Showing posts with label skepticism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label skepticism. Show all posts

Sunday, July 14, 2013

On Ghosts and Hauntings (the hottest extra-curricular activity in the ghostiverse)

Poll a random group of one hundred people and you'll probably find at least thirty who believe in ghosts/spirits. A further ten of those people will likely believe in hauntings. I do not count myself a member of this group of people. There are just too many problems with the idea for me to subscribe to it (aside from the obvious lack of evidence). For one thing, this planet has been home to roughly a thousand trillion deaths over billions of years. Yes, billions, not six thousand. Sorry, Jesus freaks. Yet there seem to be maybe a hundred and twenty seven ghosts in existence and for some reason most of them lived in the Victorian era. Where are the Neanderthal ghosts? The Viking ghosts? Or more importantly, the dinosaur ghosts? I mean, what, only humans come back as ghosts? Humans from the Victorian era? If ghosts were real  they would be everywhere.

Not only would they be everywhere, if they had the ability to haunt life would be absolutely fucking unbearable because everything would be haunted.

Get it together people. You can rest easy tonight, okay? There are no ghost pterodactyls flying around your bed.

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Hey, Global Warming Deniers! We Need to Have a Little Chat!

For you Global Warming deniers out there, I have a few things to say to you:

-Be wary of any research coming out against GW/GCC/AGW/AGCC. Check where it's coming from. Is it peer reviewed, and published in an accredited scientific journal? Or is it not (careful too, as now people in the denier communities for both global warming and evolution are starting to catch on to this and are forming their own journals, and claiming to be accredited and peer reviewed, so always, always look the journal up if it's not instantly recognizable). There's a huge difference between a study published in Nature and one published in some no name journal with author publishing and no peer review. Or ones coming from a think tank. A think tank that, if you do a bit of digging, you will find out is funded by Exxon Mobil and Sean Hannity.

-Be very skeptical of anyone in the media speaking out against global warming, and listen carefully to their arguments/claims. If they are making any that aren't obviously fallacious upon first hearing/reading/seeing them (like Limbaugh's argument from incredulity) look them up. Also, look the person up. Find out who's funding them. Who they work for.

-If any scientists speak out against global warming, pay attention to what discipline of science they are experts in. When a biologist or a chemist expresses doubt about global warming, appealing to that in an argument is nothing but an appeal to authority. Their expertise is not in climatology. Being as smart as they may be, and knowing what they know about their area of science affords them NO special bonuses when it comes to climatology. They're just a layman like myself, and can easily be wrong.