Nov
19
It turns out that science (or at least one “scientist”) has determined that human beings are actually aliens from another planet.
Evidence for this includes the fact that we get sunburned and have bad backs (a fact I can attest to). It seems that our native planet had lower gravity, which was easier on our spines.
You can read more scientific details here.
Nov
18
The term "Gish Gallop" was coined by Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education. The phrase refers to a debate tactic that was a favorite of Duane Gish, a young-Earth creationist who was also a highly skilled debater.
The Gish Gallop is the tactic of snowing your opponent under a mountain of supposed "pieces of evidence" or "problem cases" and claiming that the opponent's inability to respond to this pile of evidence shows that your side is right. This tactic counts as a fallacy because its effectiveness doesn't depend on presenting arguments that are right or even well-supported. Quantity is offered as a substitute for quality.
The tactic is nevertheless often quite effective, for the following reasons:
Here a version of a Gish Gallop in print.
And below the fold is an example of a scientist picking apart a Gish Gallop by Monckton. Notice how much time it takes Abraham to debunk each of Monckton's false (but brief) claims.
Nov
11
The last thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, died in 1936. These were large carnivorous marsupials that lived down under -- until they didn't anymore.
Now there are some "scientists" who are claiming that Tasmanian tigers aren't really extinct.
Question: how do these claims compare to claims of bigfoot sightings?
The Guardian article mentions that the investigators are cryptozoologists who have also "attempted to find the yeti." An important piece of context. The Huffington Post write-up, on the other hand, just describes them as "zoologists."
Nov
11
A commenter at Pigliucci's blog offered a link to a collection of scientific research that supports the claim that humans have psychic abilities. Check out the list here.
I chose one article just to get a sense of the quality of the evidence, and I have to say that I wasn't impressed. The article recounts an experiment where subjects were asked to decide whether they were looking at a real Chinese ideogram or a false one.
Before starting the experiment, participants
were asked about their familiarity with Chinese ideograms.
They were enrolled only if they declared no or almost no
knowledge apart from the capacity to recognize them as probably
Chinese or Japanese ideograms.
The participants were "psychically helped" in their decision by a distant researcher who knew which ideograms were real, and was sending helpful mental signals.
The study found that the participants did slightly better than would be expected by chance. So there's evidence for "psi" -- telepathic abilities.
It's helpful that the study depicts the ideograms used at the end of the paper. I have to say, even though I'd tell a researcher I have "almost no" knowledge of Chinese ideograms, the fake ones look fake to me. I don't read Chinese, but I've apparently seen enough to have a sense of what's a real ideogram and what isn't.
If all the evidence is this quality, they're going to have a hard time convincing me. But maybe I'm just closed-minded?
Nov
11
Massimo Pigliucci (the author of Nonsense on Stilts) is wondering whether the path to pseudoscience is a one-way street.
There are plenty of examples of theories starting as legitimate scientific hypotheses but then degenerating into pseudoscience as its advocates refuse to give up on the idea. Pigliucci offers cold fusion as one example.
But are there any examples of a pseudoscientific theory transforming into legitimate science? Pigliucci offers the example of herbal remedies. Commentors on the post offer continental drift and the endosymbiotic origins of eukaryotes as other possible examples.
Nov
10
There's a nice article in Slate about the polywater controversy of the 1960s and 70s.
Polywater is supposed to be a novel state of water. In this state, H20 is denser, has a lower freezing point and higher boiling point, is oily, and has several other features that are quite different from the everyday water we drink and bathe in.
So there are parallels here to claims about homeopathy; in both cases ordinary water is supposed to have extraordinary abilities.
In the case of polywater, science took a few years to self-correct, but it was eventually decided that the samples of "polywater" weren't pure H20 after all. So, should the scientists discussing polywater have been more careful? Were politicians too eager to "close the polywater gap" with the Soviets?
Nov
7
Peter Ferrara at Forbes thinks that Global Warming Alarmism is like Lysenkoism. Is he right?
Nov
4
The above video features models of perpetual motion machines that have been suggested over the centuries. I assume that the makers of the video resort to trickery to make it seem like the machines move without any energy input, since it is a fundamental claim of physics that a perpetual motion machine is impossible. (Physicists believe that energy is always conserved, and any machine like this would have to lose energy through friction.)
Indeed, the impossibility of perpetual motion machines has even been encoded in law, in that patents cannot be granted for such a machine unless a working model is provided.
Nevertheless, over the years various people have claimed to be able to get more energy out of such machines than they put in. Read some of the fascinating stories at this site on perpetual motion machines.
For some modern-day examples, see below the fold:
Nov
1
Nov
1
James Randi has for many years offered a $1,000,000 prize for anyone who could provide solid evidence of any "paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event." (See here.) To date, no one has claimed this prize.
(Key moments: 5:30, 9:50, and 16:40)
James Randi debunking Uri Geller and Peter Popoff
