According to the description of this YouTube video, three researchers at the Cornell Creative Machines Lab hooked together two “chatbots” (chatterbots), each of which is programmed to respond to humans by engaging in conversation. What happens when they give each other input? They produce theology!  Check out what happens 50 seconds into this short video: Bot [...]

From Why Evolution Is True
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2011/08/31/robot-theology/
9/1/2011 2:37:56 AM
Search rank: 412

Born of the imagination of German Doctor Samuel Hahnemann in the late 1700's, the practice of homeopathy is based on Hahnemann's set of three "natural laws". The first, "The Law of Similars" is the belief that like cures like. This means that practitioners are meant to treat a patient's ailment using a substance which causes the same symptoms in a healthy person. In other words, if a patient has a headache, then giving them something that causes headaches will naturally cure them. Like all of his laws Hahnemann [...]

From The Godless Geek Blog
http://godlessgeekblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/homeopathy-and-waters-selective-memory.html
2/14/2011 8:54:00 AM
Search rank: 360

I recently had a friend defending "natural remedies" and homeopathy when I started to explain to her how homeopathic "medicine" is actually made. She called bullshit, but when I linked her to various (pro-homeopathy) sites which break down the process she started laughing at how ridiculous it all is. It made me realize that a lot of users really have no idea about what is meant by, "The Law of Similars" or a 6C solution. I mean I suppose it sounds sciencey enough to the lay person.

So here's my thought! Let's make videos of us creating our own, at home, homeopathic solutions. Walk the viewer through every step of the dilution process to show how any active ingredient effectively disappears. For bonus points - eat the the original active ingredient!

I'm thinking something like a sleep aid, we can chew on the unused

From Skeptic's Subreddit
http://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/r5bmm/so_i_think_its_time_we_all_give_this_homeopathy/
3/21/2012 4:23:24 AM
Search rank: 346

This is a repost of my article in the Leicester Mercury. I wanted to repost it here so I could fix the messed up text. When they copied and pasted it they lost all the formatting and most importantly the scientific notation. I've fixed it below.
“Trust Boots” is the tagline that has been offered by the high street pharmacist since 2005. According to Boots’ 2006 Corporate Responsibility Strategy, “Everything we do that builds trust is good for our business; anything which could compromise it, a risk we can't afford to take.” So have Boots shown themselves to be worthy of our trust?

On the shelves of their pharmacy on Gallowtree Gate in [...]

From Adventures in nonsense
http://adventuresinnonsense.blogspot.com/2009/12/trust-boots.html
12/11/2009 3:45:00 PM
Search rank: 337

In response to the CBC Marketplace story "Cure or Con" that investigated Homeopathy, the Toronto School of Homeopathic 'Medicine' posted a blog entry yesterday.  (I don't have time to respond to it right now but I wanted to capture it for a number of reasons - not the least of which the scary promotion of Homeopathy instead of vaccines.)  Following the video (the actual show they are responding to) is their response.

From Small Town Skepticism
http://sarniaskeptic.blogspot.com/2011/01/toronto-school-of-homeopathic-medicine.html
1/19/2011 6:22:00 AM
Search rank: 330

quack, quack.



via susi's soap box.copyright © 2011 toomanytribbles. this feed is for personal non-commercial use only. mirrored at wordpress

From toomanytribbles
http://toomanytribbles.blogspot.com/2011/04/shake-sillies-out.html
4/2/2011 8:19:00 PM
Search rank: 329

Chicago Skeptics

All YouTube all the time! Have a favorite skeptical YouTube video? An elegant elucidation of a scientific topic? Some clever take-down of pseudoscience? A funny take on irrationality? A video with creative insight into thoughtfulness? A shake-weight video that has nothing to do with skepticism but really cracks you up? May's Skeptical Salon will be participant driven. E-mail me with the online videos you think everyone should/would want to see...we'll show as many as we can allowing time for peanut gallery comments!

Chicago, IL 60605 - USA

Thursday, May 26 at 7:30 PM

Attending: 10

Details: http://www.meetup.com/Chicago-Skeptics/events/18219501/

From Skeptics upcoming events
http://www.meetup.com/Chicago-Skeptics/events/18219501/
5/16/2011 11:17:47 PM
Search rank: 322

Tsunami Wave
from National Geographic Earthquakes occur all the time; look at the USGS list of [...]

From Scientifica Phenomena
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scientificanews/~3/M7uJbjyTg1o/dynamic-earth-earthquakes-tsunamis.html
3/17/2011 7:04:00 AM
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• Gregory S. Paul: Labeled religion's "public enemy #1" by MSNBC, Greg Paul is a freelance author and researcher about the effect of religion on [...]

