Skepticism
denialism | July 25, 2007I'm putting out my request for nominations for the 66th Skeptics Circle, to be held Thursday August 2nd (eight days from now). I'd like to have entries in by Tuesday July 31st at the latest.
Either self-promote some of your own entries or recommend others' you've enjoyed to mark at denialism dot com.
denialism | July 24, 2007Between electronic "smog" and their incessant bleating that every weather event is due to global warming, I have come to the conclusion that the Independent, with stories like this one, are trying to bring down the science of global warming from the inside.
It's official: the heavier rainfall in Britain is being caused by climate change, a major new scientific study will reveal this week, as the country reels from summer downpours of unprecedented ferocity.
More intense rainstorms across parts of the northern hemisphere are being generated by man-made global warming, the study has established…
aardvarchaeology | July 23, 2007In today's paper issue of main Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter is a news item headlined "Hobby Researcher Gives New Signs to Stones" (currently not available on-line, but here's another relevant piece). It relays a few statements from museologist Ewa Bergdahl of the Swedish National Heritage Board regarding the Ales stenar visitor's sign debacle. Bergdahl is head of the Heritage Tourism unit.--There isn't just one single truth. This place is so incredibly more complex than previously believed, says Ewa Bergdahl, unit director at the National Heritage Board.
[...]
The Heritage Board has long…
aardvarchaeology | July 23, 2007
As discussed here in a recent entry, there has long been a conflict over Ales stenar, a prehistoric stone ship monument in Scania, southern Sweden. Scholarship has argued that like all other large stone ships in southern Scandinavia with ample space between the standing stones, Ales stenar was built as a grave marker (or perhaps assembly site) in the late 1st Millennium AD. Radiocarbon dating has confirmed the date. On the other hand, amateur archaeo-astronomer Bob Lind has led a vociferous campaign asserting that the ship is several thousand years older than that and originally built as a…
denialism | July 23, 2007So, who has heard of the Rife Machine? It is a quack device that purports to destroy diseases by homing in on their resonant frequency, and disrupting them with radiofrequency (RF) waves (like a soundwave shattering a wine glass). I've met true believers of this stuff before, and there is little you can do to dissuade them of the magical power of these machines, that when dissected reveal they're little more than batteries with flashing LED-lights - and no capability of generating specific radio frequencies. I just got an email this weekend about recent hucksters selling these in…
aardvarchaeology | July 21, 2007
"Damn ye, Gods!" Photo by Pär Svensson / Kurtz.
Welcome everyone to Aardvarchaeology and the 71st Carnival of the Godless! The carnival is a bi-weekly roundup of godless blogging from around the net. Aardvarchaeology is mainly about Scandinavian archaeology and various skeptical issues, but I rarely discuss religion much. You see, in my native Sweden, it's not such a big deal. Few people here give much thought to faith issues. Our churches are empty and our political discourse godless. Come visit some time! But now, on to the reality-based blogging.
George at Dirty Greek explores the…
aardvarchaeology | July 19, 2007
For years and years, there has been an on-going conflict over Ales stenar, a prehistoric stone ship monument in Scania, southern Sweden. Scholarship has argued that like all other large stone ships in southern Scandinavia with ample space between the standing stones, Ales stenar was built as a grave marker in the late 1st Millennium AD. Radiocarbon dating has confirmed the date. On the other hand, amateur archaeo-astronomer Bob Lind has led a vociferous campaign asserting that the ship is several thousand years older than that and originally built as a calendarical observatory. People have…
denialism | July 19, 2007The Angry Toxicologist is here!
He's already got a bunch of posts up and he's clearly a man after my own heart. Show him some love.
denialism | July 19, 2007Skeptic's Circle #65 is up at Neurologica.
I think I have to do it next time, is that right Orac?
aardvarchaeology | July 17, 2007Yesterday at the beach, Charles Stross's 2005 novel Accelerando in hand, I introduced my dear friend, the Aard lurker and professional logician Tor, to the concept of Singularity. Explains Wikipedia:The Technological Singularity is the hypothesized creation, usually via AI or brain-computer interfaces, of smarter-than-human entities who rapidly accelerate technological progress beyond the capability of human beings to participate meaningfully in said progress. Futurists have varying opinions regarding the time, consequences, and plausibility of such an event.
I.J. Good first explored the idea…
denialism | July 16, 2007Two posts on the scienceblogs today that shouldn't be missed.
Orac on second-hand smoke and those who deny it's health effects.
And Kevin Beck on Penis Pills.
It's a great example of the failure to teach critical thinking skills that people can sell tiny doses of ginseng to insecure males and actually make a profit.
pharyngula | July 13, 2007Bill Dembski has another triumph under his belt. He has shown that James Cameron's math in the Lost Tomb of Jesus show was wrong. It seems a little late, given that even the show's statistician has made a retraction. But of course, Dembski's got to claim that the analysis is tangentially related to his debunking of evolution, and further, he's got to make this ridiculous taunt:
Question: You think any of the skeptic societies might be interested in highlighting this work debunking the Jesus Family Tomb people? I'll give 10 to 1 odds that they won't. Indeed, how many skeptics now believe that…
pharyngula | July 12, 2007
UFO 'studies' have come a long way since the days of Billy Meier, when you could just throw a pie plate or a hubcap into the air and take a polaroid, and presto … proof of flying saucers! Now in these days of Photoshop and CGI, you can get much more elaborate and realistic images — none of those silver blurs anymore. DJ Chubakka introduced me to a weird world of modern UFO enthusiasts.
Nowadays you can read the markings right off the hulls of the spaceships.
The hot new fad in the LGM crowd is "drone" sightings — weirdly intricate objects that float in close and maneuver strangely and pause…
aardvarchaeology | July 11, 2007Alun at Clioaudio has done an excellent job of tracking down good archaeo & anthro material for the 18th Four Stone Hearth blog carnival.
The 19th 4SH will appear at Sherd Nerd on Wednesday 18 July. Submit good stuff (your own or somebody else's) to Amanda.
Bloggers with archaeo and anthro interests are invited to volunteer for Four Stone Hearth hosting duty. It's a good way to market your blog and make new blogging friends!
I'm hosting the Carnival of the Godless here on Sunday 22 July. Submit here.
aardvarchaeology | July 11, 2007Last Saturday morning an armed robbery was attempted at the Nacka Forum mall not far from where I live. Two masked robbers went in just as staff were arriving to work, dragged a woman into her workplace, gaffer-taped her to a chair and demanded that she turn off the alarm and tell them when her co-workers would arrive. After receiving confusing replies, the two men left, running, and minutes later the woman worked herself loose of the tape and called the police. She is physically unhurt.
The robbers had gone into a cashless realtor's office, Svensk Fastighetsförmedling, instead of the post-…
aardvarchaeology | June 28, 2007In the current issue of Antiquity is a review of G.G. Fagan's edited volume Archaeological Fantasies (available on-line behind a paywall). I reviewed this book favourably back in September: it's pretty much a skeptical attack on pseudo-scientific archaeology.
Antiquity's reviewer, however, doesn't like the book at all, and for an interesting reason. Wiktor Stoczkowski is a sociologist of science working in Paris, and he isn't very interested in the interpretation of the archaeological record. His main concern is with the dynamics of current society."The editor of the volume insists that its…
pharyngula | June 27, 2007Chris Mooney makes a point about the supernatural thriller genre.
Indeed, nearly five years ago I wrote a column entitled "Conversion Fantasies" in which I made the following point: In movies and TV series about the paranormal, the sterotypical "skeptic" figure always seems to convert into a believer by the end. And why does this occur? Well, because in fiction, the author can control the laws of nature, and in these fictional narratives (which show an abundant lack of creativity), the supernatural always turns out to be real.
I think an excellent example of this trend is the Scooby Doo…
denialism | June 27, 2007And actually doesn't make a hash of it. If CNN actually dedicated this much effort to all their journalism, people might actually emerge from their site more informed than when they showed up - a rare occurrence.
For those of you who haven't heard of "the Secret", it's the latest woo-laden self-help nonsense that proposes powerful new physical laws about the universe. In this case, the Law of Attraction. That is, that "like attracts like". Translated into self-help, it means that positive thinking makes things happen, always, every time. It is a law after all.
Now, people like me who…
pharyngula | June 26, 2007Poor Deepak Chopra is crying again at the nastiness of the blogosphere's reaction to his idiocy.
I'm pausing at the end of a long series of posts on the mind outside the brain to reflect on science, bad manners and objectivity. Bad manners are the norm in the blogosphere, and no one who dips into that world should bring along a thin skin. Salt air stings but it's refreshing at the same time. There's a raffish lack of respectability to blogs, however, that drive away good people and good minds. Insulting boors abound here, and it's easy enough to go elsewhere and enjoy a civilized debate.
We…