Ramblings of an Armchair Skeptic

This is what I imagine pitchfork wielding farmers are yelling into the sky after waking to find that their wheat fields have been vandalized by unearthly visitors. Crop circles first began appearing in the media in the mid 1970's when crude circles were found in farmer's fields in Southern England. These circles were a mystery until Doug Bower and Dave Chorley admitted to making the circles as a hoax. Since then, circles and other increasingly complex designs have been mysteriously forming all over the world. But is it so mysterious? There are those that study this phenomena and claim that the circles are being made by aliens wishing to send us messages. These people are called "cereologists” (after Ceres, the Roman goddess of vegetation). They have yet to provide any credible evidence for their claims. It's pretty self evident though that crop circles are man-made. Joe Nickell has done extensive studies and had the brilliant idea of creating a timeline and graph of al...

Look out! Modern medicine is trying to kill you. That's right. Every nurse, doctor and scientist is out for nothing but your blood and money. You'd best not catch a cough because I've heard that Nyquil is laced with toxins that enables the government to plant suggestions in your mind while you sleep. Big pharma is evil and is busy with over medicating the earth's inhabitants so they can keep making billions of dollars. So what's an uneducated public to do? It's okay. Don't panic. There are people out there who care about you and have the answers that big pharma and the government don't want you to know about. People like me who know about ancient cures. Cures that could potentially rid the world of such evils as cancer, autism and bad hair days. Like the natural cure for tummy aches which is as simple as rubbing a mixture of pig poop, cumin and peppermint tea on your stomach under a full moon whilst humming "Girl From Ipanema." Shhhhh. THEY don...

As you know, UFO is an acronym for Unidentified Flying Object. This simply means that you don’t know what the thing in the sky is. The key words here being “don’t know”. This is when a lot of people fall for the ad ignorantium fallacy which is the argument from ignorance and simply put means that you don’t know what it is therefore you do know what it is. That’s when you say “I can’t identify the thing in the sky, so therefore it must be an alien spaceship.” Wrong. You don’t what it is so therefore you don’t know what it is. Get it? Good because I’m getting repetitive. It might be an alien spaceship but it could also be (and likely is) many other things. Planes, clouds, earthly lights, stars, balloons, satellites, birds, etc. Many sightings and pictures have simply been the work of industrious hoaxers. I want to talk about a recent hoax that took place in Morristown , New Jersey on January 5, 2009. Joe Ruddy and Chris Russo decided to conduct a little social experiment. They wanted ...

Back in 1979 board chairman of McDonnell-Douglas aircraft, James S McDonnell, gave a $500,000.00 grant to Washington University. Thus was established the McDonnell Laboratory for Psychical Research. This laboratory was to be headed up by physics professor Peter R. Phillips who already had a strong background in parapsychology. When James Randi heard of this, he immediately got the idea of testing some hypotheses. He was certain that the testers chosen could be fooled by a conjurer placed in the lab under the guise of being psychical gifted. Randi sent Phillips a list of caveats that he urged the professor to heed. Amongst these was the very important rule of not letting the subjects run the experiments by changing the protocols along with other suggestions that Randi has found to be a good way to rule out those who are using subterfuge to feign supernatural powers. James Randi is after all a gifted magician and conjurer and knows very well the ways of trickery. These rules were dismiss...

In 1988 Australia a phenomenon called channeling was becoming very popular indeed. Channeling is when an ancient spirit decides to enter a human body and speak through them. This is usually for the purpose of imparting some great wisdom that the spirit feels we need to know. It looks like a painful process and involves much writhing and speaking as if one just had good swift kick in the nether regions. Australia's channel 9 decided that things were getting a bit out of hand and thought they might be able to find a way to encourage some critical thinking in the populace. They contacted James Randi for some ideas and Carlos was born. Randi enlisted 19 year old Jose Luis Alvarez to play the part of a channeler who was being possessed by a 1000 year old spirit by the name of Carlos. Jose would give free performances to packed theatres. He spouted spiritual teachings and extolled the various powers of crystals. People lapped it up and worshipped the wise spirit and his nonsensical adv...

Many people I've talked to who believe in certain types of woo believe it because they have experienced something that they can't otherwise explain in natural ways. They tell me that I will believe once it happens to me. They were there, they saw it with their own eyes and that is all the proof they need. Well I'm sorry to break it to them but people are unfortunately frighteningly easy to fool. For one thing, our memories are far more malleable then we would like to acknowledge. Professor Richard Wiseman describes a memory manipulation test in his book "Quirkology" which involved showing adults several pictures of themselves as children. Two of the pictures were real but a third was a doctored photo of an event (a hot air balloon ride) that never happened. The participants were asked to describe the events in the photos and after awhile half of them were able to describe the day the hot air balloon ride took place. Many in great detail. We also routinely engage ...

I will tell you a story. Once upon a time, because all good stories start with once upon a time, little Susie came home from school crying. She clung to her mother and sobbed. "What's wrong darling?" her mother asked. "Oh momma (sob) it's awful (sob) Mr. Jones told us today that dinosaurs were alive like (sob) 250 million years ago!" "Oh dear." says Susie's mother. Susie is so upset that she can barely continue "But you, Daddy and Pastor John always say that the whole world was made by God 6000 years ago!!!" (SOB) So what's a distraught parent to do? Aside from assuring Susie that all of science is wrong that is? Well, the Alberta government has provided that solution in the form of Bill 44 . Litigate! That's right, parents can now bring teachers in front of the Human Rights Commission when they make the mistake of saying something in the classroom that goes against their beliefs. Schools have always had their own opt-out ...