  From The Atheist Experience
  http://atheistexperience.blogspot.com/2010/11/more-secular-morality-videos-follow-up.html
  11/27/2010 9:52:00 AM
  Search rank: 321

  

I've heard a lot about this homeopathy stuff. It's for sale in almost every pharmacy here in Paris, but just what is it? Is it effective? Must be if it's for sale in a pharmacy, right?

Let's take a look at how the British Society of Homeopaths describes it - from the horses mouth, as it were. Here's their "what is" page:

http://www.homeopathy-soh.org/about-homeopathy/what-is-homeopathy/

From Science, Technology and Other Cool Stuff
http://staocs.blogspot.com/feeds/5303874951609143711/comments/default
1/21/2010 12:28:00 AM
Search rank: 320

I've heard a lot about this homeopathy stuff. It's for sale in almost every pharmacy here in Paris, but just what is it? Is it effective? Must be if it's for sale in a pharmacy, right?

Let's take a look at how the British Society of Homeopaths describes it - from the horses mouth, as it were. Here's their "what is" page:

http://www.homeopathy-soh.org/about-homeopathy/what-is-homeopathy/

From Science, Technology and Other Cool Stuff
http://staocs.blogspot.com/feeds/413434574205305390/comments/default
1/21/2010 1:05:00 AM
Search rank: 320

I've heard a lot about this homeopathy stuff. It's for sale in almost every pharmacy here in Paris, but just what is it? Is it effective? Must be if it's for sale in a pharmacy, right?

Let's take a look at how the British Society of Homeopaths describes it - from the horses mouth, as it were. Here's their "what is" page:

http://www.homeopathy-soh.org/about-homeopathy/what-is-homeopathy/

From Science, Technology and Other Cool Stuff
http://staocs.blogspot.com/2010/01/what-is-homeopathy_20.html
1/21/2010 1:05:00 AM
Search rank: 320

My Blog post of Feb. 3 contains my initial comments upon seeing the sequence of videos of 'balls of light' allegedly photographed over the Dome of the Rock, atop Jerusalem's Temple Mount. At that time, a hoax was strongly suspected, but not demonstrated, except in the case of the "Mississippi" close-up video, which uses a well-known photo as a background.. "Why bother?", the philosopher might ask. "The burden of proof is on the person making the claim. Unless it can be shown that there is practically no way such a video can be faked,  it doesn't prove anything, and so it doesn't need to be debunked." True enough, but when dealing with the public, it helps to be able to go from "this video proves nothing" to "this video is shown to be a hoax."



We can now state with great confidence that the original video, [...]

From Bad UFOs: Skepticism, UFOs, and The Universe
http://badufos.blogspot.com/2011/02/jerusalem-ufo-video-digital-processing.html
2/8/2011 8:35:00 AM
Search rank: 317

Hold on to your hats, ladies and gentlemen. Check out some highlights from last week on the Skepchick Network. Prepare to have your minds blown. Mad Art Lab Ow! My Brain! Ryan lets us in on an optical illusion that he just can’t shake. Say Anything Performed Reuschelles shares a skeptical poetry performance aimed at [...]

From Skepchick
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Skepchick/~3/elpx8YwwBVA/
9/20/2011 2:00:53 AM
Search rank: 314

No new news here, I've been out of town a lot in the past month.  Indeed after this weekend (which is the forseeable end of the travelling) I will have been out of town more nights than not since the 20th of June.

So I've been playing a lot of catch up on podcasts and news so this is a few days old.

The other day Global BC News aired this 193 seconds of imaginary health science.

Where do you begin with something like that?

This is just a mess.  I don't really know what is what in this news item, but it sounds as though what is happening is that actual stem-cell treatments were used.  (I don't know a lot of about stem-cell treatement, but I believe that injections in ligaments and [...]

From Confessions of an Asshole Skeptic
http://assholeskeptic.blogspot.com/2010/07/shame-on-pharmasave-shame-on-global-tv.html
7/31/2010 12:01:00 PM
Search rank: 314

Thank you, Barry, for doing the right thing. Screw you, Barry, for ever having considered doing the wrong thing. You’re the freaking Premier, Baz. Even making noises about nobbling the Solar Bonus Scheme shakes the earth under the solar and renewable energy industry. So far, O’Farrell is demonstrating all the political nous of a hand grenade in [...]

