Skeptics Unite!

People are deathly afraid of earthquakes, yet the odds you'll die in one are less than the odds of getting hit by lightning or dying of snakebite. The REAL dangerous natural events would surprise you!

Chiropractors and naturopaths would like to be your primary care physician. They are tirelessly lobbying to expand their scope of practice, with the goal of achieving full parity with actual physicians. This would be an unmitigated disaster, for reasons I will detail below. Oregon is setting up coordinated care organizations to help promote improved care [...]

The votes are in, and Vulcan won the naming contest for Pluto’s P4 moon. Pluto’s two newest moons, currently named P4 and P5, were discovered in 2011 and 2012 by a team led by SETI chief scientist Dr. Mark Showalter. Such discoverers have the right to recommend names to the International Astronomical Union, who then [...]

Creationists deny that ANY of our DNA could be non-functional, leftover junk that has no selective effect. But the overwhelming evidence has long been against this notion that no real biologist takes seriously, and a new study drives this home even further.

As movements grow, internal conflict becomes inevitable. A movement dedicated to reason, thoughtful introspection, and putting logic above emotion, one would think, should be able to deal with such conflict in a constructive way. If the events of the last couple of years have taught us anything, however, it is that we are all still [...]

Considering all the recent fun involving asteroids and meteors, I thought it would apropos to show a visual history of major impact structures around the world to answer the question: Are we “due”? In fact, we’re never due, in the same way a die is never due to roll a three. So in the same [...]

Last week's coincidence of a close pass by an asteroid and a meteorite impact in Russia has led to all sorts of bizarre conspiracy thinking, New Age woo, and just plain bad journalism

Genetically modified (GM) crops are the target of significant worldwide controversy, to the greatest extent in Europe but also in the US and elsewhere. Are the concerns over GM crops justified by the science? What is the proper balance between the precautionary principle and making potentially improved crops available to a hungry world? GM “golden [...]

Daniel Loxton offers a few quick thoughts about the release yesterday of Ketchum’s Bigfoot DNA paper.

Most of us are familiar with the Stroop Test. The subject is shown a series of words, each of which is written in a different color. The only task is to say what color the word is. What’s so hard about that? Well, nothing; it would be easy, except that each word is the name [...]

The principles of naming new species of animals may seem like tedious legal work, but it can be fun—and sometimes you get to honor people as well with a new species named after them.

In response to Massimo Pigliucci’s criticism of Michael Shermer’s Edge.org piece called “The Is-Ought Fallacy of Science and Morality,” Shermer clarifies his argument for a scientific foundation of moral principles with new definitions and examples where we can employ science to derive findings that show how various social, political, and economic conditions lead to an increase or decrease of the survival and flourishing of individuals.

As a follow up to my post last week on feathered dinosaurs, I received this question over e-mail: How would a creature get feathers in the first place? I figure there would be some intermediary stages between no feathers and fully feathered, but what would these stages possibly be? No other family of species seems [...]

Daniel Loxton announces the release of his two-chapter explorationinto the roots, founding principles, and purpose of scientific skepticism, Why Is There a Skeptical Movement?

It’s no secret that I’m not a giant fan of CNN.com’s science reporting, especially in recent years. But when I happened upon this story by chef Virginia Willis on CNN.com’s “Eatocracy” section, I felt that it went a little too far over the line of rhetoric trumping responsible reporting, and deserved some response. Here are the two [...]

So the latest survey ranks as "least stressful career" the life of a professor? Not according to what I've experienced, or to most faculty I know!