Promoting Science and Critical Thinking
Phil Plait writes about the “The Great Kersten Blunder”, the story of a probe to Venus that was lost because a programmer made a stupid mistake. OK, first the actual story. The great Kersten Blunder is about the error made by Kersten (programmer) on the Vigor space probe’s converting program. He made an error in the … Read more
The news that has made the 9/11 truthers almost orgasmic with joy is the claim that a credible scientific journal, Europhysics News, has published the results of a study that claims to verify that 9/11 was an inside job. As an example of the various reports, WND (the far right site known to some as WingNutDaily), has this claim … Read more
Today I’m pointing you towards a very insightful article that is also a tough one to read. I do not mean intellectually tough, but rather emotionally because it involves the murder of very young children and also outlines how one parent had to cope with the subsequent claim that his young son had never actually … Read more
It is very common to see quotes within various memes on Facebook and elsewhere. It is also often well worth asking yourself a few questions. Here are two key filters to apply, even if the quote appears to be something you agree with … Did that person really say that? What is the actual context? For the first, … Read more
Today, in fact 40 minutes ago as I write this, the Pope conducted some official Catholic PR by declaring the culturally popular icon, Mother Teresa, is now a Saint. He announced … “After due deliberation and frequent prayer for divine assistance, and having sought the counsel of many of our brother bishops, we declare and … Read more
You might have become rather excited if you spotted the news about the detection of an apparently artificial signal coming from a distant star, for example The Observer published this on 29th Aug … Not a Drill: SETI Is Investigating a Possible Extraterrestrial Signal From Deep Space If the signal is truly from an alien world, … Read more