Reading Time: 4 minutes Before I wrote my book on taking risks, debunking pseudoscience, and critical thinking, I was a vaccine skeptic. Crazy but true. Unlike most of my friends, who described being pregnant as one of the happiest times of their lives, I hated every second of it. I had all the bad stuff—hot flashes, extreme mood swings, […]
skepticism
Posted inCritical thinking
What a skeptic is—and isn’t
Reading Time: 6 minutes Countless Herman Cain Award winners who died for a(n anti-vaxxer) lie. A YouTuber who leapt to the only logical explanation for a spooky clip: a ‘paranormal entity.’ And countless Christians giving their testimonies about converting to their religion through the usual logical fallacy-riddled bad arguments and emotional manipulation. They all have one thing in common: they all proclaim to be skeptics. They definitely want their audiences to think so, too. But they aren’t. In reality, they don’t even know what a skeptic is, nor how to think like one.
Posted inSpace
The science of the stars, from Bethlehem and beyond
Reading Time: 3 minutes Once again, the Christmas holiday has come. Just days before December 25th, the northern hemisphere experienced the shortest day of the year; conversely, the south had it longest. Just one of those things that happens when you have a ball careening around a sustained nuclear furnace at 30 kilometers a second with a small angular […]
Posted inPolitics
How a critical thinking deficit aids fascism…and religion
Reading Time: 5 minutes Why do so many Americans embrace such outlandish and patently false ideas these days? Partly because they were never taught critical-thinking skills.
Posted inGeneral, Politics, Secularism
‘The Nation’ normalizing astrology is like ‘Mother Jones’ endorsing junk food
Reading Time: 5 minutes The Nation is an august progressive magazine. Then, why is it normalizing astrology and horoscopes? It can’t actually believe that stuff, can they?
Posted inGeneral, Secularism
Who thinks aliens are more likely — believers or seculars? Wrong!
Reading Time: 4 minutes Just say “X-Files” and you’ll learn how popular the concept of aliens is to human beings. You may be surprised to know who is least skeptical of them.
Posted inCritical thinking, Education, Secularism
Texas GOP, education still in throes of medieval Christianity
Reading Time: 5 minutes The Texas GOP Legislature really, really doesn’t want the state’s school kids to learn to think critically. Welcome to medieval Europe in the 21st century.
Posted inScience, Secularism
What if an ‘omnipotent’ god can’t save mankind convincingly?
Reading Time: 4 minutes What good is an omnipotent is a god who can’t demonstrate his all-powerfulness in the world by ending evil and suffering and saving mankind? Not much.
Posted inPhilosophy, Science, Secularism
Why are philosophy, empiricism falsely joined at hip? No good reason.
Reading Time: 4 minutes Empiricism and philosophy are schizoid opposites. Why do the definitions of both conjoin them in dreamy philosophy? I haven’t a clue.
Posted inPolitics, Religion
If fidelity to free speech fades, will religious privilege wither, too?
Reading Time: 4 minutes Americans are starting to take a hard look at free speech, which in the Trump years was corrupted by falsehoods that were accepted by the gullible as truth.