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POPSDistinguishing Science and Pseudoscience # Penetrating political systems, it justifies atrocities in the name of racial purity # Penetrating the educational system, it can drive out science and sensibility; # In the field of health, it dooms thousands to unnecessary death or suffering # Penetrating religion, it generates fanaticism, intolerance, and holy war # Penetrating the communications media, it can make it difficult for voters to obtain factual information on important public issues
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POPS"If science knew all the answers, it would stop" Hilarious pro-science, anti-flimflam rant by Irish comedian Dara O' Briain (sorry, I'm too lazy to pull out the character map for the diacritical mark), who happens to have a little bit of a scientific background.
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POPSFundamentalist Religion makes you stupid It is profoundly ironic that the doctrine rejected a century ago by such prominent fundamentalists as William Jennings Bryan is now central to the economic thinking of the Christian right. Modern fundamentalists reject the science of Darwinian evolution and accept the pseudoscience of social Darwinism . But there were other, more powerful, reasons for the intellectual isolation of the fundamentalists. The US is peculiar in devolving the control of education to local authorities. Teaching in the southern states was dominated by the views of an ignorant aristocracy of planters, and a great educational gulf opened up. "In the south", Jacoby writes, "what can only be described as an intellectual blockade was imposed in order to keep out any ideas that might threaten the social order."
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POPS125 Fake Cancer 'Cures' You Should Avoid I only clipped the names of the persons/corporations responsible. Watch out for these. See source for the complete list. The products contain ingredients such as bloodroot, shark cartilage, coral calcium, cesium, ellagic acid, Cat's Claw, an herbal tea called Essiac, and mushroom varieties such as Agaricus Blazeii, Shitake, Maitake, and Reishi. These products claim to cure, treat, mitigate or prevent disease, and these products have not been shown to be safe and effective for their labeled conditions of use. Examples of fraudulent claims for these products include: * "Treats all forms of cancer" * "Causes cancer cells to commit suicide!" * "80% more effective than the world's number one cancer drug" * "Skin cancers disappear" * "Target cancer cells while leaving healthy cells alone" * "Shrinks malignant tumors" * "Avoid painful surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, or other conventional treatments"
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POPSJust When I Thought He was an Enlightened Person Just when I thought he was an enlightened person, he turns out to be a dingbat. Oh, well, I guess cleaning up a state's laws that supported cronyism and closed government--worse than any state in the nation had been--is no guarantee you won't turn out to be an intellectual Neanderthal.
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POPSQuackwatch (sm) There are dozens of categories. An exceptional source for health related information.
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POPSChild Homicide: When Prayer Fails Podcast with Shawn Peters, author of "When Prayer Fails: Faith Healing, Children and the Law" Also, Susan Jacoby, author of "The Age of American Unreason". And a host of others. Visit FFRF podcast page to find some very interesting people on freethought topics.
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POPSLeft Coast to Brainwash kids on Global Warming Pseudoscience The liberals at at it again. They don't stop at pandering to illegals, inmates, and minorities for their votes. Now they try to inject political pseudoscience (global warming scam) into elementary schools to brainwash our newest generations into liberalthink.for future votes.
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POPSYeah! I'm not a psychopath!!! I have serious doubts about such "tests" yet I found it very rewarding that I got it wrong. If you get it right it could mean that you're simply more creative than others.
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POPSWorld "Nut" Daily - Usual Tripe I literally laughed out loud after reading the above statement stating how D'Souza used "science" to refute Hitchens. The WND lives up to its reputation of dogma over intelligence by printing this drivel. The tired argument that D'Souza puts forth relies of the argument of improbability, the stock in trade of the ID/Creationist crowd. Although I expect some mouth breathers might find this so startlingly "scientific" cause it refers to numbers and other sciencey stuff that it'll go over big in the church pews. As far as people with even a rudimentary knowledge of science will discover that this is merely another pseudoscience attempt to refute evolution. It's been discredited in too many sources to list. But hey, it's the World Nut Daily. Enough said...
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POPSPoint of Inquiry podcasts
Point of Inquiry is the premiere podcast of the Center for Inquiry, drawing on CFI’s relationship with the leading minds of the day including Nobel Prize-winning scientists, public intellectuals, social critics and thinkers, and renowned entertainers. Each episode combines incisive interviews, features and commentary focusing on CFI’s issues: religion, human values and the borderlands of science. Point of Inquiry explores CFI’s three research areas: 1. Pseudoscience and the paranormal (Bigfoot, UFOs, psychics, communication with the dead, cryptozoology, etc.) 2. Alternative medicine (faith healing, homeopathy, “healing touch,” the efficacy of prayer, etc.) 3. Religion and secularism (church-state separation, the effects and proper role of religion in society, the future of secularism and nonbelief, etc.) Contributors to Point of Inquiry include Lauren Becker, Paul Kurtz, Benjamin Radford, Dawkins, Sam Harris, Joe Nickell, Barry Karr, Tom Flynn, David Koepsell, and many m
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POPSFake Acupuncture Just As Good Genomicist Steve Salzberg takes a jaded look at a study comparing real acupuncture, a "sham" procedure, and nothing as treatments for lower back pain. Basically, people feel better if you do *something*, but it's not clear it matters what.
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POPSMath: Gift from God or Work of Man?
The Rest Of the article. Religion in the Math Curriculum Consider first a Baptist school in Texas whose description of a geometry course begins: Students will examine the nature of God as they progress in their understanding of mathematics. Students will understand the absolute consistency of mathematical principles and know that God was the inventor of that consistency. They will see God's nature revealed in the order and precision they review foundational concepts while being able to demonstrate geometric thinking and spatial reasoning. The study of the basics of geometry through making and testing conjectures regarding mathematical and real-world patterns will allow the students to understand the absolute consistency of God as seen in the geometric principles he created. I wonder if the school teaches that non-Euclidean geometry is the work of the devil or at least of non-Christians. The Web site's account goes on like this for a while and then is followed by similar de
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