with Religious Studies.
Those who have written to you in defence of religious studies, and in opposition to the philosophy GCSE proposals that I and Dr John Taylor have put forward, do it not on intellectual and pedagogical grounds, but because they have a vested interest in keeping RS going.
They only do it for the big money from Big Theology! I am quite happy to see that argument turned around — we get so many accusations that science is propped up by Big Science or Big Pharma or whatever, and that we’re only in it for the cash. I don’t think theologians are actually in it to get rich (like scientists, there isn’t that much money in our philosophies), but religion would die a little faster if there weren’t so much interest in paying people for affirming silly beliefs.
There isn’t much news yet out of Pensacola and the trial of Kent Hovind. There are a few protesters with signs marching around, and there are plenty of opinions, like this one by Kathleen Green: The real victim is Kent Hovind.
People hate Brother Hovind not for who he is but for whom he testifies to: Jesus Christ. He preaches the Gospel of Jesus Christ and points people to the truth of the Holy Bible and the lies of the culture, the educational system, and the media. He is not a tax evader; he is not a tax protester. He is a patriot who loves America, loves freedom, loves Jesus Christ and is unashamedly about his purpose to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the world. He cares for the souls of people.
Um, actually…
Hiram Jiminez ordered a sizzling fajita skillet at Applebee’s; first mistake. Second mistake: praying over his food.
In case you’re interested in attending a performance by the dance and music troupe Shen Yun, you might want to know one little tidbit: they’re a collection of Chinese Falun Gong expatriates, and the music, while in Chinese, is a little bit religious.
OK, a lot religious. And not the fuzzy well-meaning kind of religious, but the dogmatic anti-science kind.
His trial on charges that he’s been willfully trying to interfere with the forfeiture of his properties (which was part of his sentence) started this week. The Pensacola News Journal has an account. Not much has happened yet, and they’re expecting two weeks of proceedings.
John Gray asks what scares the New Atheists — and I tried to think of what scares me before I read it. And the answer is…
Jimmy Kimmel put together a nicely scathing PSA on those damned stupid anti-vaxxers. Here it is:
Guess who got upset about it?
Mike Adams, the demented Natural Health Ranger. It’s an amazing rant. He announces that he, and all the other people who refuse to prevent terrible diseases in their children, are just like gay and black people, because they’re hated by bigots.
Really. He goes there.
Then he claims that the PSA is making fun of sick children, and shows photos of disfigured and dreadfully ill children, claiming they’re all of kids damaged by vaccines.
I think it’s obvious how fallacious his nonsense is, so I don’t need to say more…especially since you can go read Orac, who definitely says more.
As pointed out in the comments, the RationalWiki has a good summary of Mike Adams’ lunacy.
The Mountain Express, a newspaper in the liberal bastion of North Carolina, Asheville, ran an article on one of those alt-med quackeries, “medical intuitives”. These are people who claim to be able to see inside you and diagnose diseases, and the newspaper article was completely unquestioning. A reader, Robert J. Woolley, wrote in to complain, and listed some of the claims made.
Specifically, Teresa Eidt claims, “I was shown a cancerous ulcer on the internal wall of [a massage client’s] abdomen,” and “I scan the body system by system.” Kimberly Crowe is said to claim “that when she placed her hands on people, she could see things in their bodies.” Rachel Frezza claims that her ability in this regard was objectively tested: “Frezza was given no information about [10 patients] or their conditions. Only by accurately reporting the conditions did she pass the course.” Tammy Coffee is quoted as saying, “I see the physical body like an X-ray machine, like I have a camera and I am going inside the body … I will look through, for example, the entire small and large intestine.”
The editor’s reply reveals the problem.
