These are just some reflections on the curious concept of the paranormal hoax, partially spurred by the comments on this post at Bad UFOs, as well as an earlier post of mine about hoaxes and lying.
Category: Continued from other blogs
Struttin’
I am a little slow in putting this up, because I forgot to check back after I heard this might be appearing, but you should definitely review this post about the card game Emergent. Why? Well, first and most importantly, it was created by my friend
Coincidence? Well… yeah…
I’m going to apologize in advance: I’m too lazy to spell out a lot of the background details that would make greater sense of this post, and am counting on anyone either following the links within and/or having some familiarity with the culture, and even then, it may sound like a personal rant. That’s okay skip it if you like.
I don’t read half as many blogs as I used to.
Who are we learning about?
Among the many, many reminisces following the recent death of actor-comedian Robin Williams – some in honest tribute, some in shameless opportunism – we can find the video of his meeting with Koko, the female lowland gorilla who is famous for communicating by sign language we also have the reports from the Gorilla Foundation, her caretakers, that when told about his
Fish in a barrel
I barely have to write anything for this.
There’s a website called LeastHelpful.com, which features product reviews that, uh, leave a bit to be desired. Far too frequently, the religious reviewer provides the strangest and most clueless entries, and many of those are laden with unintended irony. Case in point:
Too cool, part 24: Ring species
Over at Why Evolution Is True, Jerry Coyne talks about new research that shows that the we no longer have any examples of ring species (which actually means we never did in the first place.) What’s a ring species, you ask? Go ahead, I did myself. Coyne explains it best, and
Mucking out the stall
Lest we forget
I’m not very big on tradition – in fact, I find it pointless, likely a peculiar artifact of our evolutionary past – but I savor the opportunity to repost this, so consider me a hypocrite if you like. Either way, take this little quiz yourself, or past it along to all those you know who want to pompously remind you of the True™ meaning of Easter. Or is it Eostre?
8.
It doesn’t matter
This is another after-effect of the debate I mentioned earlier, and is closely related to the comments I made therein. The image here is one of those shamelessly forwarded, reposted, and unattributed “memes” that can be found everywhere, and I feature it reluctantly because the photos therein
Whence it comes, prithee?
I’m skipping a lot of backstory here, because after a lot of typing I realized it doesn’t add anything useful. So, short version: at a recent science-versus-religion debate, some triumphant creationists were invited to pose questions to all those who believe in evolution. I have long ago blocked the site that posted them for a puerile editorial that demonstrated pretty