GuessRedditDateSumo/dev-0/in.tsv

My understanding is that the kosher rule about meat and milk originated because people often obtained both from the exact same livestock animals, and it was considered "rude" to the animal in question if you ate its freely given milk and its unwilling flesh in the same meal. Making your poor neighbors envious had little to do with it, at least officially.
What article?
Maybe god was predestined to decide to smite the Japanese.\n\n(not serious)
Nice Try, Dean of the Supernatural School of Ministry!
Yeah, Drudge isn't dishonest in his choice of sources, generally (aside from being a fan of a few sites like Breitbart); he's dishonest in his *juxtaposition* of headlines. He'll put a story about record snowfalls right next to an article about global warming, as if there's some type of connection. I wouldn't necessary assume malice, but... have you ever listened to his show? That guy is a squawky, derisive, smarmy douche.
It looks opaque and covering part of the window opening though. Do shadows do that?
>Psychology and Psychiatry still have trouble keeping methodological and scientific.\n\nNot really. But psychology is still in its infancy as a science. At this point in medical science, barbers were still bleeding people to re-balance bodily humors. People tend to bash psychology because it changes its mind a lot, and that's true - but so did chemistry when it was a young science. After all, chemists no longer march down to their basements every night stirring a witch's brew of chemicals trying to figure out how to turn lead into gold, but despite these inauspicious beginnings, chemistry is called a hard science while psychology gets kicked to the corner. Same with astronomy. Astronomers of old thought the Earth was the center of the universe and everything we observed was placed on a glass sphere surrounding it, yet it still enjoys a reputation as a hard science.\n
(See the OP's comment for explanation.)
http://skeptoid.com/episode.php?id=4227
what the hell is that thumbnail all about?
Where did you hear that? I'm just wondering, because I took AP psych last year/regular psych the year before that and was told there's no set reprobation as to why you dream, just theories.
Yes. I have seen a lot of videos of military flares posted here before.
The position of "it always applies" doesn't leave much room discussion so there is not much more I can say to you.
He did one of the most awesome papers on reincarnation ever! It's [here](http://www.scientificexploration.org/journal/jse_07_4_stevenson.pdf). \n\nSo yes :P He should have been in my list, sorry I let him out! Sorry Ian!\n\nHe also has this nice half hour thingy [on youtube](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbWMEWubrk0).
I've seen and heard nothing to support this assertion.  Sounds like basic wish-fulfillment to me.  The next time someone makes this claim to you, ask them where they heard it.  What sources do they have?  If they can't provide any, then they're full of shit.  If they provide them then look them up.  Maybe they found something that slipped through the cracks.  More likely it'll be a religiously-funded study with biased data and conclusions.
> (...)all this was for nothing and would be nothing, we would not be able to maintain a working society and so, archaeology does not talk about the famines(...)\n\nSo "archaeology" (apparently as a single entity) is in on the whole "hiding the truth" game, to protect ourselves from being bummed out by the fact that all things necessarily will come to an end? How do you know this?\n\n>We were as great as we ever have been and that was wiped out. More than once.\n\nSo human civilization has done all this before? Been to the moon, built particle accelerators, harnessed nuclear fission, used satellites, created the internet (and so on), just to be completely eradicated, leaving no trace - several times? Where is the evidence? How do you know this?
I do not believe they exist and there is no reason for me to believe they exist. However it is not impossible for them to exist.
Merlin themed date-rape porno? What the fuck?
That's fair. It'd be a hell of a thing for such a high-priority event to happen in such a highly-populated area without any additional witnesses.\n\nHas anyone come across any further testimonials from the heli-pilot?
Oh stop it you two.
no, i was thinking of buying a plot of land and building a house too, just wanted to know how much it would be lol
Not if you factor in the effects on mental health, both theirs and other people's. To say nothing about the ethical downsides.
It would be great if there was a national listing of hauntings.
Faith must be attacked.  It is foolishness.  It is intellectual laziness.  It IS dangerous.  It DOES cost lives.  It MUST be destroyed.  I am willing to to trample all over your civil rights when you believe your civil rights include a belief system that compromise my civil rights.  I do not respect a person's rights to their "faith."
I agree you on that last point especially.\n\n I just wanted to make sure I wasn't vague in posting my response. What you're saying makes a lot of sense as well.
BROKEN LINK:\n\n"The page you've requested does not exist at this address."
[Here](http://i.imgur.com/IMglH.jpg) is another. These are pictures I took Marsh 1st where my wife crashed my car. Someone told me, this could be angel orbs. What do you think?
Hello, did you read the previous comment? Nope, you didn't or we would not be having this silly argument.\n\n>\nbeen super elaborate and highly unlikely to ever be proven.\n\nThis is hilarious.\n\n
People seem to forget that there was no reference to any 'standard of living', but instead to the level of protection against perfectly preventable diseases - but I guess those actually taking their science from antivaxxers did not feel too good to be called for what they are - retards :)\n
I subbed. Thanks for trying something new.
math guy here: there's no math about this. you're assuming life happens with a [probability of more than zero](http://www.statlect.com/subon/probab2.htm "this is an useful link for understanding the probabilities of events"). it's entirely possible that life has probability zero and it just happened to happen here and that it will never occur again elsewhere.
It wasn't sleep paralysis, I could move around just fine and I have no history of it and I doubt I would gain it now.\n\n\n\nI do listen to all the spirits that drop by but when it's a creepy one it does get to me but this time I do believe it was just a half awake event.
I may have mis-spoken.  I meant that if you held an object at arm's length, at that distance, how big would it be (relatively)?  i.e. the size of a quarter, an orange, etc.\n\nAlso, did you research the local papers/media in the next days to see if anyone else saw this?  You can report your sighting, in as much detail as you can muster, to NUFORC or your local MUFON group.
You don't know what the fuck you are talking about.\n\nHe didn't fake a study. He wasn't involved in a lawsuit. Wakefield was designing a kit that could diagnose autism and he was interested in making SAFER vaccines. Is there money there? Sure, but the current pharmaceutical industries are only in it for profit, so who are we fucking kidding here?\n\nThe journal that retracted his study has since been found to have unethical association with the pharmaceutical industry.\n\nIt baffles me that people who are truly supporters of science refuse to consider that there is an extensive degree of corruption and profit-driven methods irregardless of safety involved in the design and administration of vaccines. Go ahead and inject mercury into your kids. It's their unfortunate luck you aren't willing to be cautious and wait for the studies that will actually verify whether the toxins in vaccines are causing brain damage (I don't think autism is a disease- I think it is brain damage from metals and/or chronic inflammation, plain and simple).
I was only referring to the subcultures one can choose to be in. I suppose I could choose to be Jewish, but I enjoy atheism too much.
That theory does not really hold up when you consider all the reports of ufos throughout recorded history.
I don't get it.\n\nEdit: should I interpret it like this: believers think that there's something worthwhile to be learned from their own religion even if they study it their whole lives, while unbelievers just studying some religions will conclude that they won't gain any useful information after an hour.
Right, people don't realize you need to run a charity like a business if you want it to be efficient and productive. That means not losing your talent to better wages in the private sector. I'd rather my charity be run by someone chosen for their qualifications and track record than their good intentions.
Also without any knowledge of an actual risk, it's possible that the changes increase the dangers, not reduce them.
Just a note about the difference in length of the object you and others are describing.  Without knowing distance and altitude an object could easily appear to be that different in size in relation to the person viewing it.  Even if you all saw it at the same time from different locations you could describe it just as differently as you have.  Then account for human error just as the two of you right next to each other guesstimated vastly differently.\n\nIt would be interesting to get an actual length of this object.  A picture at a known location with approximate known distance would be sweet.
Yes, you are certainly correct. \n\n>A skeptic would argue that you shouldn't immediately accept truth claims on faith. Rather, you should suspend belief until you have the opportunity to study it further and examine the evidence.\n\nThis is indeed the case, but we are not always afforded this luxury. There are certain things in our lives we have to accept on faith because it is not possible to verify their validity. And faith is wholly irrational; but I argue that's not a bad thing. Reason and empiricism is not the be all and end all of existences; there will always be mystery in the universe.\n\nThe basis for my faith is entirely experiential; it's not something I can explain because it's not something I can convince you of; language is limited in that way. And the nature of faith is limited in that way. But I can say that it resonates with my very being in such a way that I cannot deny its existence. That's all the evidence I can claim.
Maybe your friends are just idiots and don't remember the change?
Any chance you can coerce him to post it? I, for one, would love to see it no matter how blurry it is!
OK, I'll play.\n\n1. **Sarcastic**: Yes, any affiliation with a mainstream political party takes beliefs out of the realm of skeptical examination.\n\n2. **Egalitarian**: There are so many crazy people of so many types that even mentioning one is unfair to all the others.\n\n3. **Skeptical**: Is belief in "homeopathic medicine" really any more harmful than, say, the belief that the world will end soon so we don't have to worry about global warming, or the belief that deficits don't matter and we can tax and spend our way to prosperity?\n\n4. **Off-topic**: Is an article with proper grammar really a subject fit for /r/skeptic?\n
Wow, that Mike Adams guy is something else.  So I checked out the naturalnews.com site to see how crazy they were there, found the "skeptics believe..." article reminiscent of a child trying to writing beyond their years - trying to sound smart but increasingly revealing their ignorance with every new paragraph.\n\nThen I found a response to the original [here](http://www.naturalnews.com/028019_skeptics_thinking.html).  I have now completely lost respect for the writer and the site in general.  Wow.  These guys don't even know that they don't know how to think.  It's stunningly disappointing - a sad testament to humanity ...\n\nWe need a law:  thinking is mandatory.
I thought both the Mythbusters and Penn and Teller bullshit episodes on the Lie Detector fell way way to short of actually going into why the lie detector is actually a lie and why even the lie itself is pseudoscience.
Note the important part that you didn't bold: \n>"'It's important to note that items that **have a tangible value for the item itself _and_** may also be used in metaphysical rites and practices (ie jewelry, crystals, incense, candles, and books) are allowed in most cases,' Hoff wrote."\n\n"And" in this case means both of those conditions have to be met. Holy water does not have a tangible value, ergo it would not be allowed according to a literal reading of this policy. Of course, they might allow it because Christianity.
This article just came off as an incredibly douchy parody to me.  Meh.
Because "psychics" use sociology, psychology, and common sense to derive a randomly vague response which the end user(s) interpret to their liking.\n\n"You are in grave danger".\n\n* You're going to be hit by a car. (Physical Danger)\n* You're going to lose your job. (Monetary Danger)\n* A family member may die. (Emotional Danger)\n* Your mouth will be chopped off at work. (Social/Physical Danger)\n* You're going to win the lottery. (Inverse Danger [note it's still *danger*]).\n\nAlso:\n\n> Because there's no such thing as psychics.
I haven't read them in a long time so maybe this isn't actually the case, but I remember 9-year-old me frequently having a reaction along the lines of "that's bullshit" to Encyclopedia Brown stories.\n\nIn particular, I remember one where he calls a kid out on a lie because he traced a shirt pocket on the wrong side of his chest.  Maybe the shirt had *two* pockets, or maybe he just didn't remember what side of his chest it was on.  I certainly wouldn't have remembered off the top of my head that they're always on the left.  It doesn't logically follow that that one mistake invalidates his entire testimony.
Anyone clicked on the How to make Electricity at home ad? That shit was hilarious! I feel sorry for anyone who falls for that shit.
Flouride is also known as rat poison?\n\nAnd why was she having so much trouble finding out where corporations are granted personhood? Is she that lazy?
ok so not Chinese lanterns at least.
It's as fine of an excuse as anything, if you agree that there is no free will, which I think is the author's point.
Yeah, that show was probably by far one of the best shows about paranormalesque topics. Sightings was another one but it was a bit more biased.
>Hindu holy men who live for decades without a single drop of water or crumb of food.\n\nThat's the kind of claim which just isn't even worth investigating because he's claiming to be able to violate the laws of thermal dynamics.\n\nPhysics it works.\n\nThe trial that these doctors performed was apparently severely flawed, the guy was able to meet with followers and was not actually monitored 24/7.\n\n>"People in India used to live 100 or 200 years but then came the influence of Western culture,"\n\nOh great, blaming the West. How original. I'm sure it'll get him more brownie points with new age fruits though.
I respect your team as well, and I wish you all the luck in the world. It's a very hard field to work in. I've been a paranormal researcher for well over 2 decades, and I've completely given up on trying to give people proof that will change their minds. It just doesn't happen that way. I no longer care who believes or who doesn't. I continue researching, but I do it for my own benefit, not to turn skeptics into believers.
http://www.thenewearth.org/Roswell.pdf
Not sure if this is where I needed to post this but...it seems right to post here.
I *don't* think he was hitting on her, because he said he wasn't. She obviously thought he was, though.
>  And let's also consider that an advanced species probably has enough mastery over its surroundings to sustain itself within artificial environments.\n\nOnly relevant in the case of colonies. Either the environment is suitable to the form of life in which case it doesn't need an artificial environment (air conditioning doesn't count) or the environment is hostile, and the life form is unlikely to become 'advanced.'\n\nEDIT: right, now that this post has been up for 7 hours, how about I fix my quotation?
Thanks for teaching me something new.  I defer to your impressive knowledge of mathematics and I stand corrected.\n\nI don't even remember what grade I was in when this happened.  Maybe 8th?  My teacher probably didn't even have a master's degree in math, which frankly isn't so crucial when you spend most of your classroom time listening to more excuses for why your students didn't do their homework.
It's like they've gathered every vague health rumour and old wives folk tale about the Moon and crammed it into one article. Was it written in the pub?
wait a sec there:\n"Much of what we must measure cannot be perceived by human senses. It's too small, or it's too fast, or light doesn't interact with it."\n\nBut to measure it, you must be looking and recording measurements from an instrument. Wouldn't that be a use of your senses?
Wait wait wait. And you waited until after the whole year ended to tell anyone about it? You didn't say "Hey dude look we're about to kill Bin Laden tomorrow!" or "Obama's healthcare bill is going to be shat on!" or anything to prove it while it was happening? Or see a shrink?\n\nEhhh....
The illness is real. The site is bunk. There are specific diagnostic criteria and known effective treatments.
it took my brain entirely too long to parse that title.
um, not weird in the slightest. you might as well say 'things happen sometimes'
I take your point, but I kind of think the latin adds another layer of meaning- in that it's something that at first looks deep and mysterious, but actually it's a play on a movie quote.
No sarcasm, bro. Can't you feel my chakra?
Does my phone have a "magnetic field detector"? For what? Yeah, total bullshit.\n
All of your links are to this same blog. You are blogspamming for ad revenue on your personal blog. Did you read the new rules? \n\nhttp://www.reddit.com/r/Paranormal/comments/q4spv/new_community_guidelines/
Ironically, this increases my faith in the legal system.
Green is another way of saying crazy.\n\nBut truthfully, I feel a lot of the 'green' movement is crazy because they see 'organic' as good even when it can be more harmful to environment (through increased amount of pesticides used - because organic ones aren't as effective - and other issues).\n\nGreen Peace is a good sample.
And Drudge is often cited as the source for "legitimate" news orgs like the NYT and CNN. Guess who started the rumor everyone ran with last week about Condaleeza Rice as Romney's VP pick that, of course, turned out to be bullshit?
this one isn't bad.  part of the con is that homeopaths use itty bitty vials. I was thinking scale it up. put one drop into a swimming pool for a greater visual effect.  maybe use a drop of beer or something and ask if they think they will get drunk from that homeo-alcohol \n\n**edit** additional thought since beer has less alcohol than  hard liquor does than mean it's more potent?
I sincerely don't believe that they think climate change isn't happening. What is more likely, is they have vested interests in companies not having to follow EPA guidelines. Climate change is incredibly obvious. They know. They just want more money instead.
Just to clarify, August is the time for the Perseid Meteor Shower anywhere in the Northern hemisphere.
>OK, you're officially insane. You are privileging your own imagination over the actual facts.\n\nThis doesn't follow. The decision over whether something should be used can only be based on how accurate the measure can be. If something is poorly applied and shows poor results, it does not follow that it cannot be used as probable cause.\n\n>Do you know what "anecdotal" means????\n\nYes. It is information gained from informal and non-experimental means (i.e. the opposite of scientific evidence). The defining feature is that the causal element is either impossible or difficult to identify.\n\n>10,000 cases. 10,000 cases. 10,000 cases. 10,000 cases. 10,000 cases. 10,000 cases. 10,000 cases. 10,000 cases. 10,000 cases. 10,000 cases. 10,000 cases. 10,000 cases. 10,000 cases. 10,000 cases. 10,000 cases. 10,000 cases. 10,000 cases. 10,000 cases. 10,000 cases. 10,000 cases. 10,000 cases.\n\nThat all came from the same tiny sample group (17 dogs), who were all trained by the same people, used by the same police officers, and were part of a new program (i.e. presumably hasn't been perfected or refined). \n\nSo, if I find 17 doctors who can't identify a broken bone in an X-ray, it doesn't matter whether I have information from 1 case, 100 cases, 10,000 cases or 1 million cases, because the success rate is always going to be based on the subjects taking part.\n\n>The two are one and the same.\n\nNo they're not, as I detailed further above. The former means that the dogs cannot solve the task, and the latter means that the dog can solve the task but competing reinforcement contingencies are affecting their overall success rate. \n\nThe implications of the two are thus vastly different. If it were a Clever Hans effect, then police dog units should be disbanded because they serve absolutely no purpose. If it were a training problem, then new rules and regulations should be implemented, and there is no obstacle preventing them from being used as probable causes.\n\n>It does not matter that some dog or dogs somewhere can perform some incredible feats of detection under some specific controlled conditions. What matters is what real dogs in the real world are really doing.\n\nNo, the real world data tells us nothing. There's a reason why scientists don't accept the claims from patients of homeopaths or chiropractors who say that their woo cured them of some disorder. Just look at the data you linked to multiple times above; it claims a 26% success rate, but they obviously cannot report on cases where there were minimal traces that were missed, or well-hidden drugs that were not found. It may be the case that no drugs were found in the other cases because they didn't exist, but because we only have anecdotal reports to go on, we have no way of knowing.\n\nAgain, one more time, if the reason why the success rate is low in these dog units is because of poor training, then fixing their training can increase their success and they can justify the use of a search without a warrant.
I don't think you understand how little a quantity we're talking about... James Randi has a pretty good explanation of it here...\n\nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWE1tH93G9U&feature=youtube_gdata_player
>EFT has competing explanations\n\nSource? \n\nThere are EFT studies whereby the improvements of the subjects' issues were [evaluated by independent raters and corroborated by brain imaging and neurotransmitter profiles](http://www.tapintofreedom.com/downloads/andrade_feinstein_paper.pdf). \n\n>In many of your claims I see the lack of fallibility\n\nSuch as?\n\n[Operational definitions are at their most controversial in the fields of psychology and psychiatry](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operational_definition). I see that you don't agree with my use of the word "focus". However I am using the definition of focus as given [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focus): "selectively concentrating on one aspect of the environment while ignoring other things". And in case we also disagree on the word "concentrate", I am using [this definition](http://www.thefreedictionary.com/concentrate): "To direct one's thoughts or attention". So you notice here that in no way am I referring to this as using one sense exclusively which is what you were trying to imply. On the contrary, I encourage my clients to use any senses they choose when they focus on their issue. \n\nBtw, I am clicking all on the links you have given me so far, and I am wondering if you are doing the same, especially with regards the scientific research for EFT. \n\nAnd also, have you ever thought of [giving EFT a try](http://www.wikihow.com/Use-the-Emotional-Freedom-Technique-(EFT)) yourself? It takes less than 10 min to learn, another 15 min to try it out on one specific issue, and perhaps another half an hour max if you want to experiment with it on a few more issues. You would be an excellent candidate for testing EFT out since you obviously don't believe that it works - it would be interesting what kind of results you get with it. I am just wondering how is it that you are willing to spend so much time discussing with me the science (or lack of) of EFT and you still haven't given it a try for yourself, given that it is free to learn and it doesn't take much of your time. Consider it as a personal science experiment.
And the irony is we can't even talk to man's Best friend the dog...
You're avoiding providing actual proof though and I am in a position to speak on the matter. So before you go on a bout how you were banned for this thing or that thing it would really be best if you were 1) being honest and 2) forthcoming about the specifics of it.\n\nThere have been no people banned at all for the reason you gave. None.
You could get some like-minded people together and stand outside the center, handing out pamphlets explaining the trickery techniques most psychics use, and perhaps offering your opinion that this woman is a fraud.  I don't think you're going to get anywhere trying to get the event cancelled.  Venues like that can't really afford to be picky about who they rent the space to.
The person recording goes through all the possible explanations like "chinese lanterns".
Pascagoula abduction.
I agree. Triangulate.
Sounds like half of a Far Side cartoon.
What will the Dow Jones average be at Monday's close?
This reminds me of this: http://www.xkcd.com/690/
Much less safe than it used to be.  I'm sure the models will become more accurate over the next few decades.
If you look carefully you can see a clear liquid running before the green starts to flow.
"Think of it as evolution in action" is a quote from an old Larry Niven novel *Oath of Fealty*
He definitely succeeded in giving the jist of it. It could have been mind-blowing if he had used the right examples, and not misinterpret details.
I would undergo hypnosis if I were in your position. It sounds to me like an abduction case, but that doesn't necessarily mean a bad thing. There were some more negatively orientated ETs back then, but you may have been contacted by some positive ones. It will at least clear up some questions and possibly clear out some negative/fearful energy that has been contained within your body.\n\nI've spoken with people who have undergone hypnosis and many of them report feeling much better afterwards. Without knowing, we tend to associate it with fear and that fear nests itself inside us leading to health issues, stress, etc.\n
Did they notice that the cat was literally embedded INTO the door?
It looks like the YouTube account was made just to post this video.\n\nby Enrico De Luca \n\nLatest Activity: Aug 10, 2012 \n\nDate Joined: Aug 6, 2012 \n\nAge: 60 \n\nCountry: United States \n\nThis is linked to a [Google Plus account](https://plus.google.com/u/0/100011730991104133438/about) that has only one friend: [David Graham](https://plus.google.com/u/0/110729261053506628725/about)\n
Guys, the CIA killed Kennedy to escalate Vietnam and fake the moon landings. \n\nThe moon landings were faked so everyone would be watching their TV the day the Roswell aliens came back to pick up their wrecked ship at Area 51. \n\nThey took the aliens and their advanced energy technologies. Without this technology the U.S. needed more energy. \n\nThis is why they planned in the 1980's to invade Iraq in 2003. The way to do this? 9/11: an inside government job. \n\nThis invasion allows the U.S. to get oil, lay down chemtrails while people are busy out protesting, and then elect a secret Muslim president. \n\nThis secret Muslim (born in Kenya) will now help to start with a New World Order using FEMA (an organization George Bush made very incompetent looking [intentionality of course so no one would suspect them] thanks to the secret weather control machine disaster that was hurricane Katrina).\n\nWhen the NWO comes it will mark the beginning of the end times in 2012. \n\nNow, if you'll excuse me, I need to go buy some colloidal silver from Alex Jones.
This kind of stuff always freaked me out when I was a child. Do those types of stories mean that your uncle traveled into the past somehow? Or that they were ghosts? Creepy stuff.
The windows are closed permanently, and I believe they have some form of drape covering them.
As far as I understand it, it's your "soul" leaving your body.  I guess you can fly around the universe.\n
Your blog sucks, whore.
I think you make a mistake here. Your rule of "Don't do it because it will kill off the species" would make homosexuality immoral, since if everyone was homosexual, their would be no babies. Also, murder IS sometimes justified. If you have to kill one to save 50, for instance, perhaps it is justified. Also, this makes ethics relative to a species, and if the species changes significantly, then the ethics changes with it. If overpopulation began to threaten the survival of the species, it doesn't seem that murder would become morally good, for instance.\n\nThe problem that makes "Is murder wrong?" and other moral questions unanswerable is that 'wrong' is used too vaguely. The question "What is the most powerful species?" is unanswerable because 'powerful' is just too vague.\n\nEven if the world is black and white, some questions are asked in gray language.
"Thinking positively" may make some bad subconscious things go away or, more likely, be silenced for a while. This may allow for the individual to re-focus their forces and successfully act on this immediate material world, to produce positive, palpable, real changes.\n\nSo, in a sense "the secret" is just common sense, as long as you don't forget **you** are the real agent of the "universe", **you** need to get off your ass and work towards the change you want to see happen.\n\nBut if you just daydream and expect stuff to fall off a tree into your arms - that's pretty stupid.
What I meant to say is, *citation needed!* Product tampering seems to apply to things like putting strychnine in the Tylenol.
By the way, I'm interested to know how long you've been in the Truth movement. Since high school? \n\nFor some reason, engineers predominate in fringe science communities, such as creationists, crackpot scientists (who I regularly get email from), and the 9/11 Truth movement. It's something I wonder about, since it's mostly engineering students I teach in my job.
Possibly a VTOL or military helicopter, only because you say its at a regularly scheduled time and you are near a military base.  The flash from a jet engine causes an object that looks like an orb to be visible and can obscure the shape of the aircraft, or the aircraft may not be visible while the exhaust is.\n\nYou are the best judge though -- good luck documenting.
: )\n\n
As far as I know there are no tapes of EBE1.
Yeah, see, that kind of stuff is stupid. Why use magic crystals or reiki which, according to the practitioners, "may" help get rid of the problem when you have pretty decent medical procedures that have been shown to work? I'm all for exploring different and new things, but not to the exclusion of everything else, especially when it's so serious.
My goal is to offer real data and point skeptics to actual scientific analysis rather than dumb blogs. You're right that I included my own perspective, and not 100% of what I wrote has a citation backing it up. I don't agree that I need to hold myself to such a high standard - unless of course we're *all* going to only talk in terms of sourceable science. Which does not seem to be the case on this subreddit. \n\nBut would you expect a different result? I say your hypothesis is that all UFOs are ultimately explainable as misidentification of known phenomena, do you think Sturrock's data supports that? What about the hypothesis that some UFO reports are explainable as physical objects whose origin and properties are not yet understood? What do you think?
OK one interesting sign of it being a crackpot site: Spurious Capitalization \n>Coalition of Researchers, Investigators, Writers, Truth Seekers, Freethinkers and Intellectuals \n\nYou do see that quite often...\n\n
> assault weapons\n\nYou use that word. I don't think you know what it means.
If "aliens" are so advanced to make an intergalactic trip, why do they come and crash right here ?\n\never Consider maybe they had a little help crashing from, like a specially made electric magnetic pulse canon of some kind used for disabling space ships perhaps?
You maybe shouldn't eat meat because industrialized meat-production is one of the more fucked-up things our species does right now. Not eating meat though won't prevent you from getting cancer, last I checked almost anything can get cancer at some point and many, many things are purported to be carcinogenic including our hair and probably a bunch of other stuff you put on or in your body.
Great post, but the Asch experiment is slightly flawed.  It can be influenced by 1) how well or how poorly the subject believes in their own ability to get it right [e.g. math problem asked of a math expert], and 2) how much the subject values providing the tester with accurate data over the value of not creating friction in the group of other subjects [e.g. if the tester is disagreeable or irrelevant, and one or more of the other subjects are the opposite]).
Harry Pottterrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/money+pit\n\n<3
[Here ya go](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:CgsFB_0IT20J:twitter.com/KerryHomeopath/status/28068864126+http://twitter.com/%23!/KerryHomeopath/status/28068864126&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=safari)
>It is a property of this world\n\nDo you exist in this world?
Ask me after tuesday
I think we are just all using the word metaphysical badly. I use it much as wikipedia (yes, wikipedia) defines it : The supernatural  is that which is not subject to the laws of nature, or more figuratively, that which is said to exist above and beyond nature.\n\nYou see it from a religious/spiritual point of view, which is not uncommon. But i think we can all meet halfway... i mean; how do you think that your interpretation of a UFO or "alien" got here in the first place ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monosodium_glutamate#Australia_and_New_Zealand\n\nFood Standards Australia New Zealand[31] (FSANZ) cites "overwhelming evidence from a large number of scientific studies" to explicitly deny any link between MSG and "serious adverse reactions" or "long-lasting effects", declaring MSG "safe for the general population". It does, however, describe that in less than 1% of the population, sensitive individuals may experience "transient" side effects such as "headache, numbness/tingling, flushing, muscle tightness, and generalised weakness" to a large amount of MSG taken in a single meal.
Well who is going to stop them if they feel like experimenting on people? If we get their tech then we will be able too, so it doesn't really make sense.\n\nThen again, most likely bullshit.
context?
From what I've heard, and this review supports, they throw out the skeptical argument halfway in and it becomes an actual ghost/psychic movie.  Basically the opposite of a movie for skeptics, it's a movie where skeptics are proved wrong and magic is real.
Some people say it's the gate to another "world" or something like that.\n
"A fool and his money are soon parted."
The only people who think this way are just clinging to WASPy 1950s fantasies.  I live in an ex-spanish speaking country (California) and we are not going to lose English any time soon.
Perhaps they  satirically ship a pseudo-Tesla shield.
They're VERY easy to do while you're actually taking the picture or working with raw images instead of after it's been processed. Anyone who knows even basic photography can do it with any camera that lets you change the exposure time.\n\n[Here's](http://www.flickr.com/groups/longexposure/discuss/72157602305393751/) a thread on flickr with tons of examples, and an explanation of how it's done on page 2.
No skeptic believes in creationism. There are certified opinions on some things, because they're such incredibly one sided debates.
Some of these aren't irrational as such, although they may well be irrationally strong in you.  Humans are supposedly hardwired to be cautious with animals which may be venomous, and the overrepresentation of these kinds of phobias is a corollary of this (who's ever heard of someone who's phobic about spoons?).  Germs and heights too, can present a real danger.\n\nMy own irrational fear, telephones, may be a bit more genuinely irrational, but it's really a kind of perverted social phobia I think.  Ringing telephones give me the heebie jeebies, which isn't a very employable trait I'm afraid!\n\nEdit: Oh and cement-mixers.  Now that _is_ irrational!  Though I can give a rationale of sorts for it.  I had a dream when I was young (I was killed by one) and I've never got over it!
You disgust humanity
[Not homeopaths!](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd64lbDPack)\n\nBut that should be a lethal dose for everyone else.\n\n
Before anything else: It has been a delight and a relief to read this. I hope you'll accept a broad and subjective but honest and reasoned response in kind.\n\nI'll start by sharing your frustration with the tendency of skeptics — perhaps predominantly young, though in my view a minority of the big-name bloggers, which strikes me as an expected consequence of cogent writing rising to the top — to form little echo chambers of mockery and ridicule around isolated (however popular) examples of uncritical thinking and credulity. (Would "credulous" work better than "convinced"?) I think that, at one level, this is alienating and counterproductive.\n\nOne caveat is that i find myself, and a rare few others, very receptive to this approach. Two examples: It was Christopher Hitchens who got me started questioning the case against the Iraq War; i don't buy all his arguments but it was his belligerence that snapped me out of my doctrinaire opposition. And it was the "die cis scum" meme that brought home to me what trans people mean when they talk about "lived experience". So, i think there is a place for open hostility.\n\nAt an entirely different level, though, i see the echo chambers serving a greater purpose, that of validation. This is why i try not to criticize r/atheism. My favorite rage comic of all time (now lost) followed a guy putting up with nonsense religious talk several times during the day, gradually losing his patience, then arriving home to relax online. The first thing he reads is "r/atheism, Y U NO BE NICE" or some such thing, and he does the desk-flip f7u12. I see a lot of the less-moderated comment threads serving the same purpose: Pharyngula, Skepchick, even ERV. (I don't know how i feel about Laden leading the charge to take them down, but it was NatGeo's real estate and prerogative.) Yes, those threads hate each other and many of their positions are mutually exclusive; but validation less about having the facts than about having company.\n\nIf i could read a scientific paper to get a reliable idea about one thing, it might be the optimal ratio of echo chamber banter to levelheaded dialogue for receiving frustrated skeptics (in the early phases) while still talking over fence-sitters.\n\nI think your observation about the shift from academia to the Internet is spot-on, though i don't think that it's adequate. There is a deeper level still to this kind of shitstorm. This is where i'll expand upon my last paragraph above. Apologies in advance for the length and speculation; like i said, a long time growing.\n\nLet me play with your example. You likened "I think this could be a problem, but am unsure" to "Yes, I think that space aliens with laser cats could be a problem, but I'm unsure". I suspect that this, if expressed honestly, might still have earned you a few downvotes from skeptics tired of dealing with people promoting space alien claims. From my perspective, a better likeness would have been to "I think that HIV denial could be a problem, but I'm unsure". This probably wouldn't've earned you any downvotes, at least not enough to counter the upvotes from supportive skeptics. How do i, who think it obvious that sexism is a major problem, then explain your downvotes?\n\nI see parallels to the climate change controversy (which, notably, took place while skepticism was still largely an academic enterprise). Skeptics as a community were far too slow to accept climate change science, even amidst the growing consensus among climatologists and winning over of other scientists, scholars, and the public. ([This](http://skeptoid.com/blog/2011/06/15/i-global-warming-skeptic/) is my personal favorite account. I disagree with most of Good's recommendations, but that's another story.) Why did skeptics drag their feet for so long?\n\nI think because climate science is *fucking hard*. It's not like "Planck limit therefore homeopathy fail" or "intermediary fossils therefore evolution ftw". It requires a basic understanding of meteorology, chemistry, ecology, physics, geology, a bunch of other scientific disciplines, plus interdisciplinary versatility and proficiency in statistics. If you start out doubtful (rather than, say, generally trusting of scientists in their own fields), then anything less than a carefully-crafted explanation is going to sound suspiciously like Pons–Fleischmann techno-babble. And you'll just doubt more.\n\nWell, sexism is *hard*. An understanding of prejudice, privilege, oppression, sexism, racism, etc. requires that we let go of the centuries-old connotations these terms have; develop a basic familiarity with psychology, sociology, social and cultural history, anthropology, economics, social theory, and a bunch of other "soft" sciences; go to the *additional* effort of sifting through all the pseudoscience that has seeped into these fields; and essentially admit to ourselves that we'll probably never develop the same fluency as people who have experienced the worst of it firsthand. This, plus perpetual frustration among explainers, plus the insinuation that many of us are unfairly advantaged, plus all of us starting out doubtful — i think — results in a huge resistance.\n\nThis resistance doesn't receive much traction with big-name bloggers, for the most part: Those who spend time talking about these issues tend to find them important (of course), and those who don't talk about them don't provide much of a forum. So, when someone *does* publicly take a contrary position (St. Clair, McGraw, Smith, Dawkins, Thunderf00t), they provide a voice and an invitation to this resistance; cue the overflow threads.\n\nThat's my pet explanation in a nutshell. I invite criticism; it's just my understanding based on fragments from all over the place, and, while it's malleable, it has its shortcomings (e.g. explaining vitriol on one "side" but not so much the other, not accounting for the names that seem to pop up regularly in comment threads) and is not easily falsifiable. And, as you and Good suggest, we slap the label of "denial" on it at our peril.
[Link to the actual non-linkjacked video.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_y4-z-kDqQ)
I don't believe in any deities yet I am open to a possible chance of an afterlife. Provided to me are thousands of videos, photos and sound files of plausible proof. Most of them are most likely fake, yes, but it is statistically impossible for people, over the course of hundreds of years, to have created every single one of them as a fake/hoax.
Michiana? Is that between Michigan and Indiana?
I've been quasi-following your commentary on this subreddit. Not religiously, just a bit. It's always pithy and cryptic (but not THAT cryptic.) Your third entity complex is really creepy.
That would be a rare shot of the promotional Hammer of Dawn for the Gears of War Four release. It's aesthetic only, very cool stuff.
The comments on the article are amazingly hilarious. \n\n "Not major scientific breakthrough was discovered by double-blind studies but rather through careful observation." JO M.D. \nThink about it. Imagine if Einstein or Freud or Galileo Galilei or Darwin had to have a double-blind study!\n\nIRT someone who said homeopathy is a placebo and referenced quackwatch\n\n"Oh definitely, because I rely on quackwatch to tell me how to approach healthcare. If I did that, I would still be taking antibiotics for things I no longer suffer from. Hafta take stuff on the net with a grain of salt....until you try it for yourself."
>enhancement is a subjective term and cannot be defined by science.\n\nYes it can be, perhaps not in a universal sense but any kind of performance that we wanted to measure we could measure easily enough.
We're ignoring the elephant in the room here. Poor kid is named "Mazeratti"
Hynpagogic dreams do account for a large percentage of "abduction" phenomena, but it's pretty easy to discern. To categorize sightings in one category -- that's what the article you posted seems to want to do: Because some of them are hypnagogic dreams, they ALL are.\n\nScience, in the case of aliens, seems to have a hammer and think that every problem is a nail.\n\nI don't really think it's unfair to say this. To tell a person who saw a UFO that he saw "swamp gas" *is* insulting because it indicates that the person needs a PhD to distinguish the two. But because he dropped out of high school, somehow he is too stupid to differentiate.\n\nThat said *some* scientists do handle the phenomenon without bias. I just wish there were more than a few. Only ones I know are Stanton Friedman, PhD, and Edgar Mitchell, PhD.
pretty sure that photo is from 1941.
The floorboard idea is tempting, but he's in two different areas for the door.  Further more, the lamp, were it a loose hinge, would most likely hang away from the wall, which could explain the first move, but not the second.  Not that I think that the HH team is the most thorough, as the Bigfoot like creature search proved (if you can find it, there is a scene  where you can see a guy in the bushes less than fifteen feet from them and they never see him, real time or review!) but my friend and I  went over the episode you've questioned for  a while after first seeing it and i tend to doubt it could be so simple.\n\nEdit for "not"\n\nEdit 2 can't  read my own sentence structure right now...  I'm going to bed.
> that's not what I asked for. \n\nI'm sorry, what did you ask for then? Because from what I read, you asked for evidence to support my assertion that the UFO phenomena is real, which I supplied a small subset of evidence and historical case data. \n\n> So yeah, merely showing that there is a phenomenon is not enough for a conversation.\n\nAre you kidding me? Of COURSE it warrants a conversation especially since most people think all UFO sightings are mere misidentifications. Your statement is supremely ignorant and short-sighted. The implications of the UFO phenomena being real are huge and deserve to be explored. \n\n> I checked all of them, and I found them rather pathetic in terms of evidence.\n\nSo, for example, the US Air Force press conference in 1952, in which they publically admit the objects were real and they have no idea what they were, mean nothing and don't offer any supplimental evidence to the mounds of expert witness testimony, radar data and other pieces of case data? Okaaaaay.
So the case is solved; he wasn't qualified to see a UFO.
I'm saying that if you take the science or the fiction out you are left with either a documentary or a fantasy.
For earth hour, everyone should get out their go-pros and film the sky.
It's not that there is no data.\n\nIt's that 3 seasons of it is ridiculous.
That usually happens for me, but not with tv shows; just things in general. Not always, but I sure eel awesome when it happens.
Didnt think of that but it explains my father a lot.\n\nI like to extol his critical thinking abilities before telling people how baffled I am about his religious views. It is like they are in two separate sections of his brain that dont speak to one another.\n\n\nhe is an engineer, who has dug up quite a few dinosaur bones and is also a young earth creationist. Growing up he taught me about skeptical thinking, and fallacies and not the laymans view of "skepticism". But then on certain subjects, all that healthy scientific thought, goes right out the window. The devil buried dinosaur bones to lead us from the teaching of god. (SAY WHAT?? DO YOU HAVE A SHRED, OF WHAT YOU NORMALLY DEMAND, CALLED EVIDENCE? nope and it doesn't matter to him)\n\nIt doesnt quite explain everything but as a designer and builder, I can almost see how it would be easier confuse him with religion in those areas.
/r/Thetruthishere/\n\nTrue paranormal stories open for debunking
The [Zener cards](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zener_cards) are pretty well known among skeptics. To pull that off he would have to either make up two new shapes or have duplicate cards, either of which would be easily noticed.
Lots of "hot button issues" and being election time, congress-critters need to show their constituents that they do stuff to get re-elected; and pandering to the religious right and their delusion of being victims is one way they can do that.
54% of people believed there is intelligent extraterrestrial life. 64% believed that aliens have contacted Earth. I smell a bullshit survey.
Correct, that's why there is no "scientific proof of aliens."
Yeah his acting was great i do agree. I was just disappointed in the movie.\n\nI still love him. I would be his starling any day. ;)
That is very true.  Jaime has no credibility left with me.  He would be a cool uncle to have though- especially at family reunions.
> We had conquered LEO, there were no aliens to be found.\n\nAre you saying that no unidentified structured craft are seen at high altitudes or in low earth orbit? Because that is incorrect.
Does it always have to do with a car?
Me too but I thought I heard it was CGI. Can't remember though.
Dr. Novella is one of my personal heros. This guy is a genius.
Unfortunately, the question isn't whether the cannabinoids will affect human cells the same way (after all, the cancer cells in a laboratory setting that I mentioned were human cancer cells). It was whether it would affect cells in the human body the same way.\n\nHere's just an example of how things could be different. My limited knowledge of biology means that the following may not be accurate! In order for the cannabinoid oil to work on human cancer cells, it needs to reach them. How do we know that the system will allow them to reach their destination? How do we know that even then, interaction with other cells won't change the effect? We don't. We have suggestions that it will work, but further testing is necessary.\n\nWhether or not my specific example is correct, here's a fact: animal testing does not prove that the drug will work the same way in humans. Drugs are not cleared through only animal testing for this reason. Animal testing is useful for suggesting that a drug may work and checking for potential harmful side effects, but it is not proof.\n\ntl;dr: You're looking at the problem incorrectly.
Finally ?\nThis was debunked like a year ago. Not that any debunking was necessary, You'd have to be a total moron to have bought this. \n
Yeah but glith in the matrix is about stuff that seems to mess with or defy reality in some way. Not just stuff that is creepy or paranormal. Although there is nothing wrong with stories like that, and this really was a good story. It just might be more suitable at r/nosleep or r/paranormal
I'm fully aware of the potential naturalistic fallacy here, but frankly my interest is purely out of a simple-living type of philosophy. If I don't need it, why buy spend my money on it and bother with the whole routine every day?\n\nPlus, the fact that there _may_ potentially be damaging products in shampoo (sulfates may well end up being perfectly safe, but the jury still appears to be out at the moment) I figure, hey, if I'm just as good without it, why not?\n\nAs for the smell, I like a little argan oil anyhow. Has that nice, fresh-from-the-morrocan-hair-dresser smell.
Yeah, while I think several of the ideas were good activities to kids, it sounded more like "15 ideas to try to make your kids atheist redditors" since few of the ideas had much to do directly with critical thinking.
Yeah, this is some woman making a buck off of a new Roswell angle.  Nothing more, nothing less.
I think it is complicated. It would be difficult to project what the risks are for the patient incurring extra costs. In the short term it could be lower costs. The major problem, too, is less the cost by the patient, but the cost to the system that is incurred if that irresponsible individual is the vector that facilitates an outbreak.\n\nRates aren't supposed to be coercive regarding behavior other than how it affects payouts. That is supposed to be the role of government instead. Maybe people who enable epidemics by their actions should face legal liability, and in that case health insurance would potentially include a liability insurance component.
>Behave in a way that you will be proud of 10 years from now.\n\nWhat would a skeptic have if not a mantra?\n\nWell said.
Ironically, he'll be a wish'n' he was anointed with oil...when they rape in the ass... Wahh aha aha haha
I eat organically made food so that doesn't have all the extra crap in it. For example when I buy orange juice I want orange juice to be the only ingredient.\n\nedit for spelling error
I don't think this type of submission is appropriate for this [/r/skeptic](/r/skeptic). It doesn't achieve the sidebar objective of exercising critical thinking skills or debunking debunking pseudoscience/bullshit. It's also [explicitly banned](http://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/rbhqv/all_memes_in_moderation/) by the subreddit's rules.
That really doesn't address what I was saying. Like I said I enjoy Miles Davis's music while finding the man dispicable. It might have been harder for me to justify buying his music when he was alive, but it may have been hard to pass up Kind Of Blue. \n\nWith regards to Dawkins, he is kind of an arrogant prick but so much of his work is important to science and skepticism and relevant to true believers vs the skeptics that I feel like it is throwing the baby out with the bath water. If he writes a article or a study on Feminism I would probably be very skeptical of the claims he makes after making the statements he did. However since his work is on biology and belief I feel I can still read work. If his views started to taint his work however then you might have an argument.\n\nDawkins is human and fallible just as Rebecca is. She espouses views I find to be wrong headed and silly, but I still listen to her because she has interesting views on other topics where she tends to do a good job.\n
I'd wager you'd end up looking just as silly as the media outlets that are already blaming in on the genetically engineered, dna altering, body alkalizing, superLSDamphetaminecrack, and would likely only be taken seriously by the likes of those that believe chemtrails are working with their fluoridated water and measles vaccines to give the zionist-NWO-illuminati the ability to read their thoughts.  \n\nAs to whether it makes you good or bad, that's relative.
Yeah... as someone who bought themselves a life-long membership to the  immunocompromised club, this really, really irks me.
Do you happen to know the title of that documentary?
I got nothing other than what dute already said, but good luck and make sure to post results!
Ok, I think I have enough info to make my unofficial amateur diagnosis.\n\nIt seems like you were approached by a mid-level dark Ghost. Sounds like something cheesy from D&D, but it's the best way to describe it.  It sought to create an immense amount of fear within you because they feed off of negative energy, and fear seems to taste the best to them.\n\nAs for the bathroom incident, if that was the only experience you had until seeing the Ghost, it sounds like a benign Poltergeist (kind of an oxymoron, but they exist) that may have merely been curious about you.\n\nSpirits (excluding demons) have a wide variety of personalities and levels of good and evil, much like the general human population.
My exact thoughts!
I've read that. It is associated with the remake, not the original.
Autism denialist? This is new. Does that mean he doesn't think I exist?
>We had a homeopathic who was also an MD, but he has since moved and aged. Looking for alternatives. So, on paper they are vaccinated.\n\nThat bit just offends me; that doctor lied on her medical records? That's not something that should ever be considered ok.
Just about every episode. Sure some times they only pic up a few EVP's, but out of every ghost hunting show Ghost Adventures has caught the best most convincing evidence so far. \n\nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLYskDUfNzk  <-- part 1 of 3
The difference between these cranks and cranks today is that thankfully cranks today don't have access to uranium >_> Well, thats the hope anyway.
I had a very similar experience many times, while living in a 150 year old farm house. I felt the "presence" next to my bed, of a man, in all black, with a top hat.  \nWhen ever he was  there I felt a pressure on my chest pushing me down, preventing me from moving, almost painfully I would struggle to scream or move a finger. \nThe first time , when I broke free , I ran screaming into my house mate's room sobbing, refusing to sleep. The next morning I told my upstairs neighbor about the experience,  come to find out , she had felt a woman figure over her bed pushing on her chest the night before, echoing my own encounter.  SO weird. \nThat house was full of "visitations" So much so that I came to a theory through my experiences with these "ghosts". now  I see the air alive with energy,  a potential of magnetic resonance. Notice how the energy of a room can change when someone unhappy enters , even without saying a word and If say for instance a particularly "heavy" event happens in a a place or a space, i.e. a death or an argument,  that frequency can stay trapped in that space if the chi or emotional environment prevents a flow. Think of the ether or air as a magnectic recording  your current emotional state or an energtic disruption can become a host for an energy that was created there years ago. Rearranging  furniture or placing mirrors in "dead" spots will sometimes be the quickest fix. Also examine what you have in common with this ghost emotionally, maybe there is a reflective lesson in this.
I think I am getting an accurate picture! At first I was thinking along the lines of coming home and finding a dead dude sitting on your couch..or hanging out in the kitchen waiting for you. Its good that you can kind of "turn it off." What kinds of things do they want? What can you do to help?
It is a discussion on the lack of credentials of the author, the lack of disclosure of any potential commercial endorsements she might have, the lack of scientific depth of her post in Scientific American, and the fact that her piece sounds exactly like so many commissioned anti-organic pieces that have appeared over the years.\n\nIn this case, this is not an ad hominen attack, but a PSA: be wary of her writing and her hidden agenda.\n\nFor example: back in the PepsiGate ad ScienceBlogs, she was the one defending Pepsi:\n> But what ever happened to innocent until proven guilty? I'm not talking about Pepsi or its products, which have been shown time and again to be general detriments to health. I'm talking about this new blog. People are accusing them of all kinds of things including compromising the content here - but they haven't written a single post.\n\nShe has also publicly stated that she don’t see anything wrong with GMOs, despite the abundant research and the daily incidents and news involving these commercial products.\n\nTLDR: She is at best, unaware, and at worst, a shill. \n
>  I buy organic stuff when I can, but mostly because of the environmental/sustainability stuff.\n\nI have a friend who is a farmer and was looking into growing organic potatoes. He did the calculations and knew how much more he'd have to charge to make money because on average one gets about half as many potatoes per acre growing organically than non-organically.\n\nSo the world would need twice as many forests/rainforests plowed into fields if everyone were to switch to eating organic food. I'm not sure where that ranks in terms of "environmental/sustainability stuff", but I think it's pretty bad for both.\n
If people wanted to be useful and sway her opinion then they wouldn't be such assholes. They're clearly more interested in having a good time riding her ass than actually saving the planet from that kind of irrationality.
I'll miss it too but the premise for this new show looks promising
Yeah, but because of the "current", the flow of particles form the sun, they are really mostly one way, from it to us.\n\nI fail to see how these make shortcuts in space as the title indicates.
Three things:\n\n* Real medicine should trigger the placebo effect just as well as fake medicine if not more so. It will have actual biological effects too.\n* The placebo effect only works with subjective issues like pain, tension, and drowsiness. No amount of homeopathy will fix a broken leg. You didn't specify what your mother is suffering from, so it's possible the placebo effect won't help at all. Furthermore, pain is typically caused by something. Real medicine might be able to treat that something.\n* Any doctor that knowingly prescribes a placebo is in violation of medical ethics rules regarding informed consent.\n\nIt sounds like your father is pinning his hopes on the placebo too. Possibly you could suggest that she'd have even better chances using real medicine?
Thank you. But I stand by my original statement. The only thing that makes me think the guy honestly believes what he is saying is how silly the story is. A closet, a car drive, lost in the woods, woken up, all of these scenarios could be used instead of "I CRAWLED UNDERNEATH MY SINK THROUGH TIME LIKE NARNIA". \n\nWaaaaat. The world is such a crazy and interesting place.
Exactly!\n
You're an idiot, that's just the beginning of the article. It literally addresses every single points of yours above, but you have chosen to ignore it. \n\nI am not going to spoon feed you info. Run along back to /r/conspiracy where you can circlejerk in ignorance.
Jesus walked on water. Maybe his feet got wet? That's the guess I'm going with.
1. Yes there are. Dowsing rods work excellent, as do pendulums. You can pick either up at Wicca stores, or energy festivals. 2. Don't allow them in in the first place. You can do religious cleansing depending on your religion, exorcisms etc if something happens. Also, circles of salt, religious icons that you put your faith into/trust. Prayers beforehand work. 3. Very simply,  if you feel threatened or at peace. Levels of concentration can also determine the spirit's strength and your link with it. (if any)
[show them this interview from the Co-Founder of Greenpeace](http://www.wired.com/science/planetearth/news/2007/11/moore_qa)
I never claimed smoking cannabis cures cancer.
Yeah, it's definitely an awkward phrasing. I'm not sure of a better way to say it, though, or I'd edit the article.
Whilst not big - very intricate weave going on.
Oh no, it's even more specific than that - People like to bitch, and not being allowed to do precisely what they like 100% of the time gives them an excuse.
I found this photo in the FAQ:\nhttp://www.unifiedmanualtherapy.com/images/unified.manual.therapy.treatment2.jpg\n\nSo... Yes, absolutely.
Generally in medicine, if 1 in 10 people die from a procedure, it has a 10% mortality rate regardless of *why* they are dying, including human error.
It may not be a "pyramid" but a pit. Its hard to tell with a 2-D image, but look at it again, and imagine it being dug into the earth instead of emerging from it.
You can try to tell him to go to the light. Maybe google a ritual for getting a dog to cross over. There are a couple of ritualistic subreddits that may have information that can help. But, perhaps, the reason he is sticking around is because you are not really ready to let go yet.
Call, complain, email, write a letter to the editor for a local newspaper, and take it back, demand a refund.
I hear that.  But yeah, it makes sense when you think about it (I mean, why they are like that makes sense).  Parents of autistic children have been through so much, kids melting down uncontrollably in public places, children that don't want to be hugged, held, talked to, looked at, etc., and someone comes along and he says he knows the answer and places the blame squarely on something that is seemingly too complicated for the parents to understand, and they're sold.
I have cogitated on this very idea over the years. My theory? I picture first the image of "earth rising" taken from the moon by the astronauts. A blue marble floating in the darkness of space with some wonderful things on it... Water and Oxygen. Two things anyone traversing space would need, if "they" were anything like us, to stock up on. Look, we've been looking for earth like planets ourselves and it's not like we're a dime a dozen. Class M planets are nifty little things.\n\n\nSo. My theory is that earth is essentially a rest stop on intergalactic star maps for just tons of different species from tons of different planets. They zip in, vent some CO2, grab some water vapor (O2 + purified water in the atmosphere) and zip off to wherever their destination.\n\n\nSome visitors are probes... Some are "stocking up"... Some explore a little bit... Some come to show us who's boss in the neighborhood by shutting down our most advanced weapons, our nuclear arsenal, for a few hours. A universal form of communication is overtly displayed superiority for the purpose of intimidation. And it works.\n\n\nWhere this theory of mine goes from there? Don't know.
There's two parts to being good: using one's head (reason) and heart (motivation.) One without the other isn't enough; if you use reason without benevolent intent, you will be efficacious, but not necessarily in the right direction. If you have benevolent intent without reason, you risk a high probability of doing the wrong thing, or at least being ineffective.
[Literally?](http://xkcd.com/725/)
Is it possible to get a security video playback of the event?\n\nIf you could replicate this, you could actually qualify for [over USD$1 million](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prizes_for_evidence_of_the_paranormal) in prizes, not to mention helping humanity advance scientific understanding of this phenomena.
One thing that pisses me off is "skeptics" who are unskeptical about certain positions. I think that there is some decent evidence for anthropogenic global warming, but also lots of evidence against it. Anyone on ***either*** side who wastes time attacking their opponent instead of their opponent's data is an idiot, not a skeptic.
Because they're perhaps not quacks but charlatans?
To be fair, we measure water pollution in parts per million (ppm) and parts per billion (ppb), so a concentration of 10^-9 M, or 1 ppb, for an active ingredient is not negligible.
Wow, I'm... uh... deeply disturbed by that. Touched, too.
There's no haunted house that can't be fixed with a few rat traps, a few nails, and maybe some caulk.
burn sage in every room
>Agree with them or disagree with them, this is what real researchers will tell you.\n\nI sure hope not, as that would imply "real researchers" are misinformed about the field. And if they did tell me that, I would correct them.\n\n>supernatural != ghost and goblins. It just means a non-materialist, dualist explanation for phenomena.\n\nThis isn't even remotely close to the actual definition of supernatural.\n\n>But, more explicit to our discussion, it implies that psychic phenomena cannot be explained by otherwise more standard explanations, whereas in reality they are consistently explained (e.g., pre-cognition is in reality bayesian model building, since our minds are largely devoted to prediction, thus pre-cognition is something that is evolutionarily refined as a function of predicting what may happen... this is not some sort of "seeking the future", but rather anticipating the future. Other supposedly psychic phenomena have equally been debunked, and even those in the video are very likely to be found to have more standard (and boring) causes.\n\nNah. Most of that is false or non-explanatory. You are, as I mentioned in the previous post, ill-informed of actual research. I suggest independently analysing the research if you have the skills to do so, and to avoid the pseudo-sceptical magazines you've been reading, as they have impeded your ability for rational thinking.\n\n>Your emotional response shows your bias.\n\nNo, it shows my frustration. Eventually you get tired of hearing ignorant people repeating ill-reasoned arguments and trying to keep science from being done.\n\nAs you appear to have very little real information or understanding about this topic, and a lot of confidence in poorly reasoned arguments, last post to you.
That is a great site. Thanks for the link
What you've done, is simply provide a sample that's nowhere near comparable to what I'm citing. Secondly, I think you'd be VERY hard pressed to find 1,500 teachers, not affiliated with a religious school, who don't believe in evolution, especially in fields of study directly related in some way. If you managed to find 50, they'd be unemployed.\n\nYou can deny whatever you wish. You can have a bacterial infection and refuse antibiotics because the physician is an authority figure. That doesn't mean you have a valid argument.\n\n\n\n\n\n
Light and distance could possibly cause problems to seeing a magnified UFO. Anything you look at is reflected light particles from the past.
This is completely layman speculation based on articles I read long ago, but there are stations all over the place that contribute to the data in that graph. \n\nI just googled it to verify my information. [Apparently more than 100 surface stations across the globe were employed](http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch1s1-3-2.html), and the graph on the site shows interpretations of the data that agree. So to answer your question, they track global surface temperature by measuring it all over the place and averaging.
[Here's](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC27492/) a review of more than 200 water fluoridation studies that found no significant adverse effects.\n\n>The evidence of a reduction in caries should be considered together with the increased prevalence of dental fluorosis. No clear evidence of other potential negative effects was found. This evidence on positive and negative effects needs to be considered along with the ethical, environmental, ecological, financial, and legal issues that surround any decisions about water fluoridation. Any future research into the safety and efficacy of water fluoridation should be carried out with appropriate methodology to improve the quality of the existing evidence base.
Yeah, but absolutely no evidence is not a good place to start.\n
When will the word butthurt go away?
Such a great series.
Accuracy is not pedantic. Creationism is a hypothesis.\n
But i suppose that a meteor bouncing off against the upper atmosphere would do the same???
after figuring out all the real logic in my head, it was easy to see the logic behind "if homeopathy cures everything then why did doctors keep going forward with evidence based medicine? if something works, people gravitate to it and homeopathy would have become mainstream."
It's still a huge risk and that's something Ricki doesn't address.  It's one thing if you know about the huge risks and go for it anyway because of economic concerns, but it's entirely different to be deceived into thinking it's somehow better for the mother or the baby.
Oh man at least THAT didn't happen.  :)\nMy mom continues to report odd things happening, despite moving to a brand new home in North Carolina.  My dad died three years ago this month, and she likes to think it's him.  I doubt it (not the haunting, but the identity), but if that helps her...
