Skeptic: Promoting Science and Critical Thinking

The unreal estate case of the haunted rental house has been put to rest. After this story went ALL OVER the media, (see related posts below for more), the matter was finally settled on a TV show, The People’s Court. How appropriate. The haunted claimants lose. ‘Haunted house’ couple loses on ‘People’s Court’ People’s Court:… more

More on the Toms River, New Jersey haunted rental house. Are renters spooked by ghost house? | The Asbury Park Press NJ | APP.com. …the family and Lopez [are] consider[ing] an offer to air their case on the television program “The People’s Court,” which has offered to cover all fees and judgments regardless of who… more

A look at the kind of thinking that determines how religious we are A new University of B.C. study suggests analytical thinking can be harmful to religious faith. The psychology report, published today in the prestigious journal Science, reveals that religious belief drops after subjects perform analytical tasks or are exposed to Rodin’s sculpture The… more

NewsJack launches to let you remix, edit news websites | Poynter.. [T]hanks to a new website launching today by two people at the MIT Media Lab, you can create your own spoof version of the Times or any other news website in a matter of minutes. No Photoshop skills required. No army of volunteers needed.… more

There is no #AntiAtheistCampaign on Twitter. It’s just a crackdown on spam. « Skeptical Software Tools. I happened to stumble across a few Tweets yesterday that contained the hashtag #AntiAtheistCampaign. Hashtags are often used to organize on Twitter. This appeared to be some people organizing against some sort of oppression against certain Twitter accounts. Was… more

Family flees house they say is haunted Just one week after Josue Chinchilla and Michele Callan moved into their new home in Toms River, the couple and her two children plodded into the lobby of a local hotel about 1:15 a.m. and asked for a room. As soon as the family had settled into the… more

The podcast Monster Talk - the science show about monsters – has a very interesting episode up that features an exclusive analysis of the Jacobs photos speculated by some to be a juvenile Bigfoot but to most others, show bear cubs and a mangy mother bear. Skeptic » Podcasts » MonsterTalk » Episode Notes for What… more

A contributor to the JREF (James Randi Educational Foundation) forum, a premier site for skeptical discussion, has posted a superb video detailing why the ghost hunter flashlight communication method appears to work. Turns out it is not paranormal at all. Just science. This is SO good. It’s what TESTING is all about. (Ghost hunters have… more

Michael Shermer’s speech given at the Reason Rally in Washington, D.C. on March 24, 2012: the world’s largest gathering of skeptics, atheists, humanists, nonbelievers, and “nones” (those who tick the “no religion” box on surveys).

Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online. Sometime over the last few days, the Skeptical Science website has been hacked. The hacker has taken much or all of the Skeptical Science database, zipped various excerpts into a single file, uploaded the file onto a Russian website then linked to the zip file from… more