Man sees subtle victory in fight against Jehovah?s Witnesses
2009-05-26 16:51:00 The father of a girl who died after refusing blood transfusions, on the basis of un-biblical teachings by the Jehovah's Witnesses -- continues to battle the cult in court. Some legal scholars observing the case see what could be worrying setbacks for this legally aggressive sect accustomed to mobilizing the courts to block members from receiving life-saving transfusions
Illegal immigrants and quackery in California
2008-05-11 10:53:00 When they get ill, illegal immigrants in California turn to "traditional healers" for help, and for many of them that will be the last mistake they ever make. But that's not the only problem: Public health officials also worry that the lack of access to conventional care may contribute to the spread of communicable diseases. They warn that the rampant use of antibiotics, often without medical direction, may speed the development of resistant bacterial strains. It's another reason why illegal immigration, wherever in the world it happens, should be stopped. Source Kevin Sack, "Illegal Farm Workers Get Health Care in Shadows," The New York Times, May 10, 2008
By: Bad Thinking
Police probe suicide linked to Scientologists
2008-04-16 15:45:00 The daughter of a member of Norway's parliament committed suicide hours after she received what her family claims were "devastating" results from a personality test administered by the Church of Scientology. Police in France, where the young woman was studying, are investigating.
Gravity: A theory in crisis. Enter Intelligent Falling.
2008-04-15 16:21:00 Evangelical scientists refute gravity with new “Intelligent Falling” Theory. Request for equal time in schools has been made.
Scientology Psychobabble: The brain & mind according to Hubbard
2008-04-14 03:39:00 In this video, a Scientologist makes a number of apparently absurd and/or far-fetched L. Ron Hubbard-based claims. Firstly, he (i.e., the speaker; though “he” could just as easily refer to Hubbard, as this person is clearly well indoctrinated into Hubbard’s dogmatic cult of personality) claims that the function of the brain is to act as a shock absorber for the ...
Expelled promoters lie?Who woulda thought?
2008-04-06 19:37:00 John M. Lynch of ScienceBlogs blog Stranger Fruit was sent an email from the promoters of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed telling him that a local pre-screening of the crocumentary had been canceled. It was not canceled. Interestingly, the email about the “cancelation” was sent to only 29% of those who received the initial invitation, with ...
Medical high jinks leave Tom Cruise camp fuming
2008-04-04 14:55:00 Tom Cruise isn't getting any giggles from a new strain of medical marijuana being marketed as "Tom Cruise Purple." Meanwhile, a woman who has been identified as Cruise's former alternative-medicine consultant is due to stand trial in L.A.
Is Mainstream Science Dogmatic? (Repost from December)
2008-03-28 20:12:00 Given that the release of the crocumentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is right around the corner, and that its promotional team is showing the sorts of dogmatism that it is accusing the mainstream scientific community (or, “Big Science”) of (e.g., by expelling prominent critic, PZ Myers from a screening, attempting to bribe Christian schools to force their ...
Tomorrow: LIVE media tele-conference with Ben Stein and producers of Expell
2008-03-28 02:16:00 Here is a cut-and-paste from an email I just received: JOIN BEN STEIN TOMORROW, Friday, March 28 at 1:00 pm. PST for an exclusive, invitation-only LIVE press teleconference! Hear Ben Stein LIVE as he talks to you and other members of media, answering your questions about his upcoming, highly-controversial movie, EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed Hear why leaders like Dr. ...
PZ Myers EXPELLED from Expelled!?!?
2008-03-23 01:10:00 A number of blogs have already commented on this unsurprising bit of irony: the makers of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (an upcoming Intelligent Design/Creationist crocumentary attempting to cast mainstream science - and evolutionary science in particular - as a dogmatic and somewhat totalitarianesque regime, to misrepresent evolutionary biology and the research behind it, and to ...
Scientology site gets a facelift after protests
2008-03-20 07:30:00 The Church of Scientology lauches another PR campaign to try an rescue its damaged image. But information freely available elsewhere -- both online and offline -- puts the lie to its claims.
Expelled: No Intelligent Flying Spaghetti Monsters Allowed
2008-03-10 17:44:00 I’m mad. Flaming mad! I thought the scientific community was about academic freedom, following the evidence wherever it leads, and expelling dogmatism. That was until I saw this documentary preview. I was wrong. The scientific community that I had long trusted and respected has been usurped by Darwinist dogmatists. Richard Dawkins may be Darwin’s Rottweiler, ...
Canada: MP denies knowledge of endorsed organization?s ties to Scientology
2008-03-06 10:51:00 An organization that uses Scientology-related quackery gets an endorsement from a Canadian MP.
Scientology removes E-Meter auctions from eBay
2008-02-20 13:04:00 Scientology attempts to limit the secondary market for its E-Meters by yanking eBay auctions for the 'religious artifact.'
Video chronicle of Scientology scandals
2008-02-20 11:24:00 Here is a video which chronicles Scientology scandals. Scandals include infiltration of the IRS, going to extreme lengths to suppress critics, causation of deaths (including possible murders), exploitation of members, and so on.
Scientologist Fundamentalists
2008-02-20 10:41:00 Prepare to be stunned. I just finished watching a video on YouTube in which a camcorder-carrying critic of Scientology attempted to attend a Scientology street event and was not allowed in, despite the fact that the party was on a public street and there was a sign up indicating that all are welcome. The critic was ...
I just received a poem from Rapture Alert about Darwin?s alleged recantatio
2008-02-18 22:50:00 For those of you who haven’t heard of Rapture Alert, it’s a website dedicated to the anticipation of the rapture. One of the website’s fans or administrators just sent in a poem in response an earlier post on a Florida school board which had voted to oppose the teaching of evolution as fact. Take a ...
Exorcism on the rise in Europe
2008-02-13 19:13:00 MSNBC reports that exorcism - the church rite of expelling evil spirits from tortured souls - is making a comeback in Catholic regions of Europe. Last July, more than 300 exorcists gathered in Cezestochowa, Poland for the fourth International Congress of Exorcists. Polish Reverend Andrzej Trojanowski is currently planning the development of Europe’s only centre dedicated ...
GlaxoSmithKline occused of hiding information on suicide risk of Paxil
2008-02-07 09:22:00 Analysis of recently released internal GlaxoSmithKline memos and reports is suggesting that GSK had obscured data indicating that Paxil (paroxetine), a popular and profitable antidepressant medication, produces an eightfold increase in suicide risk. GSK is accused of having engaged in obviously illegitimate scientific practices in the analysis and presentation of data so as to not display ...
Florida legislators pushing for evolution to be taught as ?just a theory?
2008-02-07 02:36:00 Remember what I said about having to be a right-wing Christian nutter in order to be a public school administrator or council member in Florida? Well apparently it also applies to legislators in the state. Marc Caputo of the Miami Herald writes: Top state legislators say they’re ready to join the fight over putting the word ”evolution” in ...
Backlash: Proponents of Complementary & Alternative Medicine take issue wit
2008-02-05 23:39:00 During his recent visit to Toronto, Dr. David Colquhoun, Pharmacologist at University College London, appeared on CBC Radio’s Sunday Edition. As usual, he made many damning remarks about the validity of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM). Notably, Colquhoun asserts that an appropriate means of categorizing the different types of medicine is not scientific versus CAM, ...
Bill Dembski on who most needs to see the upcoming ID crocumentary, Expelle
2008-02-05 01:33:00 In yet another of his inane ramblings, Bill Dembski lies for Jesus once again. In an interview with the Southern Baptist TEXAN (so you know the reporter is gonna be asking the hard questions, right…) regarding the upcoming Intelligent Design-advocating Christian Right crocumentary, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, Dembski asserts that “those who most need to ...
Michael Schmidt-Salomon?s new anti-religion children?s book: A true embarra
2008-02-04 20:06:00 Michael Schmidt-Salomon and illustrator Helge Nyncke’s new children’s book Wo bitte geht’s zu Gott?, fraqte das kleine Ferkel (which roughly translates to How Do I Get to God, Asked the Small Piglet) currently holds top spot on Amazon in Germany. From what I have seen of it, it is also a boatload of disingenuous unreasonably ...
Sharia banking: Not unsecular, but deceitful to Muslims?
2008-01-28 17:41:00 I first heard of the introduction of sharia loan programs at North American banks this past summer. It didn’t bother me, and why should it have? It’s not like having sharia banking options is going to affect the options of others. It’s not like we are all going to have to engage in sharia banking. Some ...
Poll: Nearly 50 percent of Germans consider Tom Cruise dangerous due to his
2008-01-28 16:48:00 Founded in the United States in 1954 by science-fiction writer L Ron Hubbard, the Church of Scientology was officially recognised as a religion there nearly 20 years later. But it is often accused in Germany and other European countries, including Belgium, France and Greece, of exploiting its members financially.
National Post article on David Colquhoun
2008-01-28 05:40:00 Charles Lewis of the National Post caught up with David Colquhoun last week during the Royal Society member’s brief stop in Toronto. Colquhoun discusses his view that we are living in an age of Endarkenment; we have moved away from the honest, rational, open-minded and inquisitive ideals of the Enlightenment, and have come to increasingly purvey ...
David Calquhoun at the University of Toronto
2008-01-26 19:02:00 As was advertised ad nauseum on TFP over the past few weeks, Royal Society member and noted skeptic David Calquhoun spoke at the University of Toronto last night. Calquhoun’s presentation was this year’s main event of the University of Toronto Secular Alliance, and it was a great success.
Apparently I?m closed-minded and blindly enamoured with science. Maybe that
2008-01-26 17:59:00 A reader, Bill, writes: “Ron, you have made it abundantly obvious that you are as closed-minded and blindly enamoured with ?science? and attached to your beliefs as any christian that you attack on this blog. It?s pathetic. You ignore the strongest arguments against your view, criticize the stupidest possible reading of the Bible and ignore ...
Scientology opens church in York, UK
2008-01-26 13:38:00 The Church of Scientology Mission of York has opened at Matmer House in Hull Road - one of 14 Scientology "churches" now open in the UK.
Church of Scientology brings its anti-psychiatry exhibit to Kansas Capitol
2008-01-25 09:51:00 Consumer Alert: A front group for the Scientology cult is bringing its quackery to Kansas City -- demonstrating the hateful nature of the Church of Scientology.
Over 11,000 American Clergy oppose Intelligent Design
2008-01-23 21:10:00 Ken at Open Parachute reports on the Clergy Letter Project, an effort to collect signatures from American Clergy who oppose the teaching of Intelligent Design Creationism and schools and who ascent to evolutionary biology. Begun in Fall2004, as of the time of this writing the Clergy Letter Project has collected 11,147 signatures. Compare this to ...
Another Tom Cruise Scientology video surfaces
2008-01-19 11:37:00 Yet another Cruise Scientology video has surfaced. In this one, he's seen blasting psychiatrists and the Environmental Protection Agency while aggressively promoting a controversial detox program that Scientologists created for police and firefighters who worked at ground zero after the 9/11 terrorists attacks in New York.
More Scientology videos: The courses!
2008-01-18 23:56:00 The Altoona Atheist has posted a recently leaked set of Scientology course videos. Thus far, I’ve only watched the first of the series. It is an orientation video that inspires immediate confidence in Scientology and makes one deeply aware of the great existential costs of not taking advantage of this opportunity right now. Here’s how viewers ...
The ?Oppression? of Christians in America
2008-01-17 22:31:00 It’s become somewhat popular among hardline Christians in America to claim that they are being oppressed. “The scientific community is oppressing Intelligent Design” (which isn’t scientific, is based on no evidence, makes no predictions, and has been proven to be nothing more than Creationism in a cheap disguise, and was even rejected outside of the ...
Producers of Expelled trying to bribe Christian schools into encouraging, b
2008-01-17 19:04:00 Producers of the Intelligent Design propaganda film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed are trying to bribe Christian schools in America to facilitate or even force their students to go see their movie.
Romnifications and Romneyisms: Romneologisms
2008-01-17 01:33:00 About 4 weeks ago I coined the term Romneyism. I defined the term as “lies, hypocritical acts and statements, and other assortments of disingenuous bullshit emitted by Mitt Romney”. Apparently, and not unexpectedly, I am not the only one who has been so inspired by Romney’s Romneyisms as to propose additions to the lexicon. Another ...
Tom Cruise on Scientology: We are the way to happiness and the authorities
2008-01-15 16:44:00 Here’s how Tom Cruise describes Scientology on a Church promotional video: When you’re a Scientologist, and you drive by an accident, you know you have to do something about it, because you know you’re the only one who can really help. We are the authorities on getting people off drugs. We are the authorities on the ...
I?m in a bit of a bind? Should I dignify ID blog posts with critiques?
2008-01-12 09:20:00 As I point out frequently: Intelligent Design is an insult to human intelligence and is absolutely not science. It’s just, well, stupid. There are some highly visited ID proponent blogs out there. I visit them from time to time, though always on an empty stomach. Whenever I go, no matter how much I mentally prepare ...
Science in an Age of Endarkenment: Scientific Fraud, Quackery, Religion and
2008-01-11 23:38:00 On the evening of Friday January 28th the University of Toronto Secular Alliance, Freethought Association of Canada, Centre For Inquiry Ontario, and Skeptics Canada are teaming up with University College London professor, Royal Society member, and noted skeptic Dr. David Calquhoun to present Science in an Age of Endarkenment: Scientific Fraud, Quackery, Religion and University Politics ...
12 Florida county school boards pass anti-evolution resolutions
2008-01-11 09:59:00 The tally of Florida county school boards officially passing resolutions to not teach evolution as fact is now at 12! The panels of twelve Floridian school boards have just shown themselves to be made up primarily of ignorant deluded religious dogmatists who belong in the seats of a Biology class, not on a panel determining ...
Jack Rivall reviews the Intelligent Design Wedge Strategy to insert Christi
2008-01-11 06:45:00 Jack Rivall, a friend and fellow secular activist from North Dakota, recently reviewed the Intelligent Design Wedge Strategy to insert Christianity into the public Science classroom (and to create an illusion of scientific respectability). Briefly, the Wedge Strategy is a coordinated long term effort to convince the public that Inteligent Design, the notion that the universe and ...
The Natural Quackery Council
2008-01-07 17:37:00 A new Natural Healthcare Council has been established in Britain, in order to regulate practitioners of aromatherapy, homeopathy, and other "complementary" therapies. This is not a positive thing. Quackery is quackery and should be banned outright. If any "complementary" or "alternative" therapy or medicine has any real value (determined through scientific testing), it ceases to be alternative and becomes just medicine. So there is no alternative medicine, just real medicine or quackery. As one of the commenters to the story says, "So now professional con artists are going to be regulated. What next, the Union of Bank Robbers? The Snake Oil Association?" Couldn't have put it better myself...
By: Bad Thinking
Manufacturers of the Q-Ray Bracelet are being sued for fraud
2008-01-05 02:01:00 The Q-Ray is being acknowledged for what it is: a fraud. And manufacturers are being sued. To see how they tried to squirm their way out of litigation—including an attempt to use the reality of placebo effects as an exculpatory excuse for their deceit—visit Larry Moran’s Sandwalk.
Rituals of quackery
2007-12-17 15:56:00 Everyone knows that professional athletes are superstitious (and therefore irrational), but this is just sad.
By: Bad Thinking
South African government urged to approve quackery
2007-12-06 15:46:00 The following is the kind of story that sometimes make you wonder if there is any hope at all for a better future for mankind. The willful ignorance and stupidity of these people, blindly striving like unthinking maggots to borrow back down into the primitive past of the Dark Ages, is vile, sickening, revolting, and dangerous. It puts the whole field of medicine and medical science in grave danger, threatening to undermine it completely so that there is no longer any difference between real science-based medicine on the one hand and the useless and utterly worthless quackery that is practiced by shameless charlatans, hucksters, scam artists, and snake oil peddlers on the other: Government needs to pay urgent attention to removing barriers that prevent traditional and complementary medicine practitioners from being reimbursed for services from medical aid schemes. This is according to researchers Nceba Gqaleni, Indres Moodley, Heidi Kruger, Abigail Ntuli and Heather McLeod writing i...
By: Bad Thinking
FDA Quackery Continues Despite Small Progress
2007-11-21 22:57:00 Found a fascinating article on cough medicine and kids over at the American Chronicle- Another example of outright quackery by pharmaceutical companies has finally gathered enough steam to achieve mainstream news coverage: Cold medicines are useless, say pediatricians who petitioned the FDA to ban the marketing of such products to children. Last month, an FDA ...
By: Philaahzophy
Utah Foots the Bill for Ailing Cops? Controversial Scientology-Based Detox
2007-11-21 18:54:00 A controversial Church of Scientology treatment used on World Trade Center emergency responders is being used in Utah to "detoxify" cops who raided methamphetamine labs in the 1980s and 1990s.
Meth cops swear they can sweat off toxins (Scientology Quackery)
2007-11-08 12:23:00 Utah officers undergo Scientology treatment at taxpayers expense; experts leery.
FADE AntiDrug Quackery Exposed
2007-11-02 10:20:00 Linguistic analyis of websites designed to expose medical quackery rates MildGreens.Blogspot up there with the British Medical Journal [BMJ]. However a test of the anti-drug foundation FADE site finds some revealing insight....Web site titled ' FADE Homepage Alcohol & Drug Info Methamphetamine (P) 'This web site is heavily laden with loosely defined terms and possibly pseudoscientific language. It is heavily using scientific jargon and may be doing this to bamboozle. However, it shows some possibility of critical thinking - but proceed with care. It also looks like this site is trying to sell stuff. Buyer Beware!Check out the Quackometer yourself... or test your favorite pseudoscience site! Blair Andersonhttp://mildgreens.blogs-pot.com
Quackery from the Podium
2007-10-07 22:06:00 by Paul J. Balles What you see and hear depends a good deal on where you are standing; it also depends on what sort of person you are. - C S LewisSpeaking on September 25th, 2007, George W. Bush, the president who squanders the riches of his country on invasions and occupations, lectured the United Nations General Assembly, saying: This great institution must work for great purposes — to free people from tyranny and violence, hunger and disease, illiteracy and ignorance, and poverty and despair... Look closely at those coupled bits of presidential quackery in disguise: "Free people from tyranny and violence"? What greater tyranny than the murderous occupation of Iraq by the US and the brutal terrorizing of Gaza and the West Bank by US taxpayer-supported Israeli Defence Force? Since June 1, 2007, 18 Palestinians from Gaza under the age of 19 have been killed by Israeli fire of some kind: seven under the age of 15, not counting a year-old baby who d... |
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