On the Skepticism of Carlos

It’s that time of the month once again, where Australian (and a few others from countries of similar political systems) bloggers of a skeptical nature come together to share their opinions and experiences dueling with the forces of pseudoscience and non-thinking. Yes, that’s right, it’s the (cue trumpet fanfare):

What a lovely Wednesday night it is to be reading fine blog entries from some of the Internet’s finest skeptics. It was so lovely, in fact, that I had to go to my local primary school’s production and watch a dramatic reconstruction of the Beijing Olympics as seen from primary school students who planned the play months before the Games began. But now I’m here, bringing to you this month’s Skeptics of Carlos entries.

The first entry I have for you is from Skelliot, of the aptly-named Skelliotblog, and his piece is called Education. It turns out (while perusing, of all places, Homologous Legs) that certain sites pertaining to the endorsement of skeptical or atheistic viewpoints are being censored by Skelliot’s school. The horror! Where is education going these days? Possibly into a ravine filled with fundamentalist Christians…

The next entry is by a newcomer to the Skeptics of Carlos: Australia’s Honest Con Man, Nicholas J. Johnson, and his site The Rumanian Blog. His piece, entitled Olympic Size Swindles, details the top five scams to watch out for at the current Beijing Games, such as fake tickets and dodgy betting advice. Readers who like what they see may want to know that Nicholas is launching a new personal website soon. For details and preview photos, visit his blog post on the matter.

It seems that this month we’ve really got the word out, as we have another first-time Skeptic of Carlos: Kel Skye, and his blog Kelosophy. In a piece called Regarding That Damn Wager, which I found extremely interesting to say the least, Kel breaks the classic theistic argument of Pascal’s Wager down until its true nature is revealed: it doesn’t offer any justification for belief in a deity at all. I see his logic and it makes sense: up to a point, however. It is painfully clear to me that the probability of Allen Vizzutti being the Creator of the Universe is 1, and you would be a fool to dismiss him as your Lord and Saviour. I’m sorry Kel, but insane trumpet skills beat logic and maths.

However, as wrong he may be about the existence of the Almighty Vizzutti, Kel does have a large amount of posts on other skeptical topics on his blog, ranging from crazy conspiracy theories to delicious, nonsensical creationism. So check them out, and you’ll be rewarded.

Ah, a contribution from our New Zealand friend, Scepticon, in the form of his piece, Frequency Specific Microcurrent. Will the hoard of new alternative medicine treatments never stop marching towards our sick and diseased? Probably not, but this is a piece to inform you about one of them. Read it for yourself, because I’m still too much in shock at the obvious pseudoscience to form coherent sentences to describe it. It truly is amazing what you can get away with these days…

The next piece is from another regular, Andy, from Thinking is Real. In Deluded, Deranged or Fraudsters?, he discusses the tricky issue of knowing if a claimed psychic really believes that he/she has paranormal powers or if they are just plain ol’ frauds and playing on an uncritical audience for attention and money. It’s a very blurry area, as you might know, but Andy deals with it to the best of his ability, which is, I might say, substantial.

Do any of you remember the last Skeptics of Carlos, hosted at the Skepbitch blog? Well, Karen, the feisty skeptic after whom the blog was named, returns with a post called, ehem, Thank Fuck It’s Friday, exploring the use of the Lord’s name (the Christian one, not my personal Brass Messiah) and other religious terms in modern language. And may I say, Jesus Christ! What a way with words she has!

For those of you who are Australian, you probably would have heard of the psychic-oriented television show that aired recently on free-to-air called “The One”, featuring Andrew Daddo as host and Richard Saunders as skeptic. Well, the positively brilliant Podblack, from the Podblack Cat blog, has a series of posts on the show, ending with Another ‘One’ Bites The Dust – The Finale Of ‘The One’, where she analyses the series from paranormal head to crate-searching toe. Reading it all will take a while, but, believe me, it’s worth it. I now have less respect for Channel Seven than I did before, a previously-thought impossible occurrence. And that, my friends, is why I stick to the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation, for all you non-Aussies).

Lastly, I’ll sneak in a creationist breakdown by yours truly entitled Answers in Genesis: Why Evolution Can’t Advance. Have you ever wondered just how far someone could push the ‘car-organism’ analogy with regards to evolutionary theory? Well, the answer’s right there.

Thanks for reading this far into this month’s edition of the Skeptics of Carlos. To submit an article for next month’s edition or to volunteer to host, please visit the Skeptics of Carlos Official Website, or email skepticsofcarlos@gmail.com

That’s all from me. I’ll leave you with this quote from Richard Feynman, uttered so elegantly in 1985:

“There is no harm in doubt and skepticism, for it is through these that new discoveries are made.”

Damn straight.