Skeptical Science • Promoting Science and Critical Thinking

weird religious news — Because I blog every day I find that I tend to fall into a pattern. About once a week I scan the news and list out items that happened during the past seven days that is utterly absurd and has been inspired by religious belief. Key Point 1: The list […]

Is Weird Religious News Bigotry?

This entry was posted in People religion weird and tagged /r/atheism bigotry reddit weird religious news on May 27, 2018 by Dave

At the recent Google I/O conference there was a demo of Google’s new Duplex AI Assistant. It was quite frankly amazing, so rather than describing it, you can instead see it yourself. Here is that demo … As you listen to it making real calls to book an appointment, you […]

AI successfully pretending to be human

This entry was posted in science society technology and tagged AI Duplex google on May 26, 2018 by Dave

octopus — A new paper has been published within Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology that is titled “Cause of Cambrian Explosion – Terrestrial or Cosmic?“. The paper proposes, using several lines of “evidence”, that life did not originate on earth, but instead that … life may have been seeded here on Earth […]

33 scientists claim Octopuses came from outer space

This entry was posted in science study and tagged octopus Octopuses panspermia on May 25, 2018 by Dave

sea level rise — The Wall Street Journal Op Ed section has established a reputation for the promotion of anti-intellectual climate denialism. This was recently illustrated on 16th May by them publishing an Op Ed by the well-known denier-for-hire Fred Singer entitled “The Sea Is Rising, but Not Because of Climate Change”. In other words, he does […]

Climate Scientists respond to WSJ Climate Denial Op Ed concerning Sea Level Rise

This entry was posted in Climate Change news science and tagged Andrea L. Dutton climate denial Fred Singer Michael E. Mann response WSJ on May 24, 2018 by Dave

Yanni or Laurel — I’m building up to an explanation for the “Yanni or Laurel” audio illusion. First, let’s talk about audio illusions in general. Pictured above is Ben Langley on Britains Got Talent last weekend. His act consisted of playing various very well-known songs, but he primed you to hear something distinctly different […]

Priming: Hearing things that are not really there – Yanni or Laurel

This entry was posted in education Entertainment psychology and tagged brain illusion Laurel model priming Yanni Yanni or Laurel on May 23, 2018 by Dave

Flat Earth — I thought I was done with posts about the Flat earth conference that took place in the UK, but I find that I’m returned back to it for one more pass. Michael Marshall, who attended has an article in Gizmodo in which he expands upon much of what he saw while […]

Listening to Flat Earth Believers

This entry was posted in Flat Earth Skepticism society and tagged flag earth on May 22, 2018 by Dave