Critical Thinking

A bit of fun …Messing about with Gravity

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There exists a very strange place on planet earth, so weird that gravity as we know it does not appear to work as we expect.

Here is a clip by well-known skeptic, Brian Dunning, illustrating this weird anomaly. It is located within Death Valley deep inside one of the hidden canyons (Mosaic Canyon) and caught my attention because I was in that exact spot a couple of months ago myself and was quite amazed by it. Anyway, here is Brian explaining …

OK, so what is going on here, is this credible or is there something else happening? Does gravity really behave like this?

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Fallacy Zoo: The March of the Straw men

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The deployment of straw men is often used to craft the illusion of a strong argument. The metaphor is one in which your opponent will surreptitiously substitute your actual argument for a weak passive dummy and then rapidly demolish it. It conjurers up images of assault troops marching out to do battle against a field … Read more

There is a plan to establish the first human settlement on Mars in 2023 … yes that soon.

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Some folks claim they have a plan to establish the first human settlement on Mars in 2023. Apparently the idea is that they will build things first so that a habitable settlement will be waiting for the settlers when they land, and that the settlement will support them while they live and work on Mars … Read more

Alternative medicines can’t escape the long arm of the law

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Edzard Ernst is an impressive chap, not only is he a prize-winning physician, but he is also the founder of two medical journals. And if that is not enough, he was also the first chair in complementary medicine at the University of Exeter and is also the co-author of “Trick or Treatment? Alternative Medicine on … Read more