How have I been watching that since it came out without noticing this??
This really needs to be the top answer.
This Mayan bumf is the biggest load of horseshit that anyone ever unloaded.
Here is the page where this was pinched from: http://tinyurl.com/436hge7\n\nIt has links to all the powerpoints.
maybe it's because most don't actually have lights and thus we can't see them.\n\nmaybe it's because most, if not all, UFOs are of human origin.
If this person is a girl ask them to use a homeopathic birth control instead of the evil big pharma kind have them come back with the results. Go on, see what happens.
Was this a one time event or an ongoing club?
What makes up or causes consciousness and how exactly are these tied to what you call dimensions?
The long tail is a wonderful thing
Every time.
We replaced it with a nice flat screen, like the one we had in Austria and moved the tube upstairs into the game room for the kids. Never heard another peep out of it.
My recomendation: Find somebody who evokes entities. \n\nThe end of every Evocation is a banishing.
Have an upvote. An honest addendum like this shouldn't be downvoted. It's important to encourage honesty!
Not hard, no.  However it's a bit like the "well prove god doesn't exist" situation.\n\nThey believe the anecdotal "evidence" but won't believe that the lack of empirical evidence means anything.  Frustrating.
Thanks! just watched the whole thing. Very interesting!
That moderator's quote shows a misunderstanding of how science research works.  Researchers perform research, therefore the researcher's actions must be examined to determine the validity of the research.  Good experimental design is a great place to start, but if the data are faked the research is still worthless!
well that vault is pretty much all the evidence anyone would need unless they are stubborn enough to say that they wont believe until one pees on their shoe.
Uh-oh, the quacks have discovered good webdesign...
At 4:29 it gets really good
The beard is his mystical aura.
I think at the same time, it's because the ambience is so dark. \n\nVibes are to be had in the washrooms though. Never taking a deuce in there again.
Can't they believe in magic that works even if performed by someone else?
Placing a spectrum (like personality) into small labeled boxes is good in terms of describing most but bad in terms of dealing with any individual.  It's just daily stereotyping.
That was one of the most poorly written articles that I have read in months.  If you're going to write, at least make sense.\n\nedit: This actually informs, unlike the linked article: http://www.drunkard.com/issues/01-05/0105-dry-piper.htm
I am not worried about giving shady sites traffic. The only effect more traffic will have (if any at all) is an increased hosting bill. I built donotlink to prevent search engines from giving any credence to these sites.\n\nCreating a copy of the site's html (which is what backupurl does) is another way to approach this, but backupurl keeps the links on the copy intact and therefore still allows Google and other search engines to give credence to the offending site.
You know, this sort of thing occasionally does happen. Right now in southern Ontario there's a big stink about a kid who found a pin some candy. Maybe the kids did it as a joke that got out of hand, maybe it's real, but it's being taken very seriously. [Here](http://www.torontosun.com/2011/11/02/needle-found-in-halloween-candy-in-whitby)\n\nJust because something isn't as widespread as popular myth would have us believe doesn't mean it never happens..
[penn and teller did the experiment too](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AyTbLqSBfI)
Your name is very appropriate.
My in-laws believe the universe is 6,000 years old.  I teach high school biology.  Christmas will be awkward.
The bible is good enough for them. The jesuits are inclined towards a more intellectual perspective regarding the religion.
Thank FSM for the science. I would say it stakes out its ground pretty well around here, but sometimes, I would like to see a horizontal graph of all the arguments, sorted vertically by who believes in what. On the hippy side, "Things Are" <-> the Control side, the most unreasonable/ exclusive extremes. Not that population of opinion means truth, it doesn't.  \n  \nA Wiki of (forex: reddit) opinions. Does this exist?
For instance, [here's my review](http://www.amazon.com/review/R12EOSD0E0W3TY/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ASIN=B005DO1N2W). Feel free to mark it as helpful if you agree.
That's some shitty transporter technology that takes a week and a half to materialize.
But you can't cure everyone, you just want to keep them maimed so you can get monthly payments from them for pills.  \n\n\nI would say that is more than pretty neat BTW.  Rick Simpson FTW.
I would love to memorize all of these but I just don't see that happening. Who can shed some light on the top 7-10 that would capture a majority of the fallacies that are encountered?
All scientific evidence points to the universe being finite, starting from the big bang and expanding ~14 billion years.\n\nOf course there is some wild speculation about multiverses etc, but we probably have no way of knowing about anything outside of our "universe"
You beat me to it.  I owe you.
>I thought it was your white adipose tissue generating Leptin which tells your brain that you are "full enough"\n\nwell, yeah, that's one of the cues, and giving mice leptin sure seems to help them lose/not gain weight, but when given to humans people lost very little weight (I think the average was 3-5 lbs? I should really go find that study again...), suggesting that our feedback loops are much more complicated and involved.\n\n>When leptin was administered to obese people, it did not lead to weight reduction or obesity prevention (Ahima & Flier 2000). And while further human studies confirmed that leptin concentrations are higher in obese people, subjects given extra leptin did not eat less or expend more energy as expected (Jéquier 2002).\n(from http://www.ideafit.com/fitness-library/the-lowdown-on-leptin )\n\nPeople also seem to develop leptin resistance. which seems like it might be a similar idea to type II diabetes to me, only not with insulin.
Yeah, but. Opening up other people's minds is important. Anyone who wants to seriously discuss or study the subject objectively is welcome. \n\nThat said, I haven't seen too many receptive people on reddit. Which kind of surprises me. The space subreddit is pretty hard-core anti-UFO, and also pro-SETI... which I find really amusing.\n\n Maybe it's just one of those things you have to see to believe.
Im a practicing occultist and member of a tradition that has recorded roots back at least the early 1900s.  My group has connections to lodges in the UK as well as all across the nation.   There are a number of reason this could be happening including you turning it off subconsciously due to discomfort or unhappiness with your new life/surroundings.   \n\nBut what popped into my head first is another interesting factor that I've heard brought up before. It is the idea of the 'spirit of the land of your blood'.  I have heard people say that family roots can matter highly when it comes to sensitivities and the land.   This is actually why a number of foreign occult groups really feel the US has a powerful influence on the future.   Being a place where many 'blood roots' will combine and their children will be of this land but have roots in other or eventually all lands it will make those with natural ability more versatile and globally capable.  Just my two cents from my background.  If you want to wander into a group of sensitives up there I suggest looking up Tahuti Lodge (its OTO though Im not).  They hold open events where you can meet some of the locals like you.  Nice enough group from my limited exposure.  With practice and some sounding boards you can open up beyond what you've already figured out on your own.\n\nBest of luck.
Unfortunately UAP only has 4 posts in the past 3 weeks. The last one was over 2 weeks ago...
I love how the kid just says "I don't care".  That was awesome, you can see that Hovind was squirming
I'll never understand why so many people subscribe to subreddits they obviously don't like, believe in or agree with. It'd be like me subbing to r/Christianity and then bitching about Christians. What's the point?
But saying you "feel better" isn't evidence for anything.  I am not saying that you don't feel better, but feeling better is a subjective term and has no medical meaning.  Spinal manipulation can make you feel better, but it is also very dangerous. People can suffer strokes and nerve damage and even death from going to a chiropractor. True medicine can also be dangerous, but the difference is that medicine is not about making you feel better but about producing a beneficial medical effect.
I wish climate change skeptics (read: deniers) would stop giving the rest of us a bad name.
I find this comment pretty illogical. \n\nDisease symptoms pretty much always precede our understanding of their causes/cures. The symptoms are in fact related because *they are the symptoms sufferers and their physicians describe*. Calling them unrelated because their cause isn't understood is self-fulfilling. And calling the compilation of symptoms "lazy diagnosis" implies that no real effort is being made to understand them. Do you have evidence that this is the case?\n\nJust because this is the skeptic subreddit doesn't mean that everything should be automatically debunked without the application of logic.
Now you gotta explain the fifth floor
That is crazy.  What is discriminatory about saying "we make no exceptions on immunizations for health reasons for the children?"  You're not forcing them to get the immunization, and thus, you're not breaking anti-discrimination laws.  I'm sure a smooth lawyer could turn that around, but, they're free to watch their own kids.\n\nIf I was a business owner I'd shut down shop and tell the parent to suck my dick.
My moms side of the family is Norwegian. I have two "Nordic" gene mutations.
Believe on a scientific scale.  Whatever is out there, isn't interested in us, or just hasn't found us yet.  As far as ships with lights....no, just no.
>Read the explanation of what was said at the panel again. A rape joke doesn't have that. \n\nRape jokes can be rationalized too.\n\n>Also, jokes work differently against groups of different privilege.\n\nIn other words: you want to hold men and women to different standards because you believe women, as a class, are disadvantaged relative to men, as a class.  If you had actually read [the link I supplied earlier](https://femintology.wordpress.com/2012/04/11/why-im-an-antifeminist/) explaining why I was an antifeminist, you would have known that I disagree with this premise.  Furthermore, holding men and women to different standards **is not** equality...supporting that means you **do not** support equality...it means you support privileging women above men.\n\n>I meant the people you label feminists for the express purpose of making feminists look bad by assocation.\n\nI'm not doing that to try to make "feminists look bad by association".  It just so happens that the people who put all of this effort into maligning the MRM with underhanded tactics/etc. are feminists.  It's the common denominator.  \n\n>I would, if that movement is hateful and more concerned with stickign it to feminists than addressing the issues.\n\nAgain, had you read what I linked earlier, you would have seen the explanation for this.  Feminist fight efforts to address MR issues.  The ideological denial of male disadvantage leads to redefinitions of terms like "sexism" so that only men can be sexist, and denial of things like false accusations, male victims of rape/DV/etc.  If feminists didn't stand in the way of equality, then MRAs wouldn't have anything to say about feminists.\n\n>This discussion is pointless\n\nI agree...this discussion is pointless because you have no idea what the fuck you're talking about and refuse to educate yourself.
You must have never seen a newspaper then.
I don't have it worse than you, but my sister went to school to study some sort of alternative nutritional therapy or something (not sure exactly what), and my parents are really into alternative medicine type things.\n\nAnd now my parents consider my sister to be some sort of medical/nutritional expert.  It's a little disheartening, I have to just hope that she doesn't give them *really* bad advice.  Most of this kind of stuff is at least benign in terms of health consequences, even if it's far from benign in terms of the public understanding of science.
yeah, the shadow is what frightened me. I did have many things worrying me and I had to smoke something to put me to sleep. The shadow moved too slowly to have been a car. All I could and can think of is Slender Man.. Slender Man.. Slender Man.. creepy,
Sry, probably shouldn't have assumed OP was the creator of the video.  What I was curious about was that the man in the video is wearing a jacket that looks pretty warm.  He mentioned the date as being in July and sounded North American...  so I was curious as to where he is living that he needed (what I would consider) a winter style jacket in a summer month.
If you have to ask ...
I closed this image and just said "jeez" to myself as I closed it. I was shocked at how mad the image made me. I don't usually get mad at things (cos what's the point really?) but this took over. I don't care now or anything but still, I am amused that I had a verbal reaction such as this one...
Actually, *scientists* have known that the Earth was round since at least the ancient Greeks. The flat Earth hypothesis was mostly popular among the uneducated.\n\nAdditionally, even if it had been a widely accepted scientific theory, you cannot compare a theory popular prior to the development of the scientific method with one developed afterward.
The only problem is vaccines rely heavily on herd immunity. They aren't 100% effective, so even if you're vaccinated, there's a small chance you can catch the disease.
Most articles don't bold facedly lie, but it is an entertainment site before it is...well just about anything else. It's fairly common to see two articles talking about similar topics say opposite, incompatible things.\n\nSomething you'll see a fair amount is at least one of the points is based entirely off a single experiment that has yet to be thoroughly tested and peer reviewed, but because one guy at Stanford released some data that 18/20 students masturbated to monkeys having sex, college students are all attracted to monkeys.
I have read it and you don't think that it serves Hynek's purpose to say he was paid to debunk UFOs?
I saw one like this too. About 4pm, It was moving slowly above the mountains near my house. I was driving, and stopped to watch it a while. My wife was watching it too. It moved over the highway, and I started racing home to see if I could watch it in my telescope. As it got over the highway, it seemed to have the shape of a telephone handset. (I've since referred to it as the flying telephone.) I was driving, so I lost sight of it while I was watching the road. I didn't see it when I got home. The more I think about it, the more it seems to me to be a fucked up weather balloon.\n\n\nIt fits your description too. Shining at a higher altitude just before the sun comes up, hovering or moving slowly, changing shape. Mine didn't look like stars, because of the time of day, but my first impression was of two rotating metallic spheres. I'm pretty convinced about the weather balloon theory.\n\n\ntl;dr: It's a fucking weather balloon. No joke.
Are you a skeptic? Are you a part of the skeptic community?
I went on one of their tours when I was a kid and it was definitely creepy then.  Then my friend had her 18th birthday party there and walking through the ship at night was more than a little unnerving.\n\nI refuse to stay in any of the rooms that were used when the ship was working.  I stayed in one with friends about 5 years ago and it scared the bejeezus out of me.  Tapping sounds came from the bathroom and the porthole window.  Not to mention the smell of cigarette smoke that came out of nowhere and lingered for the rest of the night.  \n\n
I don't care anymore. i post links and you refuse to look at them. You are a waste of time. you just like to proselytize. \n\nI am going to be nice and give you a hint: no one has a clue, especially the scientists.
Special properties. Specifically, firm yet elastic.
What's that got to do with the current topic?
How? Is my notion that no theory is incontrovertible incorrect? Because that is pretty much the foundation of science.
Short story but it was good. To be honest I cant see a reason as to why you would lie about this and I don't think anyone here can argue with your opinion or your theory. Thanks again for the story.
So you're saying, MS doesn't consider the mission, or efficacy of the non-profit involved?    Just makes sure they are non-profit?   Do you think that is wise, or even strategically correct?   For all I know NAMBLA may be a non-profit.
know your facts, have your counter argument ready ahead of time. works for both sides :)
I don't know of a documented case with a new 'true' accent or skills/abilities; all the ones with accents, new skills, or knowledge were reasonably fake. Personality changes, preference changes, or affectations yes; but not new knowledge. Even accents to would be more like a speech impediment which sounds like some particular accent.
My brother remembers it exactly the same way. The bottle was definitely empty. We both examined it enough to see that there was no normal reason it should have been balancing like that. It may have been some sort of "trick" bottle I guess but that just seems really unlikely.  We laughed about it afterwards and even called it a glitch in the matrix. I actually kind of forgot about it for a while but he brought it up yesterday in conversation. That's what made me think to post it here.
> Why was he wrong?\n\nHe was wrong because he didn't understand error bars or experimental precision. The observations are all consistent with the theoretical prediction; the prediction lies within the error bars of the observations.\n\n> How the anomaly and the precession are related is beyond me\n\nThat's explained in detail on the page.
You're close. What is show in the video is what is know as an "earthgrazer." It is a meteor that enters the atmosphere at a shallow angle and "skips" across it like a rock skipping on water.
As a marketing professional I can confirm that the second option, "they're using the same packaging for a bunch of different countries, at least one of which requires it", is the reason they have the disclaimer.
"It shows a deep lack of understanding of how science works and a deep ignorance of the philosophy of science"\n\nsorry\n\n
That only happens when people are illiformed
Good job. Tried anything else?\n\nYou seem to have a bit of a knack for it.
I thought numerology was the hocum of numbers not names...
If you google something along the lines of "guided meditation for spirit animals," you should find links like these: [Meditation 1](http://www.paganspath.com/meta/anmlmed.htm), [Meditation 2](http://inner-power.net/2010/09/find-your-animal-totem-guided-meditation/). Many people find their totems through meditative practices (sometimes with incorporation of entheogens or hallucinogens, but this is not advised for the unexperienced). Some more hardcore methods can involve retreats, fasting, or Vision Quests. \n\nBooks like Ted Andrew's *Animal Speak* may be worth looking into. There are many others devoted to Medicine/Spirit Animals / Familiars; you just need to research. \n\nI have worked with totems. If you want to have a discussion about this further, PM me. I am acquainted with both Raven and Crow.
I guess I gotta go back to my Uni so I can get my degree in physics so I can speculate on UFO's
Says boundless a lot, don't he?
I was joking. Because all this blocked in your country crap is making my blood boil. But thanks for the info.
You know, if a nut comes to the cops saying they know where a body is, it's actually a good idea for them to listen.
Thanks, it was popping up all over my FB and I knew there would be a good link to send to my friends.
I accidentally a word!  I meant to say you are NOT out to win anyone over...  Sorry for the confusion.
Hahaha I noticed that as well! Says it all really.
There is no emoticon for what I am currently feeling.
They look awfully like reflections of ceiling lights from the inside building.
To be fair, that's "spirituality" in a nutshell.\nReligion is the encouraged spread of 'spirituality', used to extort and abuse a population.
I agree...and he seems a bit trusting of our government. Given all of the things they have done, this could just act as propaganda to weaponize space even though all advanced ETs are harmless
My psychic powers disappear when I tell people about them.
Check out the video dude has.  Pretty creepy.
I stand corrected. My final response: you're and idiot. Arguing with you is like arguing with a table. Yes this is an ad hominem attack. I don't care. You deserve it. Nothing is more frustrating than arguing with someone too ignorant to realize they're wrong and learn from others. Now I'm done; have a good life buddy.
I have removed these posts, and will continue to do so if I find them still to be skeptical-content-free. \n\nThe fact is, this post is for _skeptical_ articles. Maybe it's worth putting this definition in the sidebar, but in my definition, a skeptical article is one that:\n\n1. Promotes a better understanding of science\n\n2. Analyzes a pseudoscientific argument for the purposes of debunking, as well as gaining a better understanding of how to skeptically analyze dubious claims\n\n3. Delivers tutorial material for exercising critical thinking and the scientific method to everyday phenomena.\n\nThese types of articles are 100% guaren-damn-tee'd to stay in this subreddit. They have 'skeptic' right on the tin. I would classify "most" things from Neurologica or Science-based-medicine to generally fall into this category.\n\nThere is a second class of stories which I think belong in this subreddit, those of "skeptical interest", these are loosely defined as human-interest stories with content of strong interest to skeptics. These are somewhat more subjective, I usually try to judge whether or not to keep them based on a combination of comments, reports, votes, and common sense. When in doubt, I let the community moderate itself.\n\nThen there are the rest. Among them, I think this RockBeyondBelief site is a good example. There is fundamentally nothing wrong with the content, it is not blogspam per-se, though after the 3rd posting, I would classify it as spam proper. I would classify this story under "secular interest" rather than any of the above definitions. From what I've gathered from the community, as well as my own hope for this subreddit, the intent is to contain the first two types of articles, and leave the others to the appropriate subreddits (/r/atheism, etc). \n\nI would like some community involvement, Perhaps a proper post is in order, however, I think my definition of content is fairly good for this subreddit. I would like to make clear, the goal is not censorship, but signal/noise management. I think that there are _better_ places to put that content, and that the (frankly, flawed) assumption that things which _might_ interest skeptics because they _may_ also be **INSERT SUBCULTURAL ADJECTIVE HERE** as well is foolish, since it assumes that redditors don't cross-subscribe to subreddits which associate with their desired news. \n\nTL;DR, There is a **reason** I don't subscribe to /r/atheism, it's because the articles which belong there (like this one) don't interest me. If they did, I would have subscribed!
Sorry, why do I clearly have a drug problem? Some other posts of mine or my username?\n\nIt was a play on the word dopamine, I smoke cigarettes but don't have any drug problems.
Nobody expected...
But brawdo's got electrolytes!\n\nWhen someone mentions "chemicals" as something bad, or "toxins".. I cringe..
>I re-read every one of your posts in this thread. You've cited nothing of the sort.\n\nNo you didn't, or you would have read [this](http://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/oh1ts/newspaper_comic_on_vaccines_xpost_from_rfunny/c3hfebp?context=3).\n\n>Can you actually find anything that supports you assertion that he is actually anti-vaccination?\n\nI never once, not once, asserted he was anti-vaccination. Please stop making things up about what I said.
When they are big professors at major universities, it reflects on the field.
Granted, but evolution is a proposed explanation for the fact that organisms change over time, an attempt to understand and describe the causes of that fact, not a fact in and of itsself.\n\nAs far as gravity goes, there is still a lot of study going into determining whether it is truly a force, or an emergent property of distorted space time. So though we can say that objects with mass are attracted to one another, we are still very far from even understanding what that means.\n\nIn toto, declaring that one must believe in evolution because it is a "fact" is neither a skeptical, nor a scientifically valid position.
It's just a way for people who can't control situations to feel like the world is fair. \n\nGuy hits your care while you are in the store and someone says, "He'll get his.". Someone speeds by you recklessly and someone says, "People who drive like that get a lot of tickets.". It's just wishful thinking so that they don't have to come to terms with the reality that the universe isn't fair.
Testimonies aren't evidence either. Maybe valid at a court of law, but not for science. \n\nSo yes, testimonies without physical evidence can and should be ignored, at least if you want to research the subject scientifically.
So is Earth REALLY just an intergalactic reality show?
Now THAT is some serious, righteous, world-class trolling.  Absolutely fantastic.
Redit is a FIXED game. It's no more than a support structure for the status quo. You are not good for the species.
Exactly. Electromagnetic interference is commonly experienced with WI-FI's. More than 3-4 WI-FI routers on the same channel will start to interfere.
Leaning towards fake. Not sure how this "ghost" would end up perfectly centered in the photo unless it was planned.
\ntyson:\n\nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BRDCxNEuyg\n\nmunger on human misjudgement:\n\nhttp://archive.org/details/CharlieMungerOnHumanMisjudgment\n\nhttp://www.rbcpa.com/Mungerspeech_june_95.pdf\n\n
Michio Kaku is just a dreamer and a Sci-Fi writer who thinks of himself as a great scientist. "Here is my next book *Physics of the future* where I talk about the year 2100"... well, Mr. Michio Kaku, that's called Sci-Fi, and I already read a book about year 41042,  [*A love story from the year 41,042*](http://www.carti-online.com/o-iubire-din-anul-41042-p-18.html), long time ago...
This reply is insufficient. I can not tell if you are interested in reading the article or just pointing out that I did not give a reference. I need more if you want to converse with me.
It was very obvious from reading the article that he's not a scientist, but a journalist. He apparently thinks that studies need to be more like exposés and less like investigations into a narrow slice of reality.
You have a great voice! ;)
This one, to be exact:  http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ghost-capture/id349479650?mt=8
A journalist is not supposed to present every side of a story as a equally important and equally relevant. You can't honestly think that any discussion about the earth not being round needs to have a panel of flat-earthers on hand for debates. Get real.\n\nBeing a skeptic doesn't make you so objective that you consider even the most absurd idea out there.
If you believe in astrology, I'm whatever sign doesn't work with you.
See, I guess we're almost debating semantics now. I can see how you could see it as "Don't even bother with those who deny the moon landing, you're wasting your time", (obviously, I would agree - well, unless you want to be entertained, perhaps.) But I think it can also be interpreted as "Hey, these guys are as insane as those who deny the moon landing", when it's all used in the same context/blog post.\n\nAt the very least, he needs to be more careful w/ his wording.\n
I'm not sure if you're a troll or a moron.  Going to go with troll.  Or maybe that odd parenthesis at the end is supposed to mean sarcasm and I missed the memo.
No guidance but im fascinated and impressed that you can stand it. I would go to a church or paranormal group. Good story
Here is a bit of personal conjecture:\n\nI was driving one night, when a drunk driver hit me...it was not head-on, but a passing blow to the side of my car.  His car swerved off the road into a ditch, and could not be moved.  I stopped and talked with the man for a second when he suddenly bolted down the road.  I did not feel like chasing him in the middle of the night on a deserted road, so I called the local police and waited.  After they took the initial report, an officer came to my residence a few hours later with a photo lineup for me to pick out the assailant.  He showed me the array and I could not say for certain if he was pictured.  The cop did the whole "Bunk fat-finger" on one of the mug shots, but I was still very uncertain.  If I had been a more pliable person, I would have just assumed the cop knew his business and fingered a possibly innocent man...it's so easy to manipulate folks into believing what you want them to believe.
Some sort of bird, with a beak? And blood would freeze, no? Or maybe it lost it's appendages in the crash? Maybe they live in higher/lower pressure atmosphere and the eyes exploded due to the equalization with Earth's pressure in the crash? It does look slightly charred, no?\n\nIt's probably some sort of monkey though, as someone below mentioned.
The irony here truly abounds. A bunch of people are saying another bunch of people don't have a valid voice (after all, that's the reason we are here right?) and then when that same thing gets turned back on them, they claim it's religious. Well, here's the thing... I'm the guy who got banned and shut down because my viewpoint wasn't valid because I have a penis. I don't want anyone who has a viewpoint they are actively trying to defend to be shut down. I'm the guy arguing for *your* right to speak.
Good news everyone, we brought water to cure your AIDS.
It's different when you experience it yourself firsthand, and I'm not trying to diss you or anything, I applaud you for your open-mindedness. Really it depends on the experience, and the type of spirit of whatever you are dealing with, especially the vibes they give off. Say a hooded figure in your room did appear. First thing you'd probably notice is something else is in there with you, and when you turn around and see it, it's that much more creepy. I'm with you on the curiosity part, for I've several personal encounters, and have been more curious than scared for most of them, but there is still that innate fear that surges through you, a primal fear if you will.
I guess I'm unable to understand how thr magnet hitting nerve endings would be any different from a vibrating ring, or something like that... can you elaborate more on that?
come from a native traditional background, i see it while observing, and im glad its being put together to show :)
WTF does this even mean?
This is probably my favorite of all of them because it is not about whether or not it is real, but how the victims felt during the experiences. Also, it has some of the best video footage I have ever seen. Especially the first episode of session 1. Actually, the first story of episode 1 is outstanding.
dude, chiropractors have much more knowledge on the muscles, bones and nerves than medical doctors do.  I know that may sound surprising, but it's true.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerald_Tablet\n\n>"According to the “Emerald Tablets of Thoth”, Hermes was allegedly a spiritual master from Atlantis. "  \n\nI couldn't go any further than that.\n\nWhile the tablets are very cool, they just translate into a bunch of gibberish about gods and creation and just like every other religion it starts with "THIS IS TOTALLY THE TRUTH BRO!".  \n\nThey do not talk about lost cities or spaceships.  Take your pills and stay off the internet for awhile.
This should come as no surprise to anyone really..\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Biggest_Douche_in_the_Universe
[google search sun dog](http://www.google.com/search?q=sun+dog&hl=en&rlz=1C1GPEA_enUS316US316&biw=1014&bih=671&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=pXOPTvaPH8r50gGRmLET&ved=0CEMQsAQ) and tell me that looks the same...
> All those can be summed up by one statement from the BBC:\n\nActually two things about that: One, that's true, but then there's all the studies which have shown that he was wrong over the past decade. And two, the did show that he FAKED HIS RESEARCH!! Aka they showed that his conclusions are based on lies! His conclusions are based on faked data, so his conclusions can not considered valid!\n\n> So, I never suggested that ethalmercury causes Autism; I suggested it's a neurotoxin. Instead of debating the toxicity of the compound, you want to debate someone else's ethics?\n\nStrange considering that's what has been brought up at every turn in this debate, and even stranger considering that the autism ethyl mercury connection is the ONLY thing that has ever been said about ethyl mercury regarding harm. That's the ONLY thing that the "dangers" of ethyly mercury has ever been discuessed. \n\n> I have a BS from a School of Engineering and Applied Science. Where did you go to school?\n\nChico State with a degree in Biology ;). And btw a degree in engineering makes you about as qualified to talk about biology as an art degree. You don't have the training to make any sort of statments on biology. \n\n> Where did I say that? Quote me\n\nThis statement right here:\n\n> You can not prove mercury or ethylmercury is safe\n\nEvery single compound in existence can be demonstrated to be safe under certain levels, why exactly does this not apply to mercury? Why exactly does it not comply with the dose-response relationship? This statement is basically saying that the rules don't apply to mercury for some magical reason!
Monopoly
When did I ever say that he didn't do it? Please provide a citation and an appropriate link.
> without being an actual placebo.\n\nAnything that creates a placebo effect is absolutely a placebo. The effect is way wider than just sugar pills.
Hey!\n\nThose are both flammable gasses. They're not stable enough!\n\nThis sounds dangerous.
Because this is a cult that originated with Koreans. Simple as that. Stop getting your panties in a bunch.
Its obviously crap if the rubber ends keep falling off. Who would be part of a scam by advertising a product that is poorly made.
If there was a genuine diagnostic feature of "real" crop circles, then experts could use those to identify which ones have been faked. \n\nSeveral times now experts have claimed that they know what marks a genuine crop circle. They do this in the original article above.\n\nEvery time these experts have been tested they have proclaimed circles as genuine when there was proof that they had been made by people.
And thats where I don't understand the motive.\n\nThey weren't released under a single youtube user/channel of any sort, which pretty much rules out an underground viral campaign. In fact, the first video I found was posted by allnewsweb... in other words, this wasn't done for direct attention.\n\nIt seems the camera phone videos were just released by the people immediately the day after. The 3rd video (mississippi one) looks to me to be the planted video to throw off the trail. It had some obvious problems, and I think that kind of type-casting makes sense if they were trying to toe the line between genuine and obvious fake.\n\nThis 4th one is interesting. If they took the video that night, but withheld it because they were looking to secure the internet copyrights on it, it would make sense as to why it didn't surface for a few days. Leaving out the 3rd video, I think there is a very strong case that these *could* be legit... I still have no idea tho. The 2 cameraphones and this one in concert are pretty impressive.
Quick, someone make a prediction calendar webapp where one can put predictions with reference to the liar :D
To me, picture 1 looks like you unzipped your sweatshirt/jacket and your white t-shirt underneath was exposed. \n\nAre you saying that you did not have anything white on, at all, and the scarf-like white item coming down from your neck is nothing you were wearing?
i think you missed the subtlety of his argument. because bsuiness is relies on  *people* it proves nothing in the the xkcd "comic".\n\nby the same logic, charlatans and hucksters seems to make tons of money from people in the same way. if we relied in the market perspective, Justin  Bieber is better than Leadbelly and Tarot and psychic hotlines are undoubtedly useful tools enjoyed by millions.\n\n\n\n**EDIT: comment incomplete:**\n\ncommerce actually falls victim to the underlying human mechanisms being hijacked by persisent delusions like those listed.\n\ni hear some geology oil guys have been known to have poor success records that are lower than random guessing.\n\n\none good economic counter-argument is that electricity has always been a great product yet only got monetised in the last 100 years.\n\nover the last 250 years science has brought it out the realm of stage magic and into something actually useful.\ni think we need to see what science says not BIG commerce. in fact, the crackpots use the very same premise to mitigate the lack of mainstream support they get in science.
>Everything is a lie!\n\nWhen people spout unintentionally the [liar's paradox](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liar_paradox) I always just say "really? well that's confusing".
Route 93 heading to Vegas, eh? Could they be flares from a nearby military base?
Okay, agree to disagree on this. Neither one of us is going to budge on our views, clearly. But to answer your questions, Yes I do think the military would stop the movie probably before it got made if not during, no I don't think they would've stopped the broadcast after the production. They wouldn't have said anything. They would've gone in taken the shit and put everyone under gag orders. No, I don't think that would ever happen because, as I said before, they would've ended this before it began. To ask a question that has not been answered at least twice now: Do you seriously believe they don't monitor every single person that comes in or out of Area 51? Cause if you don't, then yes, your theories are at least arguable, but if you do, how can you not see my point that would not try to stop this?
Not to mention the number of policies that have been enacted throughout the country that do not show allegiance to Christianity on their respective faces, but are almost certainly proposed because of it. e.g., intelligent design in schools, restrictions on abortion and contraception, opposition to gay marriage, etc.
Certainly. I know you can find it here in Northern California.
Give a listen to the [Mysterious Universe](http://mysteriousuniverse.org/) podcast. The hosts are young, hip, and oozing with overall charm. Most importantly, they maintain a solid balance between open-mindedness and scientific reason.\n\nBrowse their backlog, find a topic that interests you, and give the podcast a chance to open you up and entertain you.
I see what you did there
Meditation can never be bad, where are you guys getting that? I've been meditating for over 20 years now and have never heard anything along those lines. Clear your mind, and often!
I have asthma and am in my 40s. Flu can be life-threatening for me. Every year I get the flu jab for free on the NHS and I've never caught it any year I've had the flu vaccine.\n\nMaybe you'll feel different when you get older
Same with trans fats.  0 = up to .5 grams per serving (and the servings can be really small - I'm looking at you, cooking spray)
It really isn't as bad as you think... you just know how to play the game. Unfortunately, musicians are not usually ruthless bargain hunters.
He says that climatologist > Myers > Randi.
Steve almost always includes those when needed. \n
Simple test: \n\n1) Turn on TOTAL SHEILD\n\n2) Turn on the radio\n\n3) Did the radio pick up any signals? (static counts as EM signal)\n\nEDIT: [Video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hm-D9jeHDpg) of what happens to a radio in a Faraday Cage
Now you're making normative judgments on word definitions? \n\nI understand there is a usage of that phrase that includes social institutions, but it's less common so I didn't consider it.\n\nIf I had said "oh, I meant explicit institutionalized sexism when I said that" at the beginning would I have been judged as ideologically pure enough to not get a lecture about the exact points *I* was making?\n\nThis is what bothers me about skepchick too, what this whole comment thread is about. You're still ranting at me about the necessity to fight sexism because we disagree on the appropriate definition of "institutional sexism". \n\nDo you even care about getting back to the original point now that we've agreed on the definition? Clearly not.\n\nI could not care less about a semantic argument like this.
I think a very crucial nuance of the comic is that one of the rabbits claims to **know** what is on the picture while the other one only assumes it most likely is something different. This is a pretty straightforward distinction, since creationists don't say "I assume there is God". So it isn't really a matter of how the other side percepts the term "evidence".
Yes.  Yes they do.\n\nThey also take nutrients from soil (and in some cases, bugs). They need water, too.\n\nIn other words, they eat. Trying to survive on a "plant" diet of only sunlight is not only stupid because we aren't plants, but because even plants don't survive on only sunlight. Stick a plant in a vacuum jar and only give it sunlight, and it will die.\n
Pubmed has a ton of information on the link between aluminum and neurological diseases. However, Alzhemiers itself is most likely due to a malfunctioning caspase and the aluminum aggregates are a symptom. Nevertheless, there is still debate on the toxicity of the aggregates themselves and their role in brain damage.
>"This technique is the target of critiques regarding results and efficacy.  >One of them is about the “placebo effect” of its remedies, which do not >contain any trace of the raw material used in its preparation. To answer >this criticism, a clarification is necessary: **homeopathy is not related to chemistry, but to quantum physics, because it works with energy, not with chemical compounds that can be qualified and quantified."**\n\nWaaaaaaaaat???? This is just...my brain hurts.
I will get you in touch with my chiropractor. He knows some good naturopaths.
Yeah, it does seem to mirror what was stated for the Disclosure Project. That said, I'm glad they're re-stating their recollections -- this time without Steven Greer being at the forefront of proceedings. Reading about that guy is enough to sow the seeds of cynicism in ardent believers...which is perhaps one of the reasons it never got the coverage it deserved. In fact, I just checked the Disclosure Project site and, there's no mention of the 27th Sep National Press Club event. That's a bit odd isn't it? Perhaps the military guys involved fell out with Greer et al. Who knows. Like I said, I'm glad that such potentially credible people, without book deals and suspicious "I'll take you to the top of a hill where you can transcendentally converse with aliens...for a fee" 'entrepreneurial enterprises', are again having their say -- this time without the circus.
> It's to the point where this is just cluttering up the whole subreddit\n\nOut of the top 25 stories, 2 are about climate change. Not what I would consider about climate.\n\nAlso, we should not create an environment where people are *discouraged* from disagreeing with each other. From what little I understand, there is climate change happening. If there is evidence otherwise, I would like to know. /r/skeptic sounds like the perfect place for that.
You may be right - and as for his 'shitty' ufo dvd's well that's entirely subjective. Without any conclusive info though any and all possibilities are options - maybe he did get frightened off? Maybe he is holding out for big money (though I doubt that as he's not short of a shekel or too). Like everyone else I can only guess but I'd rather 'guess' in a kindly way toward him than jump to negative conclusions. The pictures a few posts below this one don't have EXIF data and I don't see any mention of when and where they were taken - but the overcast cloud tallies with the weather at the time of the UFO incident.
But a shovel is okay.  I heard it prevents autism.
Honestly that thought never occurred to me, here I come Dr Google to see if its something I could have!!
Thankfully you ran to reddit to let us know you did this, otherwise it all would have been wasted. Now we can celebrate your heroic efforts. In a perfect world, r/skeptic would be nothing but people posting screenshots of how they pwned someone on Facebook. If only more people were as brave as you.
I don't consider any evidence that doesn't appear to be flying faster than what were capable of now, but I'm glad you posted this.
Antioxidants are not miracle cures for really anything except preventing the oxidation of some complex organic molecules that, when oxidized, can more easily bond to DNA creating the possibility of cancer.
It has been my experience that MUFON is not as cooperative and forthcoming as some may assume. I have conversed with several people who have submitted encounters with me who were previously blown off by MUFON. As well, there are supposed instances where a report to MUFON has resulted in a 'visit' by non-MUFON members. I'm not saying that MUFON is directly involved with the government or other official entities....but private information is being leaked somewhere to the dismay of witnesses.
I love waverly! :)
Well according to image forensics the image wasn't manipulated. You can check it out [here](http://errorlevelanalysis.com/permalink/59205d3/).\nThis can mean two things:\n\n1. Definitely paranormal\n2. Just a normal person that came out creepy\n\nI would go with the second option because it's just too convenient that we can't see the whole picture of the person.
You just switched my interior monolog to Bill Cosby for the next few days, at least voting is gonna be hilarious later today.\n\n[Come on little fella', you like a'jump rope don't ya? Ya see, zip zop zoobity bop.](http://cosbybebop.ytmnd.com/)
Thanks for proving my point.
I would laugh but this is just too goddamn sad. Stupid people.
We can line up several major modern cities with a straight line around the globe, but we'd be leaving several other cities out of the conversation. So which cherry-picked sites would you like to use?\n\nFurthermore, what the fuck does this have to do with this subreddit?
Hmm... meyhaps I used a common phrase when it wasn't applicable. \n\nFair point.
I responded to you thinking it was a different post! Sorry!
Good point and I was wondering about that too. The movie Food Inc. also showed the risks of E. Coli from the factory meat and milk because of feeding corn to animals which they aren't used to and then pump too many antibiotics into their bodies. I suspect organic meat is much better (because grass fed animals seem to be better than corn fed ones) but I have no empirical evidence to back that up.
On the other hand, if homeopathy is an accepted treatment by the government, doesn't that mean he could make an argument for it not being malpractice? There are people with damn impressive degrees who still believe in really fucking stupid stuff, and giving money to homeopaths as a "medical practice" only validates them.\n\nWhat happens if someone goes to a GP, and the GP prescribes antibiotics, and the person says "oh no, I'm not going to take antibiotics, I insist on all-natural homeopathic cures"?
Heya, yeah I have always wanted to make it into a short film. She was a wonderful woman, I recall watching her bringing her washing indoors from the line during a howling storm, she was maybe 5 foot tall, 92 when she died and very frail but didn't give a single fuck. She was one tough cookie. \n\nI had some very cool Ouija experiences. I did it with my Mum, her boyfriend at the time (who was the last person you expect to like doing them, he was a 2nd Dan kickboxer! Very lovely guy though), my brother (the same one who I mentioned) and myself. We at one point were talking to my Granddad, so we tested it, I asked a question that only I knew the answer to and he got it right, then my Mum did the same and he got it right again. But after watching a Derren Brown programme where he explained it I must admit I think it must be psychosomatic. We also spoke to a demon apparently, but it was more funny than scary. \n\nI like to think, or believe, that there could be real psychics out there (again Derren Brown has me convinced otherwise) but most of them strike me as people who gain money from other peoples misery. Do you actually think your Nan is psychic though? I hope I haven't offended you, but yeah, I think they are all liars/mentally ill. But I do like being proven wrong :)\n\nHaha, the way I saw it was if someone from 'the other side' told me I was going to die then I had no fear of death. I rode that bike all day.
the assumption that "you can't handle the truth"
Agreed.
My sister used to have dreams like this but mostly when we were little. \n\n1. She told my dad we'd be visiting Grannie (our great-grandma) but Gramps wouldn't be there. He was sleeping  That week he passed and we spent a fair amount of time at the old house and funeral parlour. \n\n2. A year later she said we'd be going to a party with lots of funny dressed people. She mentioned Gramps being there. My dad called his mum right away only to find out she wAs about to call to say Grannie had passed that morning. \n\nThis went on for our childhood. Little things and stopped around high school. Her last premonition happened in 2001. She called me to say she had a funny about a bomb dropping. The next night she dreamt about three bombs. Then they were planes.  She had funny dreams for a week and each night the picture became clearer. On September 10th she told me that things were going to go mad the next day. I thought she was bonkers but he was insistent that something very bad was going to happen. She told me to watch and see. Three planes would crash tomorrow.  \n\nI sat in class the next morning, dumbfounded as CNN replayed the planes crashing into the World Trade Centre. I remember asking people about the third plane. No, no! Everyone said only two planes were involved and then CNN reported about the attempt to hit the pentagon. \n\nShivers, man. Shivers. \n\nBut nothing from her since.
I did not know that there were certain areas we weren't allowed to be skeptical of.  Thanks for the information, perhaps it could be added to the faq.
I took pause as I was writing this comparison, knowing I was producing an angle that could easily be misused to mislead!\n\n> Internet sources say Anonymous is like Al-Qaeda. Could you have a terrorist in your basement? Moar at 10!
Cayenne Pepper - in fact, all capsaicin-containing peppers - are strong expectorants.  this happened to me today, and it's happened enough before for me to have been aware of it, before i even saw this graphic.  even low-quality hot sauce can be used for this effect.  capsaicin is also a suspected anti-carcinogen.\n\nthat one is absolutely right.  \n\nand ginger is an extremely well-known antiemetic - that is why ginger ale is sometimes used to treat nausea (not the best idea, by the way - especially not for flu-like nausea - but it will do in a pinch).\n\nthe basil and parsley ones would not surprise me in the slightest, either.\n\nyou guys seem to be taking "skepticism" to a fault, around here.  you all know that edible plants are typically great for you, right?
Actually, as posted elsewhere, a lot of these emails *claim* they are verified by Snopes, but either have dead links, random articles, or link to the article that is completely against and debunks the claims of the email.
Good posting.  Thanks for putting the videos up.
Uh, I don't think that you could have read this story 9months ago because I only wrote the experience down last week a few hours after it happened : http://redd.it/11fdr4 The only reason I made a reddit account was to tell my story, and see if anyone had any similar experiences. I'm not bothered about karma or whatever. The only reason I wrote it on reddit first was because it was anonymous and I wanted to see if there was anymore people who had experienced the same thing.\n\nAnyway I can't prove it so say what you want, but I would LOVE to read about this story from 9  months ago that I was supposed to have written before I had even heard of reddit.
But but peers are bought by companies! You can only trust NaturalNews and Alex Jones!
I think he was probably being sarcastic since he mentioned pornography as a "toxin."\n\nBut anyway,\n\nIsn't part of the purpose of GMO foods to make crops naturally resistant to pests and diseases and such?  Wouldn't that mean they need to spray less chemicals on the crops to protect them?  If that is the case, why would people think they *cause* cancer rather than prevent them?
I, too, was healthily skeptical of the spelling of his name in the title.
That's the weird part, there was no real emotion involved in those events.  It was like it will happen in a matter-of-fact manner.  When the SUV hit us I didn't even realize it did until we spun to the opposite corner.  But I admit there was some fear afterwards- heck I didn't drive for 3 days until I forced myself to go to the store.
Yeah its still unexplainable.
>"It makes sense to limit the ~~number~~ overall quantity of mind altering substances you consume." \n\nFTFY
Well here's the deal. I've got plenty of other things to be reading and I don't actually have time to try educating reddit about the concerns addressed in this book. Essentially though, if you'd like to take the lead on something like that, which you seem to have an interest in doing as you've already attempted to, I'd start slowly.\n\nInstead of making it a top ten reasons to hate the four horsemen list, you should open the discussion by pointing out that you have some serious concerns about the way that the four horsemen address the topic of religion. The central thesis is the first point that you've put forward, that some of the tactics of the Four Horsemen and the so called new atheist movement are a bit hostile and tend to foreclose discussion of questions that have not be definitively answered (something that I believe Sam Harris has attempted to address, so you'll want to consider reviewing his points on that). The corollary is that there are superior ways for atheist to make their points and open up dialogue with religious communities. The first thing to do then is to analyze some of the problems that the book brings up point by point, probably in a series of posts which address each of the 8 supporting claims individually. From what I can tell so far, the second and third essays (roughly corresponding to your second and third points) are naturally what you begin with and are you strongest demonstrations of where a certain lack of intellectual rigor seems to undermine the claims of the four horsemen, particularly those of Harris, Hitchens and Dawkins. The problem though, is that you can't just be totally accepting of the books criticism either. It's entirely antithetical without attempting to be charitable in many instances where it could be, or to offer improved versions of their arguments, or even to at least clearly set out conditions where upon their underlying points could achieve legitimacy. That's where the true question lies. In light of the criticisms offered by this book, how can the specific weaknesses in the arguments of the Four Horsemen be improved, or should they be wholly discarded. \n\nWith regard to the point about their interpretations of history, just as an example without going into too much detail, it seems that the authors point is show that the Four Horsemen (hereinafter 4HM) in their development of historical narratives tend to "flatten the historical perspective" as I believe it was put. Essentially what they do is strip the historical narrative of all other salient factors so as to arrive at the conclusion that religion is strictly bad in all of its effects, and often the sole source of human evils. The problem is that their depiction of history is inadequately dynamic and doesn't take full account of how religion has interacted with other forces. I think anyone with a common sense understanding of foreign policy can understand that the cause of 9/11 was not religion alone. Surely, a certain off shoot of religious sentiment mutated such that it was capable of facilitating that atrocity in part, but it wasn't religion in isolation. Religion played an essential role in the construction of the volatile and extremist ideology of the perpetrators, but it was only one of a number of factors including, I image, destitution, exploitation, frustration and fear in both economic and political senses. What the 4HM have attempted to claim is that the theological positions common to most contemporary religions are prone to inflaming already tense or difficult socio-political relationships, namely through helping to rationalize and justify extreme tactics or divisive beliefs about others, such that much social conflict could be avoided in the absence of religion. So first, their point needs to be qualified, it's not the sole factor, but it could serve as a final straw in certain instances pushing a fragile balance over the edge and resulting in clashes that result in unwarranted strife. The question is does religion actually play that role, how, how often, and how critically so. Is it only a certain form of religious belief that disposes people to this, can and have certain religions immunized themselves against fomenting this kind of behavior? Is it true that were it removed, alternative resolutions would have been available and would taken root, or would some other factor have tipped things over the edge anyway? This is how you encourage others to think critically about the 4HM's positions, without requiring them to either wholly reject them or provoking them to a defensive stance that causes them to doggedly accept the 4HM's points. A greater elaboration of the points in the second essay could then serve as a launch pad for analyzing the ways in the 4HM might have gone astray and the beginning of a more thorough inquiry into whether their more essential points have any standing despite their failures to adequately demonstrate them. \n\nA similar thing can be said about how the 4HM treat their understandings of theology, dialogue and social policy regarding religion.  You (the author, the intellectual community) should be challenging the 4HM, their fans and other new atheists to grapple with these criticism and improve their strategies, for the sake of raising the level of the debate to be more honest and rounded. \n\nI'm far more interested in discussing the rhetorical structure of the discussion though, than about getting into the nitty gritty of it. You seem like you might be more inclined so these are just some things to keep in mind when trying to educate people about this subject so that you can keep them more engaged without alienating them prior to catching their interest or getting them to understand your concerns.
> the claims are testable and the effects reproducible\n\nTestable yes. But have they been tested? Not really. My original point was that this diet is *infamous* on reddit because Redditors take their personal experiences as **fact** and **evidence**. As you can imagine this pisses off a lot of people (see skeptics and scientists). \n\nReproducible yes. But this is a far far far cry away from describing a biological mechanism. Paleo also encourages people to eat in moderation, not drink alcohol and at the same time, many of those people do [more] exercise. You mean eating less and exercising wont make you lose weight but solely eating fats and proteins will? \n\nIf my last point makes you cringe that's good, because it's just my opinion without any evidence.
It makes you go "Oh, hey, that's right, I hurt my back the other day. I remember now." When the adrenaline gets pumping, it's sometimes easy to forget about your injuries. The tape does nothing to treat or heal the injury, though.
*There's snake oil in my boot!*
And this is why I regard this subreddit as a series of amusing stories rather than anything serious.
It's really not a joke, dude. I'm actually weirded out by this...
I unsubscribed months ago when I found this sub-reddit. /r/atheism is full of hilarious content, but trying to have intelligent conversations with people just end up being really stupid. They realize the irrationality of religion (Which is awesome), but for the most part do not know details about religion. It wouldn't hurt to know exactly what you're talking about when you insult something, otherwise you'll never be able to make an impact on a religious community.    \nImagine going to /r/christianity and all their posts are memes mocking atheism. /r/atheism is just immature and while rational, doesn't know what it's talking about.
Thank you for the explanation. I love your message of spreading rationality.
No, actually I think you are.\n\nNow, the point that you saw via this -- that you are seeing/making patterns where there really aren't any -- is a good one to finally learn; and I am glad to see that you have ditched "fatalism", but I have to say that there is a larger issue...\n\nWhich is that you've been manipulated by a master manipulator, one who (big surprise) has promised that even though he openly claims to *be* a master manipulator, that he is not manipulating *you* ... even though he *is* (because telling you *that* he isn't is all part of how he *is* manipulating you; and manipulating you as one of the viewers is one of the chief points and purposes of the show).\n\nBasically he "pushed your buttons".\n\nWhat that means is that you are highly susceptible to having your buttons pushed via mass media ... all someone has to do is to push the right ones.\n
So Schizophrenics...aren't Schizophrenic? I'm afraid I'm not following. Are you implying that transgender people aren't transgender?\n\nI suspect you're trying to say "Schizophrenics have hallucinations and we shouldn't indulge these, rather we should give them medication to get rid of them", and in turn try the same with transgender people, in which case I can direct you to the comments [here](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/mcqb6/so_if_transgender_people_are_born_with_the/).
http://memegenerator.net/instance/13125105
I admit that I'm not familiar enough with the hosts to have a strong opinion on the rest of them. Several are brothers and sound similar, but Rebecca has an obviously feminine voice so it's easy to key on what she says. Maybe that has something to do with my opinion (selection bias, perhaps)?\n\nI don't have specific examples, but I'm primarily thinking about how each of them approach the "Science or Fiction" segments. Rebecca almost always uses some gut instinct or feeling, but the other hosts tend to break down the science or refer to what they've read in some related publication.\n
This is more of a take down of conspiracy theories in general, but to me it's all you [should] really need to debunk the truther stuff: http://www.michaelshermer.com/2010/12/the-conspiracy-theory-detector/\n\nMore detailed debunking: http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/06-09-11/
I don't understand what you mean. Firstly, I'm not a skeptic, I just don't believe every story that comes down the pike because I'm not a complete idiot. \n\nSecondly, the burden of proof maxim is a pillar of rational discourse. Without this kind of reasoning we'd still be banging rocks together.\n\nIt has nothing to do with 'skeptics' it has to do with common sense. As Ricky Gervaise put it, "I could tell you I've got super powers. But I can't go up to people saying 'Prove I can't fly.' They'd go: 'What do you mean 'Prove you can't fly?' Prove you can!"\n\nAnyone can claim anything. People make claims for all sorts of motivations. If one simply blindly accepts a very extraordinary claim without proof it says little for one's intellect.\n\n>No, proof has to lie on both sides. \n\nBullshit. The claimant must present evidence for their claim. The observer doesn't have to prove a thing.
A body makes over an a ounce and a half of formaldehyde, per day?
If the acupuncture isn't going to cause her to go broke why not give it a try as well as using regular medical medical treatments. As someone who suffers from frequent migraines I'd be willing to try anything.
That's more difficult, of course, but it's best to go on a television reality show for that kind of stuff.
But... you just changed the *truth*! A far better fix would be to discard the evidence and blindly accept the circle we are given.
> That's precisely what I mean when I say god. I don't know why you insist on capitalizing it.\n\nAlright then. I wouldn't call that god, but you're welcome to, I suppose.\n\n> You seem confused. I'm not saying something creating itself is improbable or unlikely or unpalatable, I'm saying it's literally logically incoherent and inconceivable. If you can't understand that distinction we will have reached an impasse. This is a relatively simple philosophical concept.\n\nAnd I disagree. I see no reason why we should assume causality holds true outside our universe. The mere fact that humans have trouble comprehending it is not proof that it's impossible. There have been many things in science that were "impossible" until we demonstrated them happening - relativity and quantum physics, for example - and I have no doubt there are things believed impossible today that we will one day achieve.\n\nI don't understand how you can have so much confidence in your knowledge of how the space outside our universe works. You don't know what it is, but you seem quite sure of what it isn't, with absolutely no evidence for that belief.
I finally dug up an astronomy program that was able to identify [the stars in your photograph](http://a8.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/251658_551242420768_215700354_31854499_4976333_n.jpg) automatically\n\n[Here is the result](http://i.imgur.com/8dno2.jpg)\n\nI limited the identification to items brighter than magnitude 10 which is pretty dim, and several levels below what the human eye can see. Everything else is too dim for the human eye.\n\nThis corresponds with [this section of the sky](http://i.imgur.com/qjUQd.jpg).\n\nThe Brightest object is the Bright Star Vega
These occupy groups seem like they consist of loons and crackpots.
Look I don't want to sound prententious, but if people legitimately believe something will happen in 2012/Dec 21 I do not want to know or talk to them.
Honestly this article was so absurd that I thought it had to be a parody site. After having a look around I realised that every single article is written by a single author, Susanne Posel, who has clearly got a screw loose.\n\nShe seems to run the gamut from anti-vax to climate change denial and since shes the only contributer and no article has any comments I say this site isnt even worth our time.
Go to the bottom of the page, the link to the Mp3 file is at the bottom at "2."\n\nI wrote that before.
Came here to mention folic acid for women who are trying to conceive or pregnant.
I think it really is a small circle of skepticism in the larger circle of atheism, but with a very small portion of skepticism outside of atheism. People can still be critical thinkers, come to conclusions through their own evaluation using logic and while being rational, and somehow still believe in the existence of god. I would disagree with them, but they used the correct logic, and didn't come to a conclusion lightly.
Let's make an effort to watch this thing tonight and see how the "History" channel deals with Leslie Kean's new book.  This is the first UFO doc I've been excited about for awhile (and I've been around quite awhile).
No it's not. Those areas have been dangerous for foreign aid organisations for long before the US started messing about there.
Koch postulates are the minimum criteria for establishing that an organism is pathogenic. You will find many sites offering a defination of each postulate and many will alter the wording to suit their needs and so aren't always reliable. We also have to remember that Koch wrote in German so the English translations will tend to vary. This list comes from Wik:\n\n1.The microorganism must be found in abundance in all organisms suffering from the disease, but should not be found in healthy organisms.\n\n2.The microorganism must be isolated from a diseased organism and grown in pure culture.\n\n3.The cultured microorganism should cause disease when introduced into a healthy organism.\n\n4.The microorganism must be reisolated from the inoculated, diseased experimental host and identified as being identical to the original specific causative agent.\n
Its my observation that the staff who work in bookstores often do so because they love reading and are also quite well read and smart ... I think thisis more evidence that confirm this.
Photographic artifacts, most likely. I doubt there's actually anything there.
I'm much younger than PZ Myers, and so I may lack some of his wisdom, but I have to ask: Why waste time on such pathetic attempts? I feel quite confident that any high school senior or college freshman (and truly *any* - from biology majors to business majors to broadcast journalism majors) could rebut such a sad list. There are a few very intelligent creationists out there - or if "intelligent" isn't the right word, "clever" might fit better - who can offer up a few decent brain-scratchers, but this list is just weak. Sometimes I think PZ just picks on lists like this one for the sake of a little exercise and entertainment and nothing more.
You don't have to believe in the woo-woo to be a Buddhist.
Relaxation
Using any personal data for *any* purpose other than expressly agreed to by the subject of the data is illegal under [EU law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Protection_Directive). Considering you(r company) nominally supplies the UK market, take heed.
I had early-morning math lessons in a relocatable classroom when I was in high school (I don't know if they are common in the world, but here in Australia they seem fairly common. They have metal doors and external facade, but are fairly flimsy).\n\nMost mornings during winter an "entity" would slowly walk the perimeter twice and bash the outside wall with what sounded like terrifying supernatural strength...\n\n...it took me a few occurrences to realize that it happened at the same time every morning when the temperature started to warm. Even though I understood the cause, it still seems very creepy.\n\nJust saying is all :-).\n\nDoes anyone have anything slightly more substantial than creaking or banging?
It exists already, anyone have the pdf link handy?
or better yet while using Wi-Fi
>Think of it as a vegan diet that you add healthy animals and animal products to.   \n\nI pretty much agree with everything you said, but with the exception of the vegetables themselves, everything else in a vegan diet is typically grains and legumes, often highly processed, and wouldn't be eaten on a paleo diet.  \n\nYou won't find a paleo eater eating textured soy protein, concentrated wheat gluten (seitan), vat-grown *Fusarium* mycoprotein, or any of the starches and seed oils that are consumed in great quantity on a vegan diet. A person following a vegan diet is many times more likely to be eating out of a box or a can than a person on a paleo diet.  \n\nTake a vegan diet, get rid of all the crap besides the vegetables, and add meat, fish and eggs. There's paleo. Vegetables, fish, meat, and eggs.
Is that why he coughs so frequently while talking?
Interesting concept, but with the disclaimer of it being fake and all... I'm sorry but I have to downvote.  It is hard to sift through the BS and find the truth about all of this stuff, so I feel it is our responsibility to downvote stuff which is fake.  The people who insist that some of this clearly fake stuff is real are the people who make us all look like crackpots.
wut
I AGREE, FELLOW INTELLECTUAL !!!
probably has something to do with the "radio-free" bit.
