The Rogues Gallery

Remembering Perry

Yesterday, August 19th, was the one year anniversary of the passing of Perry. Friday, August 22nd, would have been Perry’s 45th birthday. We all still feel the loss of Perry very acutely - and it was a loss. I miss the presence of Perry on the podcast, and I will his presence in my life. I would love to have a conversation with Perry about current events, about crazy stuff in the news, and about our personal lives - but I can’t.

I am glad that Perry left behind his recorded wit and humor on the show, but it is a pale substitute for the man himself. But I am more happy for what he added to my life than I am sad for his loss. I feel lucky to have had Perry as a friend.

Thanks to everyone for sharing in our memories for Perry and for all the support we have received over the last year. It has helped to know that Perry had touched so many fellow skeptics as he did us.

Steve

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Posted in Skepticism | 3 Comments » | Tags: Perry

The Long Run - Running!!!

Yes, kids, I’m going to jump in here ahead of Jay and write the post that I threatened to write before… the Long Run Blog, critical thinking on money, finance, and economics, is up and running at www.thelongrunblog.com.   The name comes from John Maynard Keynes, an economist of some note, who famously said “in the long run, we’re all dead.”

Fellow skeptic and certified financial planner Brett Spurr and I will be blogging on economics, markets, scams both big and small, and whatever else pops into our pretty little heads - all from a skeptical point of view.

We’ve long believed that skeptics have neglected the world of finance, which is just chock full of sloppy thinking, pseudoscience, and magical wishful thinking, plus a healthy dose of all the usual logical fallacies.  We think it’ll be a long time before we run out of topics.

So go on over, check us out, make comments and suggestions, set us straight, whatever… see you there!

UPDATE:  Our first response is ‘Hey! Where’s the feed?’  My bad.  I have added a widget to the blog that allows you to subscribe with RSS.

Posted in Blogroll, Skepticism | No Comments » | Tags: The Long Run Blog

SGU in Wired, Awesomeness Causes SGU Blog to Explode

Yeah, we may have some mega-annoying server issues here on the SGU Blog but that can’t stop the rocking. We’ll be back to normal soon, hopefully.

In the meantime, go buy the September issue of Wired! We’re #10 on their Playlist.

(Click to embiggen.)

Posted in Skepticism | 4 Comments » |

Spammin’ and Jammin’

Powersupplements is P.O.’ed.  It seems they’ve noticed a huge increase in spam e-mails about Acai (pronounced a-sigh-ee) Berry supplements in recent weeks - I’ve noticed it too, I get about 6 Acai spams per day - and they’re concerned.  Because all those spammers are trying to horn in Powersupplements’ own flagship product, Acai Berry supplements, and those bad, bad spammers are making unsupported claims that these things will make you just shed the weight.  And they’re overcharging and trying to scam you with fake ‘free trials.’  Tsk, tsk spam people.  Don’t step on the powerpeople’s toes.  Don’t fuck with another man’s livelihood, Joel.

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Posted in Science and Medicine, Science and the Media, Skepticism | 7 Comments » | Tags: Acai, Spam

Don’t Forget About the Perseids!

No time for a lengthy post this morning, just a reminder that the brilliant Perseid meteor shower is going on right now as I type! The Perseids are dust and debris flying off the comet Swift-Tuttle, and every year around this time the Earth passes through the cloud. To us, it looks like the meteors are coming from the constellation Perseus, hence the name, but in Medieval Europe they were called the Tears of St. Lawrence, the patron saint of librarians who was beheaded in early August of the year 258.

Anyway, get yourself to a dark location free of clouds and enjoy the show. You don’t need a telescope or binoculars, just the fortitude to stay awake until prime viewing time around 2 a.m. — that’s after the moon has set but still during the time when your side of the planet is plowing face-first into the river of dust. I plan to be stumbling out of a club in Cambridge at about that time, so here’s hoping the thunderclouds that have plagued Boston the past week finally decide to take their leave. Click the pic below to see a bigger shot of a Perseid meteor from 2000, over on the fabulous Astronomy Picture of the Day.

