Promoting Science and Critical Thinking
We are awash with people who reject facts and embrace myths … Creationism Rejection of the scientific consensus that humans are the cause of climate change The assertion that 9/11 was an inside job The claim that vaccines cause autism etc… We are wholly familiar with much of this. This is because the realisation that … Read more
Dialog on most topics tends to not result in heated verbal exchanges, but move on to either strongly embraced politics or religion ideas and you may find that verbal a whiplash is soon being deployed. What is going on here, why is it like this? What is even more fascinating is that even when faced with mountains of … Read more
People believe what they believe for cultural and emotional reasons and never for evidential reasons. They might indeed claim “evidence” and assert “evidence”, but examine it and … well no, none. What tends to happen is that we rationalise and stick on reasons later to explain the adherence to a specific position, sort of akin … Read more
Harriet Hall, the skeptic-doc, writes over on Science Based Medicine a fabulous article all about why people ignore the facts and instead buy into absurd ideas when it comes to making decisions that can potentially be the wrong side of the line between life and death. (Side note: she is a fascinating person, not only is she … Read more