Critical Thinking

Do you believe in Magic? … a religious cleric claims he does not, and that non-believers do.

by

Giles Fraser has been writing in the Guardian again, and yes, this is the C of E cleric who was once Cannon of St Paul’s but quit because he stuck to his principles and refused to eject protesters outside the cathedral. Anyway, he is arguing against magic, and uses that term to describe an irrational … Read more

Andrew Wakefield handed award for …. ‘lifetime achievement in quackery’ … it is well deserved.

by

The Guardian reports that … Andrew Wakefield, the doctor struck off the medical register for his discredited research that claimed to find a link between autism and theMMR vaccine, can add another honour to his list this Christmas: the inaugural Golden Duck award for lifetime achievement in quackery, set up by the science writer Simon Singh. It is … Read more

Last Day for planet earth? … Nope.

by

Given the date today, it is perhaps time to repost an article I wrote about two years ago. When it comes to the year 2012, our current culture appears to have picked up a bit of silly doomsday baggage. The fact that this has happened is no surprise, because we have a thriving industry focused … Read more

Witchcraft and magic cures

by

Being critical of daft ideas matters … it really does. Every now and then somebody who is stupid enough to believe gets into a position of power where they then proceed to do real harm on an almost industrial scale. I have an example for you, Gambia’s President Yahya Jammeh truly believes that witchcraft is real, as reported … Read more

A bit of fun …Messing about with Gravity

by

There exists a very strange place on planet earth, so weird that gravity as we know it does not appear to work as we expect.

Here is a clip by well-known skeptic, Brian Dunning, illustrating this weird anomaly. It is located within Death Valley deep inside one of the hidden canyons (Mosaic Canyon) and caught my attention because I was in that exact spot a couple of months ago myself and was quite amazed by it. Anyway, here is Brian explaining …

OK, so what is going on here, is this credible or is there something else happening? Does gravity really behave like this?

Read more

Why do some reject Science?

by

Within a scientific context we know specific things to be true, not because they are the current fad or preference, but rather because that is where the data has led us. If new surprising data arrives that leads us to a different conclusion, then that is where we go. If however you reject the process, … Read more