Paranormal

...is to be among the 5 most fraudulent psychics of all time. Still, this is as good an excuse as any to post one of my all time skeptical demolitions, namely that of Uri Geller on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson: Yeah, now that's an oldie but a goodie. Still, I wonder: Who are the young, up and coming psychic frauds? After all, the psychics listed above are all getting rather old, and one of them's been dead a long time. Who makes up the next generation of psychic frauds?
With all the anti-vaccine nonsense going on and my feeling the obligation to fire a broadside at "America's doctor," there was a tasty bit of woo that totally escaped my attention from an old "friend" of the blog. Actually, he's an old "friend" of many skeptical blogs, both here on ScienceBlogs and around the blogosphere. In fact, it's a man so steeped in only the finest quantum woo that I once coined a name for it: Choprawoo. Yes, we're talkin' Deepak "Quantum Consciousness" Chopra! He's back and woo-ier than ever in--where else?--that repository of woo, quackery, and anti-vaccine lunacy,…
One of the most persistent and prevalent examples of a modern myth that will not die is the story of Area 51. So ingrained in our culture has it become that nearly everyone (at least in the U.S.) knows what you are talking about when you refer to it. It's been featured in movies as diverse as Independence Day (one of my favorite big budget, brain-meltingly silly end-of-the-world movies about alien invasion) and, of course, Area 51. Forests of trees have been slain in order to publish books on the subject, and cable TV channels serve up near constant stream of documentaries either about Area…
Over the holidays, I stayed at home for a combination of some relaxation and some grant writing. (I know, weird.) As I was perusing some of the links I saved during that time, it occurs to me that I totally forgot about one particularly amazing bit of hilarity, courtesy of our old "friend" Deepak Chopra. Given that it was over a week ago, it's probably not worth going into the full Orac mode on it any more, old news and all, but I couldn't let it go completely unremarked upon because it's just so amazingly, hysterically funny. Appearing two days after Christmas, Chopra's post was entitled Woo…
I love this guy's explanations of skepticism and critical thinking. In this installment, it is quite clearly and cleverly why it's impossible to "prove" the existence of God or any god and thus why such gods are always a matter of faith and belief without evidence:
If there was one thing about going to TAM7 last week, it was the opportunity to contemplate among a thousand fellow skeptics just what critical thinking and reason mean. If there's one thing about woo, pseudoscience, and conspiracy theories in all their forms, it's not just a lack of critical thinking and a plethora of logical fallacies. More importantly, it's the question, "How do we know what we know?" Certainly science is the primary means by which we explore the natural world and make conclusions about how it works, however imperfect they may be, but not everyone uses science, reason, and…
Today, I'm leaving for The Amazing Meeting in Las Vegas. I can't wait to get there. Believe it or not, I'll even be on a panel! While I'm there I'll probably manage to do a new post or two, but, in the meantime, while I'm away communing with fellow skeptics at TAM7, I'll be reposting some Classic Insolence from the month of July in years past. (After all, if you haven't been following this blog at least a year, it'll be new to you. And if you have I hope you enjoy it again.) This particular post first appeared in July 2007. This sort of thing makes one wonder if the personification of…
Last night, I was sitting on the couch, my laptop, appropriately enough, on my lap creating my paean to Homeopathy Awareness Week in which I had a little fun discussing homeopathic plutonium. Because Homeopathy Awareness week is not yet over, I'll probably have one more bit of fun at the expense of The One Woo To Rule Them All before it's over. However, while I was getting into the possibilities suggested to me by diluting and succussing plutonium in order to treat all sorts of "Pluto-y" illnesses, I happened to flip through the channels, when what to my wondering eyes should appear but a…
Well, the weird news just keeps coming in from my hometown. This time around, consider the case of Tinker Bell. Tinker Bell is a tiny Chihuahua weighing all of five pounds. This poor little creature met nature in a most unfortunate way on Saturday, when some rather heavy storms swept through southeast Michigan. It turns out that storms and Chihuahuas don't mix very well (as you might expect), and poor Tinker Bell discovered that in a most harsh way: Tinkerbelle was with her owners, Lavern and Dorothy Utley of Rochester, when a powerful storm swept into the Dixie Land Flea Market in…
For skeptics, TV news in my hometown sucks. Actually, it sucks for just about anyone with two brain cells to rub together, but it's especially painful for skeptics and scientists to watch. On one station last year, there was the most credulous report I've ever seen about--of all things--orbs! It was presented as though these "orbs" in photos were actually ghosts or spirit presences, rather than the reflections from bits of dust in the air or on the camera lens that we know them to be. As I pointed out at the time, not even die-hard ghostbusters take orbs seriously anymore. They're so...1970s…
