Episode #290
News Items
Who's That Noisy
- Answer to last week: The singing sands
Question #1 – Countering Fallacies
- As all usually say, thanks for doing the show. After 18 months of listening, it still remains a weekly highlight to download a new episode. I have a question (or proposal) regarding the coverage of logical fallacies. I still consider myself fairly new to the skeptical community and continue to enjoy the exercise of ‘name that logical fallacy’. Much of the time spent on logical fallacies in the skeptical community relies on how to identify them, but as I hone my ability to discuss and debate topics, I have noticed that I fall short in my ability to counteract a particular fallacy. I would enjoy hearing more about effective ways to approach a logical fallacy once it is apparent. It is one thing to say, ‘that’s a straw man!’, but in my experience, that does little to return a discussion back to the argument at hand. Hopefully this makes sense, and thanks in advance. Congrats on being picked up on XM. Louis Denver, CO
Science or Fiction
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Item #1
Science
A recent analysis of a hadrosaur fossil finds that the dinosaur lived 700,000 years after the K-T extinction that supposedly killed off all non-avian dinosaurs. http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-01-dinosaurs-survived-mass-extinction-years.html
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Item #2
Science
A study of subjects trying to quit smoking indicates that fMRI analysis of their brain activity is more predictive of their success than their self-assessment. http://ur.umich.edu/1011/Jan31_11/1997-quit-smoking
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Item #3
Fiction
Scientists report that as many as 20% of all North American bats are infected with rabies. http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-01-rabies-stereotype.html
Skeptical Quote of the Week.
‘Oh, the truth, oh yeah, lot of trouble that got us into, didn’t it, over the last maybe thousand years? Hitler knew the truth, so did Stalin, so did Mao Zedong, so did the Inquisition. They all knew the truth and that caused such horror. Certainty is the enemy. ‘ Anthony Hopkins