Category: Skepticism

  • Heartwarming news for coldhearted skeptics

    It was a bit of a shock to see a frank admission — from one of the world’s leading proponents of global warming theory — that there has been no global warming for the last 15 years. But that’s what the man says! THERE has been no global warming for 15 years, a key scientist…

  • That Was Unexpected

    I received a passage for Baxter from Uncle Neil today. I assumed it was a joke. Very inside joke involving a foreign film narrated by a dog and fifth floor library tennis dates. It turns out there actually are people who buy those things. You know what things. You know the guilty desire. There was…

  • What is a skeptic?

    Steven Novella, whose Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe podcast is one I never miss (also check the brief companion 5×5 podcast), is trying out a new definition for a perfectly good word that others (for some reason) don’t seem too keen on, namely “skeptic”: A skeptic is one who prefers beliefs and conclusions that are…

  • Reality-Based Rule?

    Of course I’m playing on Valerie Jarrett’s remark that President Obama will be “ready to rule.” And of course I’m mocking the notion that Democrats have a monopoly on reality. But what is no laughing matter is the lack of reason and the total disregard for science in what may be the imminent appointment of…

  • Religion in schools

    The more perspicacious among our readers may have gathered that I am a public school teacher. I may just be among the smallest minorities in the profession: atheist, libertarian, Republican, skeptic. The last of these in me was amused by an e-mail with which one colleague plagued the district today: an effort to sell a…

  • She blinded them with science! Or maybe not.

    I’ve recently bought a portable media player* and begun downloading baudcasts**. So what prompted this post was the July 6th edition of PRI’s To the Best of Our Knowledge: “How we remember.” Specifically it was the segment on Jill Price, known previously only by the name “AJ”. She has been studied by a team of…