Posted in Skepticism | 2 Comments » |

High Spirits

Just a short entry today.  If you have not seen them yet, have a look at these news reports that strongly, and credulously, suggest that a ghost can be seen in a surveillance tape at a North Carolina high school. CNN ran this version prominently from reporter Connie Legrand of WSPA, and another version of the same story was reported by Kassandra Pride of local ABC affiliate Channel 13.  Two reporters from two different stations and they both report it in the exact same way.  There is a sad kind of irony that this story centers on “ghostly” activity in a high school, a place of education, teaching, and learning, and yet everyone in these reports, from the school staff to the reporters, have their total lack of critical thinking skills on display for the world to see.  My guess is that the “phenomena” is a bird.  But thank goodness Kassandra Pride contacted a “paranormal expert” to lend her personal belief in nonsense to help move the “news” report right along.  Imagine if the “expert” she consulted was a skeptic?  Now that in itself would be news worthy.

Posted in Ghosts/Demons | 13 Comments » | Tags: ghost, video

A Naturopath On Water

It is a menace to the public when governments license nonsense. It is a betrayal of the public trust, it diminishes all professionalism, and it generally propagates confusion in an area where licensure is meant to provide clarity.

One egregious example is naturopathy, which is licensed in 15 states in the US. Naturopaths are health care pseudoscientists (here’s a good overview). Essentially, they are what happens when medicine is completely disconnected from science, evidence, and even common sense. They generally endorse any medical woo they come across, without any coherent philosophy - although they do weave together some recurrent themes.

As their name implies, naturopaths generally follow the naturalistic fallacy - if it’s “natural” it must be good, and anything that seems technological or artificial must be bad. I think somewhere along the line science and logic became lumped in with all things unnatural, because naturopaths seem to avoid both diligently.

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Posted in Science and Medicine | 5 Comments » | Tags: naturopath, naturopathy, water

Fight Fire with Fire

We live in an age where actors can become president and wrestlers can become governor. Where a trend can be set overnight if the right person starts it. The right person is usually someone a lot of people know, most often a celebrity of some sort. So, sadly, it comes as no surprise to me that when it comes to science, most people will listen to what a celebrity tells them rather than the actual experts.

Thankfully, celebrities rarely tread upon the realm of science. They tend to keep their distance, sticking to political issues rather than scientific ones. From human rights to animal rights, from war-torn countries to disease-stricken countries, celebrities rarely associate themselves with hard science. And that’s okay.

Unfortunately, when a celebrity embraces bad science and tells the world, you can’t fight back with cold, hard science, you have to break out the big guns. You have to get a celebrity of your own.

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Posted in Science and the Media | 6 Comments » | Tags: amanda peet, anti-vaccination, autism, jenny mccarthy, media, vaccines

Matter matters

We recently received an email question I just couldn’t resist.

..I have a question for you…concerning the origins of the universe….yes, just a small matter, which I am sure you can clear up in no time.
The question is……When I consider the origins of “life, the universe and everything”, when you go back as far as you can go, it seems to boil down to two simple options……either 1) Matter has always existed or 2) Matter somehow has been created out of a complete vacuum/nothingness.
Now I am certainly no astrophysicist, and maybe I am being too simplistic here but either of these options seems impossible to me…
Yours in anticipation    Craig B. Australia

Thanks for the question Craig,

I should start by saying that I’m no astrophysicist either but I do play one on a podcast…

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Posted in General Science, Skepticism, Technology | 7 Comments » |

Coming Right Up

A short post this week, due to a combination of laziness and poor time management… or is that the same thing?

Anyway, if all goes well, I will likely be spending the next three months in London, so I’m looking for good skeptical stuff over in the sunny UK.  I know about ‘Skeptics in the Pub,’ and I’ll definitely be there, but what else have you English skeptics got to offer?

That means I’ll miss at least two great events here in the US - first, The Skeptics Society’s 2008 Conference, ‘Origins: the BIG Questions’ at Caltech October 3-4 (http://origins.skeptic.com).  This year’s meeting has a great lineup of speakers, plus Brian Dalton (a.k.a. Mr. Deity) providing the entertainment.  If you still haven’t seen Mr. Deity, go find him (www.mrdeity.com).

Another favorite October event of mine will be the 18th First Annual Ignobel Prizes, given by the Annals of Improbable Research for scientific work that cannot, and probably should not, be repeated (http://improbable.com).  This one takes place at Harvard on Thursday night, October 2nd, so anyone who can make both meetings is a true skeptic’s skeptic, or a master of astral projection.

So if you’re not in London with me, get to a coast at the beginning of October, and think of me while you’re living the bohemian/skeptical lifestyle.

Posted in Events, Skepticism | 6 Comments » | Tags: Ignobel Prizes, Skeptics in the Pub, Skeptics Society