No doubt, haha. But the security of your family would be worth the argument, I imagine.\n\nPerhaps you should let her know that a maternal bond does not equate to infallibility. It's a harmful idea that too many mothers hold onto that they know what's best for their kids and they alone do.\n\nGlad I could give you some small amount of comfort, even if I'm not providing any new ideas. :)
> A few of them died because they have undergone this instead of seeking more urgent medical treatment.\n\nThat *is* a problem in lots of quackery and pseudoscience - that they claim they alone hold the answer and that you become *unclean* and thus unsaveable if you follow scientific medicine.\n\nBut you are right, the site is biased. What it does is trying to be a counterbalance to all those "natural cancer survivor" anecdotes and testimonials of "how homeopathy healed my diabetes" - because those people are usually only the lucky ones on the normal distribution. And when do you hear the testimonials of the less fortunate...?
I agree. Nothing is best. Could be a troll, but on the off hand it is someone...unhinged...replying could backlash.
But explosives is how most major demolition projects are undertaken. I loved that show. :)
I'm also not a fan of "We think too much and feel too little"\n\nno, a big problem now is people not thinking about what they feel and analyzing if those feeling are the correct response to the situation or if a more thoughtful analysis is in order. (for example see Tea Party'ers)
Well there is the possibility you saw something purple, your mind misinterpreted what you saw or the alternate is you saw a shirt from another dimension where she does own one.
Well, the obesity level's been stable in the US for over a decade now at about 32%.\n\nThe BRFSS, a telephone survey, reports that over that period it's risen from 18% to 27%, but that relies on self reports, and it's pretty clear that it's more of a reflection of increased cultural awareness due to all the publicity obesity has been getting.
Western europeans have a higher standard of education and learn to deal better with blatant propaganda, and hence are smarter than most americans.
[I'm Manioti, and this is how I see the world.](http://i.imgur.com/NRtuA.png)
You could make big money as a snuff film.\n\nGet people in Korea to wager how long it would take you to die, set up a streaming webcam.  Catch some zzz's and cash in!
Do you mean images to print or places to get images printed? For images, I would recommend anything in the public domain. Check out Project Gutenberg for example for a source of fantastic images in the public domain. \n\nTo actually make the prints, any office supply store should be able to print a digital file for a reasonable price. But don't forget each city has its own set of Mom n Pop print shops. \n\nThe best solution is to team up with other people and throw down for a good printer, or to find a person with a quality printer who will give you a good deal on prints.
I want to find the animal that discharges donuts, cake, and cookies.
If cupping helped your shoulder, consider kinesio tape or McConnell tape.  Same idea: increased tension on the overlying skin facilitates muscle contraction and raises the resting muscle tone.
Yes, I definitely want to donate to a place run with the same finesse and long term vision as HP...
I understand your frustration. I really like Dr. Phil the first year he was on. He would spend an episode about depression, the voice over segments would explain what depression is, then Dr. Phil would have some people on who were depressed and get them some actual help.\n\nFastforward half a season and it was like Maury Povich, Ph.D. He has people on just to bitch at them. He doesn't offer any real help. \n\nThe guy has turned into a charlatan and everyone who is familiar with the field of psychology hates him.
The placebo effect is less real because if you don't think it works it doesn't.\n\nReal medicine works regardless of your feelings.\n\nBasing medicine on the placebo effect will only ensure that ideology trumps science.  That's irresponsibly dangerous on a very high level.
The way we breath is, most people breath shallowly with their chests, but some, including babies breath with their bellies, using their lungs fully.\n\nbut that's just hear say, I've no idea if it's true.
I'd be interested in you both recording your experiences and seeing if there's any correlation between you two because you're twins. Similar to Twin ESP, except with precognitive abilities. Maybe it's more powerful when you both think the same thing or something. lol If it ever happens to you guys again.
A nice take on the matter and one that lines up with the view of a long term friend of mine who's a hard science Doctor at his core but an actual old school community GP in his practice.  \n  \nHis take on the matter is that the placebo effect is real - positive thoughts in patients and a feeling of being actively involved in health decisions  (* no matter how kooky or illogical ) has an actual impact on longer term health and well being.   \n   \nIf someone honestly believes that a homeopathic solution of crystals will help their outcome then he'll happily give them a saline drip rather than deride them for being foolish.
I don't know if I believe or not, but I'd really like for there to be something else out there other than this plane of existence.  I guess I'd like to tap into something bigger than myself.
The people elect him to Congress (the people of his district are regarded as idiots), but powerful people in Congress decide who is a member of or heads what committee.
>The 2 aren't mutually exclusive.\n\nSo very true...and sad.
Agreed.
Exhibit A  \n([WO2005017204](http://www.wipo.int/patentscope/search/en/WO2005017204)) USE SINGLE NUCLEOTIDE POLYMORPHSM IN THE CODING REGION OF THE PORCINE LEPTIN RECEPTOR GENE TO ENHANCE PORK PRODUCTION \n\nAbstract:  \nThe instant invention is drawn to the identification and use of information regarding one or more porcine leptin receptor (pLEPR) gene polymorphisms as a marker to identify animals to serve as breeding stock for enhanced pork production. One particular polymorphism of pLEPR gene results in either a methionine or a threonine amino acid residue at position 69 of the protein that the pLEPR genes encodes. The pLEPR gene is located on porcine chromosone 6 and have been shown to be associated with determination of daily feed intake, among other factors.\n\nTranslation:  \nI have noticed that a naturally occurring genetic marker is a good indicator of increased meat production in pigs. Kind of like how a farmer might look at a big pig and breed it with another big pig instead of breeding two small pigs. Even though I had nothing to do with this marker itself I want to stop others from independently discovering and using this naturally observable fact.\n\nMonsanto wants to make it a violation of their patent to use your eyes to look at naturally occurring indicators to make breeding decisions.\n\n.\n\nExhibit 2  \nMonsanto prosecutes law suits against third party, unknowing users of their seeds even though that third party has not violated any license agreements.\n\nMonsanto's own license agreement allows seed buyers to sale second generation seeds to grain elevators as commodity seeds with no restrictions on the resale of those seeds. These seeds mix with non-Monsonto seeds are are sold, without restriction mind you, to farmers.\n\nIf a farmer then plants those seeds that he bought without any licensing restrictions he is in violation of Monsanto's patent and Monsanto will sue him.\n\nReferences:  \n[Monsanto wins lawsuit against Indiana soybean farmer](http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/21/us-monsanto-lawsuit-idUSTRE78K79O20110921)\n\n.\n\nExhibit Potato  \nMalicious prosecution. Monsanto ignores official findings of wrong doing if they lose and prefers to sue farmers into submission even when those farmers have been found innocent.  \n\nOn March 27, 2001 the North Dakota State Seed Arbitration Board rejected Monsanto's claims of license violations finding, "The evidence does not show, by the greater weight of the evidence, that Nelson Farm is infringing on any Monsanto patents for RR soybeans by planting, growing, and harvesting unlicensed saved RR soybean seed without authorization from Monsanto, or that Nelson Farm will continue to so infringe. Nelson Farm did not plant any saved RR soybean seed in 1998, 1999, or 2000,' according to the non-binding Board ruling."\n\nThe board further added, "Nelson Farm has been cooperative with Monsanto in its investigations and testing. Monsanto, however, has not been very cooperative with Nelson Farm, withholding information on tests, not telling Nelson Farm where it sampled for testing in 1999, and failing to attend an arbitration hearing requested by Nelson Farm to define and\nresolve seed dispute issues."\n\nReference:  \nState of North Dakota Seed Arbitration Board  \n[Nelson Farm Enterprises vs. Monsanto Company](http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CDIQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nd.gov%2Foah%2Fdecisions%2F20010053-001.pdf&ei=S0wET-6zJoHDgQfwop2xAg&usg=AFQjCNEXwY7hda2QgifZkUGWYo2hz3O4dQ&sig2=fiJdDKHx46ucEosmbnEpmg)\n\n
That's the girl from The Exorcist.
Any. At all.
Yes, and we are only 0,004% different from homo neanderthalensis. So, even a small fragment of difference would mindfuck us to oblivion.
Oh, I see... Respect. \n\nI'd better look into this.
Depends on the farm; at my farm, we sterilize the milking equipment and cow's teats prior to milking each cow, and the milk flows directly through a filter into our tank, which is in a cleanroom. The milk is bottled and capped in that clean room, and all equipment, bottles, and caps brought into the cleanroom are sterilized. It can be done right. Nothing's perfect, obviously, but that's about as good as you can get.
I'm not entirely sure off the top of my head of the specifics in your post.\n\nRegardless, look at what you're saying. It comes down to exactly what I said--eating carbs can make you hungrier, so (if you're not counting calories) you'll naturally eat more, so you'll gain weight. Different people respond to different things, however, and some people can feel fuller on a high carb diet than a low carb diet.
Clearly it's the ghost of the Lindbergh Baby.
"lonely mother" made it pretty obvious
the white orb is a lens flare and is consistent with the lighting
Condensation
Middle class, middle age females.  They have long been the prime target for snake oil.
Misuse of "Quantum" "Energy" "Open-minded" or any other loaded or science-sounding word that most people don't properly understand
If you *know* it's a placebo, is that still the placebo effect in action? Doesn't the "placebo effect" require one to actually think they are taking medicine as opposed to inert placeholders?
He debunked this [a few times before](http://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/search?q=hydrick&restrict_sr=on&sort=relevance) as well. Please do a search before submitting ancient videos.
Bring some orgonite next time. Supposedly it'll burn away the evil spirits. Why'd you runnnn? Stand your ground next time and bring backup lights.
What about accounts where they seem to blink in and out of existence? Pehaps it is something like what we've recently learned about particles or they have some understanding of "laws of physics" or "laws of nature" that we don't yet understand.
The big difference is the aftertaste. American Cokes are so bitter after, but the Mexican Cokes with real sugar don't have it.
Your patience is formidable, and how versatile are your words. Will be an honor to be in your side.
To be taken with a big grain of salt, but I liked [Crop Circles - Hyperspace Gateways](http://www.youtube.com/user/UFOTVstudios#p/u/5/MmXU1XRhAB0)
>If it was fake, then why? What's the motivation to fake something like this?\n\nRule 36.
Instead of trying to combat climate change, I think it's better to deal with rising sea levels, droughts, animal extinctions, etc.
to qualify as “Bigfoot” the specimen must be: (a) a nonhuman species of primate ape of ar least the approximate size and stature of a normal adult human being; (b) whose primary means of locomotion is (or was) walking erect on two legs; (c) that now or within the previous century inhabited North America; and (d) whose existence to date has been unconfirmed by science.
This really makes me angry.  Ignorance is one thing, this is spreading falsehoods that have real impact on the lives of children.  It's unconscionable.  Anti-vaxers say 'look at the evidence and make up your own mind.'  Well the kid that can't be vaccinated was never given that chance, asshole.
You should get that thing on your throat checked out, doctor in New Vegas.
No, it is absolutely good for you and I'm 100% behind its inclusion in water. People who rail against water fluoridation simply have no idea what they're talking about.
I hate this, when I did ouija boards as a teenager everybody pressed down so hard on the planchette that I couldn't move it at all, thus messing up my chance to make it spell swearwords and suggest that the girls show me their boobies.
My mom has been 100% spot on when she gets that feeling. And when she does, something has happened to a family member. I hate when she says she's "feeling funny"
While politicans can be expected to spin statistics, use weasel words, etc., that doesn't apply here.\n\nThe statement, "We just killed Osama Bin Laden," is a pure true/false statement, that would backfire horribly if false.  \n\nJust because politicians lie doesn't mean it's most likely that everything they say must be a lie.  Sometimes telling the truth benefits a politician. \n\nIn the case of risk/benefit, lying just doesn't make sense.  It would almost certainly be exposed, costing Obama and his party far more than the election.
I'm referring to people who think there's God, Jesus, and them.
Probably as in "not credible"
Yes it does look similar, why would such a thing be in the area though?
So you are skeptic that it was made by humans but not sceptic of the theory that it was made by aliens from a distant galaxy? \n\nShow me a youtube video of aliens making the crop circles. Until then i'm a skeptic, going by your logic.
You can give yourself any title, saying you are something doesn't make it so though.
I personally don't believe spirits can kill people. However the asbestos, mold, lead, radon, and all the other "fun" stuff that old and abandoned buildings that investigators are often wandering though can.
[Massage is effective in adults for chronic low back pain and chronic neck pain.](http://chiromt.com/content/18/1/3)
I'm actually used to hearing the opposite.  Athletes using hyperbaric chambers for recovery or to increase performance.
So basically, you're a group of teenagers with little to no experience, making claims that you can help terrified people who are having real experiences? You sure that's a claim you want to make? Do you have a website with contact info or are you focusing just on redditors?
Mothering.com is a "natural" parenting community. I would
Yup. It screwed up her metabolism for a while too.
there is the exact same evidence for Horus existing as jesus and Budha\n\nsome guy said so
I asked my optometrists for advice on these sorts of glasses a few years ago since I work in a data center and stare at monitors all day. He said that they can help a little but the best thing is to take breaks (especially if you get any eye strain) and remember to blink.\n\nI also turn the brightness on most of my monitors way down but that wasn't really his advice.
Any credibility to this goes out the window cause you were stoned. I smoke up too but never in the same day that I'm investigating because your mind has a tendency to matrix alot of stuff when being influenced by thc or whatever your drug of choice is
errybody knows that cats are aliens and dogs are angels
Well, it was only *one* guy. I mean, he had the stone blocks delivered to him, too. He didn't go down to the quarry and chisel them out of bedrock himself. That's not the point of the video demonstration. The point is to show that very simple engineering can achieve very impressive things.
Could you show me again where the bible says that belief means: "purposeful denial of reason due to an interpersonal trust relationship with god"?\n\nSpell it out really clear, I can't jump to conclusions based on a vague and seemingly irrelevant web page.  Clearly you're seeing something I don't.
I could probably show you a video or two in support of this.\n
Rimjobs just went up 20%.\n*see what I did there?*\n
That's just what they want us to believe, maaaaan.
There should be a distinction between an object that is moving under water (USO) and an object that is just siting on the bottom (UUO)that could just be a rock formation.
Thanks for linking to this. I'm also working on a expose on the largest scientology drug rehab facility in the country, with is in Oklahoma.
Why do you doubt that it is good? You are taking a stance on the content of non-existant information. Yes, too much is hidden. No, I have absolutely no reason to believe any of the dots are in any way connected, unless actual evidence exists.
Simple. I've had enough experiences over the last 20+ years that I fully believe in their existence.
lol I had no idea, but that's a real sub!
/r/nosleep is for true stories only. Made-up stuff goes in /r/libraryofshadows.
I think it's worth the risk of strengthening one homeopath's belief in himself to strengthen the tools of logic and reason in an entire class of children.
Maybe I'm bad at reading studies but I don't see anywhere in the BJD that suggests that chiropractic therapy works, only that it was sought out by people suffering from chronic neck/back pain.\n\nAlso, let's be clear, whatever chiropractic is now, it's origins are pure woo. No doubt about that whatsoever.\n(for the record, I didn't downvote, I'd prefer to hear your defense than downvote this into oblivion)
I didn't mean to imply that all cases of untreated strep throat will have serious complications, but that the potential complications can be very severe. This depends on how your individual immune system handles the antigens produced by the bacteria (to put it simply, the molecule that the bacteria releases that triggers your immune system is very similar to a protein found in heart tissue, so it's possible to activate your immune system against your own heart if you let the body produce high levels of antibodies against strep by not treating it right away).\n\nEither way though, you're not completely immune to the disease. Like the flu, there are several different strains of the strep bacteria, so while you may have antibodies against one type, there are several others that can cause you to get strep throat again.
makes you wonder what a non-false flag event would look like to conspiracists. It's just like every major weather event has not been natural since they HAARP got constructed.
Did the escalator disappear or is the escalator there but with different direction?
I have been designing a set of experiments to try to recreate some of the accounts of ball lightning. So far the evidence is inconclusive tho i have been able to create miniature orange plasma balls that follow the current from a high voltage power source nothing major mind you. But stepped up to full scale it could have interesting effects.
Small, "boring" glitches are the meat and potatoes of this place. People who try to tart up acid trips or supernatural bullshit as a glitch are the problem, not you.
Wet-Cupping = drawing blood using incisions & the fire-cupping method?  Yuk.  I wonder if they compared this it just the fire cupping and a good back massage.  I'd be willing to bet that, wet-cupping does no better than either of those treatments for reducing head aches.
I'm not a fan of corporate grown foods for much different reasons than nutrition or pesticides.\n\nCorporate farms in a desire for bigger crops (and let's be clear that the average person assumes bigger is better) and crops with no season have sacrificed taste in order to bring us "convenience." If you grow any of your own food you can instantly taste the difference. Did you know fresh broccoli is sweet, like really sweet? Have you ever had a tomato from the vine? The crops we get are largely pretty poor imitations of what they used to be. Our genetically engineered foods are not made tastier, made healthier for us (this could be done! We could be making foods that are 10x healthier than anything we get in nature! I'm very pro "get in there and tinker with things") They are just made to be grown year round, to be bigger, to resist attacks and disease, or in the case of seeds to not be able to produce more crops in the future so farmers much stay indebted to the provider (the only thing which to me is evil). It is the exact essence of the difference between corporate innovation and innovation we as humans should be capable of.\n\nSo yes, I sometimes buy things organic, I sometimes don't, and I like to grow my own vegetables when I can because the taste is amazing, beats anything you'll buy and I love to cook. For my own reasons I'm very anti-corporate food but I think its pretty crazy to be against it for any reason other than the insult to our human dignity it is.\n\nSometimes I think here at /r/skeptic people have a tendency to say two things are equal when they really aren't, there are many good reasons to not buy corporate made food and none of them have to do with health related issues.
That would have been a good idea.
Is this movie you are writing an original story or is this based on a true story?\n
I would think that the doctor would first talk to them and if they refuse to listen then eventually drop them.
....Which was Germany, during the time Hitler was chancelor of Germany...
What are these videos?
The hydrogen storage problem has been solved for years. http://www.switch2hydrogen.com/\nIt's just been blocked from sale by BS legislation.
Thank you sir :)
> Assuming that ever transaction is a matter of trimming the fat is very myopic.\n\nNo, but it's a pretty good assumption that the cheapest debt to buy will be the most likely to be debt of those that are likely to go bankrupt soon. Banks would make sure to price the debt according to how much they value it at in order to maximize their profits.
[Here is another video from 19 August 2011](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3tYrRt3TvWk#!).  At first, I thought it was an object deorbiting (this would explain the separation event seen at 0:18).  The five distinct sections seem to move in an independent, albeit chaotic, manner, so it is altogether possible it is still something mundane breaking up in the atmosphere.  If it were of light enough construction/substance, the sections could be buffeted around and appear to be moving autonomously.\n\nYour video however, I dunno.  If real, that is... kinda trippy.
Please be true.
The "real" UFOlogy?  Your "we're never gonna take you seriously cus you believe in aliens" attitude is pretentious in the truest sense of the term.
Unfortunately representatives of the US government burned all of Reich's papers and materials, so we cannot know how his experiments were structured.
No.\n\nThe sheer scale precludes anything amateur.  That bright-ass cherry at the tip also precludes a jet.
I did report this to MUFON about a week after it happened. This thing flying pretty low. Maybe 1000 ft. The object was low enough that if it was a commercial liner, it would be coming in for landing or had just taken off. It was flying maybe at around 250mph  to 300. I'm only judging that speed because I live close to an airport so I sometimes watch commercial planes on final approach and I know that their landing speed is around 170 mph.\n\nThis craft also didn't make a single noise. It was completely silent. All I could here was the sound of birds and crickets as you heard in the video which is completely strange since you could definitely hear an conventional aircraft much higher than what this craft was flying at.\n\nThat other light at the begin of the video was a star. The craft did not leaving any trail or anything else. I filmed it as long as I could until it disappeared behind the tree line. There is a second video I took of this craft, but this video is the better one since it was taken when it was at its closest.
This was taken in Niagara Falls when I was 16-17 in a motel looks as if its rubbing my back.. or could be completely photographic error. Not sure but creeps me out to this day.
at times I have had out of body experiences. they are very different from lucid dreams. they way they usually happen is my body starts vibrating and the frequency speeds up until there is a separation. anyway next time it happens to you try to see if you can make it go faster, then you may have an OOBE. Good luck :)
What, you don't get your daily news fix from the good folks at GT? I take it then, that you don't frequent the gossip pages of SasquatchPress.com?
I skipped around to a few parts of this video to see if it was worth watching, and he was performing the whole time. He was only ever talking about himself and what he's interested in while trying to sell his ideas.\n\nI used to work in sales- I can spot bullshit.
You'd have probably faired better if you'd have put a question into the post title, say:\n\n> Recent Report Highlights Growing Dangers of Anti-Inflammatory Medications [Aspirin, Ibuprofen, etc.] - Is this legit?
> He (Hoofnagle) sounds like a crank, himself - by apparently completely writing off any dissent.\n\nCan you cite some instances where the author comes off as a crank? Please understand that the line quoted in the headline was just that - a single line, and needs to be read in context of the larger post.\n\n*Edit*: I realise I may be coming off as a shill for the blog, but I'm really not - it could just be that a lot of the bloggers over at Scienceblogs have been responsible for the sharpening of my critical thinking faculties and subsequent skepticism.
I'm not cgeezy22, but cannabis oil has been shown to have some efficacy in animals so it's not exactly like your jar of toe nail clippings. I mean, besides the mental effect of believing it will help, worst case with the cannabis oil is that you'll be able to keep more food down after your chemo. This really is a situation where the treatment will do no harm, some good, and potentially some *major* good. I also don't see any reason *not* to do it (along with conventional treatments) in the case of cancer.
It's not exactly *cold* reading if both the mark and the "spirit" are close family members.\n\nAlso, this is a really bad idea.\n\nEdit: To clarify why it's a bad idea:\n\nIt's pretty much guaranteed to backfire sooner or later, and when it does, the family would believe that since OP learned psychological trickery techniques rather than being born with the gift or whatever, that he was a charlatan (*unlike* the psychics they had been seeing). All the animosity he feels towards the other psychics, the family would feel towards him. They would believe that he was lying to them, *and* that he was disrespecting and making fun of their deeply held beliefs, *and* casting aspersions on their psychic friends, *and* disrespecting the memory of his father. And none of this would weaken their faith in the other psychics.\n\nSo, yeah, [don't do that, OP](http://i.imgur.com/Aggrn.gif).
If we're just listing worthwhile Brian Cox stuff, [we mustn't forget this](http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/timc)...
http://www.nzdf.mil.nz/news/library/uas-files.htm\n\nSo who's going to go to NZ and xerox all this for us?
I thought it had to do with their diet as well?
Agreed.\n\nBe careful though, there are plenty of atheist that are completely satisfied in the fact that not believing in organized religion is enough.  Sure they say they believe in "science"...but ask them about it and watch them stutter.  Don't get me wrong, the majority of atheist are very rational and humble people.  The problem is atheism is becoming a trend right now, and we have a lot of people claiming atheism without really knowing anything about it, much like you have people claiming Christianity without really knowing much about it.  Atheists have a moral obligation to be better then that, in my opinion.
Awesome quote, "Craig Eversley, a quantum physicist at Berkley commented that he would rather fall down the stairs and crack his head open on a rock than read Deepak Chopra’s latest book, because “It would be less embarassing if someone saw me doing it.""\n\nI'm definitely using that one in the future.
Eh? It's been a thought I've had for a long time.
Stargate?
Yikes. I thought one of the links went directly to the NYer. What an aggravating policy to link only to other Gawker articles.
Not eating industrially produced meat can reduce your carbon foot print more than not driving a car. [Reference](http://pge.uchicago.edu/workshop/documents/martin1.pdf)[PDF]
Exactly, when anything is claimed to have such a large range of effects and to cure so many problems, this almost always means it is BS. Claiming that it cures dyslexia is ridiculous, as you say, we still don't even truly understand dyslexia or what causes it.
It is you. A future version of you. Maybe a different version of you. Imagining aging yourself. Did he have any similar facial features? Anyway you got questions? leave the door to your mind open and you may get answers. maybe in a dream or in another format. And maybe if you have a dream about helping a kid....
I would guess that they're all coincidences.  Given enough time and people even (seemingly) very unlikely things will happen often enough to be unremarkable.
"Science knows it doesn't know everything, otherwise it would stop."\n\n[And the clip](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDYba0m6ztE).
Please o great one, bring us back the Nazi shows!\n\nJust as long as you stop the Nostradamus, Bible codes, Pawn stars?, and swamp something, and ice truck something.. \n\nIn fact, I'd prefer Ancient Aliens, at least it has video of historical sites!
Spectral Manatee without a doubt.
Jesus made the big bang evolutions and he was an alium and thats why I'm going to heaven and you are going to hell with Obama and Jon stewart
The thumbnail looks like the backside of a bull with a giant anus.
ops, sorry...I answered your post. I was talking to OP
Sure, it is the mind over matter connection. Why do some people get sick? Why do some people get better? You would like to pretend that there is no such thing, that all drugs have similar outcomes for all people. That is not the case. Many drugs are only somewhat better than placebos and have huge lists of side effects that can result as a consequence of taking them. \n\nI have not seen similar complaints coming from homeopathic remedies or other types of placebos. You can certainly dismiss them as being ineffective, and for you they would be. But your beliefs do not apply to other people who may believe in the product and find them beneficial, especially after going the medical route and finding nothing that helped.
You did read his bio right? He's an Indigenous Australian and it is quite frowned upon to make a judgement on a persons race. When a person identifies themselves as being Indigenous who are you to judge them based on their skin tone? I know plenty of Indigenous people with blonde hair who identify themselves as Koori and are accepted as such by their community.
Correct it was indeed Alun Anderson ... it is associated with Dawkins via the famous you tube video where neil degrasse Tyson was on the same panel
It's closer to the camera then it appears due to 2D format that doesn't show distance. Thereby it would be moving slower. Or it's a hoax, or someone added it after, or a fly flew by the camera and they blurred it.
i have found that any brand of local honey in my area tastes infinitely more delicious than the corporate sludge (like sue bee) that you can buy anywhere.\n\nit's thicker, richer, more full-bodied.  you can even see the difference between real honey and the processed stuff.  real honey is much darker, and may have bits of comb in it, whereas processed honey looks like gold-colored corn syrup.  if your honey is nearly transparent, it's probably crap.\n\ni don't know about "miracle" properties.  i'm suspicious of stuff like that anyway.  but i'm with you: raw honey is the shit.
[Maybe](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_C#Adverse_effects)
That's a bit strong. Video and photographs are certainly useful evidence in many cases, but we must keep in mind that they can be faked, and even when they're not faked, they might not be perfect.\n\nThis really isn't all that much different than our biological senses: they too can be fooled or even completely bypassed, both by our own bodies or by external forces.
Do you claim to know the entity's name?
Really? I have never seen that here, in the UK.
Those are reasonable concerns, but it points towards a failure of the article more than anything.
Well there is no concrete relation between the different kinds of objects reported by people.  However, these are some of the most common features of "UFOs."\n\n- [Disc Shaped](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/df/PurportedUFO2.jpg/170px-PurportedUFO2.jpg), [Cigar Shaped](http://www.ghosttheory.com/2011/09/30/1981-cigar-shaped-ufo-spotted-over-los-angeles), or [Spherical](http://www.alien-ufos.com/personal-ufo-alien-experiences-alien-dreams/44089-shiny-spherical-ufo-sighting-while-backyard.html).  The first really popular sightings like the one pictured were disc shaped.  Some of the most common ones being seen currently are cigar shaped and spherical.  You can google hundreds of interesting cases by airline pilots and everything.  Less common, but one of the largest reported sightings, are [Delta Shaped UFOs](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Lights).\n\n- They almost never make sound and have no visible propulsion.\n\n- They may take highly erratic flight paths pulling off maneuvers that would knock humans unconscious due to the insane amount of G-forces, or they take extremely perfect paths.\n\n- They either blink numerous colors or stay as one continuous glowing light.
The only apologetic arguments that I've seen come close to your criteria do not advocate in favor of a God. They instead try to establish that he is not an impossibility, and that because of this it is okay to believe in him.\n\nIt's pretty disappointing, actually. I want arguments as to *why* I should believe, not why it's *okay* for me to.
The death threats to Dawkins and TF come from outside community.  The rape threats to female skeptical bloggers come from inside the community, and they should be treated differently.  Additionally, the odds of any single person being murdered is low, but the odds of a woman being raped is somewhere near one in five, a threat of rape is automatically more credible.
Under that proposal, the protection and services of the "police" would be literally bought and paid for by the wealthiest individuals. When that happens in government, we call it corruption, and it's one of the greater social evils.
That's what happens when you don't properly prep the coals.  They need a fine covering of ash on top to allow people to walk on them without getting burned.  Unfortunately, this asshole thinks it mind power that makes it work, not physics.
You can't deal with their ideas.  They didn't come at them by reason, so you can't reason them out of it.\n\nYou can parody; did you know the Starbucks across the street was built by aliens?!  You can use their obstinacy and loose standards of evidence to show how any dumb idea has the same support, and you should compound their dumb ideas with more dumbness.  MMR vaccines really get the body humors out of balance, and (insert 17th century medical voodoo here) and that's why it causes autism.  Oh, and vaccine needles are accupuncture, and they're doing it wrong, and that causes autism.  (Contradictory?  So what.  Revel in it.)
Thank you, thank you, thank you, for "too long a" and NOT "too long *of* a".
No problem, we've all said things that have come out the wrong way.
> how can you ever be sure that's not what happened?\n\nThat's manufactured doubt you got there. If you think they didn't publish the 'bad' studies, then why hasn't the organic industry been able to produce them instead? It's surely not for lack of money...
Agreed.
I am not an expert on aerobatic shows, but I used to live 5-6 Km away from RAF Akrotiri where the Red Arrows used for training during 2011, and i can confirm the loud as fuck part... especially when the wind is blowing towards your direction. \n\nThey also only fly under perfect weather conditions, one of the reasons Cyprus was used for their training as visibility is a key to the success of these shows, a few clouds can be a real hazard for them so it seems highly unlikely that they chose to do their training at night. \n
You're a much more patient person than I am. I couldn't watch the full video after the so-called conspiracy to make early hominids look more human to confuse the general population. \n\nHe may have an interesting point or two but they are buried in a sea of nonsense.
from the video its pretty clear he was joking, still the conspiracy nuts will be all over this as 'proof'
What would it matter if we do or don't have a certain word. Do you think it matters to a Dalek?
Thank you for the /r/pics level commentary.
I can't disagree with you that may very well be what is happening to him. But at the same time if it is the exact same figure you never know it could be a bad omen... \n\nIt is just one of those stories I either have to take the OP's word on. I kinda believe him, but I wouldn't argue against the fact it couldn't just be random dreams.
The actions of the people are more than a little suspect. If I found a dead alien I would film more than five minutes. I'd make a whole documentary. Moving it, dissecting it, calling in expert witnesses. In the very least, wouldn't you at least poke it with a stick? \n\nNow to the body itself. There's no eyeballs. Rate of decay for eyeballs in a frozen tundra is very, very slowly. Especially to get to the point where there's only eyesockets (even black eyes would reflect light like the rest of the "body", no?) If the rest of the body was so well preserved the eyes would be as well. \n\nNext, the leg's gone but no equivalent alien blood loss in the surrounding snow. You might think a scavenging animal would have chewed it off after he died, but that doesn't make sense either because he's what, a foot tall? No scavenging animal would only eat such a tiny bite. And even if it did, the action would have moved it to another angle from the convenient angle the creator left it in. And of course there's the size of the body. A naked foot tall hairless creature would lose core body temperature very rapidly in the Russian snow, and would die of hypothermia before it could even leave the crash site.
I have trouble believing that explanation
I did find this, but I was concerned because it's very template-bloggy and doesn't seeem credible.  I'll definitely read through it all though and pick out some good bits.
....Yeah, because we couldn't buy something just because it looks cool. It has to neutralize the wah in your ionized woowoo and cleanse your aura, too.
Which is actually a more plausible explanation.
you know... you can make up a name instead of using just a letter. we wouldnt know any better. but for some of us just a letter for a name takes us out of the story
Very true. Also, neither the shuttle, nor the camera are stationary. As the shuttle moves, and then the camera pans to stay locked on the tether, it would make it appear that the ice crystals change trajectory.\n
In psychology class? What was the follow-up to his lecture -- a short talk on the placebo effect?\n\nYou'll never know now.
Id also like to read more.
Dragon
that looks like a balloon that eventually came back down to earth
Science still is not certain how animals “navigate” home: by the position of the sun or by the earth’s magnetic field? Thanks to some sixth and superior sense of direction? And what about lost animals who find their way to their owners through unfamiliar territory?
> …the holograms on either side of the wrist react with the body's energy flow and tune its frequency to the ideal 7.83 hertz required to power the body.\n\nWow.
it may be worth remembering that the (nonsense) views you come across maybe as deeply held by your friends as your skeptical, scientific view.\n\nAnd how you address the issue depends whether you want to try and convince them, or just vent....
I was listening to someone on Coast To Coast recently who has been researching the genuine sound events; apparently they have been going on for decades, gradually growing louder. Patterns of reports indicate the sounds are generated in the sky.
Find me a child who friended their local news station
[this!](http://i.imgur.com/tE9Pc.gif)
Didn't realize homeopathy was associated with hipsters, but whatever.
You're the first person that I see that talks about Orbs. I saw what I believe to be one once in PR, back in 2007. I was at a beach house, probably around 1 or 2 AM and all of a sudden in the horizon, there was a blue circular light which was moving as if though it lied on top of the horizon line and was moving on top of it. It moved right, and then switched color to red and then disappeared. It was something similar to that graphic for "Touchstone Pictures" which plays before their movies.\nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tveRQHHHAE\n\nOne of my friends, who was graduating and going away and who was hammered drunk, was at my side at the moment. I alerted him to it, and he just stared and said "What the fuck is that?"... And that was it, no one else saw it and because my friend was hammered, asking him to remember is probably too much to ask.
I have seen the Penn and Teller Bullshit episode on him, and it is woefully without substance. They don't delve at all into the results of his metallurgical analyses.
It's really quite simple. Check what you would get from a normal vegan diet, and what you would get from your diet now. If the vegan diet is more healthy or as healthy, according to nutrition science, then it's reasonable.\n\nThe key here is science instead of tradition. Your tradition is meat, milk and eggs, but tradition isn't scientific.
Just tell him his woowoo manipulates the same laws as science does, but in a different way; that it's based on the elements and regulations of science, and that it just manipulates matter accordinlgy.
I had that exact same feeling hahaha.
I don't think "artifact experts" are standing up because it's quite obvious these objects reflect light and have shadows as they tumble in some footage.
Thank's moving-target !\nBut this story of "the guy on the roof" make me a good laugh...since 3 days i really need it !! ;)\nI imagine someone on my roof in the middle of the night. whith lights on his head ..;)
That dude was awesome. Not a single fuck was given.
Where is the information on the scoops being put on a handle? do you mean hook?\nI used to work as a fish monger ( yep smelly ) and worked with a machine larger but similare to that one, even on a lip it would vibrate the scoop off after a while ( ended up leave the scoop in the machine and fishing it out the next day ), it also used to vibrate objects next to it.\n\nWhile the place in the videos could very well be haunted  the videos just dont show anything i would concider "paranormal"
idk, google cow milk,, see what you get, you like antibiotics?
Nice try, Robert Heinlein.
>Some low-carb advocates talk as if you can consume more calories in fats and protein than in carbs and not gain weight while maintaining the same energy expenditure.\n\nIt's actually plausible partly on account of the fact that your intestines stop absorbing fat after a certain point. You rapidly learn not to eat too much fat on a ketogenic diet, because you're guaranteed to have some unpleasant trips to the bathroom if you overeat.
Thats almost true, but I have yet to go to a doctor and have him offer me a couple of immunization options that do nothing for me and spend their time in my system trying to make it worse.
I think that's just light reflecting off the bottle. It's rotating when it is coming off the shelf and the "anomaly" or whatever is is right along the angle where the bottle curves into the neck.
You clearly implied that both the HRSA and the CDC can not be trusted.\nIf you can't provide evidence for your claims on a skeptic forum, why don't you just leave instead of starting to insult people. Frankly, it's pathetic.
The violin doesn't know squat. That little box is an acoustic driver, and human ears can tell what kind of space it is pumping sound into. A lot of violins that sound good in a living room can't fill up a big space with high quality sound, and do that while an orchestra is behind them.\n\nA lot of garden variety violins have a hard time being heard over one banjo..
I thought that the whole idea was just to weaken surface tension, thus making the water "wetter".\n\nIn one of the Eyes of Nye episodes he compares petri dishes that have had an uncleaned hand put on them, a hand cleaned under water, another under water with soap for 30 seconds, and another under water with soap for 1 minute... The biggest difference was between the unwashed hand and one just washed under water with no soap... It seems at least plausible to me that if ionizing the water would break the surface tension, then it would be better for cleaning.\n\nBut I guess I'll need to read the link that was submitted beneath my first post, hopefully I'll get a better idea then.
His site:\n\nhttp://www.keshefoundation.org/en/\n\nInteresting post by Mr Keshe in response to many questions :\n\nhttp://www.keshefoundation.org/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2485\n\n\nPlan to release Free Energy Technology design to all scientists globally on the 21st September 2012:\n\n\nhttp://www.ascensionearth2012.org/2012/07/keshe-foundation-announces-plans-to.html?m=1\n\n\n:)
No. I don't use any artificial sweetener (can't stand the taste).
http://i.imgur.com/5Cxua.jpg
> So, let me see if I got this right; you haven't found any evidence and that somehow proves that evidence doesn't exist? LOL...\n\nI am not saying there 100% is none, because am not omnipotent, but if you gave me some evidence I would change my mind, or if I came across some I would change my mind. But the fact that you are not raising any evidence makes me think that you do not know of any evidence either.\n\n> I completely agree; which is the reason I wonder why so many people believe chemo is the best cancer treatment available, when I personally know so many people that have went through absolute misery getting it done, only to possibly prolong their life...\n\nThey believe that because that is what the evidence says, there are tons and tons of evidence that chemo can, in some cases, cure cancer.
yeah because screw cooking. I eat my cashews raw.
Indeed, I have this sweet satisfaction and almost maternal pride when I see people respecting pit-etiquette.
Fuck that sh!t GTFO!
I didnt see anything particularly bad about this branch of feminism in this article.
Don't confuse the terms here.  Suicide doesn't necessarily mean that you won't end the continuation of the physical body.  If you kill yourself, then - at least on the third dimensional plane upon which we are currently residing - your body WILL indeed be "dead".  That doesn't mean the energy and personal identity that ANIMATES that physical body will perish, however.  That energy itself will continue.\n\nIt won't necessarily be able to take up the same physical shell/body that it previously discarded, however.  Once that physical body is discarded - through "testing the hypothesis" or through whatever other means (natural "death", etc) - that physical shell is no longer useable again.  Bodies tend to be "shirts" that you can only wear once, although you can indeed come back with a different "shirt" on.\n\nIf you kill yourself, however, the new shirt you end up coming back with won't tend to fit anywhere near as well as the one you just took off.  Therefore, it's better to just keep wearing the one you have on until it "sloughs off" on its own.
I might just be jaded, but when it zips away at the end i can't help but think it looks like CG.
Hell even before then:\n\n> She was thinking that the structure or energy of the water may be compromised by microwave.\n\nDa fuq is the energy of water? Does she mean the energy of the actual molecules and thus the temp?\n\nDo they think they and their water are outside the universe seeing as we're being bombarded by microwave energy every day.
This happens to me too.
You are probaly living in a murder site. These places tend to have a death scene loop. You should lookinto having a paranormal group visit or go look up records for your place. Ask around the neighborhood see if anyone remembers or knows about a amn getting stabbed in your place.
Have you ever heard of mass extinctions?  There have been several observed in the fossil record.  Humans really haven't been around long at all.  I don't think humans are going anywhere anytime soon.  But the climate change situation is pointing towards things becoming unpleasant.\n\nTell me about the global warming industry.  Are the scientists profiting from doing research about global warming?  Professors don't get paid more if their research is relevant to policy making.  In order for professors to get grant money, all they have to do is pick something that has not been studied yet, and has some interest by other people.  If the massive increase in CO2 in the last century pointed towards no warming because nature somehow conspired that way to cancel things out, it would still be interesting and researchers would still have their jobs, because that is what basic science is about - understanding how things work.  That's not what is happening as best as people know however.\n\nThere isn't a global warming industry.  There is a fossil fuel industry, a nuclear industry, a renewable energy industry.  Currently people in charge of fossil fuels are the ones making the billions upon billions, maybe even trillions of dollars world-wide.  If you want to come up with conspiracy theories, isn't it more probable that they would want to keep the status quo.  There is plenty of evidence of industry giants campaigning against global warming.  It's in their financial interest.\n\nAnyways, this argument is getting silly.  If you refuse to acknowledge what the vast majority of scientists in their field are concluding and only listen to the minority of scientists who are continually refuted, you aren't going to be swayed by anything I could possibly say, not being an expert in the field myself.
This. I came here to offer that once it becomes widely used or well known, it's no longer effective.
Well, the others aren't nearly as grand in scale as this one, but they still left quite an impression on me, this time I was returning from a visit to some friends, it was pitch black outside, I was sitting in the passenger seat. I noticed some white "lights" by the corner of my eye, I looked out of the window and realized it's completely clear tonight. Then it happened again, these weren't "lights" as they didn't glow at all, it was simply some fractured parts of the sky going white. I think the best way to describe it is to imagine a sky as a mosaic, and that random pieces of it were turning white for a fracture of second, then other pieces following. \n\nI hope you can picture this, English is not my first language so I have some troubles translating such inexplicable events.
they would be beyond the need for slave labor, I would think. Anything they need to get done can probably be accomplished by technology.
You can fill your boots here:\n\n[UFOTV on YouTube](http://www.youtube.com/user/UFOTVstudios?feature=g-user-u)\n\nand here:\n\n[AnonymousFOs' documentaries, specifically ancient alien theories](http://www.anonymousfo.com/documentaries/AncientAlienCivilizationDocs/AncientAlienCivilizationsDocumentaries.html)\n\nEnjoy!
I always thought of it as I'm the only REAL person, and that I'm in a simulation that is being broadcast on tv... and anyone else who has/had my same theory is real too, and in it with me. ( sometimes)
First, read up on [Charles Bonnet syndrome](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bonnet_syndrome)\n\nSecond, get her to an eye doctor for a checkup.\n\n\n\n
"Commander George Hoover had finally revealed what he really knew about Roswell. He explained the truth as he had learned it all those decades ago:\n· UFOs are not the "biggest secret" - it is the entities behind them that was of most concern\n· Roswell was in fact a crash event of "visitors from somewhere else"\n· The entities were "not so much interplanetary as much as they were literally also time travelers." They are extra-temporal.\n· The visitors are clearly "from the future." There is reason to believe that they may even be "us" from a future Earth.\n· These "future humans" have the ability to "manipulate reality around us."\n· The government feared the intentions and abilities of the "visitors"\n· These visitors are able to use the power of consciousness in extraordinary ways to morph reality\n· We human beings are far more powerful in potential than we ever dreamed that we are. We don't yet comprehend our extraordinary future capabilities.\n· The visitors remain at essence though "corporeal" and "physical" - and secret attempts at reverse-engineering the visitor's crash material were made\n· Incredibly, Hoover admitted that he himself was engaged in such technology transfer as a Naval Intelligence Officer with Top Secret clearances"
LOL
>The world's leading consumer advocate promoting healthier non-GMO choices\n\nIs there some sort of internet rule regarding the length of someone's title?
You misunderstood. I meant that that world would be a better place.
WTB night vision/infrared iPhone and you will get better video? the only reason ufo video are bad is because every cell phone in the world fail at recording in no-light to nightime.
I enjoy this forum a lot. It is fun to think of such things and I happily suspend disbelief for the sake of enjoyment, but in this case it does not seem appropriate to \n"*play along*" if someone thinks their kid is in danger:\n____________\n**To OP**: While I enjoy the subject matter of r/paranormal, I am as sure that the supernatural does not exist as I am that gravity does. One can never be 100% sure about anything (see Socrates' "I know that I know nothing" and Descartes' demon), but there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever in favor of the paranormal and almost no room in science for it. Every time anyone has ever investigated the paranormal it turned out to be bullshit or fraud. The very idea itself was born out of a lack of understanding of the natural world. If stories of such things hadn't existed for thousands of years, would anyone have thought of such things today? \n\nThere are no ghosts, there are no demons, and there are no dragons, and moreover, there is no need for them; there are things much worse made of ordinary flesh and bone. While you do have to worry about terrorists, pedophiles, drunk drivers and corporate fat cats who dump toxic garbage in your local river, at least you can be sure that **there is no invisible entity stalking your child**. As said before, this seems totally normal for children that age. Children are weird. If it ever gets worse, a visit to a psychologist may be worthwhile. Good luck!\n\nAlso, there are thousand of explanations for your feeling odd in the room; anything from EMF from a leaky electrical circuit to infrasound from a imbalanced air conditioning compressor rotor could cause this feeling. Just remember that there are millions upon millions of paranormal enthusiasts all over the world, and nobody has ever produced a shred of credible evidence for the supernatural or a legitimate theory of mathematics, biology or physics that implies their existence.
And paleo fixes these undetectable, unquantifiable complaints?
"Their more important information has to do with understanding how life and reality works and how it could work. That there are no real limitations as to what we can do or become aside from what we imagine for ourselves. That is where the real value comes in, not this other stuff."\n\nThis.\n\nI like David Icke but do I believe the Queen of England is an interdimensional reptile? No. I like Billy Meier but do I have to believe his garbage can lid videos are authentic? No. Alex Collier spins a nice yarn about Star Warsy empires and battling factions but I don't have to buy into that stuff either.\n\nBut the messages people like this continually put forth is the same; trust what you feel in your gut even if society at large tells you it's wrong, take responsibility and an active role in how you live, see the effects of your thought and action vibrate out among all people, because we are ultimately part of the same organism.\n\nIs this stuff coming from an outside intelligence, or from within ourselves? Doesn't matter to me. However it is the root of nearly all spiritual urges and mythologies our species has had, whether it be Jesus, Moses, Buddha or Bashar. I think this is occurring with greater frequency because humanity is craving and ready for a new spiritual perspective. I'm simplifying here, but when I look at humanity's religious history I see what started with dream and psychedelic fueled shamanism, which evolved into polytheism, which condensed into monotheism, which is largely considered an outdated notion in a modern age that has a more intimate understanding of the science and mathematics of reality. The symbols are changing, but the story stays the same.\n\nPerhaps in December a bunch of space vehicles are going to land to our eagerly waiting species, and my friendly yellow elf girl is going to step out and say hello, but I seriously doubt it.
LOL
> how else do people work out these kind of word puzzles?\n\nHypothesis: The people who are surprised are not the type of people who are used to solving puzzles.
Do you mind if I quote you later for a follow-up article, in a few months?
Sweet Jesus with a ham salad sandwich.....
I disagree.  The same people who developed that graphic are the people who supported Sharon "Second Amendment remedies" Angle.\n\nThey talk about murdering liberals all the time.  They sell "Liberal Hunting Licenses".  Yeah, they're "joking", but that shit inspires real murder.
Also Yes.
Sorry, I couldnt get it uploaded. reposted a minute ago
Aristasia is scary.
I like P&T but I feel as though sometimes the people they get to argue for the side/view they are debunking are straw men. Like for the anti-WalMart episode, I think they just got these random yokels as opposed to a labor leader or someone moderately competent. So when stuff like that happens, it leads me to believe they have a political agenda beyond skepticism.
There will be no disclosure by any government because I'm convinced that they have no more of a consensus or understanding of what the UFO phenomenon represents than we do. \n\nThis is the only hypothesis that explains the complete lack of progress by UFO researchers, the dead leads and fake documents, the lack of technology seeded into our society that could have been back engineered from recovered alien devices in the last 70 years and the disinformation and cover ups by the leading powers of the 1st World. They don't know jack shit and want to prevent anyone else finding out before they do.\n\nIf UFOs represent ET civs, they will probably not announce themselves until we are significantly more advanced, by which I mean centuries, at least. There would be no benefit for them to do so. \n\nIt may turn out to be impossible to have any kind of meaningful dialogue with a species that is very far in advance of us. Alien minds might be so utterly different from us that we could never communicate properly, or even understand the purpose of their actions and motivations.\n\nI see no evidence of super-spiritual benevolent space brothers committed to helping us evolve. \n\nIf UFOs represent some other form of non-human intelligence that are *not* ETs, then interaction with it or them will always be cryptic, unfathomable and ephemeral.
Haha, quite the anachronism. Not that these people ever feel any responsibility to explain *anything* but I wonder how he accounts for the fact that no one has ever caught a picture of these rods on non-interlaced digital video.
I was also wondering what this was called. I had an argument with some anti-government tinfoil hat guy awhile back because he was saying that the government *must* always doing evil things, because its possible they could be.
They do. Most of them do now. The difference, though, is that with cell phones you aren't allowed to use autodialers. You have to manually dial everything. It's kind of ridiculous because all that's doing is giving people repetitive motion injuries, which almost certainly costs more than a few extra calls to cell phones, but what are you gonna do? Personally, I suggest not working in a call center.\n  \nWe also offered cash incentives for cell users on some studies.\n  \nOne of the things you want to remember, too, is that this work is contracted. The CDC doesn't go do the legwork themselves, and neither does Pew. They design an instrument and they hand it to roughly a thousand people to play with. Many of those people *suck*. Miscoding was rampant at a few of the other places. Ours was pretty good, but I wrote a *lot* of problem sheets about people miscoding and fabricating stuff. Faking out screeners so they could get into the body with *whoever was cooperative* regardless of whether or not they met the criteria, stuff like that. I've heard of people faking whole interviews. I'd imagine that increases the margin of error.
Tl;Dr.\n\nOne time when I was younger me and my friends saved up to buy a Ouija Board for "Kay B Toys" published by "Milton Bradly" we anxiously ran it hope that night and nervously busted it out. The suspense was building. We all put our finger on the little pointer thing, lit some candles, did some chanting and prepared for the worst. Then, nothing happened.  They sold us a broken Ouija board! Nope. We read the direction and found out our problem was that one person was supposed to move the pointer. \n\nTl;Dr Some one always moves the pointer.
Interesting, thanks for the response.
I don't think I can really differentiate between the two. My skepticism informs my atheism and vice-versa. However, I never really believed in God though because I wasn't brought up religious so I don't really know. Children have great imaginations and are able to pretend that many things are true, but does that really mean that they aren't skeptical? I don't know.
Oh to weigh in on your actual question (sorry about that) I have no idea what a soul is or if it exists. How much of "us" is a result of the mortal brain and how much goes on to somewhere else (if it even does) is a mystery to me.
What is missing from this petition is evidence.\n\nAnyone can make a claim that someone is making death threats. But that is hardly evidence for any law enforcement agency to follow up on or take seriously.  What they need are specific statements and evidence of those statements.\n\nFor that matter, whenever statements of death or violence threats are made, they should be reported to the police.  THAT gives them something to work on.\n\nThe petition is weak because it states he has made threats on people's lives and then claims they are 'veiled' threats.\n\nWhat specifically needs to be done is that all of the evidence needs to be collected and assessed in one central location.\n\nAnd just because twitter accounts are made & disposed of is not necessarily evidence that he made those threats using disposable accounts.  As the Fox News death threat comment pictures have shown, there are a large number of people willing to make death threats.\n\nSo skeptics?  We need evidence.  Because law enforcement is in the business of being skeptics themselves.
*Cue
This will be just perfect to charge my air-car!
Old but classic :)
Not true. A line can be formed as well.
http://www.livescience.com/health/090120-acupuncture-placebo.html\n\nIt works exactly as well as someone sticking pins into you randomly.  But it is an effective placebo for a variety of ailments.
> It just blows my mind that a women's worldview is so dominated by the idea that all men are potential rapists.\n\nMine too. But I'm more inclined to say "Okay, so how can I, as a male, avoid behavior that makes a woman feel that way?" rather than "Therefore they're crazy."\n\nI've personally had two close friends and one girlfriend get raped or be sexually abused though, so maybe I have a different perspective on it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radial_keratotomy\n\n[citation needed] flag, but note the differences in the story. On wikipedia the surgery involved cutting the spoke pattern. In your example the suggestion is that the glass from the spectacles "shaved a layer off of the outer surface of the eye", which isn't how RK works.
MU for all your paranormal needs.
A few years ago, I was coming out of my pseudo spiritual phase and Buddhism was the last religion I hit on my way out. I tried meditation, and was fairly pleased with the calm it provided for me. About a year ago, I read an article about how scientists had discovered a part in the human brain that is essentially shut off when we meditate... This part of the brain makes us feel alone and cut off from the rest of the world. Animals apparently don't deal with this. I believe that meditation is great for people, especially awkward nerds which is the rank and file of Reddit.
AnCap here, so no.\n\nEDIT: Why all the downvotes?
I agree.  Those candles don't work at all in my experience.  DEET on skin and permetherin on cloths works great.
No one has killed in the name of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
I love this story because the news people used active skepticism to attempt to debunk this.  \n\nI guess this is why skeptics are rarely people who do anything other than troll on reddit.  If they actually went out and did anything, they probably wouldn't be skeptics.  But alas, it's easier to claim that professional news cameramen would confuse this for an insect.... idiotic.  Properly idiotic.
That's the theory that has the most weight behind it.
we'd have to know more about the lighting inorder to give you a more accurate opinion
Fuel for maneuvering a satellite.\n\n\nThat "little bit of liquid" in it is extremely poisonous!\n
Veganism and vegetarianism are not the same thing.
Oh I agree but you must remember the GIGO rule, garbage in =garbage out. It's fine to read anecdotes and stories from people, but after 60 years with no real evidence one can't take it much more seriously than ghosts or ferries.
We all have our incongruities. I play Powerball once a week for example. I also have this little superstition where I *have to* look the winning numbers up online after work the following day. I know it's ridiculous, but hey.
Well it's kind of happening on its own ...isn't it? They don't want to breed with us, and we sure as fuck don't want to breed with them!
I suspect her (and Johnny Depp, Tom Cruise and a few others) to be part of a secret conspiracy of rich people, funding life-extension technologies!
Statements about concrete things, like "gold exists" or "anti-matter exists," are testable, scientific hypotheses.  However, statements dealing with abstract ideas such as "hope exists" or "justice exists" are not.\n\n"God" is more akin to "hope" or "justice" than it is a concrete thing like "gold."  Science only deals with the quantifiable, and God is not quantifiable, and therefore, it makes no sense to claim your statement #1 is a scientific conclusion.\n\nThat being said, I respect atheism quite a bit and think it's very reasonable to conclude there's no good reason to believe in God.  But what is or isn't a good reason to believe in God is very subjective, and the subjective is not scientific.
heh
So, it wasn't just me that was thinking that.
no the specific phrase "If it were entirely a pseudoscience, people wouldn't be in jail for publishing pamphlets." I have no idea what that refers to.
so by your logic you shouldn't trust the pharmaceutical companies who fund the research for the latest prescriptions. Every institution (for the most part) funds research on their own product because why would a company waste money on expensive research if it wasn't going to benefit them? If the study is inconclusive the results are published anyway. Also subluxation isn't a theory. It is just a word that simply means dislocation or (not in perfect alignment). Yes some chiropractors claim to cure cancer, but they are generally the older generation of chiropractors. The newer generation is based off of science, and can explain physiologically why sometimes things outside of back pain can be explained, like some asthma cases the symptoms CAN be relieved (not cured) if a patient has parasympathetic dominance to their lungs, their segmental bronchi smooth muscle will contract, creating a smaller airway to the lungs. I would like to know more specifics on why you believe that chiropractic is a ''psuedoscience'' through specific examples or research, rather than just making a general statement with nothing backing it. Thank you
I totally understand the frustration as well. I have tons of stories of personal paranormal experience, but even my own husband tries to shut me down when I begin to tell the stories because he sees it as a sign of stupidity and a need for attention.\nVery frustrating. I think it's ignorant to claim there's nothing out there we don't understand.
The main problem with religion is people trying to teach others to think more like they do. No matter how skeptical you are, or how much science discovers, there is always the unknown. Therefore there is always room for faith/religion. \n\nAs an atheist I have zero problem with religion. I only take issue with religion when religious people try to force that belief on others. \n\nAn atheist implying that their 'correct' thinking will convince a religious person to abandon their faith/religion is just as problematic to me as when a religious person does it to an atheist.
It's not just structural barriers. [Aversive racism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aversive_racism) is alive and well in the good ol' US of A, unfortunately.
Anonymous: Further consolidating their spiral into uselessness and irrelevancy.\n\n
Looks like a mylar balloon floating around...maybe something like [this Tiki balloon or something](http://www.partytimesrus.com/item/_Tiki_Island_Mylar_Balloons/11999/c410)  Maybe it is Optimus Prime? :)
no street view :(
I'm not sure anymore. Everything's in black and white!
I don't see why we should feel bad. I feel bad for their children perhaps, but the parents, not really. There's a certain level of ignorance or delusion, whatever you want to call it, where I find it easy to not care about people. I don't know where that line is, but these people are pretty far past it.
