I was talking with a friend this weekend about the placebo effect, vaguely remembering a few articles or podcasts claiming that it was greatly exaggerated or did not actually exist. I didn't remember many of the details, so I went back and did some review ( Read more... )

Last night it was my turn to buy laundry soap. I found myself in an unfamiliar aisle confronted with boxes marked "Bio" and "Non-Bio". I had no idea what this meant. A fellow shopper told me that "Bio" meant "contains harsh chemicals that might cause skin irritation", so I bought the non-bio and resolved to do some research later ( Read more... )

I've been having an offline discussion with ianvass about this article, which claims that "belief in God makes you happier and healthier". I am of three minds on this subject.

On one hand I don't find the argument persuasive. Decreasing religiosity is correlated with decreasing social ills and increasing prosperity and intelligence but there's more ( Read more... )

I've previously posted about atheism and agnosticism. Theism or a-theism is how much theistic inclination you've got. Gnosticism or a-gnosticism is the extent of your gnosis - the knowledge you presume to have. An agnostic atheist hasn't seen God and doesn't know if they will or not, a gnostic atheist is pretty certain they won't, a gnostic theist ( Read more... )

P-value is an important but misunderstood indicator of confidence in statistical and scientific studies. This misunderstanding has applications outside of research, so I'd like to get into it a little ( Read more... )

When I signed up for Facebook I spent a while figuring out how to fill in the blank for "religious views". I decided to write "About the same as my Bigfoot views", because a I see a lot of crossover.

It seems to me that Bigfoot doesn't exist. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but if Bigfoot did exist I'd expect something more than ( Read more... )

A few years ago my brother was diagnosed with a kidney disorder that was damaging his kidneys. A few weeks ago we learned that it was genetic. My other brother got scanned and he came up positive as well, confirming that hypothesis which put the rest of us in danger. It's a dominant trait, which means at least one of my parents had it. I had a 50 ( Read more... )

My friend Mat tweeted about this article, discussing the proliferation of Phiten "titanium neckwear" in professional baseball ( Read more... )

Recently I was talking with a friend who works with a 9/11 truther. He didn't think the truther's ideas were very credible but does find it intriguing that WTC7's collapse has never been explained. Except that it has; since 2002, there have been a series of explanations that put an increasingly fine point on what actually happened ( Read more... )

haineux sent me some links from his friend mtravern about his recent invitation and subsequent reaction to the Singularity Summit. I know a few Kurzweil fans, and I've been sitting on my own half-finished post about the Singularity, so I figure now's a good time to dust it off. I share some of mtravern's views, but I've also got my own take ( Read more... )