From mgk: Machine Gun Keyboard
http://machinegunkeyboard.com/?p=771
6/7/2011 5:52:14 PM
Search rank: 313

Play all videos (2)
March 13, 2011 on BBC One

From Atheist Media Blog
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AtheistMedia/~3/kc4Os5KZrkI/should-earthquake-shake-your-faith.html
3/18/2011 1:45:00 AM
Search rank: 312

Remember the Magic Eight Ball toy? You could ask it a question and shake it and a random answer would float up into a window: yes, no, maybe, definitely, etc. There is even a website where you can ask an Eight Ball questions online. I have been meaning to write about bogus electrodiagnostic machines for [...]

From Science-Based Medicine
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/13926/
7/5/2011 5:00:34 PM
Search rank: 312

Unsatisfied that she’s completely unable to police Australians’ sexual behaviours, sex-hating anti-porn activist Melinda Tankard-Reist has paid her local Dennis Denuto to send a threatening letter to the No Place For Sheep blog, shaking her rattle & wailing that if NPfS doesn’t delete all posts about MTR that she’ll sue for defamation: MTR threatens Sheep with [...]

From mgk: Machine Gun Keyboard
http://machinegunkeyboard.com/?p=776
1/16/2012 9:39:48 AM
Search rank: 312

Another implausible video showing UFOs has gone viral, spawning a  flurry of news stories in the major media.For example, the Daily Mail in London asks "Are aliens getting less camera shy? UFOs filmed above BBC building in London." The Huffington Post reports, "London UFOs: Multiple People Capture Odd Occurrence Over British City" (although not at the same place and time). Here is the video that started it all, posted by a photographer known only as alymc01:



One has to admit that this [...]

From Bad UFOs: Skepticism, UFOs, and The Universe
http://badufos.blogspot.com/2011/06/ufo-mothership-fleet-over-london.html
7/1/2011 5:07:00 AM
Search rank: 310

I love biking, especially in Boulder. There are trails everywhere, and lots of fun wildlife. Whenever I’m out I see hawks, prairie dogs, red winged blackbirds, rabbits, and more. Sometimes even owls.

What I did not expect to see the other day, however, was a big ol’ turtle lumbering across the bike path! [Click the picture to testudinate.] For scale, I’d guess his (hers? Who can tell?) shell was about 30 cm across. He was trying to get to a creek off the path, I think, when I got this shot.

I switched to video on my camera, and happened to catch [...]

From Bad Astronomy
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BadAstronomyBlog/~3/RtZszac1fgc/
6/11/2011 10:38:43 PM
Search rank: 306

From The Rational Ape
http://www.rationalape.com/2010/11/machines-mourn-passing-of-people.html
11/9/2010 4:28:00 AM
Search rank: 304

You knew the religious folk were going to look at the disaster in Japan and start pointing fingers. This time, though, it wasn't the fault of gays and lesbians, nor was it the sight of jiggling breasts…no, this time, it was the atheists' fault.

Senior pastor Cho Yong-gi of Yoido Full Gospel Church, the largest Christian church in the world, has faced vicious public condemnation as he called the catastrophic Japanese quakes and tsunamis "God's warnings."

"I fear that this disaster may be warnings from God against the Japanese people's atheism and materialism," an online Christian press quoted the elderly religious leader as saying Saturday.

Wow, I feel almost as powerful as an exposed nipple now.

But wait. We may not be able to take credit for this one. Someone else has stepped forward to shoulder the blame: American [...]

From Pharyngula
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/pharyngula/~3/8IAvNArvMXk/it_was_all_our_faultor_was_it.php
3/15/2011 9:39:00 AM
Search rank: 303

I'm crushed, absolutely crushed. What'll I do now, without my very own personal GODJESUS to guide me in making major life decisions?


From Salaryman's video:

From Uzza's Notes
http://uzzas.blogspot.com/2010/12/i-didnt-get-one-of-these-for-christmas.html
12/27/2010 2:06:00 AM
Search rank: 303

When is a sugar pill deadly? When it is substituted for real medicine, the Japanese public has come to understand.

The Japanese government is investigating numerous deaths that occurred over the past year resulting from the practice of homeopathy, which has been growing in popularity, particularly among midwives. Several lawsuits are pending.

Deaths include a 2-month-old baby girl born with a vitamin K deficiency, whose mother's midwife administered a homeopathic treatment instead of the much-needed vitamin K injection, well-known to prevent hemorrhaging. The infant died from bleeding in the skull.

As more cases surface, the nation's top science group, the Science Council of Japan, has weighed in, with its president, Ichiro Kanazawa, stating at a press conference on Aug. 24 that "homeopathy's therapeutic value has been scientifically and utterly disproved." Homeopathy treatments are nothing more than sugar pills, he said.

Japan may soon join [...]

From RichardDawkins.net - All Aggregated News Content
http://richarddawkins.net/articles/509241-homeopathy-shake-up-goes-global
9/2/2010 1:08:02 AM
Search rank: 302