Recently (today infact) three threads have popped up about the nature of human believe in the weird and baseless; such as ghosts, floating balls of energy, Roswell aliens, government conspiracies and all sorts.
Because of this i decided to make a thread where people can arm themselves against such nonsense and go out in to the world online and offline a smarter, more rational person:
The following are invaluable links:
http://skeptoid.com/
This is a great, article based, website with new stuff every Tuesday.
The episodes can be read or listened to here: http://skeptoid.com/episode_guide.php
For concise and easy to understand debunking of hooey this should be your first stop.
The next link is The Skeptics Guide to the Universe, courtesy of the New England Skeptical society: http://www.theskepticsguide.org/
Much longer audio but so awesome and funny. Several issues are dealt with each show so check the shownotes for a list of whats on.
Third is Quackcast. This podcast deals with alternative medicine and like Steven Novella of the SGU above is hosted by a doctor. http://www.quackcast.com/. The intro is very long and can get annoying but once he is into the meat of each show he kicks ass.
Fourth and finally for me is the good Atheist podcast. http://www.thegoodatheist.net/
This is a friendly banter deconstruction of creationist theories and related stuff. Not intimidating at all, a great listen.
That's it from me, please post more and post you skeptical debunkings and experiences with quacks or times that you've convinced a friend of their wrong beliefs. If it relates to idiocies as discussed above, its welcome here. However please try and be neat and check to see you aren't repeating what others have already said.
The above four shows can be found on Itunes and are free to download.
Because of this i decided to make a thread where people can arm themselves against such nonsense and go out in to the world online and offline a smarter, more rational person:
The following are invaluable links:
http://skeptoid.com/
This is a great, article based, website with new stuff every Tuesday.
The episodes can be read or listened to here: http://skeptoid.com/episode_guide.php
For concise and easy to understand debunking of hooey this should be your first stop.
The next link is The Skeptics Guide to the Universe, courtesy of the New England Skeptical society: http://www.theskepticsguide.org/
Much longer audio but so awesome and funny. Several issues are dealt with each show so check the shownotes for a list of whats on.
Third is Quackcast. This podcast deals with alternative medicine and like Steven Novella of the SGU above is hosted by a doctor. http://www.quackcast.com/. The intro is very long and can get annoying but once he is into the meat of each show he kicks ass.
Fourth and finally for me is the good Atheist podcast. http://www.thegoodatheist.net/
This is a friendly banter deconstruction of creationist theories and related stuff. Not intimidating at all, a great listen.
That's it from me, please post more and post you skeptical debunkings and experiences with quacks or times that you've convinced a friend of their wrong beliefs. If it relates to idiocies as discussed above, its welcome here. However please try and be neat and check to see you aren't repeating what others have already said.
The above four shows can be found on Itunes and are free to download.