Dr. Mehmet Oz became a celebrity thanks to Oprah, and parlayed that into a popular daily television show, newspaper and magazine columns, and several best-selling books. The problem is that a lot of what he says is wrong. And that makes him dangerous. Julia Belluz and Steven J. Hoffman looked into some of the “miracle” […]
Nick Bilton of the NY Times has been on the FAA’s case regarding the use of electronic devices on airplanes, arguing there’s no reason we should have to shut off our iPhones, Kindles, and laptops during takeoff and landing because they pose no danger to the operation of the plane. Here’s an excerpt from his […]
In a piece for the New Statesman, Brian Cox and Robin Ince argue against politicians and others who mistake opinion for evidence and elevate it over scientific understanding and discovery… Climate science is one of a series of areas that, for primarily non-scientific reasons, has become controversial; and these controversies risk undermining confidence in the […]
From my Twitter feed… Tech Wow: the 1964 Aston Martin DB5 that James Bond resurrects in “Skyfall” was made with a 3D printer! A great piece on why (and how) you should be skeptical of [pseudo] scientific claims in TV ads and elsewhere.
One of the world’s great skeptics and humanists, Paul Kurtz, died last weekend at 86. Kurtz was a founder of CSICOP (the Committee for Scientific Investigation of Claims Of the Paranormal, which in the last few years has morphed into the Center For Inquiry), publisher of Skeptical Inquirer magazine, and started the independent publishing house Prometheus […]
James Randi writes about Mitt Romney’s vow in the first presidential debate to cut funding for PBS: I may feel particularly sensitive about Sesame Street because I was peripherally involved in its very first stages. When the series was first proposed in 1969, I was called in to perform a few tricks for the “pilot” […]