Paranormal
oracknows | June 2, 2008Even here at the ASCO meeting, I couldn't help but be made aware (thanks to Steve Novella and others) about a brand-spanking new video of a supposed encounter with an alien that--unlike all the other dubious videos of alleged alien encounters--according to its maker will really and truly convince you that, really and truly, Aliens Are Real And Earth Has Been Visited by them. Why, you may ask, would I blog about such things when I'm at a meeting? Well, writing about clinical science is hard, and I haven't had time to analyze the abstracts that I wanted to analyze, and blogging about this is…
oracknows | April 5, 2008How on earth did I miss this article, which describes a paper to be published in the journal Neuroquantology showing how teens can actually have telekinetic powers?
Oh, wait. Look at the date it was published. Never mind.
Not bad, though.
oracknows | March 26, 2008A "magician" trying and failing to kill a skeptic with black magic.
It must have been hilarious to watch, especially if one speaks the language. Maybe they'll find a way to show it on American TV. Maybe I'll search YouTube when I feel better.
oracknows | March 14, 2008Readers who have followed my little Friday bit of fun every week have probably, like me, at times sat in front of their computer screens, jaw drooping, a little bit of spittle starting to drip out of the corners of their mouths, and eyes agape with wonder at just how anyone on earth could believe some of this stuff. Indeed, it is truly unbelievable to anyone with just a modicum of critical thinking skills. Sometimes, as I have, you've almost certainly laughed out loud at the silliness. Sometimes, as I have, you've probably had to stop reading because you feared that the concentrated woo in…
oracknows | February 22, 2008Sometimes woo jumps out and hits you from sources from which you least expect it.
Such was the case earlier this week, when I found my self in Detroit lazily watching a local newscast. Now, I realize that local news is not the place to look for skepticism. Heck, just the other day, I mentioned a really egregious example of a newscast from Oklahoma City that credulously regurgitated Generation Rescue talking points as fact. But it's rare in my experience to see such a sterling example of woo appearing in a major market newscast. So there I was, sitting in front of the TV, when I saw a story…
oracknows | December 14, 2007
It's almost here.
No, not Christmas, although that's almost here too. what I'm talking about is the fast-approaching 76th Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle, which is due to land at Aardvarchaelogy on Thursday, December 20, right in time for the holidays. (And what better time to indulge in a serious dose of skepticism than in the midst of all this pre-Christmas cheer?) Ebenezer Scrooge would be proud. Well, the pre-visitation Scrooge, anyway. The post-visitation Scrooge clearly believed in ghosts and other paranormal happenings, like visitations promised to happen in over three nights…
oracknows | October 27, 2007...I am as appalled as my fellow ScienceBlogger Mark over this horrifically credulous article on ghosts on This Old House at CNN.com. Here's a small taste, which comes after a long discussion of how to choose a "good" ghost inspector:
If natural explanations cannot be found, and it's determined that there is indeed a presence in your house, the investigators will likely suggest you get in touch with a family minister so he or she can come to the house and to pray for the soul of the spirit that is present. This is not an "exorcism," but simply an attempt to get the ghost to leave in peace.
If…
laelaps | October 26, 2007Actually, I don't believe in "spooks," ESP, alien abductions, or much of the other paranormal rot that crops up so often this time of year, but apparently 24% of 1,013 polled adults do. While I take issue with surveys asking a relatively insignificant amount of people their opinion and then projecting those numbers on the whole of the population, I have run into many people who have some, erm, interesting ideas about rather ordinary phenomena. I've been told that cats can detect human souls, that saber-tooth cats were aquatic predators and bit their prey sideways, that there are living…
oracknows | October 23, 2007Ever wonder what would happen if mendacious fake "psychic" Sylvia Browne ever met The Amazing Randi?
Now you know.
Sylvia just has to watch out for science.
cevans | October 21, 2007Occasionally, I day-trip from the borders of legitimate science and into the boundless holiday that is the esoteric. I don't know exactly why I take such pleasure in pseudo-science; perhaps it is to keep my work safe from those who might portend I am out of my league with the real stuff.
The lush, seemingly benign woods of the Pacific Northwest abound with myths, quasi-tragic histories, tucked-away lichen, hallucinogenic mushrooms, endangered animals, and wild men. They also set an unwitting and shadowy stage, perhaps appropriately, for one of the great dramas of the esoteric: Bigfoot.…
oracknows | October 12, 2007Woo-meisters will not be pleased. While perusing this week's Skeptics' Circle, I was reminded of something that I had meant to post about a couple of days ago.
