Skepticism

By Olga Khazan In the early ‘90s, a New Zealand man named Neil Fleming decided to sort through something that had puzzled him during his time monitoring classrooms as a school inspector. In the course of watching 9,000 different classes, he noticed that only some teachers were able to reach each and every one of their students. What …

By Stoyan Zaimov Young Earth Creationist and Answers in Genesis President Ken Ham has slammed an article by a Christian geologist who has listed 21 reasons why he thinks Noah’s worldwide flood account in the Bible never happened. Ham said Monday on Facebook that the article, “Twenty-One Reasons Noah’s Worldwide Flood Never Happened,” is “sad,” because it’s not only …

By John Wenz Some astronomers are questioning the existence of what might be the most Earth-like planet yet found outside the solar system, based on a reexamination of archival data. Kepler 452 b was discovered by NASA’s Kepler space telescope and announced in 2015. At the time it seemed like everything astronomers had hoped for in an …

By Steven Novella Savvy consumers have learned over the years that the primary goal of marketing is to create demand for a product or service. This has risen to the point of inventing problems that do not really exist just to sell a product that addresses the fake problem. Who knew that my social status …

By Rafi Letzter A popular YouTube channel that peddles conspiracy theories is trying to convince viewers that photos of an avalanche on an island near Antarctica depict an alien spaceship crash site. In a video posted to the channel SecureTeam10, a narrator claims that an image of South Georgia Island taken from Google Earth shows the …

By Dan Ferber Days after President Donald Trump took office, his spokeswoman Kellyanne Conway coined a term that ricocheted around the world. Chuck Todd, host of NBC’s Meet the Press, confronted her about an overinflated White House estimate of the crowd size at the president’s inauguration. “Don’t be so overly dramatic about it, Chuck,” she shot …

By Kurt Andersen Forty-eight hours ago, after watching Oprah Winfrey give a terrific, rousing feminist speech on an awards show, millions of Americans instantly, giddily decided that the ideal 2020 Democratic nominee had appeared. An extremely rich and famous and exciting star and impresario—but one who seems intelligent and wise and kind, the non–Bizarro World version …

By The Wire Staff Five hours into the all-India strike called by the Indian Medical Association (IMA), the Bill they were protesting was sent to a standing committee. The National Medical Commission Bill, 2017, was introduced in the Lok Sabha by health minister J.P. Nadda on December 29, 2017. It came up for discussion today. But the …

By Mitch Daniels Of the several claims of “anti-science” that clutter our national debates these days, none can be more flagrantly clear than the campaign against modern agricultural technology, most specifically the use of molecular techniques to create genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Here, there are no credibly conflicting studies, no arguments about the validity of …

By Rafi Letzter The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced Dec. 18 that it plans to crack down on dangerous or dishonestly advertised homeopathic products — a class of products that sellers claim treat diseases by delivering extremely diluted traces of the substances that cause those diseases in the first place. If certain homeopathic remedies become more …

By Kristen V. Brown Gwyneth, watch out. On Monday, the Food and Drug Administration announced plans to crack down on so-called “homeopathic remedies”—treatments that due to agency enforcement policy have managed to avoid regulatory oversight. But no more, says the agency. Many of those products, it said in a statement, aren’t just herbal tea cures for a sore throat. They’re …

By Stuart Vyse Let us stipulate that there is no magic. Sleight-of-hand, deception, illusion, and conjuring, yes, but no “real” magic. On this, most science-minded people agree. But when it comes to superstition, there has always been an additional, less obvious question. Of course, superstitions do not have a magical effect on the world, but do …