Weird Ideas: The Phantom Time Hypothesis

When it comes to utterly bizarre claims then the “Phantom Time Hypothesis” is one of those that does indeed stand out. Basically this was dreamed up historian Heribert Illig and first published in 1991. In summary, the idea is that roughly about three centuries of history (AD 614 to 911) never actually happened and that … Read more

The Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge … disbelief

The story in Genesis that perhaps most readers will be familiar with runs as follows … And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: … Read more

Do religious people really live a longer life?

There is apparently a new study that has just been published in which it is being asserted that those that are religious will live a longer life. The study, found within JAMA Internal Medicine, is entitled: Association of Religious Service Attendance With Mortality Among Women and there they claim … Frequent attendance at religious services … Read more

How do your persuade people who are immune to facts?

If you have ever spent more than  2 minutes on social media then you will have discovered that there are people out there who are not simply wrong, but also demonstrate a complete immunity to little things like facts. Absurd notions prevail that range from medical quackery being promoted as the best, and science (the … Read more

How can you spot a real psychic?

Over in New York the news is that a ring of fake psychics has been shutdown. As reported here … There is no future for a phony psychic network thanks to the federal prosecutors. A Long Island-based marketing group, its direct-mail accomplices, and two self-professed clairvoyants are now barred from using the U.S. mail to dupe … Read more

The Homeopathy wars … believers vs skeptics

Professor Eduard Ernst, MD, PhD, FMedSci, FSB, FRCP, FRCPEd (yes he really is that qualified), has written a great article in the Spectator about his eventual shift over time from a believer to outspoken critic of Homeopathy. Well yes, I was blogging only yesterday about Homeopathy, and so it might be a surprise for you to see … Read more