Debunking Roseanne Barr myths

Roseanne Barr

Now that the dust has settled a little and the media frenzy has died down, I’d like to focus on it all by examining a few of the claims that have been tossed around within the twitter maelstrom. People tweet racist stuff all the time, so why all the focus? It is different for various … Read more

How do Conservative Christians find Alternative Facts?

alternative facts

Francesca Tripodi, a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Virginia, has released a report that is quite frankly fascinating. Titled “Searching for Alternative Facts” and released on 16th May, it lays out the results of her research within upper-middle class conservative Christian communities in Virginia in 2017. People who believe and read the bible often tend … Read more

AI successfully pretending to be human

AI

At the recent Google I/O conference there was a demo of Google’s new Duplex AI Assistant. It was quite frankly amazing, so rather than describing it, you can instead see it yourself. Here is that demo … As you listen to it making real calls to book an appointment, you find that not only is … Read more

Listening to Flat Earth Believers

Flat Earth

I thought I was done with posts about the Flat earth conference that took place in the UK, but I find that I’m returned back to it for one more pass. Michael Marshall, who attended has an article in Gizmodo in which he expands upon much of what he saw while there. He also makes a … Read more

What persuades people to change their minds about Climate Change?

climate change

People can and do cross the divide. People who once promoted a specific stance will be persuaded that they were wrong and cross over to take a quite different stance. A rather obvious example is religious belief. There are many people who today are atheists but were once deeply religious, so quite clearly they have … Read more

Poll: More have no religion in a sharply shifting religious landscape

religious poll

Yesterday I briefly referenced the ABC / Washington Post religious poll that was published on 10th May. I’d like to return to it again today and dig into it in a little bit more and pull out a few trends. Background context to the ongoing decline of religious belief in the US It has been … Read more