I don't know how he did it or where he got it, but somehow he has found the Holy of Holies for woos everywhere. He found The Woo Handbook. In it, he finds the twenty main strategies for dealing with Skeptics. They're pretty much all there: shifting the goalposts, labeling skeptics as "close-minded," introducing quantum mechanics, and appeals to ignorance, along with #18, the technique of woos that probably annoys me the most (at least…
oracknows | October 5, 2007Over the last 15 months that this regular Friday feature has been in existence, I've come across some real doozies in the world of woo. Who could forget, for example, quantum gyroscopic theories of homeopathy? Or the DNA activation guy? Or the "no plane" conspiracy theory of 9/11? Or a certain disgusting "feedback loop" for curing cancer? A few others stand out from the pack, like Healing Sounds and Dr. Emoto, as rare examples of just the right amount of superficial plausibility married to over-the-top craziness to be memorable.
This week's installment might just be one of these. It is truly…
oracknows | September 21, 2007
As I usually do on Thursday nights, I was perusing my legendary Folder of Woo looking for just the thing to be interesting and entertaining to both me as the blogger and you as the reader. As happens occasionally, nothing was really doing it for me. Nothing was getting me fired up to launch into yet another installment of Your Friday Dose of Woo. I thought about going back to the well of Life Technology (believe it or not, there is still some woo there to which I have not yet applied my special brand of Respectful Insolenceâ¢), but somehow I just wasn't in the mood. Let's face it, after…
oracknows | September 14, 2007
Earlier this week, I deconstructed a truly inane article on Mike Adams NewsTarget website espousing dangerous cancer quackery, with claims that herbal concoctions alone could "naturally heal" cancer. Such a claim wouldn't have attracted bringing the hammer of Respectful Insolence⢠down if there had been some actual evidence presented that this healer could do what she claimed she could do. Unfortunately, as is the case with virtually all such claims, there was none, just a complicated regimen involving four or five different herbal brews involving a total of around 40 different plants and…
oracknows | September 13, 2007Howdy, thar, pardners! The Skeptics' Circle Saloon is open for business, and, after bein' away for more than two ears, Brent's done gone and set up a hum-dinger of a meeting:
We rode up to the front of the Skeptic's Circle Saloon and dismounted. Where once there were only two hitching posts, seven stood in their place. "Old Doc Orac must be doing something right," I said with a smile.
I had heard that Doc had taken over running the Saloon from St. Nate a while back. I also heard that he had moved out of his office in town and had put up his surgery right in the Saloon. I adjusted the weight…
oracknows | August 17, 2007I knew it.
I knew it wouldn't be long before this happened. About three weeks ago, we had the Oscar the Death Cat, a.k.a. the kitty of doom. Given the discussions of animals and death and speculation that other animals might be able to "predict" impending death, you knew it was coming.
Behold the Doggy of Death:
His name is Scamp, and he lives at a nursing home in Ohio:
Scamp, a Schnauzer, lives at The Pines nursing home in Ohio - where his owner, a staff member, claims he has been present for the death of virtually every patient for the past three years. That's around forty deaths, twice…
oracknows | August 16, 2007It's here, and it's on Google Video. I watched it last night, and it was a blistering attack on the irrationality that is so common in our society:
Part I begins with Richard Dawkins sitting in on some sort of New Age chanting ceremony (the discomfited look on his face is priceless to watch), after which he goes to a New Age fair, and concludes with an attack on the crappy science that lead to the MMR vaccine scare over autism in the U.K. In between, Dawkins takes on astrology, dowsers, spiritualists, and mediums, no holds barred.
Next Monday: Richard Dawkins versus alternative medicine.…
oracknows | July 27, 2007
This sort of thing makes one wonder if the personification of Death should in fact be a cat, although, oddly enough, not a black cat:
Oscar the rescue cat is not simply a welcome feline companion at the Steere nursing home in Providence, Rhode Island. According to a new report in a medical journal he has a remarkable, though morbid talent - predicting when patients will die.
When the two-year-old grey and white cat curls up next to an elderly resident, staff now realise, this means they are likely to die in the next few hours.
Such is Oscar's apparent accuracy - 25 consecutive cases so far…
oracknows | July 27, 2007Time is important. Our life is measured in it, and there's no way to reverse it. How we use our allotted time on this planet is, of course, the most important question that anyone ever faces. But how to measure time? It all seems so obvious, doesn't it? You have years, which are divided into 365 days with a leap year every four years to make up for the fact that a year isn't exactly 365 days. You're good to go, at least for as long a period of time as anyone could expect. That's all you could expect from any calendar, right?
Wrong.
If you're a woo-meister, you know that a calendar could do so…
oracknows | June 18, 2007In blogging, there are some topics that I know that I really shouldn't bother with; yet, somehow they suck me in. A number of things can cause that. Perhaps it's a topic that just gets under my skin to the point where I can't hold back a commentary, even when I know that it might be wiser to remain quiet, be it because of the flak that my commentary will bring (antivaccination lunacy, HIV denialists, certain forms of quackery) or because of the threat to my sanity if I allow the irritation of them to go unanswered.
I address this topic because of the latter reason.
I've discussed why…