Just looked on my phone.  It's unreadable for me, too.  But on the pc, it looks fine.
the correct answer was "your"
I did a fair amount of research (about 3 hours) and found some interesting links. First since this is r/skeptic, here is an article from a skeptic's perspective http://www.csicop.org/si/show/power_line_panic_and_mobile_mania \nHere is an article from a skeptical doctor's perspective: http://www.clinicalcorrelations.org/?p=1425\nHere is the US's official stance on the matter: http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/magnetic-fields\nPower Lines in the US (and pretty much everywhere) operate on the three phase system: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-phase_electric_power\nThe voltage in transmission lines can be as high as 764kV (although HVAC lines are usually ~500kV) and the current in a transmission line can be as high as 1000A. \nThe magnetic field from transmission lines can be easily calculated using amperes law if you know the current in the line and distance from the line (if there are several lines, then calculate the magnetic field from each line and sum all the fields to get the total magnetic field). Assuming a maximum current of 1000A, a the magnetic field 100m away from a transmission line should be no more than .0133uT (micro Teslas) or equivalently .133 mG (milli gauss)  \nMagnetic field from everyday objects: http://www-ehs.ucsd.edu/LBCI/LIPA_Magnetic_Field_Levels_Around_Homes.pdf\n&: http://www.dep.state.fl.us/siting/files/application/ppsa/turkey_pt/emf_presentation.pdf\nIn my opinion, you should not be concerned with living near power lines. There does not seem to be any means by which a power line can induce cancer (at least from a physics standpoint). Any radiation from a power line would be non-ionizing and therefore harmless and the magnetic field around the line is insignificant. We should still continue to study the effects of EM fields on humans to ensure their safety. But as of now, power lines seem as safe as anything else in our world.\n
What you need are large double blind clinical trials in order to show this kind of effect.  As far as I can tell, there aren't any.  \n\nIt's one of those things that people just come up with these pet theories then go ahead full steam, very common to do that in the health and nutrition field.  \n\nPlus, the idea that we're somehow nutritionally bound to certain foods in a way that we suffer if we eat other things doesn't make much sense.  Humans are omnivores, and we have evolved while constantly adapting to new food sources.  Much of the tinkering we've done with our food sources over millenia, such as making bread, have actually increased their nutritional value and allowed us to reduce malnutrition.\n\nCheck out <a href="http://vsx.onstreammedia.com/vsx/pbssaf/search/search?pageSize=5&query_op2=must_contain&query_field2=clabel_Category&query_op3=eq&query_field3=clabel_Access&query3=Public&search_type=VIR_CAT_CLIP&sort=vlabel_Date&sort_dir=-&sort2=VIR_ASSET_ID_FIELD&sort_dir2=%2B&pageStart=0&query2=&query=soybeans&submitSearch=Search">This Video</a> for a Scientific American Frontiers segment about how agriculture turns foods into super foods.\n\nThis idea that we need to go back to basics isn't really supported by any solid science
Yes, of course I realize modern civilization depends on agriculture. However, I'd like to see a citation for the "not to starve to death nearly as often" claim you make, as I'm not entirely sure about how well it fits.
Wow, I fall for it too!!! What kind of skeptic am I? What is this world coming too?.......fuck........
With all the evidence coming forward of the 'seeds of life' as it were being found in asteroids and possible water on Mars, the vastness and HUGENESS of the galaxy, not to mention the age of the freaking universe herself...\n\nI'm just going with they point more and more toward that we cannot only be alone but that there is most likely to be civilizations that are far surpassing us in everything. Not to mention, there is some talk, wish I had the freaking source right now, that says some old life even on earth didn't use O2 the way we do. So... it's just really really likely that we could never have ever been 'alone'. As for ufo's...It's hard to provide strong evidence for what most likely doesn't want to be 'caught' and 'studied'. After all, if you went to a primitive village would you want them to do that to you? (just saying, we are primitive to their tech, hands down)
It is strange that he couldn't see her but  my belief is because of the way that it occured  it was her way to tell him that she is there and is always by his side. He may have taken differently if she would have just appeared, he may have even second guess what he had just saw, but when the cabbie (who was impartial) saw it it helped him a lot
Well as kid I didn't necessarily think the man I saw was my future self, just that it was really strange that he looked a lot like me. I didn't really understand what happened until the second occurrence (when I was an adult).\nI can't say that I expect it to happen again, but if it happened once it could happen again. I be much more tactful the next time.
I don't care for Ron Paul, but that's the primary square on that bingo card I don't quite understand.  I think there is a correlation between Troofers and Libertarian leanings, but I don't see the two as linked in any way.  Distrust for large government and the tendency to see government conspiracies are neighbors in the thought process, but I don't see them as a strong connection.
This is a very interesting theory.\n\n\nOn a separate note... Dude. Line-breaks. Use them.
Dangit! You beat me to it!
[The coup](http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2001/09/46771) predicted it too.\n
1943 - American Zionist Emergency Council (from 1970: American Zionist Movement) - "Palestine" - Volumes 1-5 (1943)\n"Jewish civilian casualties will be close to six million ... "\n\n\n1943 - "Debates: House of Commons, official report, volume 5, Canada, 1943\n"I should like to read a bit from a pamphlet entitled "Let My People Go," written by Victor Gollancz: Of the 6,000,000 Jews or so who were living at the outbreak of the war in what is at present nazi-occupied Europe, a high proportion -say between one and two million- have been deliberately murdered by the nazis and their satellites. ... within a very few months these six million Jews will all be dead ... "\n\n\n1943 - Contemporary Jewish Record, Volume 6 1943 (Published by the American Jewish Committee)\n"Suddenly, during the summer of 1942, world public opinion was shocked out of its lethargy by the realization that the Nazis had decreed the complete extinction of six million Jews and that a third of the victims had already perished."\n\n\n1943 - The Canberra Times, January 25th, 1943\n" ... Jews are being subjected as part of Hitler's plan to exterminate six million Jews in occupied Europe."\n\n\n1943 - The (London) Times, January 25th, 1943\n"They note further that the extermination already carried out is part of the Carrying into effect of Hitler's oft-repeated intention to exterminate the Jewish people in Europe, which means in effect the extermination of some 6,000,000 persons in the territories over which Hitler's rule has been extended.\n\n\n1943 - Lowell Sun (MA), January 26th, 1943, page 9\n"Of these six million Jews, almost a third have already been massacred by Germans, Rumanians and Hungarians and the most conservative of scorekeepers estimate that before the war ends at least another third wil have been done to death."\n\n\n1943 - The Guardian, January 27th, 1943, page 4\n"A PROPOSAL TO SAVE THE JEWS ... Some six million lives remained in imminent peril."\n\n\n1943 - The Canadian Jewish Review, January 29th, 1943, page 1\n" ... Hitler really intended to exterminate 6,000,000 more human beings."\n\n\n1943 - Hull Daily Mail, January 30th, 1943, page 3\n"Mr Gollancz states that of the six million Jews living at the outbreak of war in the present Nazi-dominated areas, between one and two million have been deliberately murdered."\n\n\n1943 - Western Morning News (Devon UK), February 5th, 1943, page 2\n"There are some who hold that Hitler's set purpose is the extermination of the Jews in Occupied Europe, numbering about six millions. ... We can neither accommodate six million Jews here nor dictate the attitude of other Governments."\n\n\n1943 - Ben Hecht, Reader's Digest, February 1943, page 108\n"Of these 6,000,000 Jews almost a third have already been massacred by Germans, Rumanians and Hungarians, and the most conservative of the scorekeepers estimate that before the war ends at least another third will have been done to death."\n\n\n1943 - New York Times, March 2nd, 1943\n" ... appalling is the fact that those who proclaim the Four Freedoms have so far done very little to secure even the freedom to live for 6,000,000 of their Jewish fellow men by readiness to rescue those who might still escape Nazi torture and butchery."\n\n\n1943  - The Canadian Jewish Review, March 14th, 1943, page 8  \n"Two millions of Jews have already been done to death. Six millions in mid-Europe are sentenced to die."\n\n\n1943 - Wallace R. Deuel, Cumberland Evening Times, March 23rd, 1943, page 1\n"The Nazis set out in the beginning to destroy whole peoples. They expected to obliterate from the earth not less than 6,000,000 Jews as a beginning."\n\n\n1943 - The Advertiser (Adelaide, Australia), May 15th, 1943\n" ... the possibility of the complete wiping out of six million Jews if something is not immediately done to secure a harbour of refuge."\n\n\n1943  - The Canadian Jewish Review, August 13th, 1943, page 8   \n"Two million Jews out of Europe's six million have already been slaughtered by the Nazis; most of the remainder seem doomed,\n\n\n1943 - Toledo Blade, August 27th, 1943\n"3,000,000 Jews Left In Europe - 5,300,000 Reported To Have Perished. Europe's Jewish population has been reduced from 8,300,000 to 3,000,000 during the 10 years the Nazis have been in power, says the Institute of Jewish Affairs."\n\n\n1944 - The Palestine Post, January 23rd, 1944\n"Only a handful of Polish Jews survived the extermination. They were now either with the partisans in the forests or living as Crypto-Jews. The death toll was six million, they declared."\n\n\n1944 - The Montreal Gazette, March 18th, 1944, page 11\n"There must be insurance that the Germans, unrepentant as they were after the last war, do not prepare another holocaust."\n\n\n1944 - Rabbi Michael Dov Ber Weissmandl, May 15th, 1944\n"And you - our brothers in Palestine, in all the countries of freedom, and you, ministers of all the kingdom - how do you keep silent in the face of this great murder? Silent while thousand on thousands, reaching now to six million Jews, were murdered. And silent now while tens of thousands are still being murdered and waiting to be murdered? Their destroyed hearts cry to you for help as they bewail your cruelty. Brutal you are and murderers too you are, because of the cold-bloodedness of the silence in which you watch."\n\n\n1944 - Rabbi Michael Dov Ber Weissmandel, May 31st, 1944\n" ... heads of government and radio must announce what was done to our people in the slaughter house of Belzec, Malkinia (Treblinka), Sobibor, and Auschwitz. Till now six times a million Jews from Europe and Russia have been destroyed."\n\n\n1944 - United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America Convention Proceedings, September 25th-29th, 1944\n"WHEREAS: History records no parallel to the bestial cruelties inflicted on the Jewish people of Europe by the Nazis and their satellites, whose coldly calculated program of extermination of all European Jews very nearly succeeded, almost six million Jews having been murdered in cold blood ... "\n\n\n1944 - Chicago Bar Record, October 1944\n"There were then at least eight million virtually homeless Jews in Europe who acquired rights under this treaty. Happily, perhaps, for the Arabs, that number has been cut down by six million."\n\n\n1944 - Proceedings of the Annual Convention, Vols. 62-66. Illinois State Federation of Labor, October 2nd, 1944\n"WHEREAS, Six million Jews were murdered by the Nazi henchmen during the time the Nazis kept Europe under their bloody heel ... "\n\n\n1944 - Youngstown Vindicator (Ohio), November 27th, 1944\n"A five-volume "black book" containing a documentary record of the German massacre of approximately 6,000,000 European Jews is being prepared by the state publishing house."\n\n\n1944 - The Pittsburgh Press, November 28th, 1944, page 5\n"Six Million Jews Listed Slaughtered. A five-volume "black book" containing a documentary record of the German massacre of approximately six million European Jews was being prepared today by the State publishing house. ... The work was under the general editorship of Ilya Ehrenburg and the editorial board included Poet-Playwright Konstantin Simonov, Writer Vsevold [Vsevolod] Ivanov and Poetess Vera Imber.\n\n\n1944 - The Leader, November 28th, 1944\n"Russian "Black Book" lists German crimes. The first volume of a five-volume Russian "black book" recording the documentary form of the German massacre of approximately 6,000,000 European Jews has been completed by the Soviet state publishing house ... The five-volume work is under the general editorship of Ilya Ehrenburg, noted Soviet writer and war correspondent, with an editorial board that includes poet-playwright Kanstantin [Konstantin] Simonov, writer Vsevold [Vsevolod] Ivanov and poetess Vera Imber. Editors of the work -which will be published in both Russian and English in press runs of hundreds of thousands of copies- estimate from data now available that the Germans killed between 5,000,000 and 6,000,000 Jews in Russia, Poland and western Europe. They believe an additional 500,000 now are being murdered in Hungary."\n\n\n1944 - The Palestine Post, November 28th, 1944\n"SIX MILLIONS MURDERED. The Soviet State Publishing House is preparing the publication of another "Black Book," a documentary record of the German massacre of approximately six million European Jews. ... According to the Soviet editors, the Germans killed between five and six million Russian, Polish and Western European Jews, and an additional half million are being murdered in Hungary now."\n\n\n1944 - The Jewish Criterion, December 1st, 1944\n" ... 5,500,000 Jews have been killed in Germany and German-occupied territories since the outbreak of the war.  ... Yes, the Germans murdered close to six million Jews ... "
But Christian Revisionists are unconcerned with facts.
Did you forget the bit about bouncing between one fiction and another?\n  \nThere was plenty in that post other than his professed identification with Hinduism to indicate that he was rejecting the idea that some models of reality might be more accurate than others. He literally said it's fiction all the way down. He even went so far as to abuse what I believe to be a creation of the late Robert Anton Wilson (but is just as likely someone else's that he was just talking about, probably this Korzybski fellow) to affirm his premise.
That's..... Amazing.
SAW THIS TONIGHT MYSELF\n\nI live in Toronto. I saw a ball of light exactly like this. It was at 8:25 pm Toronto time. It wasn't a star, because it was moving at this exact speed seen in the video. Then I saw it move into the distance and fade out into a red dying light. Satellites usually disappear once they enter the shadow of the earth, not fade out into the distance. Multiple sightings in Toronto, maybe it is being surveyed or some shit
Thank you.  That's exactly the sort of thing I was looking for.
I bet they do get autism, they probably just hide those people away in the attic, just like other dogmatic groups and cults
Don't forget - over-medication, western medicine and no health care kills babies too!
Yes he did.  OP was talking about cancer though.
>Aren't medium chain triglycerides potentially different to the saturated fats in those studies?\n\nI suppose that would depend on the particular study.\n\n> If nothing else, it should be an improvement as a replacement for other saturated fats that are common in American diets.\n\nNot a molecular biologist, but I'd say that if you are one of the last holdouts still frying/baking with tallow, suet or lard, while otherwise eating an abundance of carbs, then sure. Of course absent the carbs, tallow, suet and lard aren't that bad, while coconut oil may be superior.
If I didn't need my faith in humanity lowered any more, really? I mean really?
The journalists who reported this story at BBC probably don't even know. Look when the video was posted: 2007. This was around the time that this evidence came to surface... which means it took SIX years for someone in the public to discover this bombshell and spread it on the internet. It wouldn't surprise me at all if the journalists involved are still oblivious as to what they actually did.
The sources are all included in his text transcripts on the website.
The caesium atom clock is based on the rotations of the Earth with respect of the solar time.\n\nCool I didn't know about the clock, cheers. Learnt something new.
Edzard Ernst and Simon Singh covered cupping in Trick or Treatment. It's essentially an elaborate placebo... Though there's a Russian guy around here would will claim that it's more than a placebo and that there are old Soviet studies showing such, but that he can't find them.\n\nThe big problem with studying cupping is that fake cupping often feels quite different, so it's noticeable when you're getting the sham treatment.
I think that's a bit of a straw man. Libertarians see corporate fascism to be just as ~~evil~~ bad as does everyone else (except neo-cons), but they contend that those corporations are only able to become such monolithic beasts by taking advantage of government protectionism, i.e. "The corporate power you fear is merely government power by proxy." Take away the government's power to control interest rates, regulate business, etc., and the corporate tyranny will be unable to sustain itself.\n\n(I'm not actually interested in debating the merits of that viewpoint right now. I'm just pointing out what I think is a common mischaracterization of libertarian beliefs.)\n\n[edited for grammar]
When looking at the increase in national debt it's important to note if the increase is due to new policy changes, or due to existing policies still in place that can't be changed due to the political environment. For example, the two wars and the Bush tax cuts continue to add massivley to the debt and those increases shouldn't be attributed to Obama.\n\nHowever, Obamas decision to increase our presence in Iraq (the "surge") should be counted against him.\n\nAlso, remember that Congress spends money in a budget signed by the President. You can't just blame Congress.
I don't usually listen to podcasts, but when I do, it's "The Skeptics Guide to the Universe"
He was allegedly banned from playing.\n\n[Source](http://twitter.com/DerrenBrown). Posted 7th September. Couldn't hard link the tweet. Sorry.
"Impulcate" isnt a word, although it feels like it should be.\n\n"Implicate" still wouldn't turn your sentence into one that makes sense, so I'm not sure what you're going for here.
I saw bits and pieces of it. The narrator lady towards the end self-identified skeptic, quotes and all, and would reply with woo at worst, unsubstantiated ideas at best.
I thought of a serial killer straight away.\nThe Trinity Killer from Dexter actually.
All traffic lights I have ever encountered are red for me.  Also, I've never used hyperbole in my life.\n\nBut seriously, while the burden of proof would be on me to disprove these statements, or at least provide context, or whatever, if the authors of the website cannot be bothered to provide some kind of source for a quote aside from "whatshisname" said it, I don't really feel like looking through all of it to give sources.\n\nAfter a while, debunking can become an exercise in Sisyphean boulder rolling, one which a rational person should be able to eventually say, "Enough's enough; this is bullshit." and stop investigating every single tiny piece of bullshit to say, "This supposed bullshit is indeed bullshit."\n\nFurther, what do most of these quotes have to do with whether or not UFOs are real?  Very few of them are much more than, "I think governments are participating in a conspiracy to cover up UFOs."; this is not proof of anything, and since it is pure opinion, it isn't really something that can be investigated.
Neither of you should be using 'worldview' and 'belief' interchangeably.
I can't tell if I should be skeptical of the idea that saccharin is a carcinogen or the EPA's reclassification of saccharin as safe.
Efrit are a race of Djinn. In Islamic myth Djinn are one of the 3 intelligent creatures created by God(Allah).   The other 2 being Angels and man.  Some angels fell and became demons.  Djinn and humans, however, both have freewill and thus can choose to be good or evil.
[Are you...?](http://i.imgur.com/2rs70.jpg)
and, given the opportunity it would surely be better to do both, but in limited circumstances it is more important to spread tools than break down extant social systems.
So could any claims of his being "born in Kenya" pretty much be boiled down to racism (because he would technically be British, but birthers want him to be Kenyan)?
Honey.\n\nBeing a skeptic doesn't mean you have to be angry and condescending. \n\n>Chocolate i/ˈtʃɒklət/ is a raw or processed food \n\n(the first line from the wiki)\n\nRaw chocolate is made from cocoa beans that haven't been roasted. \n\nNope fermentation doesn't change the raw status as its a natural process. Ex: Raw kombucha \n\nhttp://www.rawcacao.com/\n\n
This is not possible, because [feminism actively opposes efforts to remedy discrimination against men](www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/g2eme/feminists_tell_you_that_the_solution_to_mens/).
A TV remote signal is actually very easily extended sometimes up to 100 feet and endless distances using a cellphone. You should have covered the signal reviver before you went to bed.
Thank god Diederik Stapel was mentioned. That was insane.
Enjoy your baseless fear.
Things like this, chem trails, and flat earth **really** bother me.  I can see someone not being able to grasp the age of the universe, or evolution, they require a bit of abstract thought.  \n\nBut shit like this, how?  You can grind your own microscope from glass and observe germs.  You can perform your own tests at that point, or you can reproduce the research that you disagree with. To deny such a simple, and testable, theory is ignorant, lazy, and evil.
The article has sources.\n\nBut, to suggest that "skeptics" from JREF were practicting science when they would troll the skeptical about Iraqi WMD in 2002 is absurd.\n\nLet us take you as an example. Show me some of this science you practice. Show me where you have applied the scientific method.
This is how I feel about the subject. I am hoping that maybe a physicist can weigh on this though. \n\nI would love it if it worked, as I'm not some naysayer, but we've had so many false alarms in the past.
On their side? You think killing and eating them exclusively makes you *on their side*?
> I confess that I found Alexander’s account so alarmingly unscientific that I began to worry that something had gone wrong with my own brain.\n\nSam Harris, you're funny!
2/10
I want to call her a scummy scumbag, but people are so stupid that they will give her money for these books. She's taxing retards.
please don't turn this place into /r/atheism :(
"Oh, so you're a skeptic too?  *I doubt that*!  Hahaha, oh me....."
You made an account just to make that reply? Gtfo
Advertisers on the bbc?
For not wanting a guy to talk to her in an elevator assuming the worst? I think so. One would call it racist if she had assumed such things about her and some african man so why not call it sexist?
Anomaly hunting.
and it was thiiiiiiis big!
I apologize, but would you mind to explain further what you mean?
4) a secret black project of the military we may not be aware of.
With all of these stories, when will people realize that medicine works and prayer doesn't?
Agreed.
I'm located in tacoma by lakewood. How can i summon a UFO? I would prefer one of the triangle shaped variety. Kthxbai
> placebo can have some effect on subjective things like pain\n\nAnd that is exactly what the op was asking about and exactly what the Cochrane review cited focuses on.  What exactly are you arguing against?  Neither of them have claimed that acupuncture-induced placebo effect is more or less effective than anything else.  Neither have claimed any effects on diseases or injuries.  \n\nSo, you're arguing that acupuncture is placebo and therefore... what?
>I bet you could get the same effect by reciting poetry, song \n\n....reading the phone book...
Its not uncommon to see references to spirits and coins - I believe in Greek mythology, the dead needed to pay a boatman coins to cross the river Styx, and in Latin america, coins are left for the dead on Day of the Dead. The Irish something  put coins on the eyes of the dead, as do other Catholic cultures. It wouldn't surprise me to see some connection, with the dead leaving coins to signal you.
Thank you for fighting the good fight.
Different strokes for different folks. Not everyone aspires to academic fame, and different people have very different resources. Discreditation of individuals who suggest the ET presence is a primary tactic of the cover-up, and the continued propagation of our intra-planetary existence. Why does a human have to be part of the intellectual-capital elite to have valid points? That notion promotes capitalistic analysis of human worth.
To me it refers to the process and products of evolution that both require and affect human value judgments, particularly when dealing with the issues of human worth, ethics, mortality, and purpose.\n\nI hate to use the word "meme", but if you read Dawkins, then you can understand how ideas, attitudes, and behaviors, (and by extension, the physical relics inspired by such), evolve on top of the basic biological evolutionary process of physical man. "Meme" is very trivialized in our culture today, the meaning has been debased until it has become equivalent to the word "fad".\n\nAs djnrrd pointed out, "spirit" comes from the latin word for "breath", or as I understand it, it could also mean "wind". Wind is something invisible, but whose effects you can see and feel. Wind can provide a motive force, *pushing* you in a particular direction. "Team spirit", and "spirited effort" are a couple of examples of the usage of the word "spirit" which do not have a "spooky" connotation.\n\nWhat creates "team spirit"? The ideas, attitudes, and behaviors of the team members in aggregate.\n\nYou could be liberal with the term "spiritual", even going so far as to say that reading a great book or seeing a beautiful landscape was a "spiritual experience". I have no problem with that.\n\nBut if you trivialize a word through overuse, (like "meme"), it tends to lose its meaning.
Next time you see a hand shadow on the wall, I don't give a fuck what you think is happening, you make a shadow puppet dog and start barking at it. If you hear ghostly laughter, it's a chill ghost. Ask him if he wants to watch you play Call of Duty or something.
**Praxeology = opposite of Positivism = basis of Austrian Economics**\n\n**Positivism = basis of Empiricism**\n\n**Empiricism = Science.**\n\nPretty simple and direct really. Austrian economics is opposed to science. Many/most of their arguments are "you can't test things therefore w/e I feel is right is fact". You cannot debate that.
Exactly. Hopefully this kind of thing forces 'remedies' found to not meet efficacy standards to carry a big black warning label on the front.
Could happen.
Opinions are like arseholes -everyones got one!
They must assume that everyone is guilty or feels guilt over something they've done.. and I could see their rationale, that those who don't play the game and talk out their "issues" with the interviewer are not trustworthy to them.
He's apparently into panspermia. However, Breslow was probably only trying to give his article an entertaining, memorable ending and went a little too far.\n\nThe [CSMontior](http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2012/0412/Intelligent-space-dinosaurs-How-worried-should-we-be) had a great take on it:  \n\n>we have nothing to worry about, at least not until the dark matter space wombats get here.
I think the trolls are invading r/skeptic.
anyone can draw something and have a child hold it.
Last that I heard the skeptics (meaning the New Zealand Air Force) still think it was Venus, squid boat lights and car headlights.
Cool. This is fun. Here are mine:\n\n* *kindergarterbelt* - Lolita's clothing item\n* *pangst* - sudden attack of anxiety\n* *blitzkriegel* - rapid-strike bird of prey\n* *doppelgängerection* - win-win\n* *gestalternative* - non-mainstream pattern\n* *lederhozen* - "Jo mei, kennst denn koan *koan*?"\n* *Rottweileroy* - "...Brown, the baddest dog in the whole damn town..."\n* *übermenschilada* - big yum yum\n* *verbotenacious* - stubborn prohibition\n* *zeitgeistiff* - fatal fashion victim; arousal evoked by shitty documentary
The wire can be seen in the vid on internet, but its C L E A R L Y visible on my TV set from NRK (Norwegian state television), perhaps it's harder to see in the broadcast is interlaced like on NTSC but on a PAL system it's not, but the version on twitvid is crap in comparison. ;)\n\nPeace!
Been to virginia city nevada....HOLY CRAP. the washoe bars crypt creeped me the fuck out.
Get to the "defrauding" part.\n\nWhich [*is* a crime.](http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Afraud&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a)
Really?\n\nDo you really lack the self awareness to realize that an off topic comment where you label a group "superior denigrating assholes" makes you precisely what you deride?\n\n*edit* Again, take a good long look at yourself in the mirror.
I know it's right, but still the skeptic in me can't help but automatically question a claim of **100%** for *anything*.
Dude. I can ramble. This is concise for me.
That's one of *the* standard woo-mind-control demonstrations. \n\nIt goes back at least to the 1770s, when [these guys](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_magnetism) were using it.
when every single dead person starts roaming the earth
>The most important question is how you choose what data to cite.\n\nAgreed. And even the best scientists can be biased. \n\n>Look at the first, animated figure in this post, for example - if you choose your intervals right, you can always claim steady or even declining temperatures. But if you look at the whole picture it gets abundantly clear that temperatures are going up.\n\nYeah, no one was denying that temp's are increasing. *That* would actually be a 'crank' POV to take...\n\n>But NASA themselves are rather clear that they support the current views on climate change - just look at all their indicators.\n\nOK, but see, even on the chart they cite showing the concentration of CO2 in the air they are not sampling from zero, but within a range of 180 to 380 - which in turn makes the rise look even *more dramatic*.  (note: CO2 concentrations have been much higher than they are now, as well. 2-3x's? I'd have to check.  I suppose the issue is of it's rate of increase.) Regardless, I think if they used a chart which started from zero that it would be less fear-monger-inducing.\n\nAdditionally, they also sample just a 7 year period showing the rise of CO2 in the atmosphere. 7 years? How is that any indication of any kind of long-term trends? Maybe their point is to show the rate of increase, but it appears relatively linear, anyway.\n\n>The question that the blog post raises is not necessarily "should we ignore the points that our critics bring up" but "should we continue engaging them as if they were peers" ...to be debated? Do we make them look more important than they deserve to be?\n\nThat is a valid point. But see how you worded that, vs. how he does? He speaks with such a holier-than-thou-I'm-right-you're-an-idiot-for-doubting-me that we lose any real semblance of skepticism, and get into outright circlejerking.  Mockery is a childish tactic for answering your critics. It only shows arrogance and ignorance. If the truth is bulletproof - who needs name-calling?\n\nI mean, just look at your general demanour: it's well-reasoned and not hysterical sounding - like how a decent skeptic should sound.  When you rely on mockery per this blog author, you simply fall further away from science and into hubris and arrogance, and eventually into a cult-methodology.\n\nSo, in short, he needs *serious work* on his presentation and should be more willing to debate *decent* and reasonable skeptics.\n\n>Note, by the way, that the blog post doesn't mention Happer or his arguments.\n\nWell, exactly. Happer seems quite reasonable, I'd like to see him (non-hysterically) answer Happer's points about the apparent flawed climate models as of late.
Hopefully the shadowman isnt like the monster in sinister-one tom you see it, your lost.
Isn't this stating a contraposit claim? What are we basing this on?
Yeah man, my throat swelling up was a complete "fantasy."  You have no idea what you are talking about.
Looks like there's a lightbulb that needs replacing on the starboard nacelle.
One example from 2009 is not proof that they do it "every single time." \n\nIn general, if someone claims that something happens "every single time" or "not one single time," they're wrong.\n\nAs a friendly hint, Fox News is bad enough without us having to resort to wild exaggerations to prove how bad they are.\n
That's true, but I was talking about the actual remedies. Not all of this is bullshit, you know. Some plants really do have measurable effects on human physiology, and it's not stupid to use/test them.
That thing never works.
That doctor should be ashamed.
Feels like another anti-psychotic hysteria site to me.\n
organized. i like it good work
but, but, anyone that doesn't believe like we do should be shunned completely, right?
the people who talk about them dont seem to be the winning types...
I hear ya, but you're taking the approach that she is sincerely uninformed about the scientific merit of her undertakings, as opposed to just being a charlatan.  I think most people, here anyway, find it more insulting to assume she is really that dumb and try to 'assist' her with a well reasoned argument, then to assume she is a con-artist, and attack her.  Sometimes "Do you really believe the bullshit you're selling?" is a well reasoned argument.
Huh? I'm not going to waste my time hunting down some video to convince you. That's pretty funny, though.\n\nLook at the timestamp at the end of the video. It's 8 something in the evening. What they were initially seeing is likely a satellite or the space station while it was still lit by the sun. So it was really bright at first. As it eventually went into shadow (setting sun) the object appeared to dim. The object travels in a straight line at a consistent speed. You can see some basic atmospheric distortion, a slight flickering of the brightness. What else do you need to know?
We're like 99% in agreement.  \n\nIf anyone wants to drink raw milk there shouldn't be any government getting in their way.  \n\nIf they want to drink raw milk and aren't aware that their could be risks with unscrupulous producers because natural != healthy or even safe, their could be problems. \n\nThere are lots of good farmers and informed consumers out there, they should be able to get together.  But if a few people die from drinking milk from a producer who isn't as thorough as the one you're talking about, raw milk goes on another 100 year hiatus. \n\nAnd I'm sorry, but more than that, raw milk producers are fucking nuts: \n\n"Cows are checked weekly for mastitis, an infection of the mammary glands that FDA officials say can also cause the spread of bacteria to milk. The Green Pastures Web site says it treats infections when they occur with "herbs, homeopathy, tinctures, prayer and vitamins."\n\nIf i'm drinking fucking milk from your cow, and it has a goddamn infection, give it an antibiotic.  Wow.  That's just fucking retarded.  Sorry.  The more I research the less respect I have for raw milk producers.\n\nhttp://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304370304575151663770115120.html\n
Agreed.  Spirituality and science are not mutually exclusive.  You can infer that the scientific literacy goal is lip service here, given that it is the fifth and final goal while 'spiritual development' at the top of the list seems to be code for Christian orthodoxy (although they highlight the dynamic, fluid nature of faith).  However, I would argue that science without spirituality is no more useful than spirituality without science: as cory849 said, spirituality includes an appreciation for the grandeur of the universe; if we cannot accept the possibility of an organizing force greater than our own powers of logic and observation, we are indeed doomed to ignore our own limitations.
So, my vote is we stop talking about the wikipedia article fiasco here, which (it should be clear to both of us by now) was entirely a result of communication errors.\n\nAnd then we have the other communication about psychopaths, which, yes, IS relevant.  If we're not talking about the same thing, neither of us can get our point across.\n\nI wasn't talking about the colloquial definition of psychopaths when I proposed my argument.  And no, they don't do moral codes.  The ability to distinguish right from wrong is, I hope we can agree, a prerequisite for any moral code (be it objective or subjective).  Psychopaths either a) do not have this ability or b) do not care, and therefore do not follow the moral code.  Either way, psychopaths simply don't do morality.  Everything is entirely based on gains for themselves and impulsive reactions.\n\nAlso, you're still confusing "pointless" with "pointless murder."  There is a rather important distinction there.  The people cheering the murders of civilians do not think it was pointless (The apathy, I feel, is more a failing of the media caring more about celebrities than important things and doesn't seem to be very relevant).  But if they *did* think it was pointless (and were living in a society that actually made paying attention to world events easier), they would be outraged.\n\n>If it's the result of evolutionary pressures, then it's not objective morality...it would be little more than a cognitive bias. Evolution isn't infallible, and evolution isn't a god.\n\nNever have I claimed evolution to be either infallible OR a god.  That, in fact, was entirely my argument.  Without anything that is infallible or godlike in any way, it is possible to achieve some sort of values that is at least loosely universal among humanity.  Someone else on this thread (too lazy to actually find/quote it properly, or to see if you've responded to this, so forgive me and/or feel free to slap me for not looking it up) said it best: math does not stop working just because humans are not here.  Any other sentient, social animal would likely evolve similar social constraints on behavior.  Again, I do not in any way advocate moral absolutism, and I seriously doubt anyone on this subreddit does either.  But things like that do seem to be as objective as we can get.\n\n\n>By your same logic, rape would be "good" because it was selected for and exists in every society.\n\nAlso, just because rape happens does not mean it is "good."  Pointless murder still happens, but we don't think it's good.  Humanity has never thought it was good.  Humanity's opinion on rape, on the other hand, has changed over time as society as changed.  Bronze age cultures apparently didn't have much of a problem with it.  Today, we do.  There are enough differences between the scenarios of "rape" and "pointless murder" for me to say that the analogy fails.\n\nAnd the questions about Hitler and other Nazis do matter, because I was asking your opinion on the matter with regards to moral relativism.  Actual ability to do anything doesn't really matter when we're talking about moral questions.\n\nSo, I'll make it simple:  according to your philosophy of morality, Hitler thought he was doing the right thing.  Does anybody else have any moral right or obligation to stop him? (Note: I'm not talking about your personal feelings.  I'm talking about what moral relativism says about the issue)\n\n>"Asshole" isn't an objective valuation any more than "evil" is.\n\nNo, they aren't objective.  But they are relative.  Describing someone as "Evil" is a far stronger term than "Asshole," and generally someone who is "evil" is treated with more abhorrence than someone who is merely an "asshole."
I kinda see what looks like the top of a pair of boots and the flowing back of a coat along with what appears to be a gun of some sort perhaps?
It incinerated itself so that they couldn't research it, obviously.\n\nLike nanosuits in Crysis.
>I just hope the episode also includes the real information that needs to get to potential parents. I.E. not all vaccines have mercury, debunking of the vaccine-autism rumor.\n\nThey did - especially when they pointed out that thiomersal was phased out of most vaccines in the late 1990s, and that we'd expect to see a drop in autism rates if that was a causative factor (we didn't, of course). Other new useful stat - a tuna salad sandwich has ~9 times the mercury content of all your childhood vaccines combined.
Djinn are part of Arab and Muslim folklore, maybe our "mothman" is their Djinn.
Entirely my fault, and I apologize, I was not clear. I was asking for you to give me, in your own words, a definition for "critical analysis," not asking you to copy and paste the first result of a Google search for "define critical analysis." I suppose I am more asking what it means to you, personally, and how you, personally, go about applying it to claims that you are presented.
I read "Drowne" and smiled.
>Hippocratic oath\n \nIs 2000 years old and hardly is relavent anymore.  Main point i can get behind it is "Dont know what to do, throw something at the problem, its better than nothing"
Phrenology is more scientific.
As in a conveyance of sarcasim?
I'd rather not say where we work, but it's a big company ($1billion+) and he's the IT Director... and yes, he's VERY witty and quite bright.
I think you're onto something
possible roomate activity?
>all a conspiracy to make catholics believe in evolution.\n\nYes, a conspiracy perpetrated by the Catholic Church.
Yeah, and that's what I mean by abundance of caution.  If 90% of people put their phones in airplane mode or shut them off for takeoff, there's 90% less of a chance that the thing, that shouldn't be able to happen anyway, will happen.\n\nAnd as far as I know, there's a roughly spherical distribution on cell phone emissions, so their ability to disrupt communications is highly localized.  But the cabin of an airplane is a small place with about as many cell phones as people, and while I won't pretend to have understood them, I've seen some plane wiring diagrams and holy fuck that's a lot of wires.
NIST explanation has been debunked for quite a while now. It seems like you are going on blind faith ie. NIST black box models. It's no different from believing the Christian god created the earth in 7 days.\n   \n>I myself wouldn't publish this    \n   \nWhat is this? This fake image that's supposed to discredit "truthers"? A peer reviewed publication such as what would even THINK about having something like that in their journal? You aren't being a realist at all. Simply another appeal to authority argument.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_rockets#U.S._involvement - But of course you can say that Wikipedia is wrong too because it can be edited by users like you and me as well.\n\nhttp://www.majesticdocuments.com/pdf/usaf_swedish4nov48.pdf - Documents from the national archives here, but no one knows who runs it, they might be teenagers as far as we know.\n\nThese teenagers are bad at what they do though, they managed to edit an original National Archives document just to write that Sweden believes that the UFOs are not from our planet, there's nothing sensationalistic about that, they could have written something way better, bad!
Well, I'm skeptical, that's for sure.  \n  \nBased on this limited information, the first thing that comes to my mind is that he staged his own disappearance. Maybe he was offered a job running drugs, and he figured it was the only way he'd get to fly for a living, so he went off the grid. Maybe he was an undiagnosed schizophrenic and really did think he saw a UFO. Maybe he crashed and they just didn't find the plane. Without knowing more about him, it's hard to say what might have happened or why he might have made certain choices. Whatever the truth is, I'd say there's a number of explanations that are far, far more plausible than aliens.
I get the feeling they may be to some extent relying on people thinking 'oh, that sounds like natural medicine! It must be good!' Most people I've mentioned homeopathy to *do* just classify it as herbal or holistic. Makes you wonder if the company totally knows what it is and chose to use it willingly, or if it was just some higher-up person's decision that natural was better?
I thought it was the dogs that shoot bees when they bark...
So she's just been giving the lice something to drink then?
What kind of ECG are you talking about? You get setups with leads in various places and for different purposes you might need different levels of clarity in the readout. The ECGs I spent 2 years doing almost daily certainly would be interfered with by talking and typing (...assuming you are the one having the ECG done. If it's your neighbour then that's crazy talk and there's no way it could be interfered with like that).
In the novel, the Subtle Knife is a knife so sharp, it can cut through dimensions. I haven't read the books in a while so I can't remember the exact description of what it looks like when the character Will uses it to cut into other worlds, but when you mentioned infinitely small sparkles, I thought of "dust" and was really reminded of the His Dark Materials series. You might enjoy the books. They're fantasy, but mixed with some science fiction.
No. Atheism is a rejection of the claim that there are gods. Atheism makes no explicit alternate claims.
i was about to post "tl;dr for the lazy?" but knew I'd be downvoted. Thx for doing it for me.
|More importantly though, from what I understand, these videos don't show insects because the objects interact with (or are occluded by) the distant scenery.\n\nCan you give me the time for an example in one of the videos where this can be seen?
I will check both those places out.  It's been a long time since I've been to a piano bar...
You basically just said he's wrong... Skeptics are just people who are open to ANY conclusion being incorrect.  OP was saying that they don't question things that they never thought of as obviously stupid before.  I say OP is a fucktard tho...
You cease to get the point. Your obsession with how somebody else lives his/her life is truly what is disturbing. This is how control freaks grow into maniacs. As for the "second chance gives you an excuse to act out" idea, good on them for taking life less seriously.
not to be confused with Narcan ( Naloxone) the first line drug in overdose treatment.
Sadly, it's not a pageant whose outcome weighs heavily on the critical thinking skills of it's contestants.
The way I figure it.  If they will lie to you about the health cost/benefits of one product, can you trust them about any other product they sell?
You realize PZ had that exact link in the post i linked to, yes? I supposed the people upvoting you did as well?\n\nOr no? Maybe you didn't actually read the post? I would have hoped r/skeptic wouldn't be like the rest of reddit and ignore the actual links...
In the comments for that post on disclose.tv: "LEAKED! Russian Cosmonaut Reveals UFO Secrets" video. Its Pane Andov speaking, I recognized the voice. He's Macedonian." Hmm...
You may have "called him out" but you did it by being abusive and derisive. I am a 100% skeptic, but I don't drop into threads and attack people like this.  Who knows what the guy saw, dropping in and telling him that "this is the dumbest thing I have ever heard" is trolling and doesn't contribute whatsoever.  There are many better ways of discussing this sort of thing without making an ass out of yourself.
Why would that be?  I'd have expected body temp water to be ideal, but that's just my guess.  What about your assertion?
The mass is a lie.
My co worker and i were messing around at the hospital we work at When we got The bright idea Hey lets go up to to the attic of the oldest part of the hospital.\n So we get up there and this is like 10 am(the reason for the really bright light) btw. \nhe starts snapping away with his iphone while I'm recording audio about 5 minutes later we leave thinking nothing of it .\n we review the audio and pictures nothing is there except for in this photo 2 photos before this and 2 photos after are in the same position and nothing is there
I'd agree that there's a distinction between entertainers and charlatans but from my own very brief look into this guy I'm not convinced that he's exploiting people.  Maybe that will change if I look into him more - for me the line is just around the point where they say they're talking to the dead.
"It must be my Δaδδy!"\n\nThere you go.\n\n*pace* any Greek-speakers watching
Agreed.
"Den of lunacy" is right. Fun reading.
I have to disagree a little with you and LeakUs. While Homeopathy, sadly, is present here, I do think the the vast majority of people does realize that its not medicine and that its not really working.
I agree, that's like a pharmacist telling you to use herbal remedies to cure your ailments.
In this case I don't think he's questioning the *existence* of aliens, but the presumption that they've visited Earth.
You can dislike her as a person while thinking she's a good actress (Note: I've never watched BSG).
I asked a fellow artist who makes sculptures out of metal. Molten aluminum does not glow at the same brightness of other metals and in normal lighting barely has a glow at all and looks like liquid silver as many of the pictures show because those are in normal lighting. The ones where it is glowing are in low light industrial dark backgrounds or with furnace glow, of course they look brighter. Funny, one of the glowing images on your search is from an [article](http://8real.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=phony&action=display&thread=21) disproving what you're trying to show. Maybe 3 seconds is not enough time on that google search. You seem to be the one with the unresearched preconceived notions here. In daylight conditions(thought that was obvious since we're talking about 9/11) molten aluminum doesn't glow.
Nice try, Candyman.
Yes, had to stop.\n\nActing was very hammy. As subtle as a bee sting to the penis
True, my bad. Have a good day nonetheless!
What little creatures?
Sorry, I am officially a tin foil hat wearining member but come on, how long is this creature supposed to have lived there already.\n\nSoon they will dismiss rumors that another ficticious charaters, jesus, isnt dead.
help me google?\n\nI have a sleep schedule like that. About 17-18 hours awake, 7-9 hours sleep. I force myself into a work schedule, 0530 weekdays, but around thursday I always find myself up until 3am.
He's using the idea of teeth brushing as an analogy for a ritual. He isn't refuting the efficacy of tooth brushing, but attempting to provide a different perspective on a everyday occurrence.
I once read comments on the SHTF enthusiasts by a gun enthusiast who often crossed paths with those types of folks. Essentially, he said that a small proportion are interested in post/collapse scenarios as a matter of disaster preparedness and survival geekery (Les Stroud/Bear Grylls types). Interested in the best ways to find food and shelter without the structures provided to them by modern society.\n\nHowever, a significantly larger portion of the post/collapse community are antisocial. These people can't wait for society to fall apart because they lack the basic social skills to exist in our society now. The sad irony is that social skill is the most basic survival skill of all; it a true disaster scenario it will take grace and civility to convince a stranger that you are an asset, not a threat, to their well being, which might be the most important thing in the world when they are deciding to shoot you or share their food with you.\n\nI can't say that anything I've read from /r/collapse or /r/PostCollapse has done much to dispel that idea for me.\n\nI can't find the article/blog/post that I originally read this idea in, so if the author somehow reads this post, by all mean, chime in.\n\nAs for a skeptical take, people have been predicting doomsday since the very beginning of time. One day (maybe) they will be right, though it's doubtful that they will have identified the true causes leading up to it.
I believe in vaccination but I also believe in self-determination.\n\nThat said, I also believe in responsibility.\n\nIf an unvaccinated person gets the disease, society should not pay any part of the treatment.\n\nAnd if that person can be shown to have transmitted the disease to someone else, he should be liable for the cost of the other person's care.\n\nChildren are another problem. I think society should step in to prevent clear and present danger to the child from the parent, like not giving insulin for diabetes, but I don't think that lack of vaccination presents such a clear and present danger.\n\nBut, again, if the kid gets the disease, the parents should be required to repay all costs of treatment.
it is a little hard to explain but... it looks like the edges of their human form has vanished like a ting that shakes or moves extremely fast. They have Almost the same colour as when they were alive but it looks like they are standing in a big cloud or fog.\nOlder ghost is a little bit more see through than younger and they can easier vanish/chose not to be seen for a moment.
Well, since I live in the U.S. of A. and can't afford any health insurance, that's definitely the case for now..., However, fast forward to a time when people like me may be put under obligation to pay for a world of medicine that does not address their needs, and then to receive no assistance for the kinds of healings that do work for them, and watch me become irate.
YEEEEAAAAAH.
>the planchette suddenly heated under my hand to 120F. Was it spirits? Not sure, but it wasn't normal, it was paranormal\n\nAs an example, there are a couple of fallacies in this one quote I would have liked to have seen noted in the sidebar because I see them over and over.  \n\n1. It is a [false dichotomy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma) to assert that if something is not normal, then it is paranormal.  The true dichotomy is between normal and non-normal, or normal and abnormal.  Not everything abnormal is paranormal.    Plenty of abnormal things happen every day, but they are not all paranormal things.  It is fallacious to claim that because something abnormal happened, therefore it was a paranormal event.\n\n2. Even ignoring the false dichotomy, it is also an argument from ignorance or, more specifically an [argument from personal incredulity](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance#Argument_from_incredulity.2FLack_of_imagination), to assert that what occurred is paranormal simply because you don't personally see how else it may have occurred.  It is fallacious to claim that because you don't know the explanation, or can't imagine a non-paranormal one, the explanation must be paranormal in nature.
Only if you don't have a neilson box.
Brilliant!!!
But the wormhole must always be kept open and spews deadly gamma rays.
ahh, i figured you left it on your desk while you slept and picked up up that way or something. nevermind then
This has nothing to do with 'conspiracy' or controlled demo; it just acknowledges that the "official" explanation does not make scientific sense. It is offering a scientific based explanation that does not require any conspiracy. The trouble with 'consensus opinion' is that is how often it's proven wrong.
Yeah, it's easy to debunk other people's experiences, but when it's your own that's different.\nI could probably debunk everything that has happened to me, but it's that coupled with the feeling of being watched or a "presence". It sounds silly, but, we all have intuition!!\nIt's nice to have a skeptical input though.\nMy SO doesn't believe in anything like that, so he helps to bring me back to reality.
Brain interpretation error? The human mind can misunderstand and miscreate memories.
What does this have to to with skepticism? It's just more of the same retarded political cheerleading.
how do you know they are lies?
lol i meant my dad "HAS". my dads not gay. just a major troll
Another instance of this (number 7) involved me at primary school, when I was walking towards my classroom and walked around the corner of the hall blindly, bumping into two girls coming in the opposite direction and then as i lay on the floor dusting myself off, the principle of the school walked towards me around another corner and helped me to my feet. Somehow with that 'already occuring' i find myself at some later point walking towards the classroom again, and have an immediate sense that what was happening had occured before, then instantly the thought of "dont bump into those girls coming around the corner, then turn aroudn and look at the principle"... i stop walking and a few seconds later he same two girls walk around the corner, and tun and look at the principle comes around the other corner,finding me standing there looking shellshocked.  \n\nI understand how rediculous some of these things may sound but they all make no sense to me, so I'm happy to share the experiences with other redditors in the hope of finding others with similar experiences etc etc Also if people are interested in any other stories I'll have a think and a chat to my mum who has experienced many many things herself and post back with more.
It's not all based on observation of the world.  You use induction to formulate a more general hypothesis about how something works.  Then you use deductive reasoning to determine if it is true (by applying to hypothesis on future events and make predictions).\n\nIf the reasoning holds up to generality and then back down to specificity, then we have pretty solid knowledge.
Hmm.. Given the location, what are the chances of it being a US drone?
see, that is what wrong with "sales people", they sell you whatever they can only ONCE, and sometimes not even once because I can return the crap they sold me and they get their commission reversed.
>but my only real complaint was with the claim that blood clots absolutely could not cause behavioral and personality changes - which is certainly false.\n\nYeah, I had actually typed up, then deleted as I couldn't word it satisfactorily, that if she had said it was unlikely then fine, but she claimed to have absolutely no doubt what-so-ever that a stroke couldn't cause such behaviour.
Found the black guy. Bricks shat.\n\nAlso samurai.
> Which will ultimately drive more jobs out of the country and into countries with far less regulation than we already have.\n\nEven if everything you say is true and this is the possible outcome, why wouldn't we still go ahead with it? Surely a few jobs(even a bunch of jobs) aren't as important as the future of the planet, right?
Maybe there is no function per se.  There is the possibility that this is just a "show", or a fanning of the intergalactic peacock feathers.  Just sayin'...
It depends on how you define "Common Sense" and how you use it.
Possibly because he meant 'chaff' ... see Krlll's reply below\n\n
It was pretty "aweosme" :P
The thing I first thought was a satellite was about 70 degrees above the horizon. When I say "turned to go up" I mean that it moved from 70 degrees above the horizon to almost directly overhead. I couldn't judge altitude. The five lights that came out of nowhere were about overhead when I saw them (they may have come from behind me). They were in an arrow-formation. That is, they concentrated at a single point in Cassiopeia and had come from an area that left the furthest two points about 90 degrees from each other. They were all white like a star. There had been another "object" near the one I thought was a satellite, but it was flashing from bright to dim, so I've dismissed it as an airplane or Terrestrial military craft. If the first light were a helicopter, I believe I would have known because whenever I see a helicopter at night, I can see its lights blinking and hear its noise. Hope that helps!
God that movie was awful, how did they get him involved with that?
>What do you mean? Aren't the phenomena interactions digestion itself? \n\nI'm not sure what we're talking about anymore with this one. My end point is that pretty much everything is indirect observations of interactions. We don't see things directly. We have to be skeptical of everything.\n\n>So what you have read that leads you to conclude that "EFT is pseudoscience" or "There are competing explanations for EFT"?\n\nI have read much on science, philosophy of science, and scientific methodology. I have also looked through several of your studies as well as arguments. I have scanned a few databases and search engines.\n\nI've already mentioned a few of the requirements for the kind of research that would counter my claim of [pseudoscience](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoscience). I've read about pseudoscience itself from a variety of sources and EFT definitely seems to belong with astrology, meridian lines, ESP, crystal healing, etc. etc. etc. \n\nWhile I have not responded directly to many of the studies you've linked to, I have gone through them and others looking for evidence that would disconfirm my view of pseudoscience. None of your studies are really good at all and you seem to be arguing against criticisms with other studies that aren't very good. I asked you to come over here because I was really hoping that you'd be able to produce some really good study that could make me question my then current information.\n\nBeing a psych guy, I am very open to new and contradicting information. Really, that's the stuff I **really** like. I love it when traditional theories break down. My love is for knowing as many misconceptions and common myths as possible. I love it when I am part of the minority with really good information that goes against the mainstream.\n\nOh man, really, if EFT had merit, I'd love to use it on people. I already use several things such as hypnotism, mind reading, tarot cards, and pendulums for fun, but these are magic tricks and I know the actual psychological basis for them. I don't need to believe in aliens and fancy improbable ideas to make them work.\n\nLastly, for possible explanations, there are many. Some are that the researchers could be lying or making mistakes, that there is some effect between the client and practitioner e.g., trust, that there is placebo effects, and so on. I've already mentioned a few of these, but I have seen any studies that are reliable enough to disconfirm these few explanations. The simple fact is that there are *always* other explanations. Even the strongest theories in science have competing explanations.\n\n
The proper response to a non-governmental attack would be a law enforcement action. Since conspirators were on foreign soil in a non-country, the US military had to be involved, but it STILL should have been a law enforcement action . However, we instead declared a War on Terror (the ultimate oxymoron) with all the resultant insanity.
I'm not invested enough in this issue to care much either way.\n\nMy main point here, and what I really draw from this whole thing, is that Soldiers of Free Thought are very often extremely censorious towards ideas that don't support their party line.  \n\nThey are often quite unpleasant about it.\n\n>FTB claims he was dismissed based on conduct rather than opinion.\n\nIf someone behaved exactly as TF behaved but supported the militant feminist agenda they would never be banned.   Myers is kowtowing to leftist cadres.\n\n>it is a pseudo-science skeptics deal with so I knew we would be on common ground.\n\nIf it were entirely a pseudoscience, people wouldn't be in jail for publishing pamphlets.
[Fake](http://naturalplane.blogspot.com/2011/03/behind-cloud-ufo-video-alas-another.html)
Look at this: [Deaths after chiropractic: a review of published cases](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20642715).\n\n> **OBJECTIVE:** The aim of this study was to summarise all cases in which chiropractic spinal manipulation was followed by death.\n> \n> **DESIGN:** This study is a systematic review of case reports.\n> \n> **METHODS:** Literature searches in four electronic databases with no restrictions of time or language.\n> \n> **MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE:** Death.\n> \n> **RESULTS:** Twenty six fatalities were published in the medical literature and many more might have remained unpublished. The alleged pathology usually was a vascular accident involving the dissection of a vertebral artery.\n> \n> **CONCLUSION:** Numerous deaths have occurred after chiropractic manipulations. The risks of this treatment by far outweigh its benefit.\n\nI didn't think vertebral artery dissection was fun either.\n\nI got the link on [this article](http://redd.it/q16gu) which is being featured at the front page of reddit this instant.
I've experienced that too.  Usually right when I lay down to go to sleep, right when I close my eyes, but far before any sleep is coming. It's usually after a day where I've been around a lot of people or in a crowd. Almost like an echo of the noise from earlier in the day.  Sometimes it's not even English!  I figure it's the same thing as your body might experience after a day on the ocean and when you lay in bed (on land!) and you still feel the rocking of the waves.
I meant the episode of "Through the Wormhole" presented superficially convincing evidence, not just this wiki page. Sorry I didn't specify.
Tribut to the one and only John Keel of the Ankh Morpork night watch. Thanks to you Samuel Vimes became the man that he is today.
I had great dental care as a child, and brushed twice a day, yet still got fillings.  Our area was one of the few in the UK that wasn't fluoridated at that time.  I've always wondered if it might have helped me if it was.
Thanks for categorising the types of scientific inquiry. I have not seen that before and it is useful. To me they are ranked in order of believability.\n\nEvidence of the first type is the best and I don't think you can rule it out as a way to come at the UFO phenomena. Some UFOlogists clain that the US Government is in possesion of alien bodies from the crash at Roswell. Blood samples and other tests could be performed to gather scientific evidence. A monolith or other artifact found on the moon, or deep in the ground here on Earth, or some place that couldn't be easily hoaxed would be good for scientific testing.\n\nI can also imagine extraterrestrial evidence of the second type. A space beacon pulsing out prime numbers for example. Or maybe that doesn't fall into this category. But wouldn't it be cool if we received a radio signal that many observers could record, confirm and analyze?\n\nIn your thought experiment we are talking about type 3, collecting data from a single event, and you ask what it would take to prove that something anomalous happened. I had to look up [anamalous](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/anomalous) and I know you, drmoroe, knows what it means, but for me and any others:\n\n> 1. deviating from or inconsistent with the common order, form, or rule; irregular;  abnormal: *Advanced forms of life may be anomalous in the universe.*  \n>2. not fitting into a common or familiar type, classification, or pattern; unusual: *He held an anomalous position in the art world.*  \n> 3. incongruous or inconsistent.\n\nIf I saw a UFO, and got a close look at it, I would definitely say it is anomalous. If I got a good picture of it and other readings that would be even better. I would wonder what it was. It's an aircraft by definition (it's flying) and likely a spacecraft (15k mph speed). I might lean toward extraterrestrial but there is so much I don't know about secret govt weapons programs that I would be left with a ton of questions. Is there a pilot inside? Where did it come from? Where did it go? etc. There is only so much you can conclude after seeing something from a distance, even with good pictures.\n\nI think approaching a reported UFO site like a crime scene is a good idea. Measurements can be made, photographs taken, physical evidence collected and analyzed, this is all good. It's when it comes to collecting testimony that's when my BS meter may come off the peg because I know how fallible memory is and I know how much people like to tell a good story. People will leave out parts that don't help their narrative. People rationalize and kid themselves about what really happened all the time. Ten people might witness the same event and come up with a variety of stories.\n\nhere's an interesting example from a good UFO documentary (15:18 into the video)\n[eyewitness testimony of space junk entering atmosphere](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hy9e_Qf62Bc&#t=15m18s)\n\nlink to the full doc - [UFO Secret History The Extraterestrail Hypothesis](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hy9e_Qf62Bc) (ad supported)\n\nOne thing I would like to bring up is that UFO/ET believers I've talked to will say, "Why would people make up these UFO stories? What do they have to gain? They only face ridicule which is a disincentive to speak up."  In my experience every time someone tells a UFO story, and I've heard a few (one really good one) they are not ridiculed at all, in fact their story is considered cool and interesting.\n\nThese stories often end with something like, "I don't know what it was exactly but it wasn't a plane or a weather baloon." We usually end up talking about the chance of extraterrestrial life "out there" and whether it is visiting Earth. I like these discussions, they permeate pop culture and tap into a fun sense of wonder about what we don't know for sure.\n\nI guess I'm the kind of guy holding out for evidence of type 1 and 2.  Video is so easily hoaxed now and I've become jaded. And I think there are lots of reasons for people to tell compelling UFO stories.. fame, fortune, attention, and many other subtle psychological needs to reconcile with their experience.\n\nI think we are on the same page that the UFO phenomena should be investigated, and it would be nice if the govt where more open on its investigations. The length of my response here is becasue I've had this conversation "what would it take for you to believe?" with other friends and they don't understand why I need such strong evidence to believe, which, I think, was your question too.\n\nThat and I wanted to share the link above about eyewitness testimony. :)\n
I read this article and I completely agree.  I just don't understand what is wrong with those scientists, pushing their "factual" dogma on poor, hardworking common-folk.  Some people just hear what they wanna hear I guess...
> since not getting passed on is what fitness means\n\nThen when you say "I think it's better for our species to want higher intelligence than fitness" it kind of confuses me because if we would want higher intelligence in our breeding partners, higher intelligence would *be* fitness...\n\nThe point I'm making (also with "Fitness can mean a lot of stuff as long as it helps pass on genes.") is that since we started picking and choosing, fitness for our specific species got redefined. As such even our beating nature at its own game is still nature itself being our lord. (Much like everything we do is natural as we are part of nature.) Autism isn't the only thing we see higher intelligence paired with, so I think that in the grand scheme of things Autism is not "the next step in human evolution" as it doesn't exactly help pass on genes as Matt7hdh said.\n\nI think we might be agreeing here and it's just completely going over my head.\n\nOn the other hand, there's always [Idiocracy](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icmRCixQrx8)...
