Promoting Science and Critical Thinking
(Oh and lest you wonder, he knows what he is on about. Paul J. Crutzen is an atmospheric chemist who won the 1995 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his research on ozone-depleting chemicals. From 1980 to 2000.)
Anyway, today’s UK Guardian also has an article all about this here. Here are a couple of extracts to tempt you into clicking on over there to read it all …
TAM-9 Coming up soon … here is a link to their web site for details. Five Reasons Not to Miss TAM 2011 If you miss the inimitable George Hrab as TAM emcee, you’ll be puzzling over all the in-jokes for the next year while your skeptical friends are LOLing. Penn Jillette’s Private Rock & Roll, … Read more
Belief in faith healing is fairly common, but for most mainstream believers, prayer is generally an addition to proper medical care, not an alternative. Sadly there are some to do indeed view faith healing as the only viable approach to illness and decline all medical care. One such example is a group who call themselves the “Followers of Christ” and are based in Oregon City.
A basic human right is freedom of thought. In essence, folks can believe whatever they wish, so best of luck to them in all such endeavors. Well OK, perhaps we can ourselves exercise another freedom, that of speech, and mock such silly beliefs, however beyond all this is a far deeper concern here – what about their kids?
They don’t get to choose, but instead have this nonsense inflicted upon them, sometimes with dire consequences.
We are all aware that there are clerics who have jumped on HMS Delusional and left the shores of reality far behind, but every now and then one comes along who is pushing out further into the unexplored territory of utter stupidity. It is usually the Islamic ones who do this, as in this latest example, but I have no specific Islamic bias here; if you scan across the entire belief spectrum, you will, without looking too hard, find numerous examples.
(warning: put you coffee down now, or it will end up splatted across your screen)
We have prominent Egyptian Salafi Shaykh Abi-Ishaq al-Huwayni who suggests that Muslims who have a few financial difficulties should go on jihadist raids a few times a year, and bring back prisoners, including women and children, which can be sold in the market like groceries to bring in extra income when times are tough …
<insert stunned silence here>
The AutismOne conference was greatly disrupted by a couple of skeptics who jumped up on stage carrying banners proclaiming “Death of all purveyors of Woo”, so they were ejected … er no, that is not quite right, so let us step back and get the facts right.
AutismOne is woo central for the anti-vax movement, this is the conference for the folks who believe that Vaccines cause Autism. There is one little problem with that belief, it is not true, there is no evidence for it. Many studies have been conducted and all conclude “No evidence”. Much of the current anti-vaccine hype comes from a chap called Andrew Wakefield who wrote a paper that linked vaccines to Autism, but a few serious problems later emerged. He had huge financial conflicts of interest and he also faked the data, so his paper was redacted and he was struck off the medical register for ethics violations (he cannot call himself a Dr in the UK anymore). So how did the AutismOne folks react when this happened last year? They gave him an award. Now that in itself tells you all you need to know about the credibility and ethics of these folks.