Reading Time: 9 minutes Like many, I’ve been disheartened by recent human response to augmented or artificial intelligence, as it becomes a hot topic in everything from art and freelance writing, to programming, to legal counsel, to scientific research. I’ve written thrice already on this theme: how our future shock around this tech is age-old economic anxiety, how corporate […]
pseudoscience
Posted inCritical thinking
There’s a reason every strip club has a ghost story
Reading Time: 3 minutes Late one night, I stepped down from what I hoped was my last stage show of the night at the strip club where I worked the closing shift. My eyes were still dazzled by the strobe lights and the fake smoke. My Red Bull had long since worn off. I was exhausted and more than […]
Posted inPseudoscience
Why are pseudosciences so appealing?
Reading Time: 5 minutes It’s only natural for us to try to find certainty and protection from our fears. Pseudoscientists take advantage of this yearning.
Posted inPseudoscience
Demand for useless and dangerous ‘alternative’ cures hits an all-time high
Reading Time: 5 minutes In Oscar Wilde’s fabulously funny The Canterbury Ghost, an apparition haunting Canterbury Chase is both mortified and angry when the new owners of the property—American clergyman Hyram B. Otis and his family—flatly refuse to be fazed by his attempts to scare them. The ghost of Sir Simon de Canterville is particularly outraged by the clergyman’s […]
Posted inGeneral
Licensed Astrologers
Reading Time: 2 minutes By James A. Haught The solar system is relatively flat, occupying an imaginary plane in the sky called the ecliptic. Planets waver 8 degrees on each side of the centerline, in a belt called the zodiac. As the Earth travels around its orbit through the year, twelve different constellations of stars come into the zodiac […]
Posted inUncategorized
Afterlife: When the Science Spoke At Last to Me
Reading Time: 7 minutes Hi and welcome back! Yesterday, I noted that I struggled mightily with my belief in some sort of afterlife. Today, I want to show you what happened as I slowly began coming to grips with mortality. Plunging Into Science. During that time, 2013-2015, I was devouring a lot of science about the brain — and […]
Posted inHealth, Science
Anti-Vax: Customer Interception Hotline
Reading Time: < 1 minute A little bit of fun for you this Saturday (well it is here). And a bit of the North for you: @rachelharpercomedyReply to @_curti5_ worried about vaccines? You’ll only feel a prick xxx ##fyp ##foryoupage ##comedy ##customerservice♬ original sound – Rachel_Harper_Comedy H/T Geoff Benson. Stay in touch! Like A Tippling Philosopher on Facebook: A Tippling […]
Posted inReligion, Science
When Your Position Depends on Lying: Geocentrism Edition (LSP #167)
Reading Time: 6 minutes Hi and welcome back! Years ago, I wrote about how culture warriors’ message absolutely requires dishonesty. That was seven years ago, but very little has changed since then! Indeed, a recent story talks about geocentrists and the deceptive tactics they used to make their documentary sound more credible. And this story feels very, very familiar to […]
Posted inReligion, Science
Porn and Christians: Starting Trouble For a Reason
Reading Time: 7 minutes Hi and welcome back! I guess today also represents a bit of a palate cleanser. I ran across a recent article on a Christian site that caught my eye. It describes a study about the effects of porn on fervent Christians. Most of us probably saw most of their findings from a mile away, but part of […]
Posted inHealth, Pseudoscience, Science
Anti-Vaxxers are Winning Their Facebook Battle
Reading Time: 3 minutes Anti-vaxxers have a special place in my Hall of Infamy. They are idiots, plain and simple, and no amount of whining by them or on their behalf will change my opinion. Yes, Big Pharma is a problem, yes there are issues with the financing and distribution of such drugs – well, all drugs – but […]