Clever Hans

Let’s get one thing straight first of all. Animals are stupid. Oh, don’t look at me like that. It’s not like it isn’t obviously true, and they’re too dumb to know they’re being insulted anyway. Even the ones I like are complete idiots. I’ve seen two-year-old kids who can talk better than any cat; I’ve [...]

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Putt, still aiming for the green

(See, because it sounds like it’s something to do with golf, but it’s actually about someone called Putt trying to win money… Yeah, so I suck at titles.) Well, it’s disappointing, but shouldn’t be surprising. It’s taken less than three weeks for Patricia Putt, the psychic failure of a recent paranormal challenge organised by the [...]

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Of Humanist Symposia and Amazing Meetings

The 37th Humanist Symposium is up, with some great links. And I’m in it! I made the cut! I admit, I’m usually more of a Carnival of the Godless kinda guy, and I don’t get to read all that much about actual humanism itself, away from all the anti-religious stuff. I think I’m going to [...]

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More than we can handle

Here’s something that’s annoyed me for a while. It came up again in a couple of places in quick succession lately – once in an episode of Bones, I forget the other – so I thought it was about time to try explaining what exactly it is that pisses me off so much. It’s about [...]

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And your point is…?

Yesterday’s post on acupuncture got a few comments over at the Atheist Nexus, including one from a nurse who’s suffered from some severe back problems and found acupuncture to be beneficial. I thought I’d post my reply comment here as well. Well, my point was really only that the results of this study can be [...]

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Acupuncture works!

…just as well as not doing acupuncture! Now that’s what I call a medical procedure worth investing large sums of money in and foregoing other clinically proven treatments for. You don’t even need to actually do it for it to magically heal you! Hey, I wonder if we can make that work with chemotherapy. This [...]

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It’s fun to be sued by the BCA…

After the crappy outcome of last week’s preliminary hearing, Simon Singh has written an update about his current circumstances, the legal options he and his team are considering, and his own thoughts on the decision. I’m not going to go into this at any more length, partly because other bloggers like Jack of Kent have [...]

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No true Scotsman

More colourfully named than most, the “No true Scotsman” logical fallacy is attributed to Anthony Flew, and is named for the example he gave of a potentially offensive racial stereotype named Hamish. It’s a way of sticking to your guns beyond what’s reasonable, and avoiding having to admit to making a mistake, by changing the [...]

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Bogus! Heinous! Station!

Bah. The preliminary hearings in the legal case brought against Simon Singh, by the British Chiropractic Association, took place today, and things did not go Simon’s way. I don’t know much about the details of what happened, or what any of it means legally – I imagine it’s being discussed in far more depth all [...]

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I don’t think we’ll be needing the photo-finish…

The results are in for the latest preliminary test in the JREF’s million dollar challenge. A psychic gave ten personal readings for ten volunteers. The ten volunteers picked the reading they most identified with, from all of the ten readings given. None of them picked the reading that was psychically tailored for them personally. The [...]

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