I am incredibly happy that you two are in this together.  Often times it feels like an impossible fight when one's alone against people like this.  Having support and backup when it comes to reason and logic is so incredibly reassuring.  Sometimes people like this just can't be reasoned with, but not being alone in the "dissenting" opinion is bolstering
*Fearmongering*?\n\nA term for a systematic campaign of confusion is [*manufactroversy*](http://scienceprogress.org/2008/04/manufactroversy/), whether it's fearmongering over something harmless or doubtmongering over actual risks. See also [*agnotology*](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnotology).
Oooph boy, this again...\n\n\nI think I had a comment thread with someone on this a few months ago, maybe here or in asksscience. I'll be brief because I don't want to reinvent my previous posts:\n\nIt's complicated. \n\nOk ok I will be a little more detailed: the issue is between specific and general claims. Yes, on a large scale salt is not the monster it was made out to be, **but** for certain people with medical conditions (diabetes II, hypertension, cardiovascular disease [let us call these collectively metabolic diseases, or MetabD for short so I don't keep writing them out]) a high salt diet is a bad thing for a specific reason: transient hypertension. \n\nMetabD people have inflamed arteries. Inflamed arteries react more viciously to injury, which leads to more inflammation. It's a viscious cycle that leads to the number 1 killer in the first world: heart attacks (MIs) and other CVD events. A huge, salty meal transiently spikes the blood pressure in people, but most people take this in stride. MetabD patients not only ramp up their disease with such spikes, but the increased hydrodynamic stress associated can actually cause an acute event (plaque rupture with subsequent stroke or MI).\n\nYes, we have drugs now that do much better than diet modification alone, but huge sodium spikes are still bad news for a large (no pun intended) population with advanced metabD. \n\nFull disclosure: not an MD or a phd yet, in process of earning both while doing CVD research. Sources to back this up in old posts, cannot access now.
I just can't help but think that sometime in the next year, there will be a youtube "documentary" that cites this incident as a tyrannical government.\n\n"TSA agents unconstitutionally seized two 'pipe bombs' and arrested a man and charged him of a terrorist plot. The two items in question were nothing more than water revitalizers.\n\n"Rand Paul 2016!"
LOL
"Guy in kentucky sneezes, ignites debate over Science and Religion."
This is pretty much what I meant, thanks.
> My best interpretation of the argument would be that institutional sexism at atheist/skeptic conferences no longer occurs but that would only be a little bit better.\n\nI (foolishly) assumed we were both assuming that. \n\n>  Institutional sexism generally refers to actual rules or laws that actively discriminate against women, and I'm not sure how anyone could argue that such a thing no longer happens?\n\nThey don't need to argue if they don't experience it. Speaking strictly to policies, what policies exist at skeptic conventions that point, unequivocally, to concepts of privilege or gender-bias? \n\nThat if we take a step out and apply it to the organizations that make those conventions possible. And we can take another step out and apply it to communities like this which generate interest and numbers for those organizations.\n\nSexism is unpalatable right now and for those who are not primed to recognize it aren't going to see it at all until it's overwhelmingly obvious, like "legitimate rape" comments or the first time someone actually looks at data showing a correlation between the glass ceiling and the opportunities gap.
How do you think people were treated when they spoke out about their skepticisms of those now-comical practices?  What if no one had doubts about those claims?  Would these recommendations still be common?
[Silphium](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silphium) may have done just that.  It was (unsurprisingly) quite popular, but also difficult to grow, so the Romans basically used it up until it was extinct.
Oh man, that's the first time I've ever teared up at a post. I'm so sorry for your loss :(
I bow to your superior trolling skilz, sir
Forget about pultergiest,  [poultrygeist](http://www.poultrygeistmovie.com/) are much more dangerous.
In what glorious land do you live where physiotherapists don't require referrals?!
Any time. The main thing to remember, and I can't emphasize this enough, DO NOT EVER think that what you see on TV is anything like the real thing. It's for entertainment purposes, and quite honestly, paranormal investigation is very, very boring 99% of the time.
That was proven to hurt absolutely no one?  Why yes, I remember that.
>I feel like I'm talking to a wall...a nice wall...in a blazer...with nice Carl Sagan quotes on it...but still a wall.\n\n* *slow clap* *
IMHO, racism is one of those issues that people will stick to even against their own core interests. Even auto workers who need Obama to save their jobs would vote against him because he's black (just as an example).
Non believers get in the way of the truth which leads to a lack of evidence.
Oh, you've been to my FB news feed, apparently.
More detailed image. \n\nhttp://www.pbo.ru/upload/ALA-40_Termoplan.jpg
There have been instances when someone has brought something here saying \n'debunk this' and someone has said actually this is valid, and given evidence for it being valid. However it's fairly rare, because people are pretty good at judging what is potentially woo, even if they don't have a specific argument against it.\n\nIt's better for someone to have an understanding of why something is bunk than be ignorant, even if they don't have the knowledge to come up with it on their own. Not everyone can be an expert in every single field, there is simply far too much to learn. \n\nIt's not a case of looking for things to be skeptical about, it's things which come up in our lives, and they want to know more. If your work colleague is spending all day trying to get you to take some homoeopathic medicine it's enough to know that there is no active ingredients, and you don't need deep knowledge of the subject.
No, it just doesn't.
wtf fibroids?
Let me know if you find one.
> Maybe his self confidence took a severe hit? If you tell a man he will never be a Doctor that's gotta weigh on your mind while taking the exam.\n\nI had the same thought. Something like that could very easily turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Health Canada letting people "vote with their feet" on the issue of homeopathy is ridiculous.  All the DINs should be revoked.
Junkyard Wars sucked. Who are you kidding?  They pretend that they're improvising machines when really they have designs in mind and the exact materials are provided by the producers.  And it was boring.\n\nMythbusters I can see not liking because it's literally become all about "Thingy go boom boom and crash, durr huhuhuhuhuh"
Looks a lot like dragonflies in his backyard to me personally.
You probably felt relief from releasing carbon dioxide.  Human lungs can't remove the hydrogen from water molecules.
Ok, wait... does he actually carry around a magic wand?  Cuz now we are talkin nerd territory and that's a whole different ball game.
This photo was supposedly taken by a friend of a friend, in Hermosillo, México. Can you people help us prove it is fake? Because, you know, we would like to be able to sleep again.
> starts\n\nThere's your problem.
To be a bit more verbose, let me say that MonsterTalk is a forum for all those legitimate scientists that get the last five minutes of the hour long "Monsters are Real!" shows on history channel. The hosts and the guests skeptically analyze the myths and claims around these cryptids. It's pretty fucking interesting.
But aren't the vaccinated kids protected?\n\nUnvaccinated kids should put only other unvaccinated kids at risk, right? So the disease should spread only among those who chose to remain unvaccinated.\n\nAnd, if they survive, they're immune.\n\nWhy should the rest of us care?
>that conspiracy theory movement is more akin to a religion, or cult.\n\nI suppose it sort of is. For conspiracy theorists the complete lack of evidence is normally a good sign that their ideas are true.
I really have no interest in gambling, but i took my wife to a concert in Atlantic City for New Years.  She played the penny slots, so I thought I'd give it a shot.  We saw it as $20 for two hours of entertainment, not a money maker.  Ended up winning enough to by a glass of champagne at midnight.  Purely for fun.
No, I think you've misunderstood what he was saying. To rephrase it: "There exists processes in the brain which aid our cognitive processing that the subject is not directly aware of". The "aware of" part was referring to the person experiencing it, not to the people studying it. \n\nIt should be noted, however, that Freud did not come up with the idea of unconscious processes, and he simply made his own additions to the idea. Nobody really accepted his ideas of unconscious processing, and continued on with their own ideas - so it was inaccurate of the poster above to attribute this finding to Freud, as he made no contribution to the area.
Sounds like the perfect money-making machine - across the world, thousands of professors have convinced their universities to fund their lives in order to research and write about a definitionally unsolvable problem. Once you get tenure, it's like a perpetual moneymaking machine!\n\nSarcasm aside, seriously, if the brain is inherently flawed, and you have a brain, and you are using said brain to reason about things, then we don't have anywhere productive or useful left to go.
Why is it so easy to accept that the U.S. has an arsenal of weaponry that could decimate all life on the planet YET still difficult for people to accept that humans are capable of slowly, drastically, and irreversibly changing the atmosphere of the Earth for the worst?
Lantern
She is a liar, JREF already had a policy in place and by any measure is FAR ahead of most organizations on these types of issues.  What she wants is for everybody to conform to her level of comfort/paranoia.  \n\nWhat she is doing is shitting on an organization that gave her a platform just so she can get publicity and move her 'career' forward.  As a skeptic/atheist she isn't an expert on anything, she is not a content provider, and she is willing to make false accusations, lie and slander people to get herself some fame.
The grip on the mainstream media seems to be loosening, and more truth is starting to be reported. This is a small move. In time we till take another.\n\nSmall moves Ellie, small moves...
Keep in mind that there's really no way to tell if the shake was already present in the frame.  It's easy to add shake to the whole thing, it's literally an AE plug-in.  My point being, you can't go by camera shake as any sort of authenication method.
Yes, and two good Feng-Shi artists /should/ set up the same room roughly the same way, but these aren't exactly highly trained self respecting professionals.  It's just a bad idea to have someone needlessly poking your kid with needles.\n\nAt least in the case of Vaccination it's for a very real and clear benefit. This is just silliness.
I figured it was the former, since you seem to be more lucid than most of the site content.
I expect an update Saturday.
Reading this, I just lost all the respect I had for Elizabeth May.
Yep, that's exactly what it looks like. Wasn't aware of this phenomenon. Thanks.
Google doesn't create this content they just host it.  And the other maps that use it (like Microsoft's) don't have this section blacked out only google so it looks like an issue with Google.\n\nHonestly if they were going to do a cover-up they'd do something more than use mspaint's box tool and fill black.
Im banned from this website... But do not know why.
seems like it would be problematic at airports
> Sagittarian men though -I've been in your shoes, tend to talk more about sex than anything else.\n\nAs opposed to all those other men who rarely talk about sex, and aren't interested in it at all.\n
>it was a flourishing period for theology and the Christian values that were instilled in the people during this period were the basis for the mindset that later gave Europe its technological predominance !\n\nI also heavily question this assertion. Any additional information would be welcomed, though.
Please see my other post if you would like me to explain my analogy.\n\n> So they gave millions to every single person involved in the conspiracy, so now they're all part of the elite? How convenient. Uh ... but where's the paper trail? Sure, it's possible, but why take such a claim seriously.\n\nWe are not talking about the same "they".  I assumed the original "they" who were keeping quiet would have been whoever orchestrated/planned some sort of foul play.  Not the tower workers, citizens, police officers, etc.  The way you put it it's ludicrous, as opposed to the way I put it - which is pretty much infinitesimally less so.\n\n>Those questions are stupid.\n\nBullshit.  No such thing as a stupid question.  (Unless the question is really a statement in disguise.)\n
How do you know it's flying? We aren't given any foreground details for perspective. It could be 2" across for all we know.
The older the person is the more likely I am to cast it off as faulty memory.
Technically, I believe we're "The Dominion of Canada"\n\nI don't know why we've allied ourselves with *The Dominion* rather than *The Federation*, but that is in keeping with Harper's track record of only supporting things that are evil, so it's hardly surprising.
Agreed.  It's among my favorite books.  In fact, I'm re-reading it and that's how I came across this quote.\n\nOther great chapters:\nThe Dragon in My Garage, \nMaxwell and the Nerds, and \nReal Patriots Ask Questions\n\nI really like 'Patriots' because it puts it all into a science-active context.  \n\nedit:  commas.
I'm inclined to agree also, I am weary of posting things from the east coast just simply because of how crowed the air space is. Still @ 6:15 is pretty weird.
My Google phone number is 2-EIGHT-2, so when saying it if I wanted to be an ass I could say "___ - 282"
[Saccades?](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccade#Saccades_and_vision)
It depends on the food, and also exactly which aspect of organic you're talking about.  There is nothing conclusive that would allow one to state that organic produce is "healthier" than conventional produce, for example.  But there are good studies showing significantly reduced amounts of salmonella and *e. coli* in organic chicken and beef, respectively.  Of course the term itself is bullcrap, since organic really just means "carbon based," but that just feeds into my point that the category is too huge to lump everything into "woo" and dismiss it.
If it really bothers you, keep the job while looking for a different one. If you can handle it (the cognitive dissonance isn't too bad), then stay.\n\n\nIn the words of Tim Minchin,\n\n>We'd as well be ten minutes back in time,\n\n>For all the chance you'll change your mind.\n\n\nPeople who believe this kind of BS will buy it regardless of whether you're there or not. No reason to stop doing what you enjoy/become unemployed over it.
Hi, I like it! But I find it very hard to see if I already clicked a link or not! This is not in night mode but in the normal mode.\n\nGood job anyway!
You're wrong. I can't find it offhand, but there was a clinical trial and 99.3% of the subjects suffered NO mosquito bites on skin directly covered by the band.
if this stuff wasn't real people who do research on this stuff wouldn't be shut down so regularily.  Energy is a dangerous and powerful market.
Uh, who is this person?
Don't forget the people who are just unlucky enough that the vaccine didn't take in their system. For them herd immunity is critical too.
>In so doing, we find that the global land mean temperature has increased by 0.911 ± 0.042 C since the 1950s **(95% confidence for statistical and spatial uncertainties).**\n\nI don't think you've grasped (or perhaps care to admit) the importance of the qualifier in parentheses.  There are more "uncertainties" than the "statistical and spatial" that the "± 0.042 C" number reflects.
This is interesting, thank-you!
Did you just say that they can only tell when it's on when they can hear it working? Heh.
http://www.stv.no/content/webitem/1538/\n\nRandi enters at about 12 minutes.
I would help, but god told me never to use twitter\n\nwell, to be honest it wasn't god, it was one of his angels\n\ndressed as a bum so he could walk among the people of earth\n\nand when I gave him a quarter, he told me about the end of the world\n\nand that twitter is evil
Yes sorry. I had to rush out at the time I wrote that and felt rather annoyed at how unqualified I left it.\n\nWe always create scientific laws from incomplete evidence, inductive logic.\n\nBut without thoroughly convincing evidence or a solid debunking, we should remain equivocal. We can of course bring in probabilistic reasoning such as Occam's Razor, but that will be influenced by our particular biases.
Cults are a lot like abusive relationships: the person's self-worth is systematically destroyed and they're isolated from outside influences. The same techniques people use to get people out of those - rebuilding their individual identity, ensuring they have friends and outside interests - can be helpful with cults.
But wont they scan you on the return trip, and take the gizmo away?
I've stayed in several bed and breakfasts, and it's going to be slightly alarming to sleep in at first. Just try to stay calm and don't let your imagination get the best of you. Bring a video camera and find an angle to get yourself sleeping and record EVP's while you are sleeping. You can stay up and try and experience things too.
I thought the same thing. They're down by the water flying kites with glowsticks tied to them or something. If that's not what they're doing, then I definitely have to give it a try 'cause that's an awesome idea.
It's a top five. Also, 9/11 was a conspiracy.
It is a recording, when it is shown live, every Saturday there is video :)
Ugh!  The website has SNOW falling on it.  What is this, Geocities?
She's not stupid, she's just fallen for this scam. She's a new mother. I think new mothers are very protective and are thus susceptible to things like this. It's just sad that this puts her baby at higher risk.
See, you say this like its supposed to be funny, but he's being completely serious.
Serve that with some Cream Cheese Creature and the Bagel Beast.
obviously not that old. but still old. older than me, older than my parents. but yes, king arthur, or beowulf would be better examples.
Same here. Took me a while before I even tried scrolling, whereupon I realized that the article I'd been reading wasn't the actual article.
Oh sorry.
This is all getting too meta for me. We have True Believers, posing as skeptics, telling the skeptics that they are in fact the "pseudo-skeptics" because they purport to be truly skeptical, but in actuality are stubborn paradigm holding fools. So, the True Believers are now "true skeptics" because they are skeptical of what they called "pseudo-skeptics".... \nWe are the "pseudo-skeptics" because we *close-mindedly* dismiss possible real science as "pseudoscience".\n\n\nTL;DR: It's like true believers are making their own skeptic movement, against skeptics.
[The FAQ from r/paleo](http://www.reddit.com/help/faqs/paleo) actually lists some sources. I haven't looked at them myself, but there might be something useful there.  \n\nAs for whether we're adversely affected by eating grains, there are, at the very least, some indications that gluten can have a negative effect on more than just the .5 - 1% of people affected by coeliac's disease, and might actually be slightly toxic. [Wikipedia has more.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluten_sensitivity)
Perhaps it's a double exposure; when I was new to my camera, I forgot to wind the film to the next frame all the time and thus made many of these.
"She is a member of the Homeopathic Medical Association (HMA) and offers homeopathic consultations for £40.\n\nHMA secretary, Phil Hughes, said: “If someone comes to her and asks \nfor homeopathic prophylaxis, she should be able to provide that service.\n\n“We believe that people should have the right to use whichever method of vaccination they want and whatever they feel is suitable for their child.""\n\nNo she shouldn't have the right.  Not vaccinating or using unreliable methods of vaccination is a danger for society and is negligent and foolhardy.  Things like [this](http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/06/vaccines-california-whooping-cough-epidemic) and [this](http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/healthday/637218.html) happen.  It is all well and good to allow people the freedoms to practice homeopathy etc., but if those practices become dangerous to society we should no longer allow them to operate in those circumstances.  Equal rights do not apply.
"Can you? Can you see the eyes?"  No, quite frankly, its of shite quality.
I was pretty condescending with this guy, but it's not our first tango. My friend who posted that video has a number of these types on his friend list and we have a good laugh at them all the time because debating them proved unsuccessful to their level of crazy long ago. Now I mostly mock and prod. This is also older than 5 minutes. I'll update with anything else crazy he comes up with.
Agreed.
Hrmmm I have connections to one of the head honchos that helped build the WTC... perhaps I should avail myself of my unique opportunity to verify this... Though that feels improper.\n\nHiya!  I just met you let me ask you about the the crown jewel of your career and exactly how it got destroyed.... though it might go over well... =P
http://i.imgur.com/Ny2BV.jpg\n\nHere is the picture of the night stand
yep, same thing that gets my common sense tingling
Oh no, its completely safe here :D...
>lol Personally I think I am capable of making my own decisions, further I feel it is my right. If you do not feel the same and require the state runs your life, then all power to you.\n\nI'm happy with this. I'd just rather you didn't kill your own children while you're fucking up your life.
At first I was going to say that earthquakes happen all the time and you can find any interval between major earthquakes and also make it seem statistically valid. Very cool video.
Its good, i've been eating with yoghurt for breakfast since i was young.
They forgot:\n\n> Salmonella enterica: Active Active Destroyed Destroyed\n\nAlso, I'm fairly sure that immune systems do not work across species.\n\nBut what do I know, I'm just a med student slave to Big Pharma (and Humongous Dairy).
But fortified food is supplemented for you, no?
George does a decent job I guess, but I really miss Art.
That is one of the better UFO videos I've seen.
Taken in conjunction with [Asimov's essay](http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm) on the relativity of wrong it works well.\n\nEven if things are absolutely black or white, it doesn't mean that they're all equally wrong. For example, the predictions for an eclipse that will occur in a few hundred years might be off by a few seconds at most, but just because it might be to 100% spot on, doesn't mean that astrology is now on equal footing.
Seriously, keep trying to dupe things! Diamonds! Gold bars! Girls!!
Crowd sourcing + controversial issues = bullshit and edit wars.
chinese airport pics were long time exposure pics of a helicopter
FYI, getting a PhD is often what we (in academe) mean when we say that someone "studied" something. (Dunno if pascals_razor meant that, but easily might have—or if you specifically meant Harris's specific related work, which wasn't obvious to me.)
This doesn't look very stabilized to me... are you sure you did it right?
Aluminum has also been associated with kitchen sinks! Water? Sinks? I rest my case.
Wait, what? Go look at that molecule again. A thiophenol with an electron withdrawing group ortho to it is going to have a pretty low pKa, and sulfur is very easily and readily oxidized. I see no reason why that drug shouldn't be easily and readily cleaved in biotic conditions.
[This](http://sci-ence.org/the-ghosts-of-woo-intro/) is [why](http://sci-ence.org/the-ghosts-of-woo-part-one/) you [don't](http://sci-ence.org/the-ghosts-of-woo-part-two/) trust [pseudoscience.](http://sci-ence.org/the-ghosts-of-woo-part-three/)\n\nIt's written for accupuncture but applies just as well to chiropractic stuff.
I don't think that will help much, but thanks.
I once tried arguing with a Greenpeace girl that was handing out anti-nuclear-power pamphlets. Turns out she didn't have a clue wth she was talking about and her arguments practically lead her to the "let's all move back to the trees" conclusion.\n\nPerhaps Greenpeace is a victim of its own success. Everything that is positive about them has attracted a large number of people, with all the assorted crazies, fanatics, etc.
I'm not disagreeing its fake but "why the fuck would you take a picture of pages and some milk/juice", well maybe because he saw the "ghost" and wanted to capture it on film? \n\nEdit: [As OP Said](http://www.reddit.com/r/Paranormal/comments/vgy77/cat_ghost_my_friend_sent_me_this_picture_about_2/c54g74g)\n
I'm not talking about dogs. I'm talking about pit bull advocates who use religious thinking about the subject.
>What about people who believe religion? Are they paranoid delusional?\n\nA delusion is an erroneous belief held in the face of evidence to the contrary. So by the definition of "delusion" yes, anyone who believes in religion is delusional. However, I don't think you could apply "paranoid" to all of them.
Their description of crab is actually a crab/decrab. You can land during crabbing, but too much of angle will result with more sheer force on the landing gear.
She certainly is showing her feminazi side in thinking that a man asker her for coffee is a potential sexual assault. Guess men can't stand in an elevator with a women without being though a rapist. She needs to check her bounds.
i'm not telling you that you were trying to be condescending. I'm sorry if I offended you. I just suggest that you find out about slenderman before posting about him, because if you do people will think you're trolling.
I can relate to you. I understand how hard it is. I've really dulled down how much I expressed my skepticism around most family members. I honestly believe they are a lost cause. Some times I think I can really make a difference by enlightening people but more often than not it ends up in an illogical argument. The only way I've ever been able express myself is on-line. If your keen PM me and maybe we could start up a conversation? FB, MSN, Email...
i haven't either, but for some reason, i can tell that people have...\n\n\nmust be glitchception.
I read about this before, but I can't quite find the source I was originally reading (it could have been a TED Talk, now that I think about it). Maybe [this](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_human_experimentation#Modern_ethical_issues) will get you started.\n\nAlthough some of the knowledge gained from human experimentation has been useful, it's stigmatized a lot of these fields of research. Researchers will shy away from these topics because they don't want to cite experiments that relied on atrocities.\n\nI was also surprised to learn about [Unit 731](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731) during WWII, which is even more blood-curdling in my opinion.\n\nI'm in complete agreement with you. Scientific knowledge is still valid, whether or not it was acquired ethically. I just want to highlight that with this knowledge is an obvious price that was paid, and we still feel the burden of it to this day.
I'm just going to filter out that url and username with RES.
My friend, my father is a reiki master, my step dad is a shambala master. I grew up with this. I've spend enough time opening up chakras to know what I'm talking about. I used to 'clean' houses to get rid of energies and spirits.\nUsedtobe's depression and stress are of much greater concern, I'm not saying that because I'm close minded. I'm saying that because it is more important. \n\nedit: And I lolled so hard at your reddit for once a month joke. That's never gonna happen XD
hmmm... re-reading the quote, she does mention that 74 out of 142 were able to draw firm conclusions, which implies that 68 were non-conclusive. However, I still maintain that this is misleading, as non-conclusive in this case means performing no better than placebo, which in the case of trying to prove homeopathy, basically amounts to a negative result.
Yeah, I was pretty surprised. Corn subsidies make HFCS super cheap so it finds its way into a lot of weird places. Try and avoid the stuff for a month, it can be pretty difficult.
um...  nameless dude with a whiteboard and a laptop investigates "water memory" and is shown on tv accompanied by some very erudite sounding announcers, and some person who chooses to believe water has a memory because the thought  "makes her heart leap and spin" writes a blog entry about it.\n\nedit: also, "the ancients lived in deep knowledge of the sacredness of water", so, uh, yeah...\n\nDrops of water don't look like that.  They've been photo-manipulated.  The one that "looks like sweet william" is particularly blatant.  Maybe they'd claim that the manipulation was done only to make existing features more visible, but they'd be full of shit, no doubt.\n\nedit edit:  Hard to say, but it seems the source of this might be [this website](http://translate.google.ca/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://www.weltimtropfen.de/forschung_ergebnis_mehrpersonenversuch.html&ei=A4TzTp30O8jc0QGInMCxAg&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCUQ7gEwAA&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dmehrpersonenversuch%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DN%26nord%3D1%26biw%3D1064%26bih%3D1268%26site%3Dwebhp%26prmd%3Dimvns)\n\nGoogle translate translates the domain name as "drop in the world"...  Seems to be a site that just promotes water memory.  I can't find reference to any names of any scientists involved in this experiment anywhere. \n\nedit edit edit:  ok, so looks like a "Prof. Dr. Bernd Kroeplin" may be tied to this on [this page](http://translate.google.ca/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://www.weltimtropfen.de/forschung_ergebnis_mehrpersonenversuch.html&ei=A4TzTp30O8jc0QGInMCxAg&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCUQ7gEwAA&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dmehrpersonenversuch%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DN%26nord%3D1%26biw%3D1064%26bih%3D1268%26site%3Dwebhp%26prmd%3Dimvns)\n\nSearching for "Prof. Dr. Bernd Kroeplin" leads to a couple of pages about some high-altitude long distance flying machine he's ["the mastermind behind"](http://www.tao-group.de/en_adventure-capital.html), and a bunch of shit in german that I don't want to bother translating and investigating.  But nothing in english about any water memory research.  You'd think a discovery like this would be notable enough that it would have received some attention since 2004, when the results shown in the video were apparently published.  I'd take this story with a huge grain of salt.
If anyone wants to read them, [here's the abstract](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22865964) and [here's the full paper](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3409983/?tool=pubmed).
The best part about this is the specificity of the question.  Why the hell would a two-year-old ask that otherwise?  Very strange.
First of all I havent found anything about him being a legitimate biochemist, or any articles written in a peer reviewed journal. So yea guys a crank
Geez dude, stop being such an Aquarius.
There is no way that this is not a joke.
LOL
[Its not that 'anything is possible', but rather 'everything is possible'](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo)\n\nCheers ;)
Aren't all animals on Earth equally evolved?
Oh no I'm very definitely talking about controlling the universe. Not sure why I didn't [hyperlink](http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/) this the first time.\n\n+shrug+ I've had years of seeing positive benefits from my beliefs. What I'm talking about is comprehending how reality works rather than presuming you're nothing more than a speck of dust in an endless universe. It's that defeatist attitude that makes you such.
Going to see him tomorrow night at SMU. Can't f-ing wait!
[This](http://www.overcomingbias.com/) is my favorite skeptics site.  \n\nOn the point of your post, I think you are correct.  Everyone attacked the Republican party (I think they started because the Republican party is anti-intellectual and anti-atheist, but I can not speak to everyone's motives)  There is a huge echo chamber effect (confirmation bias).  I kind of blame Dawkins, honestly.  He has a sort of cult of personality.  He advocates trying to ridicule theists; a kind of us vs. them mindset. This makes it a club to join - hence all the atheists who have no reason they do not believe, except to be like everyone else.  \n\nIn short - I agree.
First, I don't take any claim (including statistics such as this) from 9/11 truthers seriously.\n\nSecond, who cares what the Germans think? (No offense to any Germans.)
She also mentions that she is something along the lines of 'the erin brockavidch (spelling) of healthcare'. She spends more time trying to be validated than proving her point.
>actually the data ... is ... exclusively based on observational data\n\nNope.\n\nDessler's ~~"*TOA energy flux changes due to cloud cover*"~~  *"surface temperature measurements"* were based on modeled output.  \n\nedit: A correction based on the caption for Figure 1 in the Dessler 2011 preprint.\n\n
The Ghost adventures guys seem to get possessed every single episode
I honestly do not know what the object was. At first I thought it may have been a plane, but I did not see it with my own eyes and it just appeared in my picture which I found odd.
What is your theory? I didn't see it in the primal post; just a list of people and qualifications.
I'm almost envious of your interactions! I've only had a handful of paranormal encounters and none of them manifested this much or this constantly.\n\nWhen you're recording, make sure that the position your recording from wont pick up a lot of noise from you moving about/things in your house and it takes up a wide point-of-view by itself without your manipulation. Your TV for example will pollute any sound samples and sound like muffled voices to a distant camera. Also try to be conscious of being quiet yourself as you're in the house while attempting to capture evidence. A lot of times EVPs will manifest as you're talking or in response to you. \n\nYou should place the camera somewhere stationary to record and don't go running to it every time you think you experience something. wait till the next day to review your evidence. Normally I'd tell you to have two cameras next to each other so that you could compare films (sometimes what appears on one will not appear on the other, this is especially true for motion-based or time-based picture snaps - but in that regard you'd want them slightly timed off of one another so that they don't catch eachothers' flash.)\n\na LOT of things can appear on a camera that you'll think are paranormal evidence, but they arent. Be mindful of possible light sources and noise pollution! what you think is an orb on camera could be a cars headlights coming down the street and reflecting/refracting oddly throughout the room! Don't set your camera up on a windowsill that faces a street side, for example, because then you'll start catching noises and light from outside (cars, people, etc.) and make sure the area you're recording in is fairly clean. A flash off a a camera will reflect off of anything that has substance to it, so what you might think is an orb could actually be a reflection of light coming back at the camera from a speck of dust in the air. \n\ntry changing the positions in the house that you record in blocks! place the camera at eye-level in the hall after 3-4 hours in the kitchen! you don't have the ability to have multiple areas being recorded, so you have to make the best of dynamically moving the camera around the property. again be conscious of everything in the environment as you're setting the camera up. make sure nothing will cast poor shadows to fool you, etc.\n\nKeep in mind that if a spirit knows something is attempting to observe it, it can attempt to draw attention someplace else or change its behavior. Make sure that your camera is on a solid base and it can't be easily tipped or knocked over without a good force of manipulation. I've seen videos where cameras set to record have entirely modified their directions, been pushed over, had their batteries suddenly go out on them, etc. I'd make it a priority to try to just check on the camera at least twice during the night to ensure it's still running and you're not missing anything, its properly pointed, and the batteries in it have a good period of life remaining.\n\n\nI would also try using the first names of your deceased girlfriend as well as her father when events happen, in an attempt to spur more activity.\n\nKeep a log of events as I said. It was great that you put times in your first video! check a clock or a watch every time something out of the ordinary happens and write it down after you check around, not before, as that's valuable investigation time going to waste. markers of time periods when something happen can help you discern if there's particular moments when activity is heightened (despite it happening all throughout the day) as well as rule out natural causes. Plus it'll give you timestamps to check through your recorded video with to see if there's any background noises.\n\nIf you've got a decent enough cell-phone, there's 2 things you can use it for: sound capture and pics. consider leaving lights on in various parts of the house away from you/your camera so that if you have to you can rush to them, and snap a few pictures off on your cell. Sounds stupid but with many phones being 3-4 megapixels these days the pictures blow up nicely and you can still capture things with them. many cell cameras will have a 'shooting mode' on them that you can set to continuous so you can snap off a few successive shots. I know MY phone allows me to take 9 shots in about 4 seconds. The lights left on will ensure a proper lighting source for your cell to snap a pic under since most don't have a flash feature attached to them. If you use your cellphone for EVP recordings, don't just listen to them on the phone and decide there's nothing there - they should be evaluated with studio-headphones with ambiance filters! if you don't have a pair of studio phones around, I'd be willing to go through your EVP recordings for you.\n\n\nSorry this was a jumbled response, but most of all DON'T BE SCARED. if your place is truely haunted, you should consider this a fantastic experience for you! not many people get to go through life with proof provided to them that there IS something after death! These individuals are both people that you knew IRL. Even if the fathers spirit is malevolent, you should be pleased at the aspect that death isn't the final stepping stone of life! until you have physical harm come to you, you have nothing to fear from their manipulations/manifestations around the property.\n\nhere's hoping you catch some cool stuff!\n
He could have... had he been in possession of a particle accelerator.
Your\n\nOtherwise this is very well put.
hey bro, like that famous poster says, "I Want to Believe", but this is not that unusual.
In placebo-controlled studies, you want to make the placebo control as identical to the experimental group as possible, so you can't tell them they are taking the placebo. Doing otherwise would defeat the entire purpose of having a control. But that doesn't mean that placebos only work if you don't know you are taking them. They just work differently. Scientific American had [an article on it](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=placebo-effect-a-cure-in-the-mind) - basically, they can also work through conditioning.
Wouldn't the "OP effect" mentioned by the above poster be talking about reddit, since it's talking about voting patterns of reddit users using the reddit voting system?\n\nNot trying to be a dick, I have not often visited /r/TheoryOfReddit, so I may misunderstand what it's about. Since you seem to be a regular, I'll take your word for it.
You guys practice martial arts or yoga?
I'm not doubting his work, I'm grumpy about his attempts at science advocacy.
There were lights in the sky in Wisconsin recently.\n
>Any non-authoritarian ought to support the labelling. \n\nActually, if the labelling is mandated by law, that is *authoritarian*. The libertarian approach would be for consumers to apply pressure on manufacturers and producers to use labels voluntarily. That would be the approach I would prefer.\n\nMy concern, however, is that if Prop 37 passes and the labels are mandatory, your average consumer is going to presume the label is a warning, and infer that all GMOs are harmful.\n\nRemember when we took thimerosal out of most vaccines? Though it made little difference in the effectiveness of the vaccine, and it did not change rates of ASD diagnoses, many people took that as an admission of guilt on the part of pharmaceutical companies and evidence of harmful effects due ot thimerosal.
Man that was a fun show!
>You know, one of the beautiful things about science is, it doesn't give a shit how popular you are. 2 plus 2 equals 4, and there is no sweet talking your way around it. You can't say: hey I have 2000 FB friends, therefore pi equals 7.\n\nHe was talking about your attitude. Science has nothing to do with that.\n\nHe was trying to have a conversation, and you shit all over him and the hivemind downvoted him to hell. You don't care about your position as much as you care about crushing him and winning karma. Congrats?
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
And downvoting without commenting is unforgivable.
Best vid I have seen on here in at least the last 6 months. That was definitely a UFO of some sort.
... like r/x circlejerks about x all the time? ... Yeah - It's sort of the idea, actually.
I saw a blimp once very late at night. I initially flagged it as a cool UFO. Had all sorts of coloured lights on it and I was quite excited - tried to chase it in my car. Drove 10 Km, got close and saw conclusively it was a blimp. Very disappointing.\n\nIn this video, you can see the light that would be at the top of the balloon and the bright lights indicating the front and back of the lower passenger and engine area. There are also running lights down the side of the cabin. Grab a piece of paper, plot the lower lights and draw lines between them. Draw the top light and draw an ellipse. Yup. Blimp.
"The free market will cure all", after millions of people have become victim to fraud.
There is some promising research into the cancer killing ability of cannabis.\n\n[Surely](http://www.nature.com/nrc/journal/v3/n10/abs/nrc1188.html)\n\nhttp://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2011/08/pbs-documentary-sheds-light-on-marijuanas-cancer-killing-properties/\n\nhttp://health.usnews.com/health-news/family-health/cancer/articles/2009/04/01/active-ingredient-in-marijuana-kills-brain-cancer\n\nhttp://blog.norml.org/2009/08/18/reuters-pot-kills-cancer-but-dont-even-think-about-using-it/
I THINK that's a scene from a documentary on Discovery Channel..."Alien Invasion: Are We Ready?"....
It would be safer if they asked you to become a drug dealer and actually wanted an investment.
But the batteries keep your body's magnetic poles in synchronization!
I have a device in my pocket that connects me to the world and all the information I can absorb. it may not be a sassy robot maid, but that's pretty good for the last few decades
Get evidence to prove it.  If this is really happening, and it really is paranormal, then someone somewhere is going to be willing to pay you money for evidence.
Thank you! That does sound pretty crazy, feels less like a defense against defamation of character and more like an attack on a person's right to be skeptical.
Your original comment was a perfect example of the way *a lot of people* on /r/atheism accept no blame for your behavior, instead, attempting to turn it around to the original commenter. \n\nIf I'm sounding like a 'superior, denigrating asshole,' then I've learned the lessons of /r/atheism well (you should be proud.) When I first went there, I didn't comment in that vein. I simply aksed if the 'attack and denigrate people's beliefs' method wasn't counterproductive, instead favoring the concept of *explaining* an alternate belief (atheism) to those of a religious bent. I was promptly denigrated for not reading the sidebar, wasting people's time, making their day somehow worse because I was one of the 'countless people' who have asked that question, etc.\n\nWhen you attack someone's beliefs (and, FWIW, I'm not a Christian, Muslim, etc) they'll become defensive. Not the best state of mind for them to have if you want them to think things through logically and accept a conclusion *based on* logic (atheism.) \n\nAnd, as I was at pains to point out in my original comment, *although not all* members of /r/atheism are like I have described, I do find that the vast majority of them are denigrating assholes involved in a circlejerk. Read the posts there sometime and tell me I'm wrong.
Well, it seems to me like you're just listing the reasons why "skepchick" is a bad idea.\n\nTo be honest, I don't like that kind of thing either, and personally I would probably feel the same way you do. I dislike people who openly use their gender/race to advertise themselves online. I consider it incredibly stupid to tell you the truth.\n\nIt's a lot like "girl gamers" really, in that there's girls who play games for attention, and then girls who play games just to play games. It's the same for Skepchick really. Rebecca Watson isn't a person who is a skeptic for the sake of herself, she's a skeptic for attention.
Ever think that this may have been how life changed on earth to begin with some 10,000 years or so ago ?Looks like cells in our blood to me. Keep an eye on this one...looks scary.
Anyone got a stream?
Good. It's not a punishment, but a lack of rewards.\n\nI've still seen anti-vaxxers complain about this though.
Thank you. I want to also add that I'm not dismissing this video outright but I do think that we need to exhaust all mundane possibilities before we declare it of an extraterrestrial origin. Although the craft, whatever it is, is a UFO by the very definition of the acronym.
That article is chock full of junk-science red flags. "Energy healing" or "energy medicine" has long been a refuge for sham treatments. It's basically the new-age version of faith healing. Their techniques range from the super simple (touch therapy or Reiki) to somewhat more complex treatments involving impressive-looking electronic boxes that may or may not actually do anything. Best case: these people are deluded, harmless quacks. Worst case: they lure sick people away from legitimate treatment with the promise of a magic cure, and charge huge sums of money for what amounts to a placebo, or worse, a legitimately harmful practice.\n\nWhatstheharm.net has a [section on energy medicine](http://whatstheharm.net/energymedicine.html). In 2007, The Seattle Times started a major [investigative series on energy medicine](http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/medicaldevices/). Reading it was kind of what got me involved in the skepticism movement.
Onion and mayo sandwiches are awesome!
Good possibility for BS. Still keeping an open mind.
Yeah, would like to know what you think. I was thinking about buying it, but reviews that I saw made me think he had redefined nothing from how it's normally understood which seemed like a cheat to me.
I like to term myself a devil's advocate, so I'll give it a shot.  To be clear, my front page contains 25 posts.  So, let's take a peek at these 25 as of 10:20 EST.\n\n* [Atheist Mom](http://i.imgur.com/HAUix.jpg) - could be offensive, but rather amusing; I don't think it's particularly narcissistic as much as it is poking fun at the scandals of priests.  We could debate how much that is deserved.\n* [Thought you guys might like this](https://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/532255_10151052952191368_1238083376_n.jpg) - making fun of the logic involved in a belief system where the ignorant are not automatically damned.  The comments inside, after a joke or two, discuss the theology involved.  I feel it would be a bit of a stretch to use this one to support OP's point, but it's distantly possible.\n* [A local BBQ place bans members from a church from the restaurant.](http://i.imgur.com/Ywdxl.jpg) - it's the WBC.\n* [My Path to Atheism](http://i.imgur.com/76wZx.jpg) - Now this one might qualify; it's an analysis of what caused a loss of the author's faith.  It could be seen as lauding atheists for being logical and decrying those who still believe.  I suppose the question that must be asked is if it counts for the OP's point if it's for the sake of describing a typical atheist experience, or if it makes good points.\n* [Louisiana Republican: When I Voted for State Funds to go to Religious Schools, I Didn’t Mean Muslim Ones](http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2012/07/05/louisiana-republican-when-i-voted-for-state-funds-to-go-to-religious-schools-i-didnt-mean-muslim-ones/) - I think we can agree that pointing out hypocrisy is fine.\n* [Simply put by Carl Sagan](http://i.imgur.com/XmwBe.jpg) - Could be considered self-aggrandizing; we do love our daily Sagan.  It is arguably a statement promoting skepticism, of course, so how much it is patting ourselves on the back vs. suggesting a proper course is questionable.\n* [The irony made it almost too easy...](http://i.imgur.com/MfmXj.png) - Facebook post; making fun of a fundamentalist who is dealing in absolutes.  Strikes me as deserved; could work for OP's point.\n* [Religion is fun!](http://i.imgur.com/fq4EU.jpg) - A repost if you've been on /r/atheism very long.  Classical sort of "did you know" post - mostly informative, lightly poking fun at the third commandment.  I don't think it fits.\n* [His Holy Noodlyness makes an appearance at Canada Day fireworks](http://i.imgur.com/eETCt.jpg) - FSM spotting; simple, amusing.\n* [Never expected to see this guy in a Trader Joe's image search.](http://www.venganza.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/traderjoes.jpg) - as above.\n* [The Lion King had more to it than I thought.](http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/w468k/the_lion_king_had_more_to_it_than_i_thought/) - pro-homosexuality post; amusing sentiment.\n* [FB God makes fundies very mad](http://i.imgur.com/M6TJR.jpg) - Could fit; it's making fun of someone who took a joke poorly, and arguably was hypocritical about it.\n* [So much said, with so little](http://i.imgur.com/juWGM.jpg) - delighting in exploring the Jewish origins of Christianity.\n* [They can live without Oreos, but what about this?](http://i.imgur.com/4ltWt.jpg) - pro-homosexuality post; mocking the fundies who said they wouldn't eat Oreos when they did a pride post.  I don't think this qualifies.\n* [Eddie Griffin on Christianity](http://i.imgur.com/rqMzF.jpg) - Quote from a comedian which is essentially mocking religion.  Doesn't really qualify.\n* [some guy 'disproved' evolution](http://i.imgur.com/4j4ol.jpg) - This could count; it is making fun of a creationist.  It's not undeserved, but it may fit the OPs description.\n* [Didn't expect that...](http://i.imgur.com/vekwg.jpg) - Higgs boson stuff; comments go over the Catholic Church's stance on science, largely positively.\n* [My mom said this. I was filled with rage.](http://i.imgur.com/7fLJT.jpg) - Higgs again; this type of thing is the reason for the above post.  Hard to tell if this counts; it rather is making fun of someone for saying something silly, so it may be what OP describes.\n* [Let me try to explain this a little simpler...](http://i.imgur.com/2VLPJ.jpg) - Higgs rebuttal; I don't think it fits.\n* [Something tells me this is similar to how religions are established](http://i.imgur.com/1Q5oX.jpg) - Might fit, but also a statement about being skeptical.  Torn on this one.\n* [Creationist , unicorns and Faith](http://i.imgur.com/U8kez.jpg) - this probably is what the OP is talking about; it's a story about someone being entirely illogical, brought up for the purpose of highlighting how some people can be illogical when supporting, say, creationism.\n* [We get it.](http://i.imgur.com/0m8PO.jpg) - Had enough Higgs posts.\n* [Teach the Controversy](http://i.imgur.com/vNA9t.gif) - good shirt design; highlights problem with "teach the controversy" promotion of creationism.\n* [The next step after breaking free of religion. Breaking free of nationalism/patriotism.](http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/w3zi2/the_next_step_after_breaking_free_of_religion/) - self-post discussion on nationalism.\n* [A confession...](http://i.qkme.me/3pzc7r.jpg) - Comradely from an unexpected angle.  At the very least suggests that we at r/atheism do laugh at religious people being stupid.\n\nI'm not sure I can conclude the OP is correct from this; a fair bit of it could be interpreted as being either telling each other how smart they are or how stupid certain people are, but I don't think the intent is quite in that direction.  And indeed, in a few of the more egregious examples, the comments contain both jokes and earnest discussion about the issue at hand.  Any thoughts?
Or Helen Lovejoy.
We must evolve!\n\nOf course I mean that people who can understand the difference between fallacies and rational arguments should stick together and raise their kids in this spirit.\n\nReligion is basically eugenics that favours the "dumb" genes.
Yay... a win for skepticism! :D
The content is what I would expect from this subreddit. I don't come here for hardcore skepticism or life changing experiences. I come here for light-hearted articles and interesting/weird stories. There's some crazy stuff here, yes, but nobody is super-fanatical about it like they are in other subreddits. I'm happy with the content I get from here.\n\n>Essentially, how can we make r/Paranormal an even better place?\n\nSome custom CSS would be nice but it's not the end of the world. I deal with CSS and other funtime web development stuff at work but unfortunately I'm not artistically inclined so I can't really help with that department.
5 seconds is actually a good amount of time. The most likely solution is that he exited the truck presumably to use the bathroom. The driver could easily have picked up the passenger afterwards.
Looks just like a spot light to me. \n\n\nhttp://0.tqn.com/d/hotels/1/G/m/n/2/pyramid_beam.jpg\n\n\nhttp://www.betterphoto.com/uploads/processed/0824/0806080138021aatzal_ma.jpg
Gotcha, I had just gotten up from a nap and wasn't following.
I know what you mean. They're not as hoaky as the others and their fear seems legit, not put on.
Okay, so now that we agree that sweatshopw are good for underdeveloped or developing countries:\n\n> None of those are developed countries...\n\nWho's to say what is developed or not? Economies are in a constant state of change. Do you think that sweat shops are also bad for developed countries? Why or why not? I think wherever you have people out of work is an area that a company should be able to move to start employing people. For example, in the US, i think a lot of the 'minimum wage' laws are actually helping to force jobs to other areas of the world.
Shut up! Now I have no reason not to shoot up a crowded shopping center before committing suicide-by-cop.
Well, I'd expect the Watchtower to respond favorably to [Bob Dylan Covers. ](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Along_the_Watchtower)
Agreed.
Well if you consume 5 cans of coke per day, then it probably healthier to artificial sweetener than all the sugar
My assumption on injury or death from their perspective: A few ants in my ant farm have been injured or died...oh well...they'll make more, oh look they're even taking the bodies and disposing them...great! Sorry about that but they shouldn't have moved while conducting my experiments on death and injury. On Language: if advanced extraterrestrials still have a written language after hundreds, thousands or millions of years of evolution the accent or ancient ability would and should show thru. Not only would I think they would not practice our written language in English but I would think it would compare to writing in the sand with a stick and using hand gestures to natives that have finally allowed outside contact. Then take the ability and apply grammar...please
>It's impossible to hold those two beliefs at the same time \n\nThat's the genius of the ultra-conservative line of thinking: if you kill or lock away the problem person, you don't have to deal with the actual facts that contradict your worldview.
When I was a teenager, before I knew much about anything, the local chiropractor helped me out immensely.  She took x-rays of my back before doing anything.  She is also a medical doctor.\n\nI observed her results in myself and in others, when my mother later worked for the office.  It sure as fuck isn't faith healing.\n\nI never heard anything spiritual or supernatural in the whole business either, or my mother would have condemned it as demonic.
I'm guessing they are pointing out that the term "clean coal" is a bit of a misnomer.
Thanks for this info! And to be honest I may have been a little, uh, inebriated when I did my initial research. The reliability of self-research goes down with every drink. Tell your kids.
I remember it, so i couldnt have been that drunk right :P\nBut sure, its possible
I'm a bit of a skeptic, so from my perspective, it sounds like your lucid dreaming.  Lucid dreams can vary in intensity and quite often you will not be able to wake yourself.  I don't really buy into the frequent sleep paralysis stuff.   However, I believe that those moments when we feel like we're awake and can't move are actually just a portion of our dream.  How frequently have you been in a dream and needed to run or scream and have been unable to do so?
If water has a memory...\n\nhttp://4.bp.blogspot.com/_sRDhbC46aKs/SdqTq9ZM--I/AAAAAAAAAIs/iBlLxTBOcO4/s1600-h/HN09poster1A.jpg
I never mentioned astrology. Just what the hell do you think you're talking about?
This one?\n\nhttp://youtu.be/MKUwdHex1Zs?t=5m1s\n\nThis is the original, full footage:\n\nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOxuRIfFs0w
MIB!
You're a liar
You do have very little choice in who you find attractive. That shit is hard-wired into your brain. While a lot of the dating scene does have very sleazy marketing, the core principle of 'become an attractive person, and people will be attracted to you' does hold true.
I would like people like you to draw or have their sightings drawn and kept in some kind of archive, this would be much more compelling that a textual recount.
Amazing, a whole bunch of cranks complaining they're being unfairly treated as cranks.
so my gf isn't going to give me a better butt for christmas then?
Sounds like you were just drunker than you thought, to me..
Relevant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpLt0oUWfOk
How not? I wasn't sure whether I should post, simply because it was as much a "trip" report as anything else, but still. There's nothing theoretically magical or mystical about the compound THC, and is it not at least glitchy that of the literally infinite number of things either of us might hallucinate, we'd hallucinate the same thing at the same instant?
You don't need to spend much time looking around the skeptic subreddit to realize that the prevailing mindset has very little to do with skepticism or rational thought. It's just another place where like minded redditors bash certain things they dislike and in many cases don't understand. It's a circlejerk like the atheism subreddit but with a greater variety of predetermined conclusions. Don't waste your time here.
The second, FOX News clip is a rocket launch, so don't let that one scare you. Any videos that show the same kind of large, white trail behind a bright object is *likely* a rocket launch or some sort of satellite re-entry. I believe there was another video just like it posted here earlier in the week from Russia. \n\nThe Moscow clip, @3:00, with the weird cloud formation isn't much to worry about either as it's just a weather anomaly. \n\nThe Jerusalem UFO clip @3:20 was essentially proven to be a very, very, *very* [well done hoax.](http://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/gxe4v/jerusalem_ufo_hoax_finally_revealed_turns_out_all/)\n\nThe NYC sightings, @4:25, were [likely balloons](http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-cetera/new-york-ufos-identified-its-balloons-20101014/). I can't say for sure if there was anything else in the sky that day in NY, but balloons of the same color were released from Times Square around the same time as the sightings started. \n\nThe Japan 2010 clip, @6:02, is likely a hoax as it's been discussed here a few times. Can't find the link, though.\n\nI *believe* the Art Bell caller, @8:35, was [deemed a hoax as well](http://www.ufospy.com/area-51-caller-calls-back-on-art-bells-coast-to-coast/).\n\nAs far as the rest of the clips are concerned, I gots nothin'. :P If anybody can find any links to support the hoaxes I've mentioned, that'd be awesome.
Going to /r/gaming for gaming related info is kind of like going to a frat house to get the "college experience". Unfortunately it is a default subreddit.
Thanks. That was interesting.
It's a really depressing trend. First the history channel aired ancient aliens. Then Discovery aired finding bigfoot. Now this. I have a feeling it won't stop here. \n\n
Duping items is a bannable offense.
LOL
In my opinion, [Ghost Adventures](http://www.travelchannel.com/tv-shows/ghost-adventures) is one of the best shows as far as capturing evidence.  Also, [Destination Truth](http://www.syfy.com/destinationtruth/) has its moments, but they chase some pretty weak claims (such as mysterious creatures) around the world.  Although, the cast is fun and they do travel to some cool parts of the world.  I think they collect the best evidence investigation hauntings.
Thank you. THAT'S what you should have done in the first place. \n\n> If you had read... \n\nWell... if you had ~bothered~ to post just the two relevant links...\nThrowing a huge pile of links at someone is pretty poor form in any book. Get over yourself in thinking we're just gonna bow down and jump into a jumble of anything you throw. (Skeptics group, remember?)
Happy to see that I wasn't the only one noticing.
so i took a lolipop and had this guy lick it so you can put rubella in your children.
Not sure if trolling or serious....  In either case, enjoy!\nhttp://www.youtube.com/user/MarbleHornets
are you wanting to go overtly mainstream religion with this, or are you wanting to direct this more at small cults so the typical xtian doesn't get offended?\nIf you are cool with going the mainstream route, Jesus camp is pretty fucked up.  I still haven't been able to watch it all the way through.; I've tried several times now.  I wouldn't say its a tremendous scientific resource, but it might have some resources available.
Registration will open soon!
I don't have a problem, there just isn't one commonly agreed on definition of the word skeptic, there are multiple.
The GMO moniker is not fearmongering, it is the minimum requirement. The producers are free to add **more information**, listing the specific modifications and why they are better and safe. But if the producer chooses to hide the specific modifications, then I can only assume those are not "better and safe" for me.
You know what happens when you assume right? It makes you look like a dick.
yeah, because we all know it's 19 year olds in fedoras who are responsible for stocking the aisles with homeopathic remedies
Which part? Everything we do probably isn't bad for the environment, but living in a modern society is. Use gas, dig for coal, dig for oil, throw away plastics and papers, even recycling is bad for the environment. Good thing is, the environment is a pretty big and sustainable place! I can't really name that many good by-products of living in a modern society vis-a-vis the environment..\n\nAnd as for christians v. atheists. I can't really see what I do that is different than an avg. christian in terms of being environmentally friendly. I leave the water running when I brush my teeth and everything!
I wonder if zombies would eat a crystal brain?
Sorry if I missed it but what book is she having you read?\n\nFWIW, I am a fully practicing Nichiren Buddhist (SGI) that is still, after 4 years of practice and study, a full-on atheist.  And you know what? There is barely any contradiction.  Matter of fact, I have to do very little mental hoop jumping.  That's the main reason I was so attracted to the Buddhism I am in - well that and the SGI is a lay organization - no temples and no priests or monks.
Yes... logic... we definitely should apply that to *[the conspiracy theories](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuC_4mGTs98&feature=player_embedded)*, just don't critically analyse what the mainstream media feeds us.\n\nAfter all, if the people on TV keep telling us it's illogical and crazy to question what we're told, that's basically the same as scientific consensus!\n\n[edit: all that article does is points out some extreme perspectives to call everyone that questions *anything* about 9/11 'a conspiracy nut'. The point of sceptism is to *ask questions*, not to belittle people for doing that.]
Humans by nature are fallible and susceptible to a variety of brain-failures visual and conceptual.  The willingness to explore and accept the possibility of being wrong is the difference between the people on this thread and the people with whom we argue.
No, I got your point that it's crazy to ask for third-party verification. It's just a stupid point.
The description is ambiguous. This could be one of two things:\n\n* [Adrenal fatigue](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrenal_fatigue) is an invention of alternative medicine, and lacks a scientific basis or medical diagnosis.\n* [Adrenal insufficiency](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrenal_insufficiency) is a legitimate, medically recognized condition, which can be treated with hydrocortisone in the case of cortisol deficiency.\n\nIn either case, the "adrenal support herbs and supplements" mentioned are almost certainly junk, and may even be harmful.
Yes.\n\n
Is this woman really a doctor, as in possessing a PhD?\n\nAbout 10 minutes into it and Phil is talking about the motion of stars and then she starts talking about supernova and gamma rays, which really have nothing to do with what Phil is talking about. I guess she is a neuro-physiologist though, so perhaps she can be forgiven for this, but it does make her look rather ignorant at best.\n\nAlso Phil... Evidence evidence evidence, not proof. We have very good evidence that the stars aren't fixed to crystal spheres, not proof.\n\n*Addendum*\n\nAt 41:48 Dr Kiki says that if you want science to reach more people you should start talking about planet nibiru and 2012 and other nonsense... I completely disagree. Science shows shouldn't be bothering with that, they should be presenting the wonders of reality as revealed via science. The recent BBC series "Wonders of the Solar System" presented by Dr Brian Cox did an absolutely fantastic job of this. If you're going to talk about pseudo-science then it should be on a show that is specifically about skepticism and critical thinking, and that can take the time to really analyse and criticise nonsense.\n\nAlso, recent American science documentaries have been rather terrible. They're far too garish.
I don't know where you're going with this.  My point was that he is a doctor who is stunningly uneducated on first year medical science.
You've misread the title as well: the active part is "a validation study for a clinical prediction rule". \n\nThey used this rule, with fixed therapies (these were controls, not dependent variables) to determine if this was a viable rule to guide docs in the future. I don't see where you're getting your interpretation of this study.
"Scarecrows".  \n\nI love it.
Ditto. Very common. I agree that it's not to be minimalized as an experience, but it's definitely not aliens. \n\nWhen I was 25, I was in a room with a midget aztec priest who was going to sacrifice me to his gods. Then I woke up.
>I can think of one, though I haven't seen it mentioned here.\n\nWhat were you thinking of? Hormones maybe?
So...she took it?
I wonder what a "monkie" is
Thanks anti-vax for reinstating natural selection!
Thanks mate, watching now. So far it's a good video (and I'd expect no less from the RDF and Michael Shermer!).
Perhaps you knocked it off in your sleep. One time I went to sleep really drunk at an ex-girlfriends dorm and had to pee, but when I woke up I didn't have to anymore. Then we found out her dirty clothes pile in her closet was sopping wet. Still don't know if I peed all over them or they got quantum wet.\n\nedit: I do like the story and the idea of the dark square, though, very Stephen King.
It was odd...it was like the bottle had never moved, I didn't see it right itself, it just was suddenly up right again. \n\n
Pardon the confusion, bro. I didn't mean to suggest that I was endorsing the lack of Reddiquette in r/Skeptic.  I was making essentially the same point. First complaining about it and then explaining that's just how it is.\n\nIf you present any type of counter-argument to the fundamentalist Skeptic view of the universe, it's going to get downvoted regardless of the merits of your argument. I do not support Reddiquette being trampled here.
So, as I understand it, the fiber that is in fruit is kind of the "antidote" to the "poison" that is fructose.  Juice, is almost entirely devoid of this fiber, so it gives the drinker a load of sugar almost as high as your typical soda.  In that sense you are correct.\n\nI can't speak for vegetable juicing, which appears to be what this FB page is referring to.  \n\nAlso, I am not an expert, but I do drink Johnny Walker Black.
