I dedicate this entry to ciannait, who kindly brought the article discussed here to my attention, and who could probably use a laugh.

We all learned that it is important in scientific or scholarly writing to credit the authors of source material from which we have drawn information. There are other good reasons to cite references, however:
Citations to ( Read more... )

It wasn't until I'd been writing this 'blog for a couple of years that I opened it up to anonymous comments. I was afraid I'd be buried under an avalanche of irate comments from crazies who didn't like my opinions about religious fundamentalism and pseudoscience. Finally, I chose "Everybody" under "Enable Comments from:", and cringed in ( Read more... )

My sister-in-law recently requested an expert opinion on a e-mail she received from a co-worker. It was a typical quack sales pitch, jam packed with patently ridiculous claims of the miraculous powers of something called "alkaline water." Between the vague, unsupported claims and the perpetuation of myths ("By the time you feel thirst, the damage ( Read more... )

Joel Schlosberg has announced the Second Annual Carl Sagan Memorial Blog-a-thon. Although I'm not nearly well-versed enough in Dr. Sagan's works to pay proper homage, I would like to take just a moment to reflect on some of the most profound words I've ever had the privilege of reading. The following was penned by Dr. Sagan as he regarded an ( Read more... )

Long ago-in 1989, to be exact-the Evil Girlfiend* and I attended a public forum, in Salt Lake City where I lived at the time, on whether women should be allowed into the Mormon priesthood. It seemed rather moot to debate an issue on which only God can judge. Still, as recently as 1978 God had changed His omniscient mind on excluding Black males ( Read more... )

( Read more... )

In the October 1967 issue of Analog, editor John W. Campbell reprinted an amazing and disturbing preamble to a paper presented at the 1966 Peking Symposium on the physics of elementary particles, shortly after the beginning of Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution. I have reproduced it below, under the cut ( Read more... )

( Read more... )

I'd like to say a few breathless words about an astonishing new product that will energize your life, fine-tune your DNA and rejuvenate your very soul: Tesla Purple Energy Shield™!

( Danger: Unimaginable pseudoscientific nonsense ahead... )

The last couple days have seen my colleague and me scurrying as though mad to get a genetic data set ready on time for distribution to our collaborators. Everything was going smoothly until two days ago, when a whole bunch of inexplicable errors started popping up during our final error check. We did, in fact, send it out on schedule this evening ( Read more... )