The process of using critical thinking involves several steps. These steps work formally in experimental design and analysis, studying and mastering new concepts as we learn and in making decisions that people need to make in the various aspects of our lives. They also work informally and people process these steps often when we are not aware of them, nor even that we are following them.
Mike Haubrich on Critical Thinking, a propos Science Online 10
Is it true that
intellectual dishonesty would get anyone canned from a tenured university position.
Maybe. but being an unmitigated racist asshat is apparently not.
Some people say yes, some people say no. Either way, Glen Beck is a Racist Moron.
First, watch this:
Continue reading Is Negro a Derogatory Term?
Denailists have a repertoire of gambits they use to spread their denialism and make their points. They need these gambits because they otherwise lack facts, cred, usable theory, or any of the other good stuff that makes science, history, etc. work.
James Hrynyshyn has written a post about a publisher trying to pretend to be the victim of kool-aid drinking scientists, which is a ploy to increase sales of a dumb-ass AGW denialiist book. It is a very interesting development: The climate change boycott gambit
Sci Curious takes a poke at the recent G-spot research (which we discussed here) in this post: Friday Weird Science: the “reality” of the G Spot and the mainstream media. Sci reviews the actual, original research paper.
Ubuntu, Imma gonna let you be my operating system, but first, I gotta ask you to stop acting more like Windows with every new release. K?
Continue reading De-windowizing Ubuntu: Turning off the terminal close warning dialog box.
When I post about race, the racists show up and use my blog to spew their hokey science all over the place. There are reasons that I tolerate that to a certain extent, but there are limits. When a student shows up in a classroom and starts asking “innocent” questions of the teacher about “radiocarbon dating” and “transitional fossils” and such the teacher is being played by the student, who was likely trained (as it were) by some crazy yahoo parent or preacher. When AGW denialists show up on a science blog and start quoting from the famous stolen emails … same thing.
If such abuse of blog space or classroom time happens again and again and again, the person to whom it is happening has to be considered, eventually, a bit of a chump. As in “Charlie Brown is such a chump”
And by that, I mean…
Continue reading Don’t be anybody’s Charlie Brown
Happy New Year and welcome to this new “on-line journal” which will be a collection of essays. It will be sort of a continuation of thoughts from my book, “Don’t Be Such a Scientist: Talking Substance in an Age of Style.” In the essays, which will be roughly twice a week, I will be making reference to parts of the book from time to time.
Philipe Rushton, in his book Race, Evolution and Behavior, reports average brain size for the three races. The following is the graph from Rusthton’s book:
I put this post here for reference in a couple of conversations. The data are bogus and any conclusions that might be drawn from it are equally bogus.
Are you for a pro-gay marriage bill currently being considered in New Jersey or against it?
There’s a poll.
This is a tough one. PZ’ minions are making a dent but not enough. So I respectfully request all eleven of my readers to head over there and help out.
As you know, Heathrow is the world’s largest and busiest airport, second only to Schiphol in Amsterdam and JFK in New York. All three are eclipsed, of course, by O’Hare in Chicago and Minneapolis/Saint Paul airport in Bloomington, Minnesota.
You may remember this theory regarding the extinction of the dinosaurs:
Now, there’s this …
Continue reading New Theories of Noah’s Ark
George Bush and Barack Obama compared on the Terror Issue:
The Family is a fundamentalist group with thousands of members across the world (by their own admission) bent on inserting their religious perspective into national and global politics. It is documented (in part) in The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power
In recent weeks, Rachel Maddow has been documenting and exposing The Family’s role in developing and advancing legislation to systematically murder gays and their sympathizers in Uganda (the President of Uganda is a member of The Family). This exposure appears to have resulted in this powerful organization putting reverse pressure on Uganda. We expect to see further movement in this area. If things work out as they seem to be working out, a lot of people will have Rachel Maddow to thank.
Continue reading The Family: “You forced us to go public” with Ugandan Kill the Gay Bill Problem