Category Archives: Skepticism

I see from my referral log that this post about Michael Drosnin and his moronic Bible Code has served as a starting point for this longer and more elegant post about the persistent belief that Francis Bacon was the actual … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Unbelievable. The man responsbile for writing the long-discredited book The Bible Code, Michael Drosnin, gave an intelligence briefing to the Pentagon and has reportedly given others to the Mossad. This article suggests that the officials didn’t know what a loon … Continue reading → Continue reading →

The Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal has published its annual lookback on how tabloid psychics did in predicting the just-ended year. As has always been the case, the psychics went 0 for 2002. Here’s something … Continue reading → Continue reading →

The Museum of Hoaxes has a quiz to test your knowledge of hoax photos. I got seven out of ten on both Level One and the harder Level Two. Try it for yourself. Via Mark Evanier. Continue reading →

First, go read what Dr. Limerick has to say about margin of error. Next, consider the following excerpt from this article from the Wilson Quarterly about polls: Although the public displays no overt hostility to polls, fewer Americans are bothering … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Scott alerts me to this debunking of the Bush-holding-a-book-upside-down photo. I’m convinced, and I’m not surprised. It’s too easy to fake photos, and in retrospect, there was never a URL to a news story attached to that picture. Just one … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Today on Salon there’s a story which attempts to debunk the “psychic” John Edwards. Author Shari Waxman makes a good case of pointing out how Edwards manipulates the audience and works the odds in his favor, but nearly made me … Continue reading → Continue reading →

I seem to be referring to Max Power quite a bit recently, but that’s because he’s been doing such a bang-up job of dissecting Prof. Volohk’s defenses of Intelligent Design. I think I can give him an assist with this … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Max Power is full of good stuff today about the intellectual dishonesty and outright ignorance surrounding intelligent design. See here, here, and here for Max’s devastating critiques. It’s important to note, as Max does, that the so-called debate over intelligent … Continue reading → Continue reading →

From Greg Hlatky comes this article about Patch Adams and the “Dialogue for Democracy” which took place at the University of Pittsburgh. Patch, the subject of an incredibly sappy feel-good movie, is apparently a bit confused about current events: “I … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Matthew Yglesias points to the scoop on the Alex Michel email. The New York Post’s Page six got a confession from Jonathan Locker, one of the two conspirators: When we reached Locker yesterday, he confessed to making up the exchange. … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Matthew Yglesias and Glenn Kinen both point to this report by Alex Rubalcava about Alex Michel, the focal point of ABC’s reality show The Bachelor. Rubalcava prints a series of “unconfirmed emails” in which Michel claims that he was pressured … Continue reading → Continue reading →

A “businessman and civic leader who also teaches Sunday school” named Bill White has penned an editorial about science and religion in today’s Chron. I give him high marks for his attempt to distinguish between the two domains. I’m always … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Anyone can be a patent holder! It’s true! Take a look at Patent 6,368,227 and see for yourself. Maybe there’s something to all those intonements about there being nothing left to invent. Via James Randi. Be sure to scroll down … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Samizdata Illuminatus (Arkham) responds to my tax protester followup, in which I take him to task for assigning credibility to We the People. I’d also received a very polite note from Illuminatus/Arkham (how should I address you, anyway?) about this. … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Joshua Trevino, who doesn’t use permalinks, critiques my critique of Dale Amon regarding tax loonies We the People. Here’s the crux of Joshua’s argument: Dale clearly doesn’t harbor an opinion either way on WTP’s specific agenda — he provides a … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Max Power notes my response to Samizdata and provides a link that I’d overlooked to the Tax Protesters FAQ. This is a thorough overview of the idiot arguments that We the People advance and why they are not just wrong … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Via War Liberal, we get this silly post from Dale Amon of Samizdata. Dale cites a “public hearing” by a group called We the People which claims to prove that the income tax laws are unconstitutional. Here’s a blurb from … Continue reading → Continue reading →

After reading Gary Farber’s thorough takedown of The Guardian‘s resident idiot, I got to thinking how a presumably intelligent person could be so utterly off-base. It’s not so much that Mary Riddell and those like her are guaranteed to be … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Megan McArdle takes issue with liberals’ use of the word “fascist” as a code word for “people I don’t like”. She suggests the following experiment: 1) Find a liberal 2) Get him to say someone is a ‘fascist’ 3) Then … Continue reading → Continue reading →