I realize that PZ seems to have all the fun when it comes to entertaining e-mails from cranks, but that doesn't mean I don't sometimes get my share of such amusement. For example, yesterday, waiting for me in the morning in my e-mail in box was this delightful gem: From: jockdoubleday@hotmail.com Subject: the dark force behind the global crisis Date: February 23, 2009 12:29:07 AM GMT-05:00 To: jockdoubleday@hotmail.com To friends of life on Earth, There is a dark force working to undermine all ecosystems on Earth. This force is a trans-century cult that calls itself the Illuminati -- because…
Unfortunately, as we have been dreading for the last four months or so since her relapse was diagnosed, my mother-in-law passed away from breast cancer in hospice. She died peacefully, with my wife and the rest of her family at her side. As you might expect, I do not much feel like blogging, and even if I did my wife needs me more. Because I foresaw this coming, however, I do have a series of "Best of" reposts lined up. If you've been reading less than a year or two, they're new to you. If not, I hope you enjoy them again. I don't know when I'll be back, other than maybe a brief update or two…
I should have seen this one coming. After all, the economy's been in the crapper for several months now. Things are bad and getting worse, with the bottom not yet in sight. So who could prosper in this environment, except for repo men and liquor stores? Psychics, of course: NEW YORK (CNN) -- The housing crisis will deepen, the country could fall into a depression and laid-off workers may need to start their own business. New York psychic Roxanne Usleman says the bad economy had been good for her business. If this sounds like the advice of a financial planner or an economist, think again. It's…
I love Tim Minchin. I also totally understand where he's coming from when it comes to confronting woo, though, as I've described here. In any case, see Tim in action (parts may be NSFW due to profanity): Enjoy, as I'm running a bit late in producing my usual content for Monday. Fear not, it's coming later today!
Remember the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS)? It's been a long time since I've written much about the AAPS, of course, but refreshing your memory will be easy. It's the ultra-libertarian wingnut medical "association" that routinely scrapes the bottom of the barrel, as far as pseudoscience goes, as long as that pseudoscience fits in with their schizophrenic combination of Ayn Randian "superman" libertarianism mixed with a toxic brew of anti-immigration, antivaccinationism, HIV/AIDS denialism, and social conservatism that leads them to lie about the evidence to argue that…
I got this e-mail the other day, and I urge everyone who's ever linked to Robert Lancaster's excellent site to do as Tim Farley requests. (While you're at it, you should consider linking to Farley's equally useful What's the Harm?): I'm writing you because your site is one of the top ranked sites (according to Google) which hyperlinks to the site Stop Sylvia Browne. As you know, Robert Lancaster has done a fantastic service to the community by creating and maintaining this site over the last two years.  Robert is currently in the hospital recovering from a stroke that he had in August.…
Unfortunately, I'm going to be ensconced in my Sanctum Sanctorum most of the day, pounding out text far less fun than the text I like to pound out for Respectful Insolence. However, I have to admit that this video sums up the attitude behind a whole lot of woo that I like to apply a skeptical deconstruction to--with music!
I realize that I've been mighty hard on Jenny McCarthy these last several months. I've made fun of her for her idiocy, her arrogance of ignorance, and her antivaccination lunacy, not to mention her utter ignorance of science, and, yes, I've been rather vicious at times. However, she richly deserved it. Indeed, I argue that in fact my reaction was actually mild in comparison to the sheer lunacy that she regularly spews and the threat to public health her ignorant antivaccinationist activism represents. But it's Friday, and that means it's fun day. That means it's time for an excursion into…
I just shook my head as I perused this item on Pharyngula earlier this morning. What else can you do? The irrationality and lunacy is beyond belief as I read a story about a mother named Colleen Leduc called into school because a report of sexual abuse was made about her autistic daughter Victoria: The frightened mother rushed back to the campus and was stunned by what she heard - the principal, vice-principal and her daughter's teacher were all waiting for her in the office, telling her they'd received allegations that Victoria had been the victim of sexual abuse - and that the CAS had been…
John Le Sainte apparently has a rather inflated view of himself. You see, he seems to think that he's the heir to Nostradamus. Ever worth a giggle on a Sunday afternoon (or any other time, for that matter), he seems to think that, channeling Nostradamus in some fashion, he's predicted what will be discovered to be the cause of autism: I have had over 30 e-mails requesting if I had seen into the future and discovered why Autism is becoming epidemic now. Yes, I have. This is what I know from the visions as guided by my guardian and teacher Nostradamus. An interesting fact will become known in…