An Open Letter to Animal Planet: Learn The Difference Between Real and Fake Monsters
This post was originally published on my new Scientific American blog, Overthinking It Dear Animal Planet: All monsters are not …
Category Archives: Skepticism
Small Study of Reflexology Finds Nothing, Headline Should Read
This post was originally published on Randi.org If alternative medicine wants to be taken more seriously, the studies must be …
Coincidences Are Meaningful, Just Not Like That
This post was originally published on Randi.org “A coincidence is like a magic trick. There is an instant tension between …
SkyMall Bugs Me
This post originally appeared on Randi.org SkyMall bugs me. It bugs me not just because it sells a helmet lined …
The Lady Who Is Impossible To Lift
This post originally appeared on Randi.org If you have a friend who likes to lift weights, it’s time to make …
The Snake and The Preacher: Skepticism on Primetime TV
This post originally appeared on Randi.org Maybe a supreme being is saving you from rattlesnake venom, but it’s easier to …
Taking the Lift Out of Street Levitation, with Physics!
This post originally appeared on Randi.org A few weeks ago, Michael Shermer, founder of Skeptic Magazine and the Skeptics Society, …
Does Mother Nature Always Know What’s Best?
There has always been a lot of arguing over “organic” and “natural” foods. Recently, the brunt of this arguing came …
The Death of “Near Death”: Even If Heaven Is Real, You Aren’t Seeing It
This post originally appeared on the front page of Scientific American You careen headlong into a blinding light. Around you, …
Neil deGrasse Tyson on the 2012 “Apocalypse”
Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson debunks the 2012 Mayan Apocalypse by exploring (in tweets) the underlying science and lack of science …
Enjoy The Show
This post originally appeared on Randi.org It is at this point a lamentable mantra among those interested in getting good …
Inoculated Against Illusion: Skeptics and Face-Pareidolia
This post originally appeared at the James Randi Educational Foundation We are wizards of pattern recognition. We swear to witness …
Happy Carl Sagan Day!
Carl Sagan, astronomer, communicator, author, intellectual, and skeptic, was a personification of all the things that we love about science, …
Live Manga Doodles!
In late October manga artist Sara Mayhew and I hung out on Google+. Every month Sara takes donations to do …
Belonging and Bouncing
As a community that regularly fights over labels, what we choose to call ourselves is a fluid concept. To us, …
There Is Nothing Wrong With “I Don’t Know”
Though we are a diverse, independent, and freethinking group, we do not escape the trappings of tribalism. We gather around …
CAM and the Language Problem
In graduate school I completed a literature review on the use of oppositional language in medicine. Ever the skeptic, I …
Skepticism and The Second Enlightenment
The information age has brought along with it the perils of having a fallible mind. Pseudosciences, scams, hoaxes, frauds, and …
The Skeptical Disconnect Redux
“I think I have you skeptics figured out,” he said with a cautious smirk. “For you this isn’t about the …
The Great “Detox” Deception
Perhaps it is a product of the “green/natural/organic” movement, but there seems to be a war on chemicals in the …
