While I take pains not to let it come through in posts, overall, I’m a fairly cranky person, and I know at least a few other skeptics are as well. It would be easy to take this and extrapolate that being skeptical makes you cranky, which some people really do believe and which is an excellent example of failing to understand correlation and causation. For my part, I know where it comes from,
Category: Critical Thinking
The exception proves to rule
This is another post inspired by Demon Haunted World, and if I find out that you haven’t read this book yet, I’m going to come to your house and smack you in the back of the head with a rolled up e-magazine…
Yet despite my promotion of this book, I’m going to highlight something that I find misleading within it. Sagan lists a quote from Ethan Allen, who said:
Those who invalidate
Just stuff
There have been a couple of things I’ve been working on and trying to update, and I finally have them available, so this post is simply a short list of new things available on the site.
I mentioned earlier that I would include a tutorial on removing noise, and so I
The Fish is back
I feel obligated to let my four readers know that the blog Weird Things has rebooted. Greg Fish took a hiatus because of time demands earlier this year, with no promises of a return. But he was kind enough to send me an e-mail last night announcing his encore, and I am happy to send people his way again. Technically,
Shortcuts
I think everybody probably knows someone like this: the person that, in their everlasting quest for shortcuts, ends up taking obscure, winding routes to “avoid traffic” or stoplights or whatever, and goes several kilometers further than necessary, often taking longer to do so as well. I’ve certainly known more than a couple. My brother-in-law once decided, when
Probably not
Recently, I came across two posts on probability, both of which possessing some serious issues. This is actually a common occurrence, since probability is one of those things that confuses people and is, in many ways, counterintuitive. What’s interesting about both of them is that the answers revealed are misleading in the same manner as the intuitive solutions.
Drop the ‘Straight’
I used to think the column “The Straight Dope” was pretty good, and well researched. I was first introduced to it about twenty years ago, when it was carried in the local independent newspaper called, for some unknown reason, The Independent (this is a local publication, not the British one.) Many years later, I found it online, and made a habit of stopping by semi-regularly
I wonder why?
Yesterday, I had a visitor, who turned out to be (as most knocks on the door are anymore) someone who wanted to introduce me to god. The last couple of times that this happened, it was some Wally Cleaver types in white shirts and ties, which spells either mormons or jehovahs, and I wasn’t in any kind of mood then to open the debate, so I chased them off with obvious amusement. This time, however,
Book semi-review: Exuberant Skepticism
The book reviews on this blog have been more of a personal recommendation list, rather than a critical review of new releases as one might expect, for a couple of reasons. I don’t go through too many books at a time, and not many new ones, and as one might have noticed, there are certain topics I tend to concentrate on. So what’s been seen here before has been positive. Until now.
Exuberant
Book Review: Paranormality
In an earlier post, I refuted a handful of responses to an interview of Richard Wiseman after the release of his new book, and now, I have finally had the chance to read the book itself. Let’s just say that those who need this book the most are the ones who are likely finding every excuse not to read it.