Eesh. That would make an interesting short story.
Seems a reasonable explanation though.
Yeah, and sports medicine is an area where you're not just looking to get back into decent health after a potentially very bad injury, you're looking to be completely restored so that you can continue to work as an athlete.
HA!
Sample size, sample size, sample size. Really quite often you find a sensational headline only to discover it is a 'preliminary study' and 'needs more research'. More often than not in the additional research the effect disappears because it is quite usual to get strange effects in small sample sizes. \n\nData "massaging": if a study does not find what it set out to find, the data is massaged and sliced up into different groupings until a statistically significant effect is found: Look for an result that more or less is different vein from what the research initially set out to do, or that is found only within a small crafted subset of the data.\n\nAre the statistical procedures carried out used in the proper manner: most statistical tests may only be used on *normally distributed data*. If your data is skewed or bimodal you have to use other tests.\n\nPresenting numbers with a to great implied accuracy: In presenting numbers you are not allowed to [use more significant digits than the underlying data has](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Significance_arithmetic). \nIf you  read something like "on average 50.2 people had ..." you know someone does not know his statistics.
But do they have higher rates of HIV, HPV, UTI, herpes, etc.?
It's not surprising that you are getting down-voted simply for pointing out a very plausible natural explanation.  Have an up-vote.
Consider the spectrum of global warming views:\n\n1. Global warming is not happening.\n2. Global warming is happening but it is not man made.\n3. Global warming is happening, it is man made, but it won’t be a problem for humanity because technological advances will allow humanity to adapt.\n4. Global warming is happening, it is man made, it is a problem for humanity, but severe carbon emission restrictions are less effective and less politically viable than geo-engineering.\n5. Global warming is happening, it is man made, it is a problem for humanity, and severe carbon emission restrictions are the most cost effective way to deal with the problem.\n\nPersonally I find #3 and #4 to be the most compelling arguments.  Does that make me a climate change skeptic?\n
internet tabloid :: STAMP
LOL! "Unidentified Farm Objects." Well played, sir. You owe me a new beer and a new keyboard.
Because I know things that you don't and have been asked not to speak of them.
Last time I had injury on my left elbow was nearly a decade ago. Anecdote or not, all I know is that the pain subsided. Went from a constant pain factor of 8/10 to 2/10 after the first treatment. The pain made wringing a wet towel nearly a herculean task.  If it isn't a dislocation, whatever it was, it's fixed now.
Strength: +0 pts\nDexterity: +0 pts\nIntelligence: -5 pts\nCharisma: +5 bonus against the gullible
Apparently it's the ending song from Fright Night
Either you're an ass for joking, or we're asses for downvoting.
Short answer is yes. Here's why:\n\n> Stars twinkle because of turbulence in the atmosphere of the Earth. As the atmosphere churns, the light from the star is refracted in different directions. This causes the star's image to change slightly in brightness and position, hence "twinkle." This is one of the reasons the Hubble telescope is so successful: in space, there is no atmosphere to make the stars twinkle, allowing a much better image to be obtained.\n\n> Planets do not twinkle the way stars do. In fact, this is a good way of figuring out if a particular object you see in the sky is a planet or a star. The reason is that stars are so far away that they are essentially points of light on the sky, while planets actually have finite size. The size of a planet on the sky in a sense "averages out" the turbulent effects of the atmosphere, presenting a relatively stable image to the eye.\n\n[source](http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=114)
Yup, me too.
[Jerry, just remember. It's not a lie... if you believe it... ](http://youtu.be/vn_PSJsl0LQ)
And?  That quote is nothing but pure opinion and emotion.\n\nOf course you're not going to convince some of the most extreme believers that only conventional drugs are any kind of treatment. \n\nThe results in the film speak for themselves: Scientists were able to "dial up and down" the growth of cancer cells in their lab mice.  That one doctor was able to mostly (or completely) eliminate his patients' needs for conventional drugs via mainly a change in their diets (along with exercise too, I believe.)\n\n
Actually I believe the opposite, almost. I believe that you do either have the ability or you do not. I also believe that far more women have the ability than are capable of it, and they can be taught. You can't instill a girl with the ability, but you can definitely train her to recognize what muscles control it and which areas are stimulated to elicit the squirt. Also, the girl needs to understand that relaxation is the key to getting there. So in at least that respect, it is something that you can teach.
Did Asimov write any non-fiction books?
You say that as if the vegan diet is superior to the omnivore diet, which isn't true at all.
Our pediatricians did this. We were relieved when they approached us that they would begin asking parents who refuse to vaccinate to find another practice–and they were relieved when we thanked them for doing so. I'm sorry for the kids of such parents, but the thought of my kids being exposed to entirely preventable diseases before they're fully vaccinated is an infuriating one for me, as a parent. \n\nPublic schools need to be next.
The good thing is, now you can read the whole xkcd archives again!
I feel bad that she had to even be in there presence.
Also, it is a game made by Milton-Bradley...
Confirmation bias, still.  \n\nThe fact that it is colder on a particular day *does* support the premise that global warming is not real...it is one of about a billion data point that need to be considered.\n\nThe fact the chose the one that agrees with their preconceptions, that is the epitome of confirmation bias.
Erm, cyclists have known this for years. What a silly post.
Nothing on there is even funny....
The best names. (Batman is possibly the best cat)
thanks for this. This always happens me too. Snippets of conversation or random situations that seem unlikely for me ever to be in, and then I recall the dream just as they begin to happen. Good to have a term for it
It's still clearer and less simplified than saying you're liberal on the topic.\n\nWe could both say that we're liberal on the topic of prostitution, but that doesn't really make things clear as we still have important differences in our thoughts on it.
Faggot.
In fact, real sleep is better for learning than any gimmick.  It's during the sleep cycle that your brain, through the process of dreaming, deliberates problems you're having. \n\nYou can direct this process by repeated attempts to meditate on your problems before you go to sleep. \n\nUse Occam's Razor. All you can find after looking is flimsy evidence = this is a gimmick. \nIf it worked, we wouldn't have homework. We'd have recommended sleep material. \n\nThis is in line with the electro-shock exercise machine. \nNo, you won't get stronger by laying there and shocking yourself. You get stronger by doing work. You get smarter by thinking about things.
I can assure you that human interaction, at least with the acupuncturists I know, is the very definition of a worthwhile treatment.  Some styles of acupuncture aren't merely about needles, they are about BEING with your patient in a therapeutic way.
The title should be enough
>Each time I answered according to what I'll call my "native or innate" response and each time I fell into the introvert box. Everyone who's known me over that time cannot believe I'm an introvert, including my wife who is an introvert.\n\nIt's perfectly possible to be a sociable introvert, as such a trait is a "symptom" of introversion. If you want to know if you are truly an introvert (biologically, not socially), you can try the "Lemon Juice Test". Here's the procedure: 1) Take a double-tipped cotton swab, tie a thread in its center so it's perfectly horizontal, 2) swallow 3 times, 3) put one end of swab on tongue for 20 sec, 4) place 4 drops of lemon juice under your tongue, 5) put other end of swab on your tongue for 20 secs. When you hang it on the thread again, it would likely no longer balance horizontally if you are an introvert. This is based on Corcoran's (1964) finding that introverts on average secrete twice as much saliva in response to lemon juice, and it was later replicated by Eysenck (1967).\n\nI don't know why I wrote this now, but I think it's a neat experiment. I still agree with you, though, that personality scores are not destiny - they predict outcomes of groups, not individuals. Likewise, the lemon juice test can predict social outcomes for a group of people, but it is not a crystal ball. Sociable introverts are just *generally* more unlikely than sociable extraverts. I'd think the self-fulfilling prophecy is much more dangerous than a "bad personality".
Libertarianism is similar to anarchy and a couple other fringe political ideals in that it doesn't take human nature into account nearly enough. They are usually naive ideals that have a few great ideas for specific topics for our current society, but on a whole would destroy everything.
I really don't like this "psychic" idea because the only time I've seen it is on television, and those can be easily faked.
You might enjoy this site.....http://youarenotsosmart.com/.  It's informative and entertaining!  lol
Eveyone seems to agree that all greys look the same, with no personal features from one to another and this kinda makes sense as they probably are 'cloned' to perfection and physical singularity. \n\nFrom this, one can say that their education and overall knowledge would be singular as well, with no stupidity to be purely evil just for the sake of it as some ignorant/sick humans are.\n\nOr something like this.
yeah because because going outside for an hour will automatically give you skin cancer, caveman.
As soon as the list starts it jumps heavily into quackery.\n\nNone of those things have citations or evidence and seem to be very far from reality.\n\nIt also doesn't even say if the water was hot or not. If you pour boiling water on plants every day it will kill them, microwave or not.\n\nThere also needs to be far more than 2 samples to be scientific.\n\nEdit2: "Microwaves don’t work different ways on different substances" False. Microwaves resonate water and create heat, however in metal they induce current and do something completely differently. The frequency does affect different materials in different ways, e.g. electricity/heat/no effect.\n
Chuck's Beard isn't grown, it's formed out of the tears of dead creationists.
[This](http://one.aao.org/SearchResults.aspx?q=Orthokeratology&t=o&type=0) seems definitive.
wut
I was referring to the general public's assessment of said articles, through their comments, notably the highest rated comments. It wasn't really a comment about the actual content of the articles themselves.
Okay, here's the deal: I didn't use strawmen, I defended a real person, in a real situation, seeing real people really die. Yes, I said that saving lives is the most important goal. In what way is that wrong? I ask because when you boil down everything I said, that's actually all I said. I wrapped it in some suggestions for how you can save lives and possibly help alleviate some of the problems with female patients being traumatized, but I will never apologize for the idea that saving lives is the most important goal of the medical establishment. Providing escorts to every female patient in a third world hospital where resources are very minimal is likely to be unworkable without costing lives. Perhaps fear of men is causing half the population to be unwilling to go to the hospital, but evidence doesn't support that. Perhaps the idea of having escorts be opt in would prejudice some portion of doctors against their patients, and perhaps that question would cause some patients to not go to the doctor because they were unwilling to ask for an escort, and they were unwilling to go without one. That would suck... but it isn't always feasible to have everything when resources are slim. People already die in third world hospitals due to lack of staff... adding this extra burden will kill more of them. It sucks, it really does. Of course, in a perfect world there would also be no men who commit acts of sexual abuse so escorts would not be needed. As is, you do the best you can with the resources you actually have. That's cold, hard, brutal logic.\n\nThe accusation of privilege? It's aimed at anyone who actually thinks that those kinds of resources are available in a hospital in the most of the third world. I kind of feel like assuming that resources are just available to a hospital is a kind of blindness. Did you know that for the most part malaria sufferers don't go to the hospital in much of the world? Sure, it can kill you, and sure, IV fluids would reduce the risk... but the resources aren't there, so the malaria sufferer doesn't get access to them. That's the kind of place where you are asking them to use resources to escort women during doctor visits.\n\nAlso, I'm so not self made. There were many resources that did help me, and many people. The stuff coming up from the bottom wasn't made easier because of my skin colour or gender, the stuff from just above that was... but I have lived enough life to actually see that, quite clearly. I can even point to the line. When I was trying to find shelter and food colour and gender didn't help me, it meant that my odds of finding a safe bed were lower, my odds of being fed were lower. Once I wasn't in bare survival mode, once I was trying to move from minimum wage work to better work, yeah, my gender and colour absolutely helped me. Even moving from the bottom, I had help (I would not have been able to do it solo in fact). Thing is, until you really look, not through the lens of theory, but at cold, hard facts, you are the one not educating yourself. See if the facts on the ground match the predictions of the theory... if they don't the theory is flawed and requires modification. All theory needs constant testing, most of it won't be destroyed by contradictory evidence, it will simply be modified. Does evolution cease to be if punctuated equilibrium turns out to be correct (at this point it probably is)? No, but it does change a number of specific details of the theory.\n\nIf you don't see the logic in my post, don't just assume that it isn't there... and if I don't agree with you, don't just assume I haven't understood or that I am arguing in bad faith. You could be wrong and not know it. Of course, that is true of me as well, and perhaps my outsider perspective to some of this means I have missed some details that would leave me with a different opinion, but in the case of the hospitals, I don't think it did.
No I dont but my mom still lives there.\nIve had a few but I honestly ignore them they're not that bad a creepy one. I had lately tho. I was walking across this bridge over a underpass by my home. This guy is walking in front of me the whole time not speaking. He turns the corner to exit the bridge I'm 10 steps behing him. I get off the bridge n hes gone.I freak out thinking hes hiding and hes gonna jump out to rob me. Then I realize hide where? No place to hide, no bushes, no houses... I looked around again and said "F it I'm out"
Reading comprehension minus for you. From the FAQ: \n>A clear majority of /r/NoFap, subscribers and moderators alike, agree that there's nothing inherently wrong with masturbation. As one moderator put it, "It's natural. Everyone does it; hell, even monkeys do it. We are just choosing not to for our own reasons. If you keep fapping, that's totally cool -- there's nothing wrong or bad with it." There are religious members who believe otherwise, but they are here in part because /r/NoFap's open-minded approach works better for them than the morally-focused "chastity ministries" that dot the internet.
This is a huge problem with skepticism in general. If you want to find skeptical, reasoned research into (for example) the primal diet, all you're going to find is people freaking out about how it changed their lives. The same thing goes for searching for skeptical, reasoned research into veganism, despite these two things being almost polar opposites.\n\nI believe the problem comes down to two things. The first, and most obvious, is there's money to be made promoting things. Debunking them, not so much. The second is what is known in politics as an "enthusiasm gap." The number of people who are REALLY EXCITED to promote the latest whatever greatly outnumbers the group of people who are even remotely interested in a well-researched and reasoned discussion.
they sure are taking their sweet time figuring out that we could, but can't since we didn't learn it as children lol.\n\nhonestly, i don't think we are direct descendants of ET's.\n\n- either we are the result of manipulation back in the day (during the period of say THE MISSING LINK )...\n\n- either we evolved on our own and they are just stealing our dna now cause we are so damn interesting\n\n
THIN OUT ITS NUMBERS!
Real treatments have the placebo effect built in. So why would you want to make someone:\n\nfeel better by treating them with nonsense + nothing\n\nfeel better by treating them effectively + actually doing something for them
I never said those subs don't suck, just that /r/atheism does too.
I considered debating her, but she's likely incapable of logic so I simply settled for calling her a loon.
> If they said "you pay for it, or we sue" I'd have a problem.\n\nThey are paying for it, by not having a crop to sell that year.\n\nGiven how easy it is to have crops contaminated by Monsanto's seeds, how many years of "allow us to tear up your crops or we sue" do you think it would take before a farmer ended up being financially forced to buy their seeds from Monsanto?
This whole thread is full of awesome. This is why I post to reddit.
I'm tired of the "Hey guys, I just saw a UFO.. here's a shitty drawing of it I made!" posts.
This is why I hang out with you, no1113.
What do they expect to learn from the course? Perhaps something they haven't been exposed to before or it's a topic they're interested in. On what basis do you select your courses? If students had no ability to judge course content why does every course have a course evaluation by the students if they're so incompetant? The course has been approved by the department as applicable and the by the students evidenced by their enrollment. It's you who has the problem, not the students. \n\nHave you never heard of the absurd example? it's an age-old rhetorical device. I'm not trying to argue about Marxism, I'm making a point to show that it's not always required or advisable to show alternative views. Besides that, how do you know that those alternatives are not examined in the course anyway? You make a lot of criticisms of a course that you've never taken, just as the majority of those commenting here. \n\nLet me ask you something - do you think that there may be a number of courses being taught right now that promote AGW and nothing but AGW? Do you think that perhaps those courses take a swipe at skeptics? Do you hear skeptics getting hot and bothered by those courses and calling for the universities to stop the practise? No.\n\nThis post concerns people who "*have a near unmovable position on the issue*" and who are calling for acedemic censorship. That is the issue and nothing more. The issue was raised by a group dedicated to presenting one side of a debate that has, quite frankly, blown up in the faces of its supporters. \n\nAnd you can take your final rational and shove that up your ass.
What I hate in reporting about these things is that they get some poor photo expert to say "Well the image hasn't been doctored" when of course it probably wasn't. And then that translates to omg that really is a daemon even though the guy said nothing of the sort.
Because companies can market a product based upon it, just like "nutrients".\n\n> Our product is superior because it doesn't have gluten!!!\n\nIt doesn't matter that this is a meaningless distinction for more than 99% of the population.
Perhaps for a little while your dad and yourself took an excursion into some strange iteration of our own universe where things were a bit "different?" Maybe you were free to move around in a temporarily "stuck" temporal zone?\n\nLame excuses, I know, but I truly liked your story and had to comment with SOMETHING!
Derren Brown seems willing to explain his tricks, he even uses them to debunk hoax psychics and cold readers, but of course he is first and foremost a performer, so he isn't going to reveal exactly how everything works - he has been more than open about this fact as well.
I hope she's just a troll.
I know it's just an anecdote(Ergo: not hard data), but in my experience, vaccines work. For example, I had to get the chickenpox vaccine in order to be around someone who had severe, very contagious shingles and it worked perfectly. No chickenpox for me and I had no side effects other than a soreness in my arm.
Any criticism of OWS is met with baseless accusations of said criticizer being a "corporate shill". It's basically the same as when fundamentalist religious people dismiss any criticism as the work of Satan.
I believe we will eventually find more evidence to support panspermia. To be clear, I'm not talking directed panspermia.
Hopefully not ones that my doctor reads.
Anyone know how this turned out?  I think it would only be fair if the child was taken from his parents, and a class action suit prosecuted by the parents of the infected children bankrupted them.
I'm Dutch, I was messing up my languages.
Ah, I took you to be saying that this had actually been debunked scientifically. But now I get what you meant. \n\nAmbiguity...the devil's volleyball...
I wonder how much voltage/current it would take to damage one of the meters?  Like, what size battery would you need to connect to wires running down to your hands for the needle to bend or the fuse to blow?\n\nI ask purely for scientific purposes....
>indisputable\n\nTo be fair.  Everything in science is disputable.  That's kind of how it works.
They are still used for clearances all though any person who administers them for clearances will tell you it is just a tool and 99% of the test is mental control over the tester.
Do you observe planes at night often?
The idea is great, but i'm gettting fucking tired of this comic format. Its fucking everywhere.
I think (or would like too) that most people would be convinced by the kid with the most convincing argument, and not the one who happens to be wearing clothing that they approved of.\n\nHow is having a clean cut kid in a "Business casual outfit" more persuasive to you? Is it simply because you are so judgmental that you would just walk on by and not even normally talk to the possible hoodlum or is it that you assume anyone dumb enough to stick a ring of metal in their lip is not as smart as Beaver Cleaver or whomever it is you prefer?
Ok, that is a possibility. What are your thoughts on texture?
I already knew most of the information in the book (with the exception of some of the Britain specific things) but that wasn't what made the book so great.  It was his presentation, and his reasoning about the harm of pseudo-science and the like.  He does a great job explaining why he believes these people are hurting the public, and it is quite convinced.  It is also entertaining (and disheartening) how much people believe that fake science nonsense.
haha, i was an early reader/poster. probably reminded people of /r/atheism or something. <3
remove the dot from the link url
>Though the juxtaposition you provide is interesting. Are you suggesting having 'fun' and being 'skeptical' mutually exclusive? Why is that?\n\nNo, I was being sarcastic. I thought the italics made it more clearly.\n\n>Perhaps though 'tornado truthers' are a commonly talked about subject on r/skeptic and i'm just not keen on it. Maybe you could link me to the repeated and recent discussions on this topic, which would (upon this one) invoke a mocking tone?\n\nCheck out any thread involving HAARP. Most people that regularly browse /r/skeptic have seen enough about it to not really care any more.
> Please don't confuse its smallness for a lack of quality substance.\n\nAh nah, I pretty much saw it immediately as a lack of bullshit :p  I've subbed and am already thinking about my first submission.\n\n> I know there was a cadre of good UFOlogists who grew weary of (what appeared to the r/UFO masses as) "preaching" a rubric of critical thinking and quality discussion.\n\nYeah I haven't quite gotten there yet, but I'm sure I will :p  I guess I'm always surprised that people who claim to be so interested in the truth simply have little interest in using the requisite tools to find it.  Critical Thinking isn't optional if you are looking for the truth.
The 1st season was great. \nbut now the topics are getting silly... the Immortal Soul and ESP\n...I just know Bigfoot will be a topic by season 3
Undefined? yes.\nGoosebumps? (unfortunately) no.
I'm sorry. But that argument doesn't even follow. It's just totally wrong on a so many levels.\n\nIt makes wild assumptions with zero basis, and completely confuses a fictional(!) probability with any reality. Probably and actually have no direct connection. Okay? Probably does not mean something is, or even will be. There is only likelihood. Which people are confusing to mean "it must be so, because it's super likely". NO. no. No no no no no. no.\n\nHere. On any infinite time scale, all possibilities achieve 1, that's an actual fact. It's simply because you're using infinity as a variable, therefore everything will happen.\n\nMathematically factual, and really simple. No matter how small the chance (which you obviously understand that all things are possible, with simply varying degrees of likelihood) that tiny micron of a chance over given infinity for time, instantly equals 1 (well infinity again actually, but we can certainly count that as 100%) and therefore must eventually be true. \n\nIn other words, if you can believe that time is infinite, there is a 100% chance that you will eventually return to life after death. Guaranteed. Mathematically proven and provable. (You will also become, see, do, and be everything in all possible configurations, because it's all just a matter of chance and time.) So yeah, you'll also pop back to life eventually wearing boots on your hands, as your own mother, as world rugby champion, and as the planet Mars, and all of that simultaneously too at some point. Plus everything else ever. Forever. Because time is infinite. And it's all just time over chance=1. \n\n\nThere, we've taken a given and provable fact, and turned it into something fucking absurd. But HEY, it's all true. WOW! Let's have deep thoughts now about how we HAVE to be living in a computer... because it's just more likely that way, and with the authors absurd understanding of chance, it therefore must be so.\n\nSomeone shoot me now so I can come back as Mars already.
One thing leapt out at me - the claim that these signals were received by Sputnik. Considering Sputnik was a nuclear warhead casing with a couple of transmitters, a cooling system, and a power supply wedged inside, this claim is clearly BS; _it had no receiver on board_.
> Oh, I see. This must be a "downvote if disagree" subreddit. Have at it.\n\nLooks like you are right!
Holy crap, it's over $2,600 (Friday, 1:21 EST).  I'm afraid to check back Monday and see what it finally goes for.  I may lose all hope for humanity.
There's nothing really all that wrong with what he said.  Animals DO go apeshit before earthquakes and volcanoes.  Why wouldn't that affect us?
Crazy. If I paid upfront and found out it was a trick, I'd kick the dude's ass, tell everyone else it's trickery, and suggest we forcefully demand our money back.\n\nBut I'm not Japanese so maybe I'd be missing some cultural thing that would prevent this.
How about my TMG issue?  Sure it's rare but in my area it's not uncommon for kids to bring in venison or rabbit jerky.\n\nSomeone with TMG allergies will have the same reaction (sometimes worse!) than those peanut kids.  The allergy thing I'm not too convinced on because catering to allergies is crazy, there are so many that we might as well just ban outright anything but gruel in the lunch room.  Gluten free gruel of course, a few diseases where this is an issue.
The "Subjects for your debunking toolbox" section looks particularly good. A shame that they don't have a small table of contents at the top though to link to each major section. Looks like a great resource though.
I like to ask questions like this and people always tell me the same thing, and here it is:\n\nIf the article says anything like this, "Weiss' research, which has been conducted **without standard scientific protocols or peer review**, has also been criticized for relying, as proof of reincarnation, on personal information about Weiss' deceased son that was provided by "Catherine" during a regression of her to 'the space between lives,'" then it's probably bogus.\n\nedit: formatting cuz I'm new and dumb
Right you are, I transposed the Democratic number and the total. My bad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfJzrmS9UfY&NR=1&feature=fvwp\n\nthis one is better for this\n
Yes. Please post it when you get a chance.\n\nFlu sucks. I don't think I've ever had it, but I had what my doctor was calling a psuedo-flu -- presents with flu symptoms condensed to about 36 hours, including a high fever. I was pretty terrified.
This post makes me regret that I only have one face to palm.
It's as useful as an H2S detector.\n\nIf you aren't in safety gear already, when it starts beeping (or turns black) run for your fucking life, but you're probably dead already.
They're apparently very proud of being easy marks.
maybe i am just a sucker for a good story and a believable premise... or just high.
His actions were also "sexist and damaging"
Because science is a subset of skepticism. Also, the apps mentioned are reality based alternatives to astrology, dowsing and quantum nonsense from the likes of Chopra
I fullout explained myself as to how I could have lost track of time, but it also could have been something more.\nI understand what you're saying, so I guess, if we're going to call the red triangle light thing a sighting, then yes,  that would make this my second sighting.
If you're interested in interdimensional aliens you should talk to Grant Morrisson.
THIS IS THE COOLEST THING I HAVE EVER SEEN, BAR NONE! AWESOME.
*X-files tune starts playing*
This is a straw man.  The real issue is food safety not from ammonia, but from bacteria.  The treatment is not effective if not enough ammonia is used. They started using less ammonia because of the taste.
Came her to say this XD. "And just to prove it, here is a situation where the other person denied that I was right! But I'm pretty sure he was just lying."
Gee, how did you know that's what I was looking for. Are you psychic? ;-p\n\n/r/skeptic, people should have some basic understanding of the level of evidence that people expect here.
You are dreaming
I think if a product actively harms people, there is an obvious consumer risk (just like any other product) and it should be pulled from shelves.\n\nLikewise, telling patients that they should forgo necessary medical care and replace it with unproven therapies, should also not be legal.\n\nAll of that said, personally, I'm not a big fan of limiting marketplaces when there is no health risk involved.  I think, as skeptics who really get hung up on evidence, we tend to discount the power that placebo actually has.  There are a slew of people out there who believe that a magnetic seat cover in their car is helping their back pain, a gold bracelet is helping their arthritis pain, and detoxifying foot baths are "detoxifying" (whatever the fuck that means).  The thing is, through the maximization of placebo, these products do help people....sometimes even more than OTC medical approaches (Asprin, for example).\n\nI know a lot of skeptics don't agree with me on this, which is cool.  I have found that many skeptics seem to lean on the side of using the force of government to forcefully remove these products from shelves.  I tend to think this is a mistake.  When you ban a product, conspiracy theorists come out of the woodwork to say "LOOK BIG PHARMA AND THEIR GOVERNMENT LACKEY IS BANNING IT BECAUSE IT IS COMPETITION."  Which, essentially just creates an underground market for frog piss, or whatever is being banned.  Then you have a completely unregulated substance creating an entirely different problem.\n\nThe truth is the world, by and large, is not skeptical.  It wants to believe.  While the skeptical and scientific movements are getting larger, I still can't bring myself to deny these people's right to seek out placebo relief so long as the product is not harmful. \n\n
>You appear to have quite the confidence in your own personal longevity. \n\nAdam lived for 800 years or something.\n\nThough I personally hope christians will hurry up and get raptured away, rather than living longer lives than the rest of us.
If you want to get laid: smiling and nodding.
Their food is safe?  Do you understand the use of antibiotics in there methods?\n\n\n
Not to mention the fact that giving food only solves the current condition and may actually stunt local production - but eradicating a disease is a much more permanent solution, and has no local production that can be displaced.
I loved that game *so* much.
These people make more than that, why would they care. Same goes for the Homeopathy industry, they don't need to prove it does work, they don't give a shit.
I'll see if I can find one from a local source. Recently from my home town a girl went missing for a few months and at one point some medium was hired by the PD.
Every true skeptic adheres to the party line without question.
Cool.. thank you for your response; I appreciate you taking the time to satisfy my curiosity.\n\nI was thinking some of those were aircrafts, but I couldn't find the footage so I thought I'd ask you. The 9:03 seemed to interest me the most because of the frame-by-frame and the object appearing in random places.\n\nDid you see my [video from youtube?](http://youtu.be/WZX-4izun2s?hd=1&t=12s) I'm curious to what someone like you thinks of those.
I'm leaving this message here so that I can easily reply to it after my class. there is so much wrong with what you said that I'm sort of shocked to see it in r/skeptic.
>Why?\n\nBecause when you just use that word and don't provide an actual definition, you are being intentionally vague, which is a way to manipulate arguments by "moving the goalposts" and the classic straw-man fallacy.\n\nWe're in /r/skeptic here*; I will not tolerate fallacies.
That is exactly what I was thinking...looks like a street light diffuser.
Good for him!  I didn't know this until now either.  I'm surprised that he felt the need to keep it a secret for so long.  Different generation I guess...  I'd bet that not too many homophobes are fans of his anyway.  I'm sure he had no problem with getting too many annoying and stupid questions.
Ok, now I'm done.  You aren't following what I'm saying and then pulling the strawman fallacy on me.  I'm out.
[It's pretty amazing](http://www.amazon.com/Our-Dumb-Century-Presents-Headlines/dp/0609804618). It's even sharper and funnier (and so densely-layered and historically accurate, right down to the hyphened compound words and ridiculous ads) that I have to recommend it.
High school science and math teacher here. I can guarantee that I will do my best to teach ACTUAL science in my classroom. Be it climate change, evolution, the big bang, or (insert "controversial" topic here), I will always provide my students with our current scientific understanding of a topic; no matter what the state or federal departments may tell me to teach.
Hopefully the US military hasn't gotten to it first!
Interesting :/\nLink me to some stuff?
Success was reported with placebo medications. \n\nImagine that, a nocebo condition cured by placebo!
I've heard this quite a few times before, is there any truth to this?\n\nSurely compared to the urine content to the non urine water that was evaporated, it would dilute it loads? It would be one part urine to a thousand parts normal water.\n\n(Insert homeopathy joke here.)\n\nEDIT: Terrible grammar fixed
The only movie that has any conspiracy material in it (specifically, 9/11) is the first one from 2007. \n\nPresumably you haven't watched [Zeitgeist: Addendum](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EewGMBOB4Gg) or [Zeitgeist: Moving Forward](http://www.zeitgeistmovingforward.com) but are quite comfortable lumping them all together.\n\nAs for the economics bit - the whole point is that economics itself is bullshit and smoke and mirrors. Why would you need someone who was really expert at bullshitting to discuss the matter when you can just analyze its basic functionality, realize the rules of the game are worth nothing and move on from there?
Is that that the guy aj jacobs visited in "The Year of Living Biblically"? "http://www.ajjacobs.com/books/yolb.asp
That's true, but we also have more evidence to support evolution than we do to support plate tectonics.
Smartphone app? Basically you submit an "instance" to a universal feed, and areas in the world with loads of "instances" in the last x minutes will be displayed via a heatmap synced to the universal feed.\n\n\nIf you guys like this, then I'll forward this to an Android guy I know.
nope, not Polish. definitely Russian.
Telling them it's a waste of money isn't medical advice. It's economic advice. It's providing good customer service too, to suggest a better product.
By the mere fact that thealbinorhino called jimarib "an idiot" kinda suggests that he thought he wasn't adding to the discussion.  \n\nSo, I would still maintain, that in this case, this was a perfect opportunity for him to use the down arrow.  \n\n
I forget the dreams right after I wake up most of the time, and I've forgotten all of them now.
I've always noticed that the "rouge planet" theory has a striking resemblance to Thundarr:\nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhAobPugvsk
I think I've been on the Internets too long because I don't use body language to describe things.
Agreed. I became frustrated with this guy on NPR today who was in support of keeping it illegal. "Why would the FDA legalize a dangerous and addictive substance?" *Seriously!? That's your best point!?*
Belief in the afterlife doesn't necessitate belief in a god.
>Percussive Maintenance\n\nI *love* this!\n
>You didn't know I was a woman, but didn't care? I am not at all surprised. Women only matter when they support the ideology. That's been my complaint from my first comment.\n\nI love this, a woman whining about a feminist, and then doing everything she can to reject actual equality.\n\nI didn't treat you like a woman. I didn't treat you like a man either. I treated you like a _person_. If you don't like that, then that's your problem. Above all, I'm for _equality_, and that applies just as much when men are mistreated as when women are.\n\nIn this case, though, men haven't been offended or hurt in the slightest. Watson hasn't trampled on anyone's rights, and she hasn't "victimized" anyone.\n\n>When Watson talks about gender it's the most important thing and everyone should listen to what she says about women, but when other women talk about being women who aren't represented at all by Watson's claims, suddenly gender doesn't matter anymore?\n\nDo you think I care that Watson is a woman? Do you think I would have responded differently if it had been a gay man who was uncomfortable in that elevator, and made a video saying "guys, don't do that"? If so, then fuck off. You're not being sincere, and I want nothing to do with your bullshit arguments.\n\n>And it's up to that person to tell you, because this is a matter of personal preference. Sometimes people WANT to be picked up. This a basic element of social life.\n\nSo Watson can't tell me _not_ to do something because it might impact other women's _needs_ to be hit on, but you can tell me to _disregard_ Watson's request even though that might mean making _other_ women uncomfortable?\n\nRight.\n\nRegardless of what you think (because at this point, I honestly couldn't care less), I'm going to go with the option where I _won't_ make anyone uncomfortable, even though it might mean you'll have to wait forever to be hit on.\n\nAnd what the fuck? Why should _I_ do the hitting on? Just because I'm a man? You want to hook up? Hit on _me_. Easy as that.\n\n>This is so insanely backwards I have no idea what to say. I'm nearly dumbfounded by your outright inability to grasp reality. Find a new hobby.\n\nYou have a good day too.
I heard something similar from [Dara O'Briain.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIaV8swc-fo)
reading that was terrifying. What did the alien feel like when you lightly tapped it with your hand?\n\nwhat did it look like?\n\nslightly open doors at night freak me out. I shut them all.
http://www.chakoteya.net/DoctorWho/14-4.htm
a story that big can never be referenced to "independent sources"... this is embarassing
Wow I checked out my fb and people are leaving the town. They cant sleep and dogs are getting freaked. Even the ground in WI is pissed at Walker. I think the forge up there is actually called Walker forge.
I could tell they had white pupils cuz their eyes were huge. And I dint know if they were using actual words. They're body laungage suggested that they were having a conversation
unconvincingly shopped.\n\n
There's really nothing special about VLC aside from broad format support. I don't really think it's something you can even compare to a fully featured media center suite like XBMC.\n\nEdited to sound less negative.
also notice sound design used for added wow, which I thought was interesting.
This is so late. We've already discovered SuperEarths and stuff, added planets to our solar system, such as Sedna, and more. The only reason planets aren't given much diversity in names is because they are everywhere, and they need to be classified under subclassifications under subclassifications under classifications.
Ask the surgeon if he can use homeopathic medicine to cure her wrist instead of surgery. Now that would be entertaining.
I know the worlds oldest living hydrocephalic, his eyes/eye sockets are the same size as the rest of us
Maybe they were organic technology and time decayed it all?\n\n/fascetious
Posted it on here? I'm sure others besides myself would be happy to evaluate it. just ask evaluaters to give you a time reference so you can go and check the original to avoid any pranksters.
Nope, but just talking about the topic automatically makes you sound Stallmanish.
wut
Pfft, show's how much you know.  The clothes are made by the ghost, like residual self-image in The Matrix.
That's what we do in /skeptic. We believe things are true because of the grand possibilities, instead of question them until the evidence pans out...
There are a lot of people stupid enough to believe in Homeopathy!
I'm sure it's wifi or blu tooth or nextel or something.  If she's still using radio she deserves to get it jammed.
I didn't have sex as a teen and now I'm in a bad mood
Very interesting, but even more so that there doesn't appear to have been any follow-up with the Betz family.\n\nI was born in Jacksonville in the year that this orb was found, and I'm somewhat familiar with modern Ft. George Island.  Much of it is now a state park and nature preserve.  \n\nI can't find any of the Betz family mentioned in the article listed in the current property records for Duval County.  Someone would have to go and look up the land records, physically, to see what happened to the land.\n\nGerri and Antoine are probably deceased.  Terry, 21 at the time, would be 59 - possibly a doctor.  \n\nAnyone want to do some research?\n\n
I heard from a marine pilot friend of mine, after many drinks, that there is a secret underground airbase near downtown Austin.
THEY ARE COMING !!!!\nBEAM ME UP!!!!
I think I figured it out.\n\nSee, what he did was put an iPad under the crystal ball, and then he used Wikipedia to look up information about Randi.  Then, when Randi gave him an address, he used Google Maps to get the street view and used this picture to describe the house and landscape at the address.  Finally, because he knows the background of his audience, he knew they wouldn't believe he was psychic, and wrote that down beforehand.
No, it will definitely not happen that today, because Camping "knows" it, and the Bible says that no one will know the day.\n\nWe should take a couple thousand children and utterly convince them that the world will end, each on a different date. Keep repeating over millennia and humankind will never perish!
I don't science with YouTube.
This is the simplest and most common explanation. People, even just after it happened, have a completely fictionalized account of the "reading". It was probably just a standard cold reading where the participants gave all the information to the "reader".
Its a good thing that a book is not considered a peer reviewed scientific paper. Time and time again large scale extensive studies have shown no nutritional difference between organic and conventionally grown food. Which leads me to believe something else is going on here. Also here is a thorough review of [Organic vs Conventional nutrition in food](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1541-4337.2010.00108.x/full)\n\nIt could be the picking practices as this is something both conventional and "organic" farms might be guilty of. However this one study is not enough to form a conclusion but should be investigated further. Scientific American, however, in quoting two sources that espouse fairly unscientific and conspiratorial claims have lowered their standards of science reporting in the name of getting a headline.
1) What's this got to do with skepticism?\n\n2) Is that a HDMI cable? Are they trying to sell a fucking cable for $500?
There are far too many flying contraptions these days for this sighting to be taken seriously. Looks cool nonetheless.
Once, before I knew what the word 'homeopathic' meant, I bought a bottle of homeopathic teething tablets based strongly on the pharmacist's recommendation.\n\nIncidentally, we ended up using baby orajel.
Why do these articles never cite any sources.  As such and such a man says, x claim, with little information about who said person was, or where his studies are.
I'd guess that the believers mixed in with the skeptics would report a *greater* feeling of being haunted than the homogeneous group of believers because the believers in the mixed group would inevitably band together against the skeptics and over-reinforce their own woo.
You know that it is illegal to sell a haunted house without disclosing that it is haunted, right?
"Onions look like the body's cells."\n\n****WHICH ONES?!\nಠ\\_ಠ\n
It concerns me that D.B. Cooper, as savvy as he was, was wearing brown shoes with a black suit.
That just sounds like you agree with me. That pressure is exactly what I'm talking about.
>georgia_tech_swagger\n\nJudith ... is that you?!
The concept of "absolute proof" is anathema to most of the paranormal. These are not pieces of material. They're ethereal and subtle- ideas that are alive.
This one behaves a lot like the one over the dome of the rock in Jerusalem last year; thanks for sharing it with us. You should send it in to Coast To Coast.
Sounds like another q-ray thingy bullshit.  Tell your friend to think clearly about all of this.
To English speakers, *latte* is absolutely an English word, as are the words *karaoke, deja vu*, and *macho*.  We don't suddenly switch languages mid-sentence.  It's not one-way either- *terebi, anime*, and *los blue jeans* are real Japanese and Spanish words.\n\nPeople get wrapped around the axle about what words "really mean."  But a word doesn't have a single, immutable meaning- it's nothing more than a symbol to communicate meaning.  When the meaning of one symbol is shared commonly within a group, that's what the word "really means."  Pretty tight, huh?\n\nProscriptivism is nothing more than pedantic masturbation.
Inspect your body.  Do you have any markings on you?  Your back, arms, legs, etc?\n\nHow old are you?  Has this or anything like this ever happened to you before?\n\nHave you ever talked to anyone in your family about anything like this?  I ask this question because E.T. visitation has often shown to have a cross generational component (i.e. children contacted sometimes indicates parents and grandparents contacted as well).
I wish it were cross-referenced, sorted better, and redesigned, but I concur.
Freaky. Good read though.
This is what I was thinking. I feel as though national geographic was jumping the gun on some very very old temple find.
What have you done so far? You could certainly work on open source projects. Having something to show off helps.
Interesting read. It seems like he is so close but yet so far away.
I remember the first time I heard of this. My reaction was, "Interesting, a disease that makes your skin produce hairlike strands in strange places." The sufferers', however, concluded that parasites were burrowing in. That was the giveaway for me that it wasn't real.
This coming from the generation that invented and uses microwaves on a daily basis.
>Wait, you haven't reached the "governments are big fat nazis and want to harm your kids purposefully because it makes money" part.\n\nResponse to that person: so I suppose this Eisenstein guy does everything for free, right?
When you take actual treatment, you get the placebo effect on top of the specific treatment effect. Therefore, we should just keep prescribing the normal treatments! What on earth is that talk of prescribing placebo "on top of it" or instead?\n\nIn the cases where there aren't treatments, doctors can and already do prescribe improbable treatments that work in very few cases, and treatments that are very generally thought to help like massages for relaxation.\n\nI agree that anything else is deceit. If it works when people are fully informed, go ahead, otherwise it's lying.
The story is about having 2 hours of missing time, if they were exposed to psychadelic drugs then they DID notice...
>My point is that SETI does use science to investigate the phenomena...\n\nAnd you as an individual are doing it right? Thus far you've meditated and seen some lights in the sky you couldn't explain. That's not a smoking gun by any means.\n\nIt is naive to think that an extraterrestrial civilization who has mastered interstellar travel is using radio waves to communicate. SETI is welcome to keep looking out there for life, meanwhile people all over the world are making contact on an individual level.\n\n\n>And you as an individual are doing it right? Thus far you've meditated and seen some lights in the sky you couldn't explain. That's not a smoking gun by any means.\n\nAnd I am one of thousands. Others have had far more profound experiences than me. If you want to experience it, you can. If not, you don't have to. The smoking gun is the fact that anyone with the will to do so can have the same experiences as me.\n\n\n>Why does there have to be a secret motive or agenda? Are you a conspiracy theorist?\n\nWell I used both "motive" to imply that they could have have positive intentions, and "agenda" because it has negative connotations. Point is, I have no idea what's going on with SETI, and it doesn't really matter because they are way behind.\n\n\n>Exactly what power do you think SETI, a collection of independent groups and research projects, has? The government did fund SETI projects in the 90's but they are by no means the driving force today.\n\nBy power, I meant the collective faith we put in them. I don't mean power over anyone, but the power they wield simply because they are the group that the majority of people are looking to for the answer to the question "Is contact happening?"\n\n>Maybe they have higher standards of evidence than you.\n\nIf completely ignoring all evidence is high standards, then I suppose that's what they have.
Personally, MBTI has always felt like one of those "WCHICH HARRY POTTER CHARACTER ARE U!?" quizzes, only people take it way too seriously and bring it up in conversation like it actually means something.
While I agree with you OP, the language was completely unnecessary.
I, too, came to post PZ's remarks on this. PZ is much more qualified to speak to this issue.  But he is even less qualified than the hoard of climatologists who believe in warming.
Set yourself up for a punchline.  Nice
Buzz Aldrin has come out many, many times stating that not only did he experience unexplained phenomena in space, but also on the moon.\n\nIf you do even a rudimentary search of the Apollo transcripts the astronauts make numerous references to curious anomalies - some of them being lights and structures (referred to as 'campfires' by astronauts), while others very strongly suggested another presence (whether it was a 'ship' or 'ufo' to something ground based). It's all there in the transcripts.\n\nLet's also not forget his famous rants about humans being 'warned off the moon'.\n\nThere is quite bit of material out there (videos, interviews, etc) that is very easily accessable (with minimal effort) that details not only that Buzz Aldrin is not only 'aware' but has a firm belief in extraterrestrial life.\n\nSorry Samizdat_Press, I'm afraid you're a bit uninformed about Buzz Aldrin's views. Please come back after doing some more research.\n\n*edit:* It was Neil Armstrong who gave the 'warned off the moon' interview, not Buzz Aldrin. My mistake.\n
Im just going to say i have no idea why you guys go looking for this stuff... Im living in a house that could have my past girlfriends who died here(RIP Ashley) spirit still here, and a "demon" as my family has called it watching over me since i was 2...and im now 21... This shit is crazy that you guys go looking for it... But good luck to ya anyway, hope you find what you are looking for
I have it happen all the time. My favorite instance was when I was with friends and exploring a playground at night. I walked ahead of the group, turned around to look at them, and the streetlight above me turned off. The next thing my friends saw was me flying out of the darkness to regroup, haha. I've noticed it with repeat offender streetlights, and also ones I've never come across before. Pretty sure it's normal!
i'm a starving artist who will continue to create and chase women.
> How about we say 2 hours? Seeing as we are making up numbers...\n\nThat's fine.  It's a bit unnecessary to go that extreme (simply to illustrate a point), but as you wish.\n\n> Woah there, skippy. It also stated the towers fell due to planes hitting them and NOT explosive demolition.\n\nGiven the video is available for anyone to watch and confirm, I don't see how anyone (apart from 'coppersink', perhaps), would be able to claim otherwise.\n\nBelieve it or not, it is possible to agree with the specific and quantifiable aspects of the report, without agreeing with the final conclusion.  (Hard for me to believe that I actually have to point that out.)\n\nps. related:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phJdP0KqIuE#t=1m50s
Well, I guess at this point, I can express how amused I am by the fact that you first flame me for not answering and then don't answer yourself.\n\nHa!
From what I understand about the crystal skulls is they are from the 19th century.
Yeah we're gonna call the landlord and the police tomorrow and make sure the metal door gets fixed.  The landlord has been a cock to us in the past though, so we'll se how long it takes him to fix this.
[Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality](http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/1/Harry_Potter_and_the_Methods_of_Rationality) is amazing, +1 for this recommendation.
TIL that americans call see-saws teeter-totters.
So i need to stop believing myself. Fuck that!
I like this contribution to the /r/skeptic queue. Attitudes and framing is a valid and important concern in the context of a cultural and epistemological campaign, which is exactly what I believe skepticism to be. \n\nAlong with postive promotion of good science and critical thinking, though, maybe debunking, itself, could be framed and primed less negatively with increased and sustained emphasis of the positive values of honesty and integrity as the very basis for the activity of debunking.
Looks kind of like a firefly dude! :/ \n\nBut I'll be honest I can't tell what I'm looking at, could you explain a little better? xD
Also tree rings from wood used in ancient buildings and structures.
[I Know What I Saw](http://www.iknowwhatisawthemovie.com/trailer.html) is a pretty amazing documentary by James Fox, which was also produced by Leslie Kean (see dalix's response).\n\n[Trailer, YouTube](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQDC_b5DUo0)\n\n[Full movie, YouTube, 320p](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIeGeE0uDJg)
That meeting fellow skeptics for discussion or just a few drinks is better than any discussion board or chat room. But maybe I'm biased. ;)
Nuclear is definitely our best hope right now, especially nuclear powered desalinization plants that not only provide clean energy, but clean water as well.
One lady was a licensed vet and the other was a licensed vet tech. After briefly inspecting for broken bones, they decided to use needles for some minor back problem. There was the usual chi talks and good intentions. I don't think Mike fell for that, he had some remarks :D\n\nIs there any legitimate use for any of this? I mean if you wan't to massage your goats sore back, by all means, but when you wrap it in Doctor titles etc. it feels like a Dirty Job indeed.
I'm aquarius and I'm full of shit.
But your objective and subjective statements are making different points. I can tell you "95% of the world's population believes in God" and "There is no God" and those **might** both be true. 99.99828% of papers could be wrong. They almost certainly aren't, but not because of the numbers.
Carl Jung said that great life events throw shadows behind them in time, and your story is very much in keeping with that idea.\n\nSorry about your loss.\n\n
Where does EMF come from ?
This actually happened to me last night.  I had gone into my closet before bed to fold some laundry and forgot to turn the light off. I didnt notice it till I was already in bed and decided to just not worry about it.  My wife had just started keeping the closet shut at night to keep the animals out.  Well about 30mins after i laid down I started hearing the door rustle.  I assumed it was my cat trying to get to his old sleeping spot, so i look up and start to call for him when I see the light from the crack of the door not visible at about chest to head height.  It was all i could do to not freak out and scream.  This is my first paranormal experience and actually what brought me to this page tonight.  I hope that was descriptive enough, this is also my first post on reddit.
I think business must be bad and they need some publicity
Not "my" logic, just logic. Of course you shouldn't trust studies funded by the drug company developing the same drug. That's what all the legislation currently being pushed is designed to prevent. You shouldn't trust doctors that are on the payroll of drug companies, you should trust politicians that are funded by the industry they're trying to regulate, etc, etc.\n\nAnd if you're going to defend chiropractic science, you should really learn more about it. Subluxation is the KEY to all chiropractic study since it's the basis for all chiropractic manipulation and science. It's why the occupation was invented in the first place.\n\nThe fact that there is actually NO SUCH THING as subluxation in the chiropractic sense should be your first clue that the whole industry is a scam and quackery.\n\nI would suggest you peruse this website: http://www.chirobase.org/ and read the articles under "General Articles" for a full skeptical analysis and debunking of Chiropractic and Chiropractors in detail.
Is that true?\n\nTo what extent do we know that the amount of oil production in hair is affected by how often that oil is removed?
Here's an interesting [study](http://www.chiro.org/research/ABSTRACTS/Placebo_Chiropractic_Treatment.shtml) done at the Palmer Institute, the center of Chiropractic nuttery. The problem these guys had was they believed that studies of chiropractic technique which included sham treatments were skewed because the sham treatments actually did some good. (shesh!)\n\nIn this case, they're using a mind-boggling stupid device (Activator) which works by shooting out a small metal probe which they press on an activation point which does something or other to cure joint pain.\n\nWell, the shame treatment was to dial the thing to zero (so it didn't shoot out at all) but it still making a big clicking noise. The real treatment was to set to whatever number was supposed to work.\n\nOf course, this study is a joke - let see why? First, it's not double blind - the treatment giver knows if they are real or a sham practitioner. Second, the population was faculty and students of the Palmer Institute! (talk about selecting a biased population). And third, there's no evidence that the REAL treatment works in the first place.\n\nThis is typical of chiropractic studies and at least demonstrates one of the sham methods they use.
For what it is worth, [this is the first link](http://www.gotquestions.org/God-physical-body.html) I found when I googled "does God have a physical form."  This isn't about "one specific spiritual tradition" as you put it; this is very comparable to Islamic, Jewish, and Hindu thought as well.\n\nI agree that God would not exist without a mind to process it.  Neither would the concept of beauty, but a pleasant sunset would still be every bit as beautiful nonetheless.  Without a mind to process it, no one would know Newton's Laws either, but the world would still go on the same way it did before.\n\nI guess I don't understand the argument that a concept is invalid, unusable, and nonexistent simply because it exists in human minds.  All concepts, by definition, only exists in human minds.\n\nOf course, any philosopher worth his salt could easily point out that NOTHING exists without a mind to process it.  (Interestingly, quantum physics relies on a very similar concept.)\n\nSo let me ask you:  Yes or no, does "force equals mass times acceleration" exists?
It appears to be a bunch of wild speculation, backed up by dodgy biased websites.\n\nI really don't believe that you can base an entire theory off the fact that the reflection in the eyes is similar.\n\n>Jo and a black haired chick leave the party, and proceed to the poolside where a torrid lesbian encounter gets underway, one of the background figures looks like lesbian queen Vera.\n\n>We are gonna say it was in fact Kate McCann, reinforcing the connection between M's disappearance and Viv Thomas Productions!\n\nHow lucky for them that they've managed to find a tenuous link between yet more unrelated people. You can't make stuff up and then use it to reinforce your argument.
Swampfoot is just jealous that Bigfoot got a coin and he didn't!
The FDA guidelines are 0.6 mg/l to 1mg/l maximum. Theses guys are talking about 1.5 mg/l or higher in their study.\n\nBasically this is a way of scare mongering with irrelevant data.\n\nAlso, shout out to the Skeptics Guide to the Universe which covered this exact study in a recent episode :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starchild_skull#DNA_testing\n\nThis seems to indicate otherwise
Agreed.
True.  He never reinstated them tho', even when they became the largest capitalized corporation in America.  \n\nMatching charitable deductions is a business perk offered by 50% of the Fortune 500 companies and was one of the first things reintroduced after Jobs left the company earlier this year.
Yeah, that's what I think too. It's just such an odd experience.. I can't help but think there's a chance that it's him. All in all, I think I believe it's just me having anxiety and stress and coping with it by dreaming about him. But then again.. I just don't know. I'm so torn.
Yeah but some people are dairy intolerant. If anything this reduces the weight behind the brilliant alternative medicine sketch.
shit, i do that all the time. i'm so used to having my phone in my pocket that whenever i'm talking on the phone with someone, i think i've lost it.
Adorable?
You are completely blinded by the Precautionary Principle, aren't you?
I've just been struck by a vision of your future,  you are going to die.  Mark my words, one day my prophecy will come true.
I'm really hoping that [this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frrZbq2LpwI) meaning of aura gets legs and squishes the woo version.  Why shouldn't it?  You actually *can* see it with some cameras!
Haha, cheers.  I'll bet a lot of people realize it, but not everyone wants to sound like some nerdy hippy.  You get a lot of shit for saying stuff like this around these parts.\n\nMeanwhile, what I said is really just a summary of Huxley's The Doors of Perception.
dude, just spend 5 minutes and watch the section of the video. you're clearly not understanding the argument.`your asking for evidence and i give it to you and you refuse to look at it.\n\n
As a consumer of fine liquors n such, i shall be using this.
i haven't been. i saw that too. i just upvoted you.
Yes, this is dog verification incorporated?
If you're willing to believe one crazy superstition, why not two?
It is one of many superpowers humans have. \n
I'm not much for circular arguments which is why all issues of science vs. woo ultimately come down to evidence. So a real discussion looks something like this...\n\nAstrologer: I believe that stars tell us our future.\n\nSkeptic: How?\n\nAstrologer: Because they influence our fate.\n\nSkeptic: By what means?\n\nAstrologer: It's hard to explain and we don't really know yet, but they do. Countless cultures used them over thousands of years.\n\nSkeptic: So what you're telling me is that because people in the past believe this, we should too even though we don't know how it works?\n\nAstrologer: Exactly. Just open your mind.\n\nSkeptic: To what? Why should I trust something you can't even describe?\n\nAstrologer: You left-brained arrogant fool! You have no respect for the universe, all you do is insult those of us who don't want to fit in your narrow minded, arrogant, materialistic mindset.\n\nAnd the next discussion begins on the note this one ends.
It's really popular in Japan. It'll pop up in video games, anime, and manga a lot.
Yes.  This happens to me all the time.  I'll have full conversations with people and toward the end I'll look at them and tell them what they're about to say.  Freaks us both out. I've also dreamt about meeting my ex(now we're very good friends) and  my current SO.
Since Huffpost accepts readers' blogs, the author should submit his critique there. It would be interesting to see how it is handled. \n\nEdit: Chopra's 15 mins seems to have gone waaaaay past the clock at this point. Where's the guy with the hook?
There are lots of situations that cause geometric shapes and "seams" to appear.  Usually mixtures of extreme formation (tremendous pressure and/or volcanic actions) combined with erosion.  [here](http://webecoist.momtastic.com/2009/07/22/18-natural-formations-that-look-man-made/) are some example.
>Yeah, it, again, shows that he's not against vaccinations, but against government mandated vaccinations.\n\nHow many times have I said I am not asserting he is against vaccinations?  How many times, exactly, do I have to say it before you get it through your skull?\n\n>"No, I wouldn't do it, because the person who doesn't take the shot is the one at risk..." he said.\n\nYes, and that is **absolutely false**  and **exactly** the point that I'm making, which I've said over and over: that it is stunning that a first-year medical student is more educated on a critical public health issue than someone running for President.\n\nI have been, I will say **yet fucking again** that he does not understand the basic science around immunization, and that is inconceivable for someone who has used his medical career as part of his campaign.\n\nJust for fun, go back through this thread **and count how many times I have explicitly said that to you and others.**\n\nBut I've realized the problem.  **You** don't understand how vaccinations work, so you didn't flag my post as an explanation of the problem.\n\nI know you've said you don't support Ron Paul, but you should.  Your willingness to talk about things you don't understand fits right in with the campaign.   \n\n
> Why? Mainly because they don't act like extra-terrestrials.\n\nYou mean, they don't act like what you *think* an extra-terrestrial would act like.\n\n>  If they are here to observe, they've done a bad job of keeping it secret.\n\nYou assume that they are interested in things such as "secrets".  And even then if they are so bad at keeping secrets, then why do we know virtually nothing about them?\n\n> If they are here to do experiments on us, seems kinda petty for a civilization that has the capability to transverse space.\n\nIn many contexts there is very little difference between observing and experimentation.  Are humans "petty" for experimenting on animals?  you might not see the value in such experimentation, but nevertheless they still do it.\n\nBeyond that, you never presented any evidence as to why they would be terrestrial in nature, just a list of assumptions as to why they wouldn't be extra-terrestrial.  And there's no reason to think that such terrestrial beings would not have similar motivations (observation, experimentation, etc...)
The voices in videos 1,4 sound the same. You can also hear a 2-stroke engine perfectly timed with  linear motion towards the end.\n\n\nMy guess is that it's a remote controlled balloon toy and the high-speed egress was added in After Effects.
Well, not to get too philosophical, but everything has a bias. Our minds are by definition subjective, as such we will never know true objectivity. Understanding what the biases are, however, is extremely important.
When my first cat died in a car-accident, I had a dream about him a the next night. When my dog died (one that I had grown up with, my parents got him 2 weeks after I was born), I had a dream about him the next night aswell. Odd how those things work. Could just be they were on my mind, but I always played with them in my dreams.
Serpo is disinformation. It is from the same people who are responsible for a buttload of complete nonsense being spewed into the UFO research culture to make UFO enthusiasts and researchers look like boobs and distract from the real issues. \n\nThe Serpo authors were careful to choose a system for their story which was likely to have Earth like planets. Tau Ceti has been speculated as a system with habitable planets for decades. It is nearby and is a spectral class-G star like Sol, making it the only really believable choice within 16ly. \n\nThis and its proximity to us, is why it is a staple in Science Fiction second only to Alpha Centauri. The Serpo authors probably didn't choose Alpha Centauri because it is a cliché, and unlikely to favour planetary formation due to gravitational issues. \n\nTau Ceti has been featured in Star Trek a handful of times, Doctor Who a couple of times, and countless other works including Barbarella and Sailor Moon! That's ignoring the huge number of written sci fi works that feature it. \n\nStar systems capable of supporting Earth-like or near-Earth like planets are now thought to be relatively common. That one matches up with something in fiction means little. Where habitable rocky planets can form, they probably do.\n\nSerpo needs more than this to support it.
No, I watched an episode (a new one) a few weeks ago where he apologized for vaccine skepticism, and admitted he was wrong.
So, you think people actually go about willfully wasting police time and efforts to find children? No. Maybe one or two psychics do this. But the vast majority really do believe that they are, in fact, psychic.
Would you say that the camera used in the link is consistent with the kinds of camera you're familiar with?
There is way too much level headed discussion happening here. To combat that, I respectfully submit that I want this man destroyed. He is broken and I don't want him to be fixed.  Murder is the only thing this man deserves.
It's not as cut and dry as you want to believe. \n\nLook at the BBC doc "Why are thin people not fat?" and the Vermont Prison Experiment.\n\n\n\n
> I looked at my husband and said,  “Cal, this thing is starting to stink..."\n\nI like to imagine Cal at this point closing his eyes, putting his head in his hands and spending a few silent moments considering his choices in life.
> she got paid 5 million a year to bang Jim Carey\n\nStill not worth it.
The story was that Iraq had WMDs that "the terrorists" could get their hands on. It mattered a lot.
My father, who is prone to believing in nonsense like homeopathy,  is always going on about apple cider vinegar, but I never know what is actually helpful. I know gargling a diluted solution has really helped me with a sore throat, but other than that I've never experienced any other benefits. \n\nAre the purported uses almost entirely nonsense?
As an atheist, I can say that atheists do not care about people being at peace with their own faith - we do not want socio-economic-politcal decisions being made on faith. We also do not want people harming themselves because of faith (yes, some people refuse blood tranfusion calling it a personal faith-based choice)\n\nPeople who think love is not based on evidence, you are blinded. If your child says that to you, you know it is true because he/she has been brought up by you and you have received evidence from all the little activities everyday. However, if a random stranger comes up to you and says "I love you". You haven't seen/heard about him/her in your life before then are you going to trust him/her? No, because you don't have *evidence*.\n\n>My beliefs do not get in the way of my work, or asking questions of science.\n\nSo in other words, your beliefs are an additional layer that does not contradict scientifically held evidence. Fine, then it is a conjecture, but even then, no atheist would have any problems with you.\n\n>Don't mind the atheists, they tend to be a rather close-minded bunch when it comes to people at peace with their own faiths.\n\nAre you saying that skeptics are a close-minded bunch when it comes to people at peace with their own alternative medications.\n\nAgain, as long as your faith doesn't harm yourself or anyone else, no one should have a problem.\n\nAtheists today concentrate only on fundamentalists and removing the negative stigma associated with them. We won't bother practically secular people like you. \n\nThere is already negative stigma associated with atheists outside. We don't want any further judgemental views from out brethren skeptic community.\n\nAdditionally, out of curiosity, you were born Hindu. When did you change to Christianity?
I didn't even view it as a theory, just a neat story.  A mentally masturbatory theological fanfic if you will.
And they'll be there, with a bottle of basically just water in one hand, and a huge invoice in the other.
welp since you have proof i guess its more likely true then not true that you indeed do work in advertising. (can you blame me for being skeptical?)  \ni still think you're wrong though! :D
Lay off the rage-faces, and post something worthwhile.  Otherwise, don't let the door hit ya.
Some [good things](http://whatthefuckhasobamadonesofar.com/) (Keep clicking the "What else?" button)\n\nSome [not so good things](http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=site:scienceblogs.com/dispatches/+obama) (No birther/hitler/antichrist stuff, sorry)
fuck off, better one dead than a thousand autistic...
I'm glad the title was misleading. Otherwise I was going to cry, ”e tu, Discovery?!”
This criticism stems from the way they choose to direct the money they raise. They only spend a third 'on the ground' but the rest does go towards alleviating their charitable cause in a different way, if their information is to be believed. The merits of their methods are certainly up for debate, but don't portray them as charity exploiters or bureacracy-mired do-nothings because I don't think that is the case.
Who told who it was safe? Certainly not organisations like the FDA in the US. There was no legal requierment to test Thalidomide prior to the disater that was Thalidomide. Thalidomide was never approved by the FDA for [public consumption and most cases were a result of people obtainign the drug from overseas.
Definitely a possibility. Earlier this year I gave my life to Christ while on a worship camp, and I've felt a notable difference in my everyday life. This particular incident just stuck with me since it happened.
Well, nobody said that it made sense.\n\nBut I think the reasoning used is that the process of succussion is the key to giving water its memory power. Succussion is the process of shaking the dilution ten times (ten is the magic number for homeopathy) to give it its healing powers. \n\nI'd like to see a trial where the therapeutic capacity of solutions that have been succused are compared with those that have not. All of the trials I have seen just compare homeopathic solutions to placebos.
The first one almost made me tear up. Very sweet. My grandma on my mom's side passed away this summer (first family death experience), and it made me think of her. :)
This article is titled horribly. It basically ends by saying although they have similar nutrient levels, pesticide contamination is higher in non-organic and that it would likley be healthier for people to consume fewer pesticides. WTF.
I know a guy comitted suicide on this property a long time ago, but other than that I don't know of any horrible deaths or anything. And our house is new. We built it in 2002, so it's not haunted itself.
OMG, I didn't get far enough to see the UF theory bit! lol
I'm also interested in finding out whether or not you can 'connect' with specific spirits or if they just come to you?
If the paper has any credibility, they're talking about low-frequency electromagnetic radiation which is a form of light.  The Earth's magnetic field is zero-frequency as it never changes (though I guess technically it changes [very very slowly](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_reversal)).
What worries me the most is that they aren't just endangering their own children but other people as well.  My friend (who works for this company and posts these images on Facebook) will not take her 3 year old child to the doctor.  On at least 2 occasions now I've seen her write posts about how sick her daughter is and how she is using essential oils to treat her.  What worries me is once her child starts going to school, is she going to infect other children because her mother won't get her proper medical treatment?  I understand we shouldn't administer antibiotics at every sign of a runny nose but infections are no laughing matter.  Untreated, ear infections can cause permanent hearing loss.  That's scary.
It's not a replication of that experiment at all. Maybe it's meant to be, but it's a failure. The most important thing is "colored red with an *odorless* dye". The video makes no claim that the dye is odourless and in fact specifies that it's 'grape skin extract' which is exactly what differentiates red wine from white in the first place.\n\nI hate 'experiments' like this that are clearly rigged from the beginning. Bad science is worse than no science. I have no doubt that most wine-tasters have nowhere near the olfactory acuity they believe they have, but the video demonstrates nothing. [Feynman says it best](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtMX_0jDsrw&t=1m23s).
Pot doesn't really make you lazy or stupid.  You just think it does because that's the line they've sold you.\n\nAhhh, yeeeahhhh..
Colfax washington- Saint Ignatius hospital. Old Catholic hospital turned mental hospital. Condemned noe. Lots of creepy paranormal stuff. Plus the whole palouse area is rich with hauntings and stuff. If it sounds interesting lemme know I can post a thread on what i know of the area. I grew up there.
We also don't have many people on here who regularly put themselves in a position where we would be getting a stream of evidence. And, if we did, I'm not sure their priorities would be such that we would be the main audience for that evidence. \n\nI don't mind the odd pictures or the stories. I love the questions people have (as long as they are open-minded enough and not dead-set on it being paranormal.)
I see a Dubbit.
guys, LED kites
The less alcohol it has, the drunker you get!
You're going to run into people with views that you think are strange. This will happen anywhere you go. Don't let differences discourage you. I try to think of these situations as opportunities to learn about another person's perspective on things. Of course, this doesn't necessarily mean accepting what they are saying as true.\n\nThis may seem a strange practice to us, but I'm sure it's rather common for him.
I always found [this video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XevJR7biQE8) to be pretty baffling. [This video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQHFYGEhp9Q) taken in Italy is almost *too* clear for me to actually believe it. \n\nI would argue that video and photographic evidence, especially these days, is tough to rely on as 'undeniable evidence.' With that said, these two mass sightings are, for me, much more compelling--\n\n* [The Westall UFO encounter](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westall_UFO) - an event claimed to have occurred on 6 April 1966 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Around 11.00 am, for about 20 minutes, more than 200 students and teachers at two Victorian state schools allegedly witnessed an unexplained flying object which they said descended into a nearby open wild grass field.\n\n* [62 school children see aliens in Ruwa, Zimbabwe](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5PQleH2Hz8) - 9/16/1994 - here are some [screenshots from the video](http://www.ufoevidence.org/cases/case127.htm) that show a few of the children's drawings of what they saw that day.
I'm a skeptic first, atheist second.
>The mod reminded you that you needed to check your privilege, and then you continued. Did you not consider the possibility that maybe you needed to check your privilege?\n\nGo fuck yourself.
So basically i should start doing a lot of drugs because were all gonna die in 2016.
Anti-pitbull-ism cannot be disproved.  Therefore, it's akin to religion.
The top of the ship is illuminated, the bridge has lights all over it. You don't illuminate the bottom of the ship, because there's no point. \n\nThe guy who took this footage is a *repeater* - he has filmed these things many times over a couple of years. The direction he is pointing his cameras is a big dock with cruise ships in it, and the objects are never high in the sky.\n\n[map image](http://forgetomori.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/figura5.jpg)\n\n[shoreline](http://www.thelivingmoon.com/49ufo_files/04images/Turkey/Shoreline.png)\n\n[horizon comparison](http://forgetomori.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/figura6.jpg)\n\n[oops](http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/0ffcf35657eb.png)\n\nIf that final image doesn't convince you, then nothing will. \n\nHe was filming towards a big dock area across the bay. A cruise ship docked has an upper bridge that matches perfectly.\n\nThese objects are never filmed high in the sky. Why not? \n\nIn the May 17 2009 video, 23:32UT, the object is to the right of the Moon and several degrees below it. On that date and time the Moon would be at an azimuth of 113.8 degrees and just 6.8 degrees of elevation. This puts the object at the horizon.\n\nBecause he zoomed in with his vhs camera, it distorted the image. This has been seen many times with UFO footage, mundane lights take on strange shapes when the lens is pushed to maximum.\n\nIf there are aliens moving about in the portholes, not only is the design of their craft ridiculously archaic compared to even our own technology, but the aliens themselves are *huge*. \n\nThe kicker is this guy is a "repeater". This is not a one off event, he films them all the time. Anyone who has followed UFO research for any length of time knows what this means. The likelihood of anyone getting regular, high quality images of real ET craft is next to nil, because such visits are more likely to be rare. If they are coming regularly, you would expect more than one witness to have footage or sighting reports. Repeaters just can not be believed, and the history of UFO research shows that they are usually hoaxers, nutters, or misperceiving ordinary stuff.\n\nWhat you really should be asking is, why doesn't *anyone else* film these things?
Possibly the first explanation, but doubtful.  IIRC, there was increased sunspot activity recently; this causes EMI effects which would distort the camera image.  If the observer passed through a region of high EM activity it would cause the distortion we are seeing.
Steven Novella is doing an AMA [here](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/gw12v/by_request_i_am_steven_novella_of_the_skeptics/).
Not necessarily random, but highly likely, like "there are going to be tornadoes in the midwest this year" and "that celebrity couple isn't going to stay together". Gosh, and I bet they think there's going to be snow somewhere this winter!
As far as I remember I was surprised but quite calm, and immediately ran to my parents to tell what happened, but they said it was my imagination. I now realized that it could serve as a warning back then to watch out while taking this book, and to be precise, to not hit the bed frame and damage my head.\n\nI now know that children are very susceptible to those kind of events, that's why I believe you and even myself ;) And the book was as far as I remember about animals, kindergarten or elementary school-level, so nothing of interest to any invisible entities.
I was probably 10 or 11 when I did this, and I didn't sleep for like two days.
maybe just wanted to sort the people out, that are not intelligent and instead proven themselves worth to know it.
I understand, exploration is very much a driving force of who we are.  Plus those billions of dollars on machine spurs other technologies that benefit society.\n\nPlus what if we found something like bacteria on Mars?  I'm sure a majority of people on the planet wouldn't care, I sure would.
Sometimes it isn't all about the woo.  Sometimes it's the money.\n\nhttp://www.costhelper.com/cost/child/baby-delivery.html\n\nWith Insurance: From Under $500 to $3,000 or more\n\nVaginal Without Insurance: $9,000-$17,000\n\nYes, I know.  The risk.  But tell that to someone who can't afford it.
It is a problem and other aluminum products are a problem also.
The skeptic in me is telling me that this person's definition of a "moron" is roughly equivalent with "someone who has a different political opinion than I do".
My mom had a similar experience when she was a teenager. She was babysitting and through the window she saw what she describes as a huge burning ball just sink into the horizon. She recalls thinking that it will cause whatever it landed on to catch on fire as well as wondering if it was a UFO. She never told anyone, heard anything about a fire or thought about it for years. How peculiar, eh?
This is a solar panel that crumpled and fell to earth. Nasa has a write up.
Really? That's your argument? No.
I think you people need to get rid of the ridiculous saying "well if that's not enough for you then I guess an alien landing in your backyard wouldn't convince you". Really? You think a newspaper story from 60 years ago that was retracted for being false  is on the same scale as an actual history making alien invasion? Really? \n\nAnd for the record, the "story" stayed buried until stanton Friedman came along so yes, this history making event of roswell was such a big deal nobody said a thing about it for 30 years. I honestly don't know how anyone could devote that much faith into a retracted newspaper article.
That is an awesome find on that research abstract. I'll have to learn more about it.
Discharge from airplane toilets. Gross!
A mobile phone is one of the most useless things to carry in your time machine, unless you've got Verizon tagging along behind you.
Here is the dealio.  \n\nAt first, back in the 60's and 70's, you could write a straight-up book about UFO cases, their analysis, maybe through in a couple of theories, etc...\n\nIt has gotten to the point now that people like David Icke and Richard Hoagland have to go with bat-shit crazy theories to sell books.
I'll vote shopped.
If training to kill is what people are worried about I'd think shooting ranges would be a larger culprit. I play loads of video games and I couldn't shoot for shit.
<Morbo>SAT scores don't work that way.</Morbo>\n\nBack when SATs were 1600 points, your combined score was the aggregate of your best math (out of 800) and your best verbal (out of 800). There was no score that was a statistical mean for an individual. The only time statistical means were given was one doing aggregates of multiple individuals. Schools, institutions, racial groups, etc, could have SAT scores that didn't end in 0, but individuals couldn't.\n\nDisclaimer: I'm not sure how things work since they added the extra 800 point section with subjective scoring.
What did you predict? Please be specific.
Disease might actually be more of a problem.
kinda general, but the stairs and basement is the most. Followed then by the downstairs
> I remain skeptical over whether they actually cause autism, or not. I worry about it, but until there's some solid medical science to prove it\n\nJust a few I found on pubmed\n\nhttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14519711\n\nhttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12949291\n\nhttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15342825\n\nhttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15342824\n\nhttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16818529\n\nhttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18180424\n\nhttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17471032\n\nhttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11773551\n\nhttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19471677\n\nhttp://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=10997\n\n\n[Frontline did a great episode about vaccination](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/vaccines/view/)\n**I highly recommend watching this.**
...and it would be cool if this spotted discovery were also classified by another country, say Canada again, because they also don't spend a lot on classification of stuff, hence we'd all be in the know. \nStay frugal eh.
Beads?
It's a good thing I don't need faith to know radars can track unidentified flying objects then.
Hundreds of reports? First I've ever heard of it. Links please?
That guy is reasonable compared to my links.
It sounds like an unclean spirit (one which hasn't crossed over); talk to them, let them know they are disturbing your cats; tell them they are dead, and ask what you can do to help them pass over; then pay close attention to your dreams, as that is the easiest and most natural way for them to communicate. Telling them to go into the light, and praying for an angel to be sent to help them have both worked well for me, though I like to find out what their deal is first for curiosity's sake.
It's my favorite!
If that's what ghosts look like, and they can only appear as hasty smears on photographs. I hope I never become one, because that's shitty.
Good point. But I've been in these arguments before. At least the sections from Wikipedia had sources. I did skim the page she posted but without sources or citations what's the point?
Not in and of itself (I am, too it makes pushups hard).  But it is a risk factor for other things which can cost people personally (being unhealthy can cause depression and stress) and the economy money via lost productivity.\n
I can't really take your post seriously,because you mention MIBs to much.Not that I don't beleive it happened I just can't focus because of that
Could it be this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPJ23Mbjk_Q
Also part of Kingdom of Loathing. http://kol.coldfront.net/thekolwiki/index.php/Lucre
Sometimes I have dreams that are different from my other ones, that while not completely accurate regarding settings and such, the people, and the words, and the repercussions that happen are all the same.\n\nI've told my mom about them before they happened, she laughed about it until it actually did happen. The main one was the death of my niece.\n\nI think they're just deep-seeded fears, coming out in my dreams, though.
thats due to women being much more prone to osteoporosis than men. you're fine, but drinking soda everyday wouldnt be my health recommendation
Well I did go back to the doctor today because I wanted to rule out lyme disease, and she also gave me a referral to an orthopedic. Only reason I think it may be lyme disease is that it got significantly worse when I was on prednisone, and of course if it is lyme disease it's pretty nasty and needs to get caught.\n\nShe seemed a little hung up on the idea that it might be neurological in basis though, didn't even mention arthritis, which seems very unlikely to me since it's affecting both arms, to a small extent my feet, and possibly even my back, though I suspect that was from something else and it's fine now as well. Oh, and of course there's the lack of neurological pain, pins an needles, electrical sensations, etc. Not sure what's so compelling about that to make her think it may be it. Ah well, we'll see what the orthopedic has to say.
film that shit
chaos
Needs a few more Michael Shermer books. "How We Believe" and "The Science of Good & Evil" taught me more about humanity than anything I've ever read previously.
In that case, I'll trade reiki for organs. They have to be yours.
[link](http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/uganda-officially-pass-%E2%80%98kill-gays%E2%80%99-bill121112)\n\nNot the most reliable source, but the most up-to-date one I've seen.
The /r/sasquatch is a music festival . The /r/bigfoot is good and well run. Full of trolls though so be ready to take a little crap from those turds.
>Totally. I've always cringed when people talk about world-wide consciousness. It's a ridiculous concept.\n\nI would like to see this from another angle. Think about how communication went throughout history all through up to 30 years ago.\n\nNowadays most people communicate "with their mind", using devices like phones and computer.\n\nInstant point to point or point to multipoint communication is possible for the first time in history.\n\nThis subreddit could be considered " a consciousness " made up from all us different people.\n\nBefore this was only possible by meeting up physically with a bunch of people. So the consciousness of whatever subject they were discussing was limited to that group.\n\nNow we can bring consciousness about a subject to a much vaster amount of people, almost instantly.\n\n\nIf we take this further, this new-found global consciousness (about for instance how our financial system sucks) can be applied to change the system (see the occupy movements)\n\nLet's just call it world-wide awareness and not consciousness cause that has a coocoo ring to it
Lighten up dude. She's speaking metaphorically about her relationship with creativity as an artist.
now, which part of my body do i apply this to directly?
He's great. There's a lot of nonsense and a lot of fraudulence about UFOlogy and Stanton Friedman is the guy who gets to the real stuff. He has a completely scientific approach to the phenomenon, he is a genuine researcher, has academic credentials and worked as a nuclear physicist before turning to UFOlogy. \n\nTo a sceptical but curios beginner like you, I would definitely recommend Stanton Friedman's two-part documentary [Flying Saucers Are Real Vol.1](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vefpDSDvpPk) and [Vol.2](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWlQS2D0P5U&feature=context-shows&list=SL)
Totally agreed, it does amaze me and scare me.\n\nFascinating times we live in though
how hilarious that an ex porn star gets to teach people how to be a good parent.
Are you trying to suggest that there are only 3 studies which show a potential negative effect of cannabis on health?\n\nBut no, we don't reach scientific consensus through single studies. It is a result of multiple quality studies all reaching the same conclusion.
Please me?
Chinese lanterns change color too, huh?
OK, When I saw the link, I thought "But there are so many, how could he pick just one?"\n\nI'm glad I gave you the benefit of the doubt.
j/k
I understand your points op, but I'm not here to *teach pigs how to sing*.   I myself mostly lurk on r/skep, It's one of my resources for living well.
Again it is a tough distinction to make.  The CPT codes are different 97140 for myofascial release vs 97124 for massage.\n\nThe treatment goals are often similar but treatment times are generally shorter than massage and from my personal experience greater immediately post treatment results are seen from myofascial results, but I doubt any research has been done to differentiate the two (hands on vs instrument assisted).
Oh you have -got- to be fucking kidding me.
(TV2) in Norway reporting the Russians have confirmed a failed Bulava ICBM test (possibly the last ever Bulava).\n\nIn addition there were mariner warnings to stay out of that area of the White Sea for a rocket launch.\n\nMore here: http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&sl=no&tl=en&u=http://www.dagbladet.no/2009/12/09/nyheter/innenriks/nordlys/rakett/russland/9426900/&prev=_t&rurl=translate.google.com&usg=ALkJrhi9sYzCwnRd9T98Erl-qFuGlM2NqA and [here](http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/12/09/awesomely-bizarre-light-show-freaks-out-norway/) not to mention the science reddit discussion on it thats already linked here.
Is it Halle Berry?
Don't forget: always waft its fumes towards you.  Never directly put your nose over it to smell it.
Completely agreed.  They shirk rebutals and dodge their critics, but I enjoy them anyway. It is a worthwhile exercise in critical thought.\n\n
For what it's worth, I just squashed my ex's plan of taking our 2 y/o son to the chiropractor to treat constipation. I'm convinced it's a dietary issue and act accordingly, but I only have him three day a week. :(
No she is certainly trolling you, or you are attempting to troll us.\n\nI really don't see the point in wasting my time trying to debunk such an obvious fake. If YOU want to go looking for the exact app, go for it. But really, LOOK at the picture, this isn't a subreddit like r/nosleep where you can just post anything and the rules are to take it with a grain of salt. If you are presenting this picture as some kind of proof, then it is upon YOU to supply the proof that it is real. Occams razor and all.\n\nSomeone else just posted a similar picture alledgedly taken by his "grandmothers housekeeper" and the redditors are going to town on it\nI figure the only reason they haven't done that to tthis one yet is it is so BLATANTLY fake that it's pointless.
This is almost as bad as the regular food pyramid.
We don't know what really happened though. All we have to go on is one person's interpretation of someone else's account depicted on a piece of wood that's ~500 years old. We have no information on this "gazette" and whether or not it presented facts or took a more liberal approach to news. Maybe the reference to fighting and battle were metaphorical or symbolic?\n\nAs far as that youtube video goes, the point was to show you that right now, with all of our scientific knowledge and information generally being a few keystrokes away, you have people who have no idea what a sundog is and think that it's a second sun, another planet, God, UFO, etc. Now imagine how much worse it would be 500 years ago.
The whole thing can be summed up in a sentence:\n\nPeople like to believe they are special and live in a magical world, science denies these fantasies.
It's impossible to imagine what kind of thought patterns an individual alien, or alien society, would have. Would humans go someplace and leave with no trace? No, we would muck about, tip stuff over and take pretty things. \n\nAliens however? Who knows what they'd do, since we know nothing about them.
Badly. I had the misfortune of being trapped in a room with a college-age "indigo child" droning on and on about his overall "specialness". This was followed by at least 20 minutes of explaining the critical differences between "indigo" children and "crystal" children... who apparently are the new generation of "saviors". By the time he started bragging seriously about his "scientific world view", I started wishing one of these new crystal pepsi kids would come save me.
Thanks for the feedback, twistedevil!
Don't these things make quite a bit of noise?
Just accept it, people who google know better than you. But they call it research.
There might be evidence that any unsubstantiated claim occurred.  But this guy presented none.  That's why it is a story.
I also don't believe that they don't believe the science behind AGW. The reality is, they haven't found a way to address climate change without harming their business interests, so they pretend it's a debatable issue.
There is a difference. People may be biased against something because they reached this bias by a process of reason and evidence, or may be biased by emotional processes. You'll hear less reasoned arguments in a matter of mostly taste, such as which popular games console to buy.\n\nWhile emotions of course do play a role in the biases of skeptics, one should hope one will hear some reasonable arguments by informed people here as well. \n\nTo put it in other words, if you have a question, you could go to a person informed by a topic or one uninformed. The informed person is likely to be more biased.\n\n
It's hilarious when you can say facts like that without being biased.
Anecdotes about spontaneous remission are common enough that we can probably say "it might happen" and "it shouldn't be assumed to be their other treatments." Keep in mind though, any person who experiences this is going to be subject to a hindsight effect which will probably white wash the experiences as being far more abrupt and far more causal than they could possibly know. These experiences carry through when other people hear about them. \n\nEpidemiological studies that attempt to account for these anecdotes are inherently difficult. Consider that there are ethical implications for defining a control group for the study. The hindsight effects and the supposed causes complicate the issue and fragment possible research avenue. But worst of, fragmentation and data limitation makes it virtually impossible to use existing data sets to infer some of these things.
Oh, also, very position mindset, don't ask anything with sadness, or don't stay on it too long, and don't ask stupid questions like "Will I ever get married". They're dead, they don't care about you, but if you ask questions about them, they'll be happy.
One of the main reasons it's different is because they have to train and own guns.
Good answer in a existentialist way, however, your flesh is still composed of that which you eat, disregard that and it will come back to bite you.
Viruses
Go ahead and give a tiny think tank more exposure and publicity.\n\n
I'm much more annoyed that a giraffe is allowed a dignified death but human beings are not. Wait, this is Calgary, Alberta, so I don't know the provincial or Canadian law but were if it's the same there as in the US my annoyance stands.
Got those via Google Images, but they're readily available [through the Project's website](http://www.hessdalen.org/pictures/) as well. \n\n> do you consider that site a credible source of information?\n\nI don't know anything about that site, so I can't comment on it's credibility. It's the first I've used anything from that site, actually. So, to answer your question -- no.
Ditto here, and my experience is similar to yours.\n\nBut I think original comment is still valid, there's very little somebody can say to change your mind.  You have to be actively questioning your beliefs before you can see that you might be wrong.  And even then you'll probably find any open disagreement as an attack.\n\nFor me it was reading, reading, reading.  That's what broke the spell more than anything.
The problem is that if the paranormal exists, then it exists outside of our current material understanding, so while applying Occams Razor is certainly a neat and tidy way of reducing any paranormal claim down to its most logical and material explanation, it totally discounts the idea that something may  not be logical or material.
I see bugs.
Eh. Not much to see here. Hopefully someone in China got some better footage. Sounds cool though.
Just a note that next time, between smelling different perfumes, have her smell coffee beans. The smell of coffee beans clears our sinuses and makes sure that the smell of one perfume won't affect the smell of anything that is smelled (smelt?) afterwards.
For OP:\n\nhttp://www.elearnenglishlanguage.com/difficulties/looselose.html
Or...These so called spiritual beings could be aliens with technology that, to us, appears magical.
Yeah, his new Digg 4.0 was my idea made me roll my eyes. The whole discussion of it made me think about how Reddit's friend system is already out and not linked to other bullshit.
I just believe that, the plasibo effect is worth exploiting, and people want to be treated so will yell at the doctor until they are perscribed something, which if not a plosibo is often anti-biotics. \nits 2am i need sleep so i am not going to spell check sorry.
Why not sacrifice a goat while you're at it?\n\nIt's all fine until you remember these 'alternative' medicine chatlatans are literally making a killing from vulnerable men and women
I have long since given up this life style and the reason is dark and long. If you have interest I'll share it. So my warnings come in hopes none of you are ever at mercy of the dark, sexy pantie wearing monster I once was. We kept it them at our hips, ready to draw them as a threat when someone wouldn't give up as much money as we suspected he could. There are some people out there willing to do cruel things.\nTussst me. I know.
I have had a very heated conversation with a coworker about those toilet seat covers.  She fucking swears it's keeping her safe.  From what?  Germs.\n\nAs if we can avoid germs, for Christ's sake.\n\nAs someone who works in IT user support, I can PROMISE you your keyboard and mouse are WAY worse than the toilet seat.\n\nLast time the toilet seat was cleaned?  Within 24 hours in my building.  Last time a typical mouse was cleaned - NEVER, but you can say we replaced it 2 years ago when we put your new PC in...
I think you did really good I mean who cares about paragraphs when you feel passionately about something you should just tap into it and let your fingers flow you had really good points and the core concept was solid do you write for a living or just for fun when your interest is piqued it is very important to always follow your dreams with an open heart that is the best way to gain many followers or otherwise adherents dance to the beat of your own drummer and natures beautiful cacophony will lift the wings of your statement to the heavens of your readers mind it ain't easy bein cheesy
Yes you could use that as an excuse or as at least a mode of thinking for helping people who have done crimes to get out of that lifestyle.\n\nI don't see why you are so quick to want to throw someone in jail which that has been shown to not help which is why we don't just throw them in there usually as an adult time out.\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rehabilitation_(penology)\n\nEDIT: and I agree on the manslaughter.  That is at most what she would be held for.
http://sirdigbydis.appspot.com/scienceblogs.com/insolence/2011/03/for_the_anti-vaccinationists_out_there_t.php makes it work for me.
Anarcho-capitalism cannot exist, you cannot enforce contracts without an authority--essentially what you are talking about is simple anarchy, where everyone hires mercenaries to kill each other. The end result is simply chaos. There is no mitigation or solution for this by anarchist believers (they are ideological pipe dreams).\n\nIf that is what you want, by all means move to Somalia or some other African nation with little to no government authority, and live your life there.
Being a skeptic means investigating and trying to find the truth, not mindlessly dismissing something based on rhetoric.
This is somewhat reasonable - as The Alberta College of Physicians and Surgeons says, regulating it will help weed out the real quacks - the ones who think they can cure cancer through meditation, etc. Hopefully.
This actually directly addresses the harvard study. It says that they tested water in China, which has no water flouridization program but does have issues with fluoride seeping into the water
Agreed.
Read usernames much?
>I don't think I ever even mentioned a hallucination.  \n\nThe facepalms, can I take any more...  \n\nYes, lets talk of LSD revelation and exclude hallucinations, brilliant. Are we just going back to alluding to them?  \n\n>I don't believe that, but it's clear to me that you've somehow felt threatened by our conversation, while I was merely providing philosophical perspective.  \n\nThe only thing I saw was giving hallucinogens a bad name. Which could be why I asked if you'd prefer to have the conversation in a relevant sub. I'm in the minority there too but at least it is not off topic there.\n\n>Do you live in a purely objectified world or something  \n\nI live in reality with actual things that can be shown to exist. So yes, I live in an objective world. \n\nWhy would you mention devaluing an object? A purely devalued object world doesn't make any sense in the slightest.\n\n>Dear god, why are you so angry?  \n\nNo anger, just frustration of the direction the conversation went. I should have known better than to comment on "Take acid. Personal revelation is all the evidence one needs." and think anything would come from it.\n\n>Do you feel objectified, sir or madam?  \n\nAwesome example of not understanding the topic at hand. To go from objective to objectified, it answers that you truly can't tell when false equivocation arises.  \n\n>I just feel like the discussion could have remained civil, and I was attempting my best to keep it that way.  \n\nMy apologies, frustration got the better of me. I was hoping it wouldn't go that direction but when it did there's not much else to be done, it seemed to show a flawed understanding of how things operate and I'd have no idea where to start.  \n\n>A lot of my ideas actually have stems in Kant and Berkeley. So I don't see how I could possibly be impressed with what you seem to have decided are "my own ideas" when I am literally practically quoting the two aforementioned philosophers...  \n\nThat was in reference to you thinking of psychedelic experience as being a valid reason to believe something or affirming the existence of something. And what? You say that we need to wipe our preconceived notions yet you quote people? Doesn't that sound a little hypocritical?\n\n>seriously it's actually produced anxiety in me that you've gone and acted this way. I suppose maybe I am too empathic.  I didn't even ever downvote you...  \n\nMy apologies, time to chop up I think.  \n\nI presumed you didn't, they are because of the tone and it is the minority view in this sub, there are plenty of morons who use downvotes instead of words. I don't touch the arrows if there may be disagreement, it doesn't make anything said any more valid. I usually up the first one or two and then forget about em.  \n\nNinja edit: Then again, I wonder how many believe in the supernatural because of psy's.
I go to take a class from a Prof that learned under him. It was so amazing to get to see his inspiration directly flow through the guy.\n
So true, "it was a geographical anomaly"...pfft\n
> [More than half of doctors offer fake prescriptions to make patients feel better -- and that's OK, most doctors say.](http://www.webmd.com/pain-management/news/20081023/50percent-of-doctors-give-fake-prescriptions?page=2)\n\nWe also don't have -any- information about this person, what their doctor(s) have already tried, etc.  We have virtually nothing to go on.  \n\nThe verdict is also not clear on acupuncture itself, it appears to be effective with some kinds of chronic pain, particularly headaches that don't have any apparent physical cause.. it may just be a particularly effective placebo on some people, we don't know.
The return of Nostradamus and his new found Bible Code interpretation that coincides directly with almost 5% of the Mayan calendar!! **With Ghosts!**
Nailed it! That's why I love /r/skeptic!
I know a gulliable Christian girl who gets her 3 yr. old girl to a chiro once a month. I really hope no one ever snaps her neck or hurts her =/
I have seen it first hand. Yes it works.
> My broader concern is that there is a difference between scientifically valid and procedurally implemented. If you ask a doctor how to lose weight nearly everyone will tell you to cut fat. But it's not true and the science backs it up. However, the average skeptic does not seem to understand that a doctor is not a scientist, and is in most cases parroting information provided them rather than evaluating cause and effect on their own. (As a very broad generalization.) This makes me crazy as I am 100% down with skeptics ridiculing magic in all it's forms; however it is unfair to apply the same lack of respect to areas that are less explicit and more importantly are constantly under going new evaluation (human health being one with constant change).\n\nDoctors can give advice that is not currently factually supported just like everyone else. Generally speaking, doctors tend to fall for pseudoscience, bad science, or misleading research a bit more often than scientists in the relevant field, but overall they are still pretty good. If you were to consult a dietary specialist doctor, I suspect they would be highly likely to give you accurate information on the best ways to lose weight (which IIRC has basically been to eat healthier and exercise more for a long time now). In the end, though, I don't understand how your point in this paragraph is meant to be relevant to the discussion. Can you please clarify?\n\n> Also - after a little thought, there is in addition something else that I feel most skeptics ignore that in human health there are balances being decided on, it's not black and white. \n\nI think this is an error committed by the opposition far more often than by skeptics. Of course most of these issues are not completely black and white, especially as they grow more complex. I am a skeptic and a scientist, and I freely admit that the organic foods issue is not cut-and-dry. \n\n> The worldwide small erradication of Small Pox is a great good; but that was a poor consolation for the 250 people out of every million that died from the vaccine. (I choose this example as the odds are wildly in favor of the intervention, so it is an easy choice.) In Britain 23 people die each year from flu vacine complications (according to government figures), how do those odds compare with your chance of dying from the flu if you are young and have a healthy immune system? \n\nAgain not sure what your point is here. The facts are the facts, what we do with them is entirely up to us. No one is arguing that vaccines have never caused side effects or even killed anyone. What is argued is that the data shows that they are generally very safe with a low rate of adverse effects, and that they save magnitudes more lives than they take. Whether this justifies their use or not is besides the point. Dunning and other skeptics like him are not arguing that moral decisions are black/white, but rather that some arguments are supported by the evidence, while others are not. I fail to see the problem with this.\n\n> BTW - I thought of an example,.. I think that if Dunning did an episode on SIDs. He would tell parents to put their children on their back and in a crib with no blanket or pillow. \n\nI don't think he would do anything of the sort. Skeptoid is usually not about "this is what you should do." It is normally about "here is something that many people believe that is either partially or mostly inaccurate based on the available data. \n\n> however in the last 40 years we have had the official advice be, 1) use a pillow, 2) use a neck pillow 3) lay on stomach, and 4) lay on side, oh and 5) tilt the crib. So unlike the ghost of a haunted castle, it is not stupid to be aware that today's medical advice may be confounded tomorrow.\n\nOf course it could be. All human knowledge is provisional to future data. However, there is such a thing as less wrong, and as our knowledge expands, we have a strongly positive trend of becoming less wrong about things. People in antiquity before civilization might have believed the Earth was flat (although not so many nor so recently as pop culture would have you believe). Many more people (still today) would tell you that the Earth is a sphere. This too is wrong (it is actually more of an oblate spheroid), but it is *closer to the truth and less wrong* than the idea that the Earth was flat. Medical science is an extremely complex area of study, because it is usually hard to isolate single cause-and-effect relationships. However, as we learn more, our ability to correct past mistakes and avoid future ones improves. This is why the endeavor for knowledge is a worthy pursuit.
Science has explained most of these.  This guy just hasn't heard the explanations.
I thought you ran away; bravely bravely ran away?
I think the main issue is that one of the pillars of science based medicine is informed consent, which by definition is not possible with placebo treatments.  It forces a doctor to lie to the patient which is really something that should be discouraged at all costs because it leads to all kinds of "I know better" patronizing nonsense, like in the bad old days when doctors would do hideous things like sterilize mentally challenged people ("for their own good") without telling them.
My dad got cancer after major reconstructive surgery and radiation he was told it came back the drs gave him a very short time to live. He gathered his children togeather and told us if he could be with us or help in anyway way he would. He died in march of 99. I has a few dreams of him telling me to take care of my babies and such.  Then in dec he came to me in a dream and told me he was mow going to be wirh my sister. I woke ip looked at the clock and went back to sleep. The next morning i got a call that his first great grandbaby was born. They told me the lbs and how it went then they told me the time. It was exactly the time i looked at the clock. I knew without a doubt it was my dad making good on his promise.
So give them a glass of tap water.
Don't know maaaan, relax.
Checking around further it seems that at the time he was heavily criticised by scholars and seems to have faded into obscurity, I can't manage to find much of that criticism though. In general I can only seem to find crank websites supporting his claims.\n\nIt doesn't look like there is anything to it.\n\nIt is also an unnecessary hypothesis to explain the origin of a religion. Humans are superstitious enough without drugs. Certainly Christians these days don't need to use drugs to maintain belief. Furthermore, even if it was true, so what?! So a major religion originated along with the use of a psychedelic mushroom? Even if that were true, it would have no bearing upon the truth value of the claims made by Christianity.
EVERBODY WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!
Well, seedless watermelons are haploid abominations.  Thanks genetics class!  Also, won't someone think of the fruit flies or roses?
Great job man. I'm thinking printing your A1 poster :)
I donated $50, I hope this drive goes well. May want to post to /r/atheism and /r/trueatheism as well if it hasn't already.
E. Howard Hunt (former CIA agent that was indicted for Watergate) made a deathbed confession that the CIA was responsible for the JFK assassination.  There's audio of it on Youtube.
Check out r/Albany man.
Just tell her to actually read the link she provided you with:\n\n>CONCLUSIONS: The study indicates that Reiki has some effect on the autonomic nervous system. However, this was a pilot study with **relatively few subjects** and the **changes were relatively small**. **The results justify further, larger studies to look at the biological effects of Reiki treatment.**
You specifically claimed that their dosage was not correctly calculated. Are you or are you not going to offer an explanation of why they're wrong? Or would you at least retract that claim before going on to the next? I've answered several of your claims at this stage, and you've replied each time by ignoring what I've said and moving the goalposts to a different target.\n\nAdditionally, I see the 2-day **total mercury level** for the methyl mercury (the higher one) is given at one point as 75-129ng/g - that's 75-129 ppb. The methyl mercury, with its 7% inorganic mercury rate in the brain therefore has a concentration of 5-9 ppb rather than your claim of 10,000 to 14,000 ppb. As there are two definitions of billion, it seems likely someone used the wrong one when coming to that figure you quoted, so your figures are actually in parts per trillion.\n\nI really hope I don't have to explain to you the most basic facts of chemistry and toxicity. Toxicity is based entirely on concentration. Something which is poisonous at a large enough dose doesn't necessarily cause noticeable problems at a lower dose. Claiming all mercury compounds are equal denies basic chemistry - does table salt behave the same way as elemental sodium or elemental chlorine?
I work for upvotes!\n\n
Better hurry! Big Energy is trying to take that site down!!!
>Have you read through the comments?\n\nYes. One or two were demeaning, but many more were explanatory, and from your comments it is pretty clear that you have an exaggerated sensitivity to, and awareness of, the feelings of inferiority that can be associated with something like the Monty Hall problem. Your defenses of the incorrect answer seem hastily and poorly thought out, and read more like excuses or rationalizations than explanations. Whether you have a chip on your shoulder or not, you certainly make it sound like you do.\n\n>Yet again, I agree, but it's designed to produce the wrong answer by making people choose the intuitive, wrong, choice by obfuscating the context.\n\nHow? The problem statement from the article is quite clear, and in all the descriptions I have seen, it is clear that the choice is between the contestants original pick and the remaining door. Maybe the way it was first explained to you was misleading, but that's not how it usually is.
I think it might just be a really strong sense of deja-vu, and it was so strong that your brain thought it was an actual memory, but filled in pieces of the memory that were missing. It doesn't really explain why you thought it was a meme, though.
The TR-3B is a top secret American Project (if it exists), I dont think they would be testing it in the UK.
true enough, some religions get off on condemning other ones i feel.
I propose that any time we write about [Deepak Chopra](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeQ_S8G16Rw), we put a link on his name to that video... eventually it will come up when people Google his name.
Can't be a repost. The OP is the author of the article and it was only written 2 days ago. I can't imagine it has been posted many times since it was written, but if it has been, then surely we can't criticise the author of the article for posting his own work to reddit?
We could start by trying to agree on categories within the comments of posts for a few weeks before formalizing a tag system. But tags might be helpful too.
Your mom definitely has a point; that's just how the incentives happen to be. When the incentives line up correctly, private pharmaceutical companies work very well. It's just that in certain situations, ones with very large social benefits (positive externalities) that can't be realized by the company, pharmaceutical companies won't do things out of rational self-interest that would be beneficial to society at large.
Oh jeez, this is hilarious!\n
Totes the right thing to do. Even if they don't accept it back, try your best to do so, azreal156.
WTF is going on?
OK, picture someone from Nicaragua visiting Texas. Only instead of saying Texas with their own natural accent they imitate the Texas accent. Not in a playful way but right in the middle of a sentence. They are talking normally and when the word Texas comes up they drawl it out like a stereotypical cowboy. Taax Ahs! Can you picture that? That's how an English speaking person looks to a Nicaraguan when while speaking English we break from our natural accent and say NEEE-CAR-AwwwwGWAHH! \n\nJust say Nicaragua, and any other Spanish word, without trying to pronounce it with a Hispanic accent.
I'm not sure an entire movie was required to debunk David Icke :p
Project Camelot... sigh.
Unwavering faith is the key to power in these (and all) situations. Your faith in your grandfather seems to help you. Religion is very good at cultivating this faith.\n\nRelatedly, prayer is like an inefficient way to apply this faith (this is said because people don't seem to have much faith in their prayers coming true. having unwavering faith in the support of your god is important and will increase the efficacy of these).
OMFG BLUHHHHH its dust..... "Orbs" are the most inconclusive and easily misinterpreted "evidence" of ghosts out there
"hatefuck" is a significantly more common expression for the concept.
My favorite part of all this is how /r/conspiracy bitches about "paid shills" all the time and this guy comes in and starts hawking his books and they're fawning all over him.
Agnostibuddhist.\n\nSkepticism is sort of my religious belief - the "selling point" for me when it came to Buddhism was the old saying, "If you should meet the Buddha on the side of the road, kill him."\n\nI say "Agnostibuddhist" because I'm not very good with the "practice" end of Buddhism so much as the "theory" of it - I rarely meditate, don't participate in a Sangha (though only partially by choice), and I'm so turned off by "Buddhaspeak" (look at 9 in 10 Buddhist book titles for good ideas of what kind of loaded words infiltrate Buddhist discourse) that it's difficult for me to really engage with it.  That said, I've recently struggled with the notion of being skeptical of my skepticism, and allowing myself, or at least a portion of myself, to put "faith" to the test by simply believing - you can't test the veracity of blind faith if you're skeptical of it while participating.  I have yet to figure out a way to wholeheartedly engage faith while reserving a portion of my brain for a distant, objective reflection.  \n\nBut hey, Alan Watts found his way into the neo-Buddhist canon - so if the term Agnostibuddhist fails, I feel comfortable identifying with him with regards to my beliefs.
You need a citation that amphetamines cause insomnia in a lot of people? You presented some above. The study I presented in my last study showed that insomnia was a rare occurrence in medicated ADHD kids. \n\n>Your comments seem to come directly from various rationalizations of how it comes that the same medication is officially Good when it is for ADHD and Bad when it is drugs.\n\nNo rationalisations. As I mention above, my position is based on science and evidence.
Wow...thanks!
> Lastly, actual Jewish organized crime syndicates are also extremely powerful - even more powerful tthan the Italian mafia. And of course, while discussion of Italian, Irish, black and lation gangs is quite open, discussion of the Jewish mafia is proscribed in major media - a classic example is the 'Russian' mafia, which happens dominated exclusively by Jews in all of its highest ranks. \n\nThe problem is that you believe that every Jew is automatically a part of this Jewish gang.
If a spell while driving can kill the heater of a car while driving, then I'd hate to see what days of meditation and concentrated magic by 4 MAGES would do to a plane!\n\nFUUUUUUUUCK! We must now search for the mark of the beast, and do a few witch tests to everyone flying.
And the only evidence left: precisely cut stones. The pinnacle of technological advancement.
That fallacy is known as the "argument from a bop on the beezer".
I'm skeptical of foods being pro-GM or anti-GM, unless you're a cannibal.
I believe you.  My mother had a similar experience when she kept having reoccurring nightmares.  Her husband said that he knew what was causing them and pulled out an old board from the closet.  He tried to burn it in the fire place but it wouldn't burn.  So he took it out and burnt it in a metal trash can.  The thing jumped out twice before it gave up with a terrifying scream.  So I definitely believe you :)
Oh, that's what I get for skimming.  Didn't notice the CIA/NSA controlled part.
This one's great. I'll watch it every time it's linked. He's quite the character.
the word "alternative" implies it has matched efficacy. What about "medicine look-a-like"?
Can you please restate your post so we know what you mean?
This really is an awesome theory.
I'm not gonna lie. I laughed.
Not when it comes from a factory farm...
I saw this for sale at Costco recently, and wasn't sure what it was (the sign did say "mood stabilizer").
I knew my 8th grade English teacher was from like, Venus or something.
Again: **Waste is not** a proliferation issue at all. Only fuel is, and fuel is protected by U232.
the moon landing quacks make my head spin, I just can't understand where they would even get the notion. as far as the 9/11 quacks, I can at least somewhat understand why they think they buildings were demolished because superficially, the videos of the buildings do give that impression. what I don't understand is how they hold the view once they take the implications of a manned destruction to their logical conclusion, which lays somewhere between bush being either the antichrist or a reptile, lol.
\nhttp://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/06/arts/music/06mcca.html?_r=1\n\n"Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr reuniting as part of a benefit concert for the [Transcendental] meditation-promoting David Lynch Foundation at Radio City Music Hall."
Doesn't really explain why the residents would see black hawk helicopters patrolling the skies.
The petition cites all the studies.  It seems legit.
The axles didn't even look close to frictionless (they were wobbly) which was part of the problem, and the cylinders were hardly perfect. Which would only decrease efficiency.
And yet he believes the Chinese government is training women to assassinate him by placing poison on their hands before petting him on the head... O_o
It depends on your claim regarding the "synergies".  The compounds could, infact, compete for receptor sites.  You, and many others, seem to be claiming that when secondary cannabinoids are combined with THC, the therapeutic benefits are increased in some way.  This raises the question as to what specific therapeutic effects you are speaking of.   I find it interesting that you are ready to defend these presumed synergistic effects, while simultaneously admitting that you are unsure of specific applications of cannabinoid drugs.  \n\nThis is precisely where the confusion with these claims come in.  I am not sure what the "medical marijuana" (anti-Dronabinol) community wants science-based medicine to do with anecdotes that claim ingesting Dronabinol is different than smoking the raw plant.  There are two false assumptions here: The idea that the medical community is unaware of the difference between smoking marijuana and injesting Dronabinol, and the idea that secondary cannabinoids are not being researched for medical applications.  There have been no clinical trials with human participants that study the differences between pure THC and a combination of THC and secondary cannabinoids.  Any claims made in this regard remain anecdotal.  \n\n>Why? It's not a matter of safety? It's not a matter of efficacy? It's an arbitrary standard of purity that is not supported by the facts. None of the compounds found in the cannabis plant are dangerous, least of all toxic. Stripping the derivative product of all its concurrent compounds for no other reason than to uphold an arbitrary standard of chemical purity where all compounds exist in a vacuum to be administered piecemeal doesn't seem justified. If I can control for potency and administration it should make any difference whether Dronabinol is administered by itself or along with other minor cannabinoids. There is simply no benefit to Dronabinol when compared with a medicinal quality botanical.\n\nAll of these things sound great to the layman, but seem a bit silly to anyone with training in pharmacology/biochemistry.  It is a matter of safety.  It is still unclear as to whether or not smoking/vaporizing marijuana causes COPD and the claim that marijuana vapors contain no toxic chemicals is laughable.  Marijuana is predominantly made of cellulose (same with tobacco).  Aside from unique trace chemicals and water content, most plants consist of the same organics (cellulose, phospholipids, proteins, etc). When these things are burned (sublimed), they produce ammonia, hydrogen cyanide, carbon monoxide and many other toxins.  Don't take my word for it, I was able to dig up a [full-text journal article for you](http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/tx700275p).   \n\nIsolating and purifying active compounds for pharmaceutical use is anything but arbitrary.  Are you suggesting that the entire paradigm of pharmaceutics is flawed?  You are embarrasing yourself here.  \n\n>There is simply no benefit to Dronabinol when compared with a medicinal quality botanical.\n\nThis is a wild claim.  Perhaps you should consider earning a science degree form somewhere other than High Times University.  \n
hey guys. Sorry, the post was caught by the spam filter originally, then i had no idea it was then posted by the moderator. Please see the follow up post i made. http://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/kbsv7/follow_up_my_mother_shot_ufo_video_in_2010_post/\n\nAlso, i made a comment to post about the video here; not on the youtube page. I said this because i wanted peoples opinions as to what was happening with the video, before i gave the results.
They're not transformers exploding. How does one explain the UFOs that form over these multi-colored lights? \n\nGovernment agencies tend to lie/debunk. These orbs of light are attracted to high energy areas, including mountains, volcanoes, and yes, power plants.
It's in my bones.
Then, would that still be considered a "glitch" or just my brain fucking with me?
> EDIT I've got other things to do, but as the responses keep trickling in, I can assume they will all take the following form:\n> "Congratulations on slaughtering those other sacred cows!"\n> "But you slaughtered MY sacred cow too, and here's why I think you're wrong: blah blah blah blah blah."\n\nWow. True skeptic over here.
Consider it done.
Then speak out against misogyny in the general population or make it abundantly clear that you're not saying it's worse among skeptics, but that you expect them to be better and here's why.  The way she went about it made it seem like she was saying that the skeptical community had a problem with misogyny that wasn't just a result of the general population's misogyny.
I'm aware of the revolving door system in America in regards to government and business, but if you can source that claim it will hold more water.
Very interesting link. I'm familiar with most of the misconceptions on the science section, but many of the others were surprising. I found a few things in there I had repeated myself.
Oh, I never thought about that. How incredibly obvious. Thanks captain! Even when I used it on my own, apparently I was moving it without knowing anything of it.
This is used quite extensively in large commercial environments in the UK, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltage_optimisation
I came here to make sure someone said this.  What the fuck op.
Of course it does not mean that god is necessarily non-existent, because most ideas of god are unfalsifiable. Even ingnoring the fact that god is the most absurd claim humanity has ever made, the unfalsifiability alone is reason enough to know that god does not exist.
And I thought the church of [insert random crap here] had a monopoly on truth.
Additionally, I'm surprised it's so common to believe that the symptoms aren't what's wrong with you.\n\nIt's like someone saying that they went to a doctor because their arm hurt and the doctor only made their arm stop hurting.
sorry I don't have a link. Just information i am remembering from countless documentaries, interviews. Point is though, this story came to be because the pilots reported and filmed them because they couldn't identify them. Hopefully someone else can provide a link.
Well, I guess you won't be buying any [dehydrated water](http://buydehydratedwater.com/).
brah? Ooo. So in touch with the world around you. \n\nYou're the one that's the amusement in this arrangement friend. You should charge for this carnival ride into the mind of the depraved.\n\nAny more imaginary texts coming your way? I pray, do tell. Id love to hear more about your sad lonely life and how you fill it with drama and bullshit to make yourself feel super special. Don't worry Pinocchio, your secret is safe with me.
Also, in a casual situation it works fine. This isn't some ground breaking academic paper.
>Whenever **the fuck** *that* was
The old two men one pizza video...  I remember that one
Ah. Well, then I agree with you.
looks alot like a thumb, it has three bones connecting to the wrist unlike the rest of the fingers which have four
As soon as I saw her mention "conventional wisdom" I died a little inside.
Because this is the 21st century and I'd venture to say there's copies. Also, just because his organization owns then doesn't mean they were always his, or that he's hiding them even.
Yes I do understand that it may not be a good idea for you to get into the details of your PTSD and I appreciate your level of awareness and efforts in self-care. \n\nI agree with the bulk of your comment, except "tapping was a technique developed within Rwanda, only later did it acquire the name EFT and get a bit hijacked by the new-age "healing" types". On the contrary, the term "tapping" came only after Gary Craig retired and there were some issues about using EFT as a label for the technique he developed, since he cannot judge whether people out there who are claiming to use EFT are indeed using it the way it was taught. He now uses the term "Official EFT" to refer to EFT as the way he taught it, and other people uses other EFT or EFT-related labels or "tapping" to describe the technique, but it is basically the same thing i.e. tapping on parts of the body while mentallly focusing on the issue, though different people may use EFT/tapping in different ways. \n\nAnyway, a name is only a name, and I am not too concerned about how it is labelled. I am more interested in how you apply it and the results you get from it. The version you describe e.g. recitation of numbers and music is actually a part of the first version of EFT that Gary Craig taught (in his first free manual, he referred to this as the Basic Recipe), and many practitioners nowadays use a simpler vision that doesn't include that. As for tapping patterns, if you are referring to the sequence in which you tap the points, then that would be closer to TFT (Thought Field Therapy) which is the predecessor of EFT. \n\nI still stand by what I say about EFT being a treatment because EFT can indeed permanently improve PTSD. In other words, not only do you feel better about the triggering memory immediately after the tapping, you can think about the memory days after and still be at peace with it. This is especially so if the therapist you are working with is very skilful in helping you to clear every single aspect of the memory so that it is fully cleared, and once cleared, the anxiety associated with the memory will not come back anymore. \n\nSince you are still early in your PTSD therapy, you may just want to monitor your progress. If you continue to experience remnants of anxiety or any other negative emotions with regards to specific PTSD-related memories that you have already worked on in the sessions with your psychologist, it means there is further work to be done, so please let your psychologist know about this so that he or she can do the necessary work with you. Therapy is a collaborative process, so you would need to give accurate feedback to your psychologist so that you receive the best treatment possible. \n\nThanks for your input in this discussion and all the best!\n
The 'wow' here is that 68 people actually upvoted this crap.
I know homeopathy is bollocks, but if the placebo effect can make a teething baby shut up, then I'm in favor of using it.\n\nWhatever makes the baby chill the fuck out, man.
I just go for more crazy than them. \n\nWhy should you have to be a natural born citizen?  How about we just open it up to anyone.\n\nThat shuts them up.
You made that very clear.  Thanks.
I thought it was stupid, too; until I read *this*:\n\n>Cosmic Awareness – the force that expressed itself through Jesus of Nazareth, the Buddha, Krishna, Mohammed, Edgar Cayce, and others who served as “channels” for the ‘Heavenly Father’ reveals that cancer is indeed a fungus.
I wouldn't want them to let on anything else as it would cause a panic.\nHere's what anonymous said:\n\nThing is, those numbers mean nothing unless you have a control group to compare against.\n\nUnfortunately, I don't think they were checking everyone before this happened, so it is hard to tell if there has been a sudden increase. \n\nOne thing they could do, however, is to compare stats from around the country. Do you know if they are doing this checking elsewhere in Japan?\n
Good article, though, without reading through all the literature on the subject, it's hard to know how well confounding factors were dealt with. Just because kids acted equally hyper when they were given artificial sweeteners and when they were given sugar doesn't mean that sugar doesn't cause hyperactivity- there could be another explanation: Maybe the artificial sweeteners used in the experiment also cause hyperactivity? Maybe some ingredient common to both the "real" sweets and the "fake" sweets (food colouring, for example) is to blame? Maybe sugar does cause hyperactivity, and the children in the experiment simply expected the "fake" sweets to have the same effect as other sweets have in the past?\n\nBut, like I said, it is a good article and I am inclined to believe it. I just think it's good to be sceptical, even about debunkings.
I had this happen to me once.
I'll tell you what you are Tim; a jackass, and I'd fuck with you too.
WTF are you talking about "get over yourself"?  See, that's the kind of stupid shit that just makes you look like a complete idiot.  You don't understand it?  You don't get it?  You don't understand what belief verses knowledge and understanding really is, do you?  So, instead, you decide to immediately lash out and protect your stupid little butthurt ego with a self-conscious antagonistic remark, right?  All because you can't understand what's being talked about?\n\nOkay.  Whatever.  Go on "believing" then.  Have fun.
It was the cover of the damn magazine... Really goes to show the quality of the people working at the Brazil outlet... I can't imagine the shit they must publicize any other time.
There is no evidence for alien intervention in the building of these sites. All of the ancient alien-built sites that used to be bandied about in the literature have been thoroughly debunked and/or explained in scholarly publications and there's no reason to think that Gobekli Tepe and PumaPunku will not be similarly dealt with.\n\nIt's clear that most devotees of ancient alien theory have never read scholarly archaeological publications, otherwise they wouldn't embarrass themselves by promoting such silliness.\n\nWhat amazes me about these kinds of ideas is that the underlying message is: humans are morons and can't do anything spectacular without sky brothers' help.\n\nIt's bullshit. Ancient man was very, very smart and very, very motivated.\n\nThere is zero evidence for ancient alien intervention. It may have happened, but there's just no evidence for it.\n\nJust because you don't understand a thing, doesn't mean a wizard done it. \n\nPumaPunku has no trees? They used to say the same thing about the Giza plateau. How could the Egyptians have lifted such enormous blocks without wood to make levers and blocks? Except the Giza plateau was heavily wooded four thousand years ago. Environments change. \n\nHow could the Easter Islanders have lifted the massive stone heads without any wood, the island is completely devoid of trees, the ancient alien devotees used to cry.\n\nIt's because the Easter Islanders *cut all the fucking trees down to move the statues*.\n\nThink. Use that brain. \n\nIt's this kind of stupid logic that makes this field a laughing stock.
Imagine what we *might* learn from studying such objects that appear to defy our current laws of physics. *gasp*  /s\n\nಠ_ಠ
I believe the best thing to research would be EVPs.  The evidence is plentiful and there ARE possible reasons outside of the paranormal.\n
Interesting. Around here, the "want to come up for coffee?" euphemism is used in exactly such situations.\n\n> sexualized implies something negative, as if it would be derragtory or demeaning\n\nI wouldn't say it implies something derogatory and demeaning so much as it does something non-mutually-participatory. Asking someone who has shown no interest in you for a booty call (which, regardless of this guy's intent, is exactly how his actions parse in some places) definitely qualifies. In this particular case it implies something negative because Watson had just been talking about how it makes her uncomfortable.
I tremble before your vegan super powers.  Don't tase me, bro.
cool. I just thought it was funny all the "abilities" people are claiming to have, and that paranormal urination was actually put to a test.
There are unvaccinated people in the world. Ge over it. I'm not against vaccinating people, but I'm just saying that you can't tie up all the factors that might get you sick that's just the nature of the world around us.
What will be quite interesting to see is how long global warming denial will live...\n\nEspecially considering how Kiribati and the Maldives will eventually be completely flooded because of the rising sea levels... The Maldives' highest point is like barely 2 meters high I think.. \n\nIf they can still deny global warming in the face of these people and after such tragedies... then wow, I don't know what to say\n\nEdit: highest point at 2,4 meters http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maldives
Are you a medical doctor?
Similar experiment:  Pour a glass of vodka and set it on fire.  See how it burns?  Well, now we know what causes spontaneous human combustion...vodka.
they did .... hi .. good enough ?
I know this isn't the most rigorous study, but it's something I think about whenever I hear someone say this. Anyway, [Mexican vs. American Coke](http://drinks.seriouseats.com/2011/09/the-food-lab-drinks-edition-is-mexican-coke-better-than-regular-coke-coke-taste-test-coke-vs-mexican-coke.html) is a blind taste test between the two and the majority of people preferred the taste of American coke (which contains HFCS). It then talks a bit about the experience of drinking out of a glass bottle rather than an aluminum can, which I can definitely see the appeal of. Basically a lot of people might not really prefer the Mexican Coke if they didn't know it's what they're drinking, although the packaging makes it a different tactile experience. It's something I'd like to try out myself because I do like the look of the glass bottle, but I also know that it may be biasing my opinion of the stuff.\n\nOf course this isn't to say that some individuals don't prefer the taste of Mexican Coke, they obviously do as some chose it, but I have yet to hear anyone say they prefer the American stuff to the Mexican stuff although I doubt many people have really done an actual test of the two.\n\nI always think the same with cheap domestic beers and set up a similar small study of my own and kept track of both the consensus and each individual's preferences so they could know what they liked the best. Turns out I liked the taste Milwaukee's Best Ice better than most of the others, and even O'douls beat out a few real beers, but the general consensus was that although one or two seemed to stand out a bit it was extremely difficult to even tell that they were different products. It was a fun way to kill a couple hours anyway, and something I think everybody should do.
I just get easily annoyed with these kinds of things. I want a solid daylight video in focus. Lights in the sky that could be LED kites or Chinese lanterns or model aircraft or balloons are meaningless, but some people get all excited about them.
Monofilament.
I don't think that the garbage patch is a result of not recycling, it's a result of littering or not properly managing garbage.
TIL that 'North America' is the most powerful nation in the world.
I should have said evidence to prove or disprove it. You know what I meant.\n\nHere's an example of a legitimate conspiracy hypothesis that could be mistaken as a crazy conspiracy theory: The term "conspiracy theory" was redefined as the definition you cited to sway public opinion towards thinking that conspiracy theorists are crazy fucks, in the same way that redefining "Republican" as "Crazy retarded redneck asshole" would make republicans look bad. Now powerful people can participate in all the poorly covered up conspiracies they want, and will get away with it because people who call them out will be dismissed as crazy conspiracy theorists.
Maybe he said, "Pray for brain?"
And the source of my downvotes reveals itself ...
*cough*notruescotsman*cough*
It doesn't matter where one is conceived. Only where they are born.
Immortal is the ability to live forever, so no, we are all not immortal.
That's a good catch if true.  I can't quite make out that level of detail when I blow up the YouTube video.. anyone have a higher resolution version?
How about witness testimony corroborated by radar data? Has God ever been tracked on radar?
"We"?
Agreed.
The exact same thing happens to me more and more these days! I dream non important events and then something will happen I can remember it happening in my dream and then what happened after that in my dream. The weird part is, it mostly happens with places. The amount of times I have dreamt about a place I didnt even know existed and have definitely never been and then turned up there later on in life, is crazy.
if its the most obvious object in the middlish-leftish part of the screen, on the borderline of the cloud, that is most certainly a bird.
Just for shits and giggles, how much experience do you have with space debris? I mean, if you're so absolutely sure that it's not space debris, you must be using your extensive experience to form that opinion.\n\nAlso, what does space debris look like?
Gravity is just as a much a theory as Evolution.\n\nIt's an explication for an observed phenomenon.\n\nWhen I let go of something it falls towards the center of mass. Gravity is how we have come to explain this. \n\nTheories do not graduate to FACT with sufficient evidence. \n\nFacts for Evolution would be along the lines of "These two species share common DNA", "This species appears to have grown a longer neck over time", etc...\n\nEvolotuion is the theory we have developed to explain those obervations and changes.
What? /r/atheism is skepticism about God, I don't see where they've ever embraced pseudo-science. They are almost all in-line with /r/skeptic in every way. What have you got against atheists? What does the discussion of atheists have to do with this post?? \n\nSounds like you're just angry at atheists.\n\n>we also attack people who don't make valid points\n\nYou're attacking me for supposedly making an invalid point, without pointing out what the invalid point was---sounds a bit like you're just angry I'm communicating an idea that you find politically offensive---rather than actually finding an actual invalid point.\n\n>but it cannot hold back nations.\n\nHow can it not? Why wouldn't it? What is preventing it?\n\n>That has to do with economics, demography and geography. \n\nYou can't blame geography and demography for economic failures, there are too many examples of very similar circumstances to the Middle East, that are completely contradictory to this. The commonality between Muslim nations having economic problems, is systemic to the religion of Islam, not to geography (the geography is varied), not to demography (the demography is widely varied).\n\nEconomic failures in the middle east, are rooted in religious education and anti-scientific, anti-skeptic, movements.
It may not be flying directly over the city, but you can see a rocket launch from hundreds of miles away. This one was apparently launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, which is just northwest of Los Angeles, and most rocket launches are toward the east.\n\nI live in northern California and even from here we can see rocket launches occasionally, when they're putting the payload into a polar orbit.
[This is from mine](http://i.minus.com/igREYuunib0fo.JPG) (sorry for the grainy image).
Ewe... Living chocolate. Upvote.
[Reading hurts, let's go shopping!](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NO0cvqT1tAE)
Yea…I probably wouldn't kill the joke unless Jonathan starts freaking out. But absolutely let Norman know your not fooled! And that you can prove it's a fake :)
Huh?\n\nI really don't get this. It's *a hole in the clouds.* How is that even vaguely related to a UFO?
Know what would make me laugh? If this dude got shot in the face.\n\nEdit: SERIOUSLY! Look at his stupid motherfucking face and tell me it isn't the most punchable thing you have ever seen.
I was reconstructing the logical chain in the parent comment to point out the flaw in #1 but you found the exception to #2 instead:\n\n>2) Any diet that stresses fewer processed foods (which tend to be high in carbs) and more vegetables/fruits is going to be superior to the typical western diet.\n\nAn all red-meat diet is probably the best exception to this, but we only know of one culture that really follows such a [diet traditionally](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuit_diet#Nutrition).  Study has also shown some physical adaptations like larger liver mass that would help them cope with the limited choices available.\n\nThe hypothesis behind the Paleo diet isn't "pure unadulerated bunk."  It is based on the fact that yes, evolution allows us to adapt to different diets, but it also acknowledges the fact that regional diets were extremely varied for most of homo sapien's history.\n\nMilk is a perfect example of this.  Three separate population groups somehow ended up dominated by the recessive trait for lactase persistence.  Milk is great food for *their* descendents, but it still causes complications in the vast majority of the world's adults.
Ugh, every time I see these stories I feel sick.
And that is a good point, but I also get irritated that people refuse to just admit that when the average person says 'chemicals', we all know what they mean.
great trip!
Can you give me specifics?  I am no expert but nothing I have seen convinces me it was anything other than a terrorist attack.
You forgot the self-referential "Pointless comment."
> I'm sorry that some poor hypothetical deniers are unable to get their papers published while crying into their pile of oil industry money\n\nGee, I'm totally the one making undefended presumptions here.\n\n> There needs to be evidence beyond mere assertion by a random person on the Internet that a particular non-publication is for reasons other than quality or accuracy\n\nNuclearWookie cited a noteworthy scientist claimed there was strong bias. My contention is that if credible scientists are saying this, it should be looked into and should not be dismissed as a conspiracy theory without something beyond 'I doubt anyone has been "persecuted"'.\n\nMore than this, though, I'm rejecting 'they get money and attention from the media' as evidence that they're not being sidelined scientifically.
>my husband and I had 4 kids in 5 years.\n\nIt might just be me but I don't know ANYONE who I consider scientifically minded and skeptical about the world around them who shits out 4 kids in 5 years.  That kind of procreation requires religious motivation or a lack of understanding of how family planning works.
NEWS FLASH! Neil Degrasse Tyson is NOT the only scientist worth quoting! But for some reason he is the ONLY ONE I see quoted on reddit.That is all.
Fair points!
Finally some logic seen on here. I don't mean to say that at detriment to this sub in any way but fuck me you lot can seem like a lot of tinfoil hat wearing mother fuckers :) BTW I'm drunk when I'm writing this so apologies if my comment is a bit off-kilter.
Alright I am really bored so here are a few stories of the quacks who were in my classes.\n\nWe had one guy, lets call him D.  D. thought that manual muscle testing for the crap metaphysical 'subluxation' was the bees knees and specialized in Applied Kinesiology (an 'advanced' level of muscle testing that involves things like touch areas to 'turn on or off' things like the iliocecal valve or to evaluate for nutritional deficiency, in other words COMPLETE HORSESHIT!).  D. actually said this to someone where I could hear "I just tested this guy and turns out he has a deficiency of (some enzyme that I can't recall) in his Krebs cycle instead of his Citric Acid cycle."  I was down the hall and in a hurry but stopped and dropped my jaw mid step in complete confusion.  Safe to say he is a complete quack.\n\nAnother student, lets call this one J., also practiced AK and was manual muscle testing in front of my seat between classes.  He wanted to see if someone had a caffeine deficiency (I know this blew my mind as well).  So I see him pull a coffee bean out of a baggie and hold it in front of each nostril while 'testing' the supraspinatus muscle.  He finished his 'testing' and said OK you have a deficiency on the left nostril which means your right brain is deficient.  Again jaw agape at the 'diagnosis'.  So I stopped him and asked how a 'caffeine deficiency' can be diagnosed by testing a muscle for strength.  He said "dude it is crossover electrical signals in the brain" (keep in mind that smell is processed in the temporal lobe and doesn't cross from side to side in the brain because it is carried by the olfactory nerve, while motor function is in the parietal lobe and does cross from one side of the brain to the other).  I looked at him and said "Umm... that would be a seizure."  He looked a little angry and said "no it is connected embronically" (I have no idea what that meant).  I asked him about this several times that semester and he never had even a remotely plausible reason much less proof and stopped responding to me in the halls after that.  It never even occurred to him that he was being fed complete crap in the AK club.
Christ Jesus, that's a thing. Oh God oh Jesus.\n\nBut it's still nowhere near the level of what this Michael Mohoric is doing. Homeopathy, and all "alternative medicine" will lose steam as time goes on and their practitioners continue to refuse to comply with the testing standards used in "traditional" medicine. They'll never produce any respectable body of evidence for their claims as long as those claims are false. \n\nMohoric, on the other hand, has this quasi-religious sheen of mysticism on his product and thus dodges a lot of responsibility, kind of like how organized religion does. Being a guru, who deals in the "invisible", he's not obliged to explain how his specific method works better than others (or nothing at all). I bet he'd claim pure innocence if cornered, saying that people believed in him and this made their lives better and all that jazz. I mean *he has a solid goddamned claim to legitimacy just because, hey, people are stupid*. The American Way...?\n\nTL;DR So-called alternative medicine will be inevitably squelched by the light of science; not so therapies based overtly on the "invisible"
I have student loans to pay off, live with my parents, and don't make much money.\n\nWhy do my morals prevent me from becoming a legal scam artist like these guys?
HOW IS MONKIE FORMED?
I'm sure he is used to it. Doesn't mean it can't bother him.
Thanks, I was hoping for more specifics like this.\n\nAlso, creationists are trying to infiltrate scientific circles with bullshit scientific articles.  Shouldn't someone try to reach their circles of faith that they're lying to about facts?
Why go to all of the effort of drilling four bore holes 70 meters deep when they can just pray for a spring?
Oh, I see! Thank you.\n\nI don't know my fallacies as well as I should.
藤井寺市の賃貸不動産会社、賃貸マンション、アパート等の賃貸情報を発信
another good example\n
If her psoriasis is objectively improving, you'd be hard-pressed to get her off of it. Results are hard to argue with, after all, and just because something isn't a giant clinical trial tracking hundreds of patients' vitals over a long period doesn't invalidate what she's seeing. However, her views on nutrition are quite inaccurate - and while they won't hurt her in the short term, they could eventually become deleterious.\n\nFirst, she isn't consuming "micronutrients," she's consuming the same old macronutrients as any vegan - mostly carbs and fiber from veggies. I don't know why she thinks turning them into a liquid changes their composition, but it's nothing magical, although it will be hard to get the same amount of calories as most Americans. Notably, she's missing out on cholesterol, protein, and B vitamins (which are primarily in meat), but that shouldn't be an issue in the short term.\n\nSecond, her assertion that "conventional doctors" won't know what she's talking about is amusing. She apparently conflates disagreement over factual information with a lack of knowledge. What is "lymphatic repair," for example, and why does she believe starvation will improve it? What is a "toxin" and why would starvation get rid of it? Seriously, she asserts that she is not taking in any calories (that's what [macronutrients](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_macronutrients) are) and that this should make her better. Even though she's wrong, how can she justify that this would be a good thing? Moreover, why would all of this be a mystery to silly American doctors? Hint: the FDA doesn't control health information in the whole world.\n\nThird, she's feeling better, and that's what counts to her. You won't convince her she *isn't* feeling better, so the best you can do is correct her on her most egregious factual errors to keep her from hurting herself. My credentials aren't more authoritative than those of the doctors she dismissed out of hand, so the best you can hope is that she attempts to answer some of the questions above, and think for herself.
there's either a typo, or this a weird comic...
For a second I thought the cat was gone. That would've been something.
My daughter has an allergy to eggs, which is what many of the vaccines are cultured in.  I want to get her vaccinated, but at the moment, I can't.  My mom thinks it's great, because now my daughter won't get autism, and I want to strangle her.  It infuriates me that there are so many kids running around out there unvaccinated due to their uneducated parents, because it means that my daughter is just that much more likely of contracting something that is easily avoidable.
That's not intellectually honest. One could for example argue that psychics exist, but that the mainstream, self-proclaimed psychics are fake. It would only take real example to invalidate those 0.0000000000000001 numbers.
You're the one who made an assertion! Yes, I demand a quote that supports that assertion.\n\nI notice you're still trying really hard to avoid answering easy questions. I'll try again:\n\nWhen you read this quote:\n\n> I think most men are honestly clueless about what it means to live as a woman. There are a million little things that I hardly even think about any more which are ways in which I try to avoid sexual assault. It’s just things I do, things that I would be blamed for not doing if I were assaulted.\n\nIs this what you hear?:\n\n>"you have a penis, therefore you are wrong and can't see how much damage you do by having a penis around female skeptics,"\n\nBecause if so, there may be something terribly wrong with you.
No, you're absolutely right. It's not apparent in every case, but I feel like there are enough cases where electromagnetism is changed or used by the unidentified object that it should be noted. \n\nI'm guessing Tesla knew what was going on.
He needs some positive ions.
you're a towel
We need to work on your people skills.
Yeah that's pretty much how Tesla is, a bunch of fun stories.  The man was a genius and well beyond his time, but man people can make up some extraordinary claims to make him seem like electric Jesus.  Tesla could put on a hell of a show for you to think we was some sort of wizard.  I like to think of him of an extremely awesome magician that used awesome inventions to give spectacular shows to people.  As a side job of course, Mark Twain needed some motherfucking entertainment.
You down vote him, but what if he is the alien? :p
I remember the movie, also did a bit on internet reading. Fascinating to say the least.
If the FDA mandated freezing temperature for fish you're damn straight I would eat at sushi places that deliberately went against FDA regulations.
Fiction? No need for assholes. Remove yourself, and thanks.
Drapela made a poor case for his beliefs.
Man you are just tearing the paranormal sub new assholes.
I had to jump in. You're not missing the point, everyone else is being obtuse in their need to agree with the article. The article claims in the very first two words to be a debunking Christianity and then goes on to only debunk Creationism. This is all you've said. I've tried to exchange some of your unfairly given downvotes.\n\nTo be very clear I agree with the article, and am exceptionally anti-Christian Science. But I'm also very into factuality and logic. And you're right.\n\n
Reflexology is one of the most ridiculous concepts ever. Feet are feet, nothing more. There are no magical areas of the feet corresponding to other parts of the body.
That's great, but also in no way the same thing as selling someone a band of metal and claiming it will help them burn fat.
This was reinforced by a chemistry teacher who used to say, "it's not flour-ide," pronouncing it like "flower."  It stuck in my head.
Every serious YouTuber needs a gimmick. Some are better than others.
For what ever reason, acupuncture worked wonders for my mother. She had wip lash from a car accident back in the '70's that she had just never gotten over, gave her head aches, and her tendency to be a pain herself from poor pain management. With in two treatments she was practically a new woman, no more neck pain, far fewer head aches. In the past year since she started with acupuncture her over all health and personablility has increased so much that it is simply undeniably one of the best things that has happened for her and for those around her. The only shame is that this was not an option that was available to her far sooner, 30 years is a long time to labor under such pain when a few hours with a caring person and some "placebo effect" needles is all it took for a cure.
So we should discount the reputation of the presenters if we don't like them?
Yeah, this pretty much sent me down fap river.
A quick search http://www.google.com/products?q=dowsing+rods&aq=f shows you can buy dowsing rods sets for $20 a set. Its outrageous that ATSC is getting $16,500 to $60,000 per set for these.  The competitive bid process in Iraq had completely failed.
Something else to consider if you have not: diet.\n\nThis is actually fairly straightforward if a little boring.  Get back to a fairly basic diet, remove milk, wheat and processed foods and don't add sugar to anything etc.\n\n[Here](http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=diet&dbid=7) is a link to the concept.\n\n
They are very capable of managing decades long multi billion dollar wars,producing nuclear weapons and all sorts of other military tech(how old was the stealth bomber before the public even got a look at it?).\n\nThe economy is managed,just not by governments for the most part.\n\nThinking of  governments as stupid or inept is to misunderstand what they do and who they answer to.\n\nMaybe this sort of comment belongs in /r/conspiracy but personally I believe the UFO phenomena should be a (publicly)top priority for this planet and have to wonder why it's not.\n\n
Thanks. I was also confused.
Tell me about it. One of my grandmother's kids was born with Down Syndrome. Until the day she died, she insisted that it was because of the way the nurse stuck the needle in when she took a blood sample when he was born. No explanation of genetics or increase in DS with age of the mother would ever persuade her otherwise.
In most First World countries they do. In the UK they're utterly ridiculous. As the plaintiff, all you'd need to do is say that you're offended and the defendant lied, and the burden of proof is on the defendant. Which, FYI, is utterly backwards from how libel law works anywhere else in the West.
Well, I would think that death would be a pretty sobering experience, but now that you mention it....what if it isn't?
Sorry, nothing about her face, just that I had already seen her video (posted here on /r/skeptic), so as soon as I recognized it I had to stop - last time my ears were bleeding.\n\nRe: Star Trek: if this video was "fiction", it would not depress me. Authors write bullshit like that every day, but they don't *believe* it... not try to *teach* it...
Yes, because anybody who isn't an atheist is stupid. ಠ\\_ಠ\n
I was groped in a bus station once, leaning over a barrier while looking at an exhibit; when I spun around and nobody was there, I knew it had to be a ghost. Also had bed shaking at home as well, but nothing else with it; it wasn't a violent jerking, but a vibrating like those motel beds they used to have.
I'm more worries about publication bias being behind pub bias. Accu is too fucking ephemeral to nail down, and controls are inconsistently applied in studies. Lot of shot out there I'm shocked they even attempted an MA
That's a load of bullshit. You didn't answer the points I made, so you might as well not have bothered posting. You're a waste of time. But I have time on my hands right now, so, once more: If I wrote 14 articles about UFOs and only three speak of fake UFOs, do you think I don't believe in UFOs? If I write one article a week, am I not allowed to occasionally talk about fakes? And as I pointed out, some cretin's going to complain whatever I do.\n\nI think my writings show that I'm pretty well immersed in the UFO community. Elsewhere, I also wrote about Roswell (http://theoriesofconspiracy.com/2011/08/what-really-went-on-at-roswell.htm) and how the Tunguska Event was caused by a UFO (http://theoriesofconspiracy.com/2012/07/the-tunguska-event-1908-actually-it-was-a-ufo.htm). The latter resulted in another big argument with someone who didn't believe.
Take her point of view. Vaccines are dangerous, they really are. It's true. According to the site she used as a source, 48 people have *died* from the vaccine. According to the same site, however, 4000 people die from cervical cancer every year. These stats also [check out](http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/cervical/statistics/) with the [CDC.](http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/vaccines/hpv/gardasil.html)\n\n\n48 people dying ever from having the vaccine\n\n          vs.\n\n4000 people dying a year from not having the vaccine\n\n\nWhich group would she rather her daughter be in?
I found there was mostly reposts of reposts of images there myself....I unsubscribed when I looked over the front page and felt like I was looking back in time a few months.
The definition of professional (wikipedia, for instance) states that if a person makes a living doing something, they are technically a professional...so while I agree that it sounds silly, a person can in fact be a "professional paranormal investigator".
Well the fat guy had a point at first. If you do something the government doesn't like it will probably fuck you up. Everything after that was pretty hilarious though.
They're not as spooky as they used to be. \n\nOften times they just talk about politics anymore.
I believe it's [Oralive Dental Regenerative Energy Elixir](http://www.ascendedhealth.com/gum-disease/).
Very interesting that when asked why the military industrial complex is hiding the data, neither one of them mentioned that it might have a lot to do with the fact that disclosing the truth about UFOs will also likely disclose the governments' direct contact with the beings, the receiving of technology, and the manner in which the 99% would be able to absolutely live FOR FREE without ever having to rely on any governing power if they only knew how to access the energy that many ETs access.\n\nIf I'm a government trying to keep control over some subjects and I come across information that would absolutely, indubitably shows these subjects how they could easily live and exists WITHOUT my power or influence over them...then the LAST thing that I would want to do is disclose the existence of this information to those subjects.\n\nThe reason behind nondisclosure is very simple really when you stop and think about it.\n\nThe fact that people as supposedly involved in and knowledgeable about UFOs as the two on this show don't bother to mention this fact means either that they are abysmally, embarrassingly ignorant (which I wouldn't go as far as to say that they are), or they were told to *not* disclose THAT particular reason behind the secrecy by their superiors.
That being said, I wonder if that would be a step up - if I remember correctly the republican that he replaces is that guy that basically said that after rape a women can not become pregnant :)
I admit I always have a hard time understanding why someone would resort to those methods. If she and her followers have a history of making up stuff then yes, there are reasons to doubt the elevator story and the amount of actual misogynists. I don't see how that benefited her in any way. I do believe misogyny to be a problem in whatever community, though.\n\nAs for the trolls just being trolls you're probably right, especially if /b/ came into the picture at some point.
It is indeed a common tool for ghost hunting. This however is begging the question (in the proper sense of the term).  Nobody has ever established that ghosts have any electromagnetic effect.  The only basis for thinking that they do is that other people believe so.\n\nIn other words, ghost hunters who do this are sort of like a cargo cult, in that they go through the motions of science without understanding the actual workings of the thing they are attempting to emulate.  It's not science.  Not at all.\n\nDon't get me wrong:  I'd love to see a real scientific investigation of hauntings, etc.  So far as I have been able to determine, the only people who do this today are people like Ben Radford and Joe Nickel, who seem to be almost dirty words here...
Almonds are grown in immense groves, taking precious grazing land away from cattle! Cows need to graze to survive! \n\nThe soil is fertilized with POOP! COW POOP! Gross!\n\nAlmond growers truck in colonies of BEE SLAVES to pollinate their almond groves. Insect slavery is bad!\n\n
It's $150 for fifteen minutes. Isn't that nuts?
Very good analogy, thanks.
so japan cured/caused death?
TL;DR: Don't watch the Oprah Winfrey Network.
What the hell? Nothing about my birth was against medical advice. I don't know where your anger comes from, or what you read into my post, but many, many women can have natural births and survive just fine. Stories about how painful birth is scare some women into believing drugs are a necessary part of birth -- they are not always necessary, they are a choice, and they are the right choice for some people. Instead of posters and stories like this one, informing women about their options is much more helpful.\n\nI had a natural, unmedicated birth with no interventions, in a hospital wiht a midwife and a doula. It was perfectly safe, and there were medical professionals and doctors at the hospital who would be there to assist if an intervention was necessary. \n
lol! I have way too much fucking free time.\n\n*le sigh*
Yeah, I conflate the Web of Trust plugin with the application itself sometimes too.  A bad cognitive habit.
There isn't actually anything new here. It is simply a mathematical game within the framework of special relativity with a singularity at the speed of light in a vacuum itself for massive particles.\n\nQuantum physics played around with this idea back in the 60s with the idea of the tachyon. The only difference here is that what these people did might be slightly more mathematically rigorous, but you can get non-physical solutions when you just play with the math.\n
More like his ghoulie suit!
Yes, the paper is behind a paywall, but don't you know enough about the scientific method to know that this study obviously would have had a control group that didn't smoke marijuana?  (They did, and that control group did not have a loss in IQ).
Yeah, I've read about it before.  It's interesting, but I still think there are way too many stray RF signals out there in our modern age and unshielded recorders are simply picking those up.
Ah, thank god my dad is ultra skeptic.
>The most important qualifications for this job are having large tits, dressing provocatively and being flirty.\n\nIs that true? I always get that impression from TV shows about hospitals, but I never got the truth out of Drs. Well, OK to be true, there are several Dr bloggers in France who say the same thing and my friends whose parents are Drs also talk about the free trips all the time, so I'm not only basing this impression on TV shows, but still...
you need to inform the doctors post-haste.
>I wish /r/ufos was a place we could research it and leave out all of the stupid nonsense comments.\n\nYou're looking for /r/UAP.\n\n;)
I would love to believe in re-incarnation and past lives (out of mainstream religions its the only part that sits comfortably with me), but I just can't. I'm not even going to go into science here, since I know little of it, but I have never experienced or witnessed anything that has made me question what is currently accepted by mainstream science. We don't even know for sure how memories are stored and are only just figuring out the storage capacity of the brain. Without computers and MRI we would never have made discovers like brain hemispheres, plasticity or the affects of drugs/damage. It is still an area of study where we discover new things about ourselves all the time. I sometimes feel as if human ingenuity is vastly underestimated, concepts I can't even being to understand are fluently explained by others, from electronics to physics. At this moment in time we are communicating at incredible speeds across the globe.\n\n I plan on living this life as if it's my only one as the risks are too great if I don't, I am infinitely curious as to what happens when we die (who isn't? its something man has pondered as long as we have existed) but that can wait.
I don't think this is necessarily the case. I think many people truly believe that it works. Perhaps they think they have seen it work in the past. These instances could have really been caused by the placebo effect or the body healing itself, who knows. Either way, I will continue to hold more worth in evidence based treatment.
Too bad it didnt happen once..
My favourite part was where it can save you "up to 10 MPG **or more!**"
I feel so proud to be an Australian right now
I'd like to think so. A nice big mass sighting now that there are so many camera phones, etc.
If the question was "why do you trust the bible", answering "because God says it's true - it's right there in the bible" would be begging the question. It's circular reasoning.\n\n"Have you stopped beating your wife yet?" is a loaded question. Regardless of whether you answer yes or no, the question still establishes that you were beating your wife. There's nothing circular about this at all so that's one big difference.
You must live in K town :)\n\n
Word is that a known hoaxer is behind the video so we probably shouldn't look too far into this video.
I hate to be that guy thats not into it that gets all the down votes, but i'm not entirely sure what this proves.\n\nI've heard about this time and time again and are always left with "hmm...that's interesting", but i never make the leap to aliens because there's so little information to go on. Unless i'm missing something, there were lights in the sky. Couldn't really tell if they were actual objects because the lights were so bright, so all we know are "lights". They were shot at for awhile and nothing came down. Then the lights go away\n\nI mean...am i just too skeptical or is there literally nothing that indicates aliens and everything that indicates "whoa that's strange". It's strange, but we're taking "strange" and extrapolating an exact theory as to what it is. The absence of evidence or any theory at all leads to this one exact theory.\n\nIf the poster is just going along with what the subreddit is actually about and posting a "UFO" with the implication "that's unidentified and weird", than that's cool. But this place is always the hotspot for looking at lights and positively saying it's aliens.\n\nIn the unlikely scenario we shot at real live aliens from another planet, wonder what shooting at them made them think?
As a subscriber of both /r/conspiracy and /r/skeptic, I think that being a skeptic means being skeptical of the official story as well, not just medical scams and leylines.\n\n\nThis means questioning the motives and validity of the JFK assassination. It means investigating the 9/11 attacks with some degree of skepticism. I feel that a person with this sort of attitude to international events of note deserves more respect than 'conspiracy nut'.
Think about how much human and animal shit has made its way into water.  Probably enough to the point that it exceeds even those levels.  Homeopathy is quite literally full of shit.
The only way I can understand it is if the author thinks that "modern skeptical theories" constitute false skepticism.  A peek at the other posts in the blog suggests this might be the case.
I guess it's because providing just a link with no comments has the appearance of an endorsement.
Interesting. Still doesn't make me believe we're all reptilian descendants from an alien race of gods that came here to mate with our woman, but interesting none the less. \n\nWhile watching it, i got this vibe of "grasping at straws" to prove something they want to believe. I don't know. Maybe 2012 aliens will come down and say "yep. Totally true". I just don't buy it yet
And if you look at it closely, there is a clear cut every time he zooms in or out...
I'm speaking from experience, especially with fruit like apples and pears. Maybe European fruit tastes better.
Keep paying attention!  I'm guessing as long as it wasn't performing non-ballistic maneuvers or super-fast speeds you are *more likely than not* looking at something man-made.
There really is nothing wrong with suspension of disbelief for the purposes of entertainment. When someone is enjoying Super Mario, that doesn't mean they believe in magic stars and flying turtles.\n\nAnd r/nosleep is just a forum for fictional stories. I also feel obligated to mention [/r/creepy](http://www.reddit.com/r/creepy) for the same type of material, but not limited to the "fictional short-story" format.
About effin' time!
Man that would have been really stupid! But no, what you said was:\n\n>It's just some light statistics, dude; lighten up.\n
I'm inclined to say yes, but it would take a bit of cognitive juggling.
Gifts? Wow. Christmas and birthdays must really suck at your house.
this seems interesting...
>A canine professional\n\n"Great work! You'll make VP for this, Rascal."
And here comes testimonial evidence: Massage works for me. Few years ago bus drove over my foot. No broken bones, but foot was few times it's normal size. After a month everything looked ok. I started running about a year ago and after month of training my foot started aching. I went to a doctor he told me to massage it and I'm running pain-free since.\n\nWe believe testimonials because it's easier that way. Somebody tells you - it works, you can either believe him or do research. Right now it's not that hard - you open wikipedia or google scholar and you have answers to 90% of questions, but still you have to do the work. Plus IRL you cannot check something during conversation and after it you don't usually care so much to check. Then later when you need the info you only have one source of info - testimonial, so it's either that or lucky guess.
Happy to share, glad you appreciated it.
I saw the same thing where I live. It turned out that some guys have a few RC planes decked out with blue LCD's that they fly over the city to freak people out. I was pretty disappointed but honestly it made sense.
Because they are using the camera to document your retardation.
That's not really how that works.  Proper insulation, secondary uses, etc etc dramatically alter the cost/benefit ratio.  An evacuated cylinder with a suspended superconducting wire could be kept below its Tc with relatively little energy expenditure.\n\nFurthermore, that's not why you use a superconducting smart grid.  Conventional conductors lose energy over distance - it would be impractical to power something in New York from a plant in Ohio with a conventional grid.  Superconducting wire enables far greater power transfer.  If coupled with an evacuated tube transport system, you'd provide a cost-effective (even from a commercial net-gain standpoint) power/transportation infrastructure system.  If done right, it would also be hardened against attacks, fault-tolerant, and extremely beneficial.\n\nIf and when we ever move to fusion as a global power source, a superconducting grid would make it feasible to have a few very large fusion plants across the globe.\n\nAlso, research into higher-temperature superconductors continues to yield tantalizing new results, and the latest research has suggested that room-temperature superconductivity is possible.
Seriously? Paranormal Activity?! \n\n
If they ground up that "NO" and shook it into an increasingly diluted water solution, maybe then it would be "YES."
wow this is quite the coincidence because I never heard Lazar say anything about element 115 before. I just recognized it from the [Stan Romanek equations](http://www.stanromanek.com/05Equations_website/) that he claims to have written in a trance after an abduction scenario.\n\nFrom the website:\n>This equation was given to Stan during his first abduction experience. It came out when Stan was undergoing his first hypnotic regression in July 2002. Included in the equation is a formula depicting a helium atom bombarding **element 115**, which at the time did not exist.\n\nBased on the drawings, the element 115 equation seems to have something to do with creating wormholes or folding space.
[Watch out...](http://imgur.com/AazB9)
At Maryland, at least in 2nd year, we had basically an hourlong meeting each with a practitioner of chiropracty, acupuncture, and qi gong, along with about 20 minutes of lecture that touched on the different techniques, and a few slides on spinal gating theory (which in itself is no more or less legitimate than most theories in neurology).  The fact that it is taught might look worse in the public eye than that the reality: that it took up 0.001% of my courseload for the year and I haven't thought about it since.  Certainly none of the faculty have claimed that any of these things are more effective than real medicine. By being placed in the same room with practitioners that are convinced their respective practices work better than or equally as well as medicine does no more influence to my future practice than being placed in a room full of addicts who are convinced and are vocal about beliving that the next hit is the best thing for them. At this point in my career and moving forward, I should be trusted to be in a room full of people (or even one person) that has alternative viewpoints and dismiss them should the need arise.
I read the top post and decided not to read this tonight.  I'll read this tomorrow when there's light out.
There are many things to fap at.
I agree!  They are actually very beautiful objects...looks like a lot of skill and craftsmanship went into creating them as well!
"The fact that its world wide does not contradict the fact that most of the sightings are in the US"\n\nCorrection: Most reported sightings.
Because god has a plan, brah.
So you didn't read it. In what way do you believe it's biased?
Agreed that is generally true ... but doctoring images to make people look dubious goes way beyond personal bias, it is a deliberate manipulation worthy of what was seen in pravda during the soviet era. It ceases to be a source of news and simply becomes political propganda.
Not sure what you're seeing here. Explain?
So,the lockdown is not filmed during one night?!
Er, yeah...\n\n
They don't work, but it's impossible to prove they can't work. I don't believe that psychics actually have powers, but I won't discount their usefulness. I do believe that some psychic investigators are "well connected" and may be privy to details the police aren't.
/r/woahdude
A nut, but he's not Miller crazy, but Moore crazy.
I disagree, I think broad strokes of personality are covered and are applicable. Horoscopes are based off nothing and most horoscopes can be read by anyone as accepted as relevant to their lifestyle.\n\n\nI'm an INTP and this http://intpcentral.com/?page_id=7 gives an incredibly detailed and accurate summary of myself that I doubt applies to many other people. \n\nOne of my good friends who is very different than I am tested as an ENFP. Almost 0 of those qualities apply to me but he found it disturbingly accurate.\n\nhttp://www.personalitypage.com/ENFP.html\n\nAlthough I don't think it's a perfect test of determining someone's personality because personality is much more complicated than x amount of types, I think it serves well in describing broad strokes.\n\nAnother one of my friends tested and he was like a quarter of four different types meaning the test isn't going to account for all personalities and come up with definite answer for all people.
I respect your beliefs, and I'm more curious, because I was rained as nondenominational. I realize that my confusion makes me more vulnerable to dark entities when I investigate, and at my very first attempt at an evp burst session got a very dark, threatening voice telling me what my friends and I believe "you think this is a mother fu**ing game?" And I remember it to this day. I'm still what I consider a rookie, and I need "mentoring" or "teaching".
wat. Why'd they cut the branch off? Like, what was it doing?
could you maybe post those pictures?
They claim miracles happened and are therefore (as far as historical standards go) unacceptable. *Exact* same line of reasoning applies to Homer. Just because he wrote about Troy, Achilles, Hercules, Odysseus, and Atlantis you don't take these factually or that such people ever even existed.... Although if you watch the history channel or discovery you'd be surprised what people actually believe... Although, to be fair, one could make the argument homer didn't exist.\n\nAs for Plato and Socrates, that is a decent analogy, but there is nothing supernatural about those stories. Also, other contemporaries wrote about him such as aristophanes-- it wasn't just plato. Although, for the sake of argument, I could say it is possible that he was a mythic figure on how to live and never really existed. That's possible... much like Jesus and his disciples. They are used to tell a narrative on how to live and how humans are fallible.
Garbage. \n\nDigging into the website I see the band includes Citronella Oil as it's active ingredient. According to this [article from the American Chemical Society](http://pubs.acs.org/cen/whatstuff/84/8444sci2.html), 10% citronella oil applied DIRECTLY to the skin lasted only a short time.\n\n(You know citronella oil if you burn candles in your back yard to repel mosquitoes. You know it's worthless if you tried them).\n\nHere's we have just a scent of oil in one small band on one arm. \n\nGarbage.\n\nEDIT. Perhaps they are trying to go for that flea collar type of protection. Of course, this is completely difference since flea collars were dangerous because the chemical is absorbed into the skin of the animal and not as a scented repellent.\nCurrently, the one and only truly effective repellent is DEET applied directly to the skin.\n\n
This is film, correct? This is sloppy film processing. Most likely, the film came into contact with itself during developing, a wet process, which would make the gelatin emulsion slide around on the plastic backing (that would be why it's dark on the left side, the emulsion is bunched up from being smeared) and could also transfer emulsion from an adjacent negative, resulting in the star.
Especially crazy looking transformation (with some crazy music too) at 5:50. I have no good explanation for what any of these are; if anyone does, please let us know what you think.
Would you have found it more believable if the alien had had an American accent?
Still down ?
Skepticism on this subreddit? Who'd a-thunk it?
And yet he's still just a bat in a cage...\n
Watch some Star Trek. After the first hundred planets, you're not as eager to communicate, are you?\n
I thought it has more to do with the costs of  aluminum byproduct disposal, why pay to dispose of a chemical when municipalities will pay you for it? I am not 100% sure, but I thought the lobbying and push (initially anyway) for fluoridation came from subsidiaries of those trying to get rid of it.
This is so infuriating to me. Even if vaccinating increased the chance of autism, not vaccinating significantly increases the chance of death and even though I might overstep a line or be wrong there, but I guess death is worse than autism.
My mom did this with my brother and I when we were growing up... Oh, the things you are taught to think is normal.
In today's day and age of advanced consumer level technology and know-how, there can never be any sort of smoking gun piece of evidence in the way of a photo or video. The fact is that neither piece of evidence can ever be taken at face value anymore. There is tons of good research that makes pretty solid arguments that show there is SOMETHING to a lot of topics within the paranormal field but they are often considered circumstantial at best by most people. This leaves the more critical ones only the option of personal experience as means to validate the field of study to most. On a side note, I find that the best debunking is usually done by level headed "believers."
Frankly it doesn't mean "safe" to me either. I have a real distrust of farmer's markets after going to a few and seeing what is sold there with no real oversight. Raw milk peddlers telling parents it can prevent their babies from getting the flu, crystal healers, and all other manner of woo. The produce looks fresh and good, but I don't trust a large group them to make sure that their "organic pesticides" aren't covering their product or are contaminated with bacteria. \n\nAt least if I get sick from buying produce at a supermarket I have a recourse of action and it can be traced back to a farm. At a farmers market how often does one get the name of the person selling it, or the farm it came from.
Devil's advocate:\n\n* The level of discourse had fallen to the level of name calling and fallacious arguments and full on misrepresentation.\n\n\nOf course there are many reasons she might want to hype this up.\n\nOr one could have even argued that a more sane approach would have been to call out her followers on bad behavior, hyperbole and fallacious arguments and the need to focus on the actual facts.  This would have focused people on the actual meat (what little there was) of the situation.  Far too many people have been reacting to what other people have said, or said what other people have said in lue of the real facts on the ground.
Sure is.
I lack the skills to disprove it, but damn that's creepy. It gave me gersebermps.
A few years ago I had a really crappy computer and used to plug my 5.1 surround speakers through an assortment of splitters into a headphone jack (lol). They used to pick up radio transmissions all the time when turned off. Curiously, turning the volume knob down made the radio interference louder.
When I was a kid I was into all sorts of paranormal stories; ghosts, loch ness, easter island, bigfoot, ufos and aliens, you name it.  It was sort of a passive interest.  Then one November night in about ~2000 my dad and I saw two ridiculously fast moving point sources of light (brighter than the background stars by a noticable amount, about as bright as Rigel in the constellation Orion) chasing each other across a large portion of the sky, doing full reversals, 90º corners on a dime, the whole lot.  We watched them for about a minute before they just sort of phased out of existence.  I was so hysterical that our neighbour came out of his house to see what the fuss was about and he might've seen it too, but we've never been on good terms with him so I haven't asked.\n\nEver since then I've kept my head up at night and have built a collection of about 80 rare UFO books dating back to Ruppelt's report on UFOs.  Even if there isn't any "hard" proof, or enough to convince the hard skeptics, it still makes for great reading material.\n\nAlso, [this was the first book I ever had on the subject.](http://www.amazon.com/Field-Guide-Extraterrestrials-Patrick-Huyghe/dp/038078128X/ref=pd_vtp_b_9)  I must've read it back to front hundreds of times as a kid.  It puts a lot of abduction cases into perspective by way of the brilliant illustrations.
I just finished 1977, pretty great stuff. Some of the 1975 calls are of poor quality audio-wise.
> Just seems like providing health care (including advice) and coverage should be completely separate.\n\nCommie pinko socialist libtard!  I bet you love Obama and his asian parents!  Why do you hate America?!\n\n(In case it's unclear, /sarcasm)
Placebo is 100% real though, and can even reduce symptoms in patients with parkinson's disease.\n\nhttp://www.innovations-report.com/html/reports/studies/report-27974.html
This is child abuse, pure and simple.  Any parent that allows their child to do this should be horse-whipped!
Uh...\n\n>Before you submit, remember to ask yourself this question:\n"If this type of content begins to dominate the subreddit, how would I feel?"\nIf the answer is "Not particularly good" -- or similar -- wrap it in a self-post, or if the answer is "Particularly bad", don't post it!\n\nNo thanks. Please post in /r/atheism next time.\n\nedit: seeing as how I have 1/3 downvotes, maybe a clarification would help me:\n\nThe point I'm making is that it's a picture with no conversation value, and a link post at that. Like the very first quote from the the sidebar rules says: if you wouldn't want the subreddit dominated by it, then put it in a self post... or don't post at all.\n\nIf I wanted a bunch of pictures I won't remember an hour from now, then I'd be over in /r/atheism.
I'm a psychic too. I see, wait, it's becoming clear now, I see excuses and scheduling conflicts. I see stalling and evasion and I see no trip to JREF.
Forget "BS", that's fucking disgusting, unless he *wants* you to be big balls of staph.
>but the theory I've never heard a decent response for was the "they needed an excuse to go to war in the middle east so they let it happen" theory.\n\nThat way of thinking leads the conclusion that traffic accidents must be caused by out-of-work ambulance drivers tampering with brake lines. It's not even a "theory", it's just a way to apply a more sinister and exciting narrative to things.\n\nIncompetence, laziness, vanity, arrogance, and stupidity are vastly easier and more common explanations for most human failings than orchestrated malevolence is. When a necessary job was done poorly or not at all, it's usually because someone was surfing reddit or stamping paperwork blindly with a hangover or texting their girlfriend after a fight or whatever. \n\nIt's not that maleovent disregard is impossible to rule out, it's that incompetence is a much wider and easier logical door to pass through.
It's because you are bigger. You have a much lower surface area to volume ratio so you lose heat much slower than a child. Basically take an ice cube and another ice cube twice the size. The bigger one takes more than twice the time to melt because of the difference in surface area and volume.\n\nEDIT: Assuming the ice cubes are the same shape
Why is it worth the money exactly?
The new issue of Skeptic Magazine (US) has a pretty good article on this. Mine just came in the mail yesterday.
"... Another writer again agreed with all my generalities, but said that as an inveterate skeptic I have closed my mind to the truth. Most notably I have ignored the evidence for an Earth that is six thousand years old. Well, I haven't ignored it; I considered the purported evidence and *then* rejected it.\n \nThere is a difference, and this is a difference, we might say, between prejudice and postjudice. Prejudice is making a judgment before you have looked at the facts. Postjudice is making a judgment afterwards. Prejudice is terrible, in the sense that you commit injustices and you make serious mistakes. Postjudice is not terrible. You can't be perfect of course; you may make mistakes also. But it is permissible to make a judgment after you have examined the evidence. In some circles it is even encouraged."\n\n- Carl Sagan, "The Burden of Skepticism"\n
Alternatively:\n\n"Well, I believe that reality is objective.  Therefore all that stuff you said about relativism is bunk, and you're either wrong or don't exist."
Thanks for sharing your story.
Well, people who actively go out of their way to attempt to prove the non-existence of something that, by its nature, can 't be proven are disproven, show more than a "lack of belief in god(s)" IMHO.\n\nBesides, "god" has different meanings in different cultures.\n\nIn Sandkrit, "deva" is often translated as "god," and the Yoga Sutras call ANY "attractive object of attention" used in meditation,  a "personal god."\n\nDevas, in general, are the gestalt of relationships (defined as "consciousness" in Vedic Cosmology) of a given system.  \n\nEVERY system has its own "deva," or vibrational character. Brahma is the totality of all systems, so you could call He/She/It the fundamental deva of the multiverse. Other devas are the fundamental vibration/essential character of what modern science calls the forces of nature. Other devas are the equivalent for a society, or forrest, or town, or person, or whatever.\n\nRituals allegedly can influence devas, but left on their own, they are no different than what modern scientists deal with on a day to day basis: the predictable set of behaviors/inter-relationships of a system.\n\nSo, do you believe in "devas" or not?
Considering that there's a walk-way behind them; I would go with it being someone walking past and coincidental timing.  Seriously, why does this have to be "hard"?
Actually, so was mine intended. After sending it however, I realized that it doesn't really come across as such... given the nature of so much anti-god rhetoric on reddit. Cheers!\n
I see what you did there
Tineye the pic LOL TROLLLLLL
Haven't you heard? [Sweden is importing trash](http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-10/29/sweden-imports-garbage-for-energy).
Old news, but it still needs to be repeated.
I think the idea behind that is a psychopath has no conscience, therefore there is no conflict when they tell a lie. I could be mistaken, but I've known my fair share of psychopaths, and I don't see many of them believing what they say (since they often lie indiscriminately), so much as just having an unnerving ability to spew whatever truth they want to whomever they want, and not having a sense of right and wrong to get in the way.\n\nI could be completely wrong, but that's been my experience.
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For future reference, [r/gullible](http://www.reddit.com/r/gullible/) does actually exist; community for 1 year with 40 subscribers (at this time).
I made the change when after I decided to understand the skeptics side of the argument. I have found an overwhelming amount of non-conspiracy evidence. Such as: what I thought was thermite, ended up being melting aluminum; what I thought was a controlled demolition ended up being the way it was constructed. There are many more I could say, but these are things you already know about.
Thank you for attempting to abide by the rules.  Upvoted.  NOW:\n\n>And with the placebo effect you are in an interesting ethical hole. The research shows that lying to your patients, misleading them, can help them get better... Because to give a placebo treatment to a patient requires that you lie to them. \n\nOBJECTION: Presumes facts not in evidence.  You have a headache.  Take an aspirin.  If you buy it out of a vending machine, it will cure your headache.  If it is given to you by a doctor whose opinion you trust, it will cure your headache *faster.*  This is *also* the Placebo Effect, and it in no way requires dishonesty between doctor and patient nor does it in any way impugn the efficacy of the treatment being rendered.  The "patients must be lied to for there to be a placebo effect" is the most tired strawman of the entire "skeptical" movement.  While there is ample research that placebo is more effective if the patient believes it to be true, there is absolutely *no* research that says the doctor *can't* believe in it.\n\n>think that's why we shouldn't give sham treatments to patients in legitimate medicine.\n\nOBJECTION.  Presumes facts not in evidence.  In the overwhelming majority of cases, placebos are given to patients *after* all other treatments have been exhausted (either for time, side effects or cost).  The number of patients who come to alternative medicine first are a miniscule fraction compared to the patients who come to alternative medicine *last.*\n\n>There is an ethical way that we can use the placebo research. Because what this research tells us is that the way you give a treatment, can affect how effective it is. So we know, for example, that if we give treatments in a much more healing environment with a greater sense of positivity with happier, more confident people in the NHS, in nicer settings, then that's not just wishy-washing, that really genuinely improves the outcomes of our treatments. And I think that's the real key, to use all of the placebo effect research I've described, to find ways of taking treatments which we know are effective, and make them even better.\n\nThen why object to an NHS-overseen homeopath giving "placebo" to a patient if all other avenues have been exhausted?  If the patient is unresponsive to any other treatment, but responsive to placebo, who are you to deny them just because you don't like the way it's given?
Maybe. Well, there was that one guy put a slice on his knackwurst that time...
Thanks.  Listening to it again, i basically heard:\n\n\n"dehilasyintosdenhatereasyesookninheindowaimanihtimanhateasetrified and I didn't like this, and i didn't like it like you know and at the start i was kind of like year and there's noonherelikyouno, juseaveitahatlikutnowikeibelietechilike."\n\nTl:dr - "Ya like dags?"
317 days left until nobody remembers the Mayans even existed.
The Oh Yeah! shot!
Yes i know that. one of the biggest issues facing india (according to me ). the comment was attempted snarkiness to that effect since this book says it can let you choose the gender through reading it.(which is obviously BS)
Atheist reporting in.
It's TEDx, so it isn't vetted in any way by TED, and this isn't the first time it's been used as a platform for flummery.\n\n(I googled "TED woo," and there are apparently a lot of people named Ted Woo.)
> Well, I wouldn't believe everything I read on the Internet, watch on YouTube, or hear from the government. All sources are known to mislead you.\n\nGee, thanks for that little gem of wisdom. I'll get out my crayon and write that one down.\n\n
>Those who believe in evolution, and in a naturalistic explanation of the universe, ultimately see themselves as end-owners--as the creator and ultimate source of authority. In this way they answer to nothing and nobody, for there is nothing higher than themselves\n\nI think this is also troubling. It isnt just that he disbelieves in the science of evolution, akin to saying "things DO NOT FALL" but it is also his views of all the people working in the science of evolution. He is basically calling them frauds due to his feelings that they are wrong and projecting this failure onto them. That they are bastardizing the science based on ego, based on feelings.\n\nit's a bit more than he doesnt believe in evolution but that he is a failure at scientific skepticism.\n\n\nIt's a bit different to say "i'm not sure if all the evidence is there for us to discount other ideas", versus what he did say "people basically made up evolution so they could pretend their was no god and feel like they own the universe"\n\nAnd really I dont care what field it is, or what you disbelieve, if you make these kind of statements, it doesnt really matter how brilliant you are, you deserve ridicule.\n\n\nI dont care if you say "I dont think all the evidence is there" because that just means you are ignorant but open to science but if you say "the entire field is a crock " and your only offered evidence is your feelings, well then you are just another bottom feeder.\n
maybe it's because they died of malnutrition.... last time I checked, Angels aren't walking orange trees.\n\nI do believe it's possible that his brain just went into "overdrive mode" though.
Not the same in the UK either. I was just fed bullshit about how awesome we were and how all the killing done in my countries name was very much necessary.
Funny story...\nET scared the living SHITE out of me as a kid. \nBut I'll take you up on that milkcrate ride!! Lol
There's not really much you can do.  Sadly, when these companies aren't under investigation, they tend to be the most reliable in paying their invoices and this is often all company officers really care about.  \n\nI had the pure joy of doing contract work for [CTI-Science](http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-07-26/health/ct-met-autism-treatment-pulled-20100726_1_cti-science-web-warning-letter-expert-in-environmental-health) and [Airborne](http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/04/news/companies/airborne_settlement/).  Oh, the shame!
>Either they were part of some elaborate conspiracy or they really did see something.\n\nOr they just wanted to get on TV by repeating things they had heard in the news. This wouldn't be the first time. And even if they DID see something, it's a long way between "I saw something in the sky" and "I saw an alien spacecraft follow a plane and suck it out of the sky".\n\n>Finally what incentive was there for him to just fake this and disappear, seemingly without informing his family?\n\nMaybe a loan-shark was after his legs. Maybe he just wanted to disappear. Maybe he's just a troll. Maybe if people went around looking for 'aliens' and 'UFOs' in the middle of the ocean then they wouldn't be looking for him. It's classic mis-direction.\n\nI don't know why you seem obsessed with this - maybe you're just playing the devil's advocate around here but I don't see anything in this story that actually suggests 'aliens' were involved at all.\n\nIf you want a real mystery go check out [D.B. Cooper](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._B._Cooper). Nothing supernatural - just a good old fashion mystery.
I'm sure there are medical benefits of cannabis, but are you also aware that there are health risks associated with smoking it?
Sorry, can't help either. You just have to keep looking in the same places until the universe remembers to put it back where it's supposed to be.
Oh yes, you're right.  Oops.
Here an episode Brian Dunning did on the [subject.](http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4254)
No, not at all. To suggest the placebo effect doesn't exist is as stupid as pretending it is a modern panacea. Assuming that doctors don't prescribe homeopathic medicines for serious conditions, there is no doubt that prescribing these medicines both improves the national health and saves money over the real medicines. The question arises over whether this is morally right - can we lie (even by omission) to patients who might be unhappy if they looked up what they are getting?\n\nAs another example, how about letting doctors prescribe placebo antibiotics to patients who demand them when they have a cold? This stops the spread of superbugs, gets irritating patients out of doctors' faces and doesn't cost very much.
Why are you so desperate to impose your beliefs on me?\nYou're like a jehovahs witness.\n\nYou have limited knowledge on the subject as do I.\n\n\nI've seen 3 UFOs personally,Ive never really thought of them as alien craft piloted by EBEs but they are not natural phenomena, at least not common natural phenomena.\n\n\nFor me the things used to dismiss the subject are often more ridiculous than flying lampshades.\n\n
This. I really think that, assuming that *we* are smarter/know more, have the responsibility to explain why things are false and have to teach how to get *smart* as well. We have this responsibility as long as we see us somewhat superior. If we fail to teach even the fundamental basics, we are to blame and shouldn't be allowed to wear the smart-badge in public i.e. should not correct others.\n\nThe most crucial point in order to achieve this is that you do it in a nice and respectful manner, just like OP did.
> GOD is dead. Or is she?\n\nOh man. When an article starts like that...
It's like every ninja movie ever.
So Skeptics are either blind to or complicit in things like mind control and human experimentation. Do I get a paycheck or anything?
What motions exacerbate the symptoms?
Ah, I see. Man, do I feel stupid now. Sorry.
*Looks precariously at mound of mashed potatoes on plate and laughs*\n\nThis means something!
Just out of curiosity, how old are you?
After college, I went to film school in Vancouver BC, and it was right across the street from a Scientology church. My friends and I had many a discussions with them, and it never ceased to amaze me how insane they were.\n\nGood times.
ugh, my sister's a pastor and a uses homeopathic medicine. That isn't liberal is it?
>Some lady was arrested for saying racist things on a subway.  \n\nShe was also physically assaulting people.
That would suck for the doctor though.  The kid leaves with just some mild aches and pains and he's got a painfully idiotic malpractice suit on his hands.
I'm always a bit interested how this argument gets so polarized, when it could be a grey area. I think people jump on the pro-vax lobby as much as the anti-vax. The reality is you would have to be a professional in the area to understand the necessary epidemiological or medical knowledge. However, this group of people may be considered to have their own bias, being that their very identities as doctors and so on are caught up in the "we fix things" mentality, and given the possibility that they might be receiving biased information from the companies that may have a profit motive and such. And then on the other side, you have lots of anecdotal and emotive evidence that is anti-vaccination and that doesn't help anyone reach a conclusion either. Does anyone know of a good analysis that really nails this debate ?
ZDZIV
The [Taman Shud Case](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taman_Shud_Case) is a famous case in Australia where an unidentified man was found dead on a beach. To this day, no one can be sure of who he is or exactly how he died. There are several mysteries relating to the clues to his identity.
Why do you disagree?\n\nIn the western world people don't often starve to death and there is actually a negative correlation between health of diet and number of offspring surviving to adulthood. That's probably because of economic