All posts filed under: Secular

Atheism

Remembering Our First Principles | Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science

Published by Sam

From the Richard Dawkins Foundation Newsletter. Subscribe here. Hello! It has been a very busy past few weeks, beginning with CSICon 2023 in Las Vegas and followed by a series of engagements with Richard Dawkins throughout the West Coast. I had the honor of introducing Richard for his keynote presentation at CSICon; I shared some of the history of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science and its two-fold mission: teaching the value of science and advancing secularism. It was a welcome opportunity to reflect on the importance of those paired objectives, especially since the past few weeks have also seen a series of surveys released that show just how vital those objectives remain here in the United States. We’ll look at new polling data from Pew Research that shows a steep decline over the past few years in Americans’ faith in science as a force for good, as well as a recent study that shows a sizeable percentage of Americans still believe in biblical creationism (or it’s watered-down version, “intelligent design”). That study also …

The Rorschach Inkblot Test: We See an Unsinkable Rubber Ducky

Published by Sam

Editor’s Note: In August 2023, the Daily Mail ran a story titled “Inkblot Test Will Reveal If You’re Unable to Move on from the Past and Ever Be Happy,” indicating that the test “can be used to reveal info about your personality.” This story was based on a video from a TikTok content creator and psychology student who was pulling from the book The Body Keeps the Score. That book will be the focus of future content in Skeptical Inquirer, but for now we share an article that critiques the Rorschach Inkblot Test. This article was written prior to the publication of the story in the Daily Mail, but it sheds light on the accuracy of the claims within. The Rorschach Inkblot Test was developed more than a century ago by Hermann Rorschach, a Swiss psychiatrist who worked with patients with severe mental illness in a hospital for the “insane” (Searls 2017). Rorschach created a set of odd, intriguing inkblots, with some pastel colored and others gray and white. He then showed the blots to …

Inoculating Students against Misinformation by Having Them Create It

Published by Sam

We are drowning in misinformation. From wellness influencers making wildly inaccurate and baseless nutrition claims to fringe medical “professionals” selling pseudoscientific “treatments” online to conspiracy theorists enticing followers down the rabbit hole on YouTube, it’s nearly impossible to avoid exposure. The spread of misinformation has gotten so out-of-control that experts are calling it an “infodemic.” I teach a general-education science course designed to teach skills, not facts (Trecek-King 2022a). The three skills—critical thinking, information literacy, and science literacy—equip students with the ability to find reliable information, draw evidence-based conclusions, and ultimately make wiser decisions. These skills aren’t easy to teach, so with some trial and error (and endless iterations), I landed upon a few useful strategies. First, I provide students with a structured toolkit to help them evaluate claims and provide ample opportunities to practice (Trecek-King 2022b). Second, I present students with a variety of examples of pseudoscience and science denial to underscore important characteristics of science. And finally, I use many active and technique-based inoculation exercises in which students learn the strategies used to …

Communities of Inquiry as a Tool to Foster Critical Thinking

Published by Sam

Critical thinking is widely regarded as one of the most important aims of education. Despite not being something new—we have great examples of critical thinking in action since at least the dialogues of Socrates—the literature on the topic was developed during the twentieth century. One of the pioneers of this effort was John Dewey. In How We Think, published originally in 1910 (with a second edition in 1933), Dewey argued in favor of the development of what he called “reflective thinking” at educational institutions. According to Dewey, reflective thinking involves “active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusions to which it tends” (Dewey 1933, 9)—a definition that would help other authors develop the concept of critical thinking some years later. Critical thinking is a term coined by Edward Glaser in 1941 (Dwyer 2017), developed and conceptually refined by authors such as Matthew Lipman, Robert Ennis, Harvey Siegel, Richard Paul, and Linda Elder. Lipman worked not only upon …

Adolf Hitler’s Personal Charlatan | Skeptical Inquirer

Published by Sam

For treating his numerous ailments, Adolf Hitler would have, of course, been able to consult Germany’s foremost medical experts of his time. For his personal doctor, however, Hitler chose a relatively poorly qualified, alternative physician of doubtful repute. Theodor Morell was born on July 22, 1886, as the second son of a schoolteacher in a small village in Hesse. After school, he trained and subsequently worked for one year as a schoolteacher. He then studied medicine in Heidelberg and briefly worked in Grenoble and Paris before commencing training in obstetrics and gynecology in Munich. Image credit: Sueddeutsche Zeitung Photo / Alamy Stock Photo By 1913, Morell was licensed as a medical practitioner and worked as a doctor for German cruise lines before buying a practice in Dietzenbach near Offenbach. During World War I, he served at the front and thereafter as a prison medical officer at Ohrduf. In January 1919, he moved to Berlin where, one year later, he married the wealthy actress Johanna Moller. Morell set about establishing a fashionable, unconventional practice where he …

Cambridge Disinformation Summit | Skeptical Inquirer

Published by Sam

Close to the end of the Cambridge Disinformation Summit,1 an audience member posed a conundrum: What about flat earth belief? People arrive at adulthood with it thoroughly “prebunked” at home and in school. It’s been thoroughly debunked, fact-checked, and disproven—yet some people still believe it. What’s up with that? British skeptic Michael Marshall2 could have helped answer this question; his talk “Circular Reasoning: The Rise of Flat Earth Belief”3 explains what he learned over several years of hanging with those believers. But that’s one case study, not a principle. In answering the question, Stephan Lewandowky, chair in cognitive psychology at the University of Bristol, explained it as an under-researched aspect of social media. Flat earth believers are spread so thinly in the general population that they could all go for years without meeting another one. But online they find each other, and suddenly there’s a community of 1,000 who can meet online every day. “The moment you have community, it becomes entrenched, and external debunking is part of the conspiracy,” Lewandowsky said. This, he added, …

Interview with Ruth Frazier | Skeptical Inquirer

Published by Sam

Kendrick Frazier was at the center of the modern skeptical movement from the beginning. Through the pages of Skeptical Inquirer, he shared his own wisdom, amplified the voices of notable science communicators, and introduced many new voices—one of which was mine in 2017 when he published my first magazine article. Without Ken, and without my subscription to this magazine, I would not be the skeptical inquirer that I am today. It’s clear from reading the tribute articles about Ken, and from my interactions with many of the people who knew him best, that a large number of people also feel that Ken changed their lives for the better. This issue of SI will reach many readers just as CSICon is beginning. During the conference, I’ll be particularly excited to see Ruth Frazier accept the Balles Prize on behalf of Ken. In the January/February 2023 SI issue, Ken wrote, “We have a wonderful family, led foremost by my wife of fifty-eight years, Ruth, who is one of the most dynamic, warm, loving, giving, competent women I …

Uri Geller Admits to Being Unethical (and Skeptics Agree)

Published by Sam

An evening with Uri Geller is an evening well spent. Not because this self-proclaimed “mystifier” and supposed possessor of paranormal powers will provide any mysteries or evidence of paranormal powers, but because it is a demonstration of just how far blind ambition for fame and fortune can get you—especially if you are loose in the ethics department. Fifty years after Uri Geller’s disastrous appearance on The Tonight Show, about 400 people—including me—braved the darkness of the Danish winter to watch him perform in a less-than-half-full Glass Hall at the Tivoli Gardens in central Copenhagen. The audience consisted mostly of people old enough to remember when he got his breakthrough in the early 1970s, though younger faces were also to be found. From the very start, it became excruciatingly clear what the performance was all about: It wasn’t Geller’s usual embarrassingly amateurish selection of tricks, served with what seemed like a rather scatterbrained approach; instead it was a carefully constructed misdirection to keep our attention away from the real action. The goal appeared to be to …

Should Scientists Debate the Undebatable?

Published by Sam

On June 20, 2023, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience, the most popular podcast in the world. Joe Rogan was a comedian, actor, host of the television program Fear Factor, and color commentator for the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Kennedy is a lawyer. What better pair to educate the public about vaccines, science, and medicine? The program was packed with dangerous and misleading information. For example: Kennedy said, “None of these vaccines are ever subjected to true placebo-controlled trials.” Most vaccines are tested in placebo-controlled trials before licensure. Perhaps the largest and most famous was that of Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine, where 420,000 first and second graders in the United States were inoculated with the vaccine and 200,000 were inoculated with a salt-water placebo. Sixteen children died from polio during that study—all in the placebo group. There are no risk-free choices.  Kennedy said that thimerosal, an ethylmercury-containing preservative in vaccines, was “horrendously toxic.” Western Europe removed thimerosal from childhood vaccines in the early 1990s, and the United States did in 2001. Thirteen studies have now shown …

Stuart Vyse Finishes Spectacular Tenure as Skeptical Inquirer’s Interim Editor

Published by Sam

With the devastating loss of Skeptical Inquirer’s beloved longtime editor Kendrick Frazier, the magazine needed someone to take over the role as interim editor. Stuart Vyse stepped up in a big way. With a master’s in English and a doctorate in psychology, Vyse taught at Connecticut College for most of his career. He’s published several books, including the award-winning Believing in Magic: The Psychology of Superstition and more recently The Uses of Delusion: Why It’s Not Always Rational to Be Rational. His words first appeared in SI in 1997 and later became a regular fixture through his “Behavior & Belief” column. A fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, Vyse also serves on its Executive Council. Vyse led the magazine through four issues, the first being a thoughtful tribute to Frazier (March/April 2023). Next, the magazine addressed “medical pseudoscience around the world” through a special issue with contributors from India, Hungary, Austria, and Germany. The cover story in his third issue tackled the “ideological subversion of science,” becoming one of the most widely read articles …