Promoting Science and Critical Thinking
As we all know, skeptics are completely and utterly infallible and never ever make any mistakes. Every single utterance articulated by every single skeptic is “truth” and must never be questioned … right? (If the above just tripped your “twat” alarm, then well done, it is in full working order). Edzard Ernst – 7 Common … Read more
UK Member of Parliament, David Tredinnick, is a very big advocate for alternative medicine. His Wikipedia page lays out just how deeply into this he is … Tredinnick supports alternative medicine including homeopathy and chiropractic.[11] In October 2009, he told Parliament that blood does not clot under a full moon; a spokesperson for the Royal College of Surgeons of England warned his colleagues would “laugh their … Read more
The UK’s Daily Mail has published a story regarding the founders of the fact-checking site snopes.com. This merits a closer look and so we shall take a peek to see what is happening here. Generally seeing the words, “Daily Mail” is a bit of a red flag. They are not the worst, but you can never … Read more
Viral fake videos abound because they tickle our imagination. So how do you effectively debunk one? If you were faced with a talking head where somebody proceeds to debunk it fact by fact, then most eyes will rapidly glaze over and the vast majority will simply move on. Is there a better solution? Actually, yes … Read more
Much is being written about fake news and so there has been a dawning realisation that we live in an age where there is a very distinct reality gap. Steve Benen writes on MSNBC about how disconnected some are from reality. He describes it as follows … what struck me as especially notable about the … Read more
Hemant Mehta, the Friendly Atheist blogger who used to be a maths teacher, plucks out a gem regarding fake news going viral from a presentation by blogger Dan Meyer. Dan’s keynote presentation is mostly a talk by a maths teachers to other teachers, hence Hemant’s interest. Be warned, unless you are into teaching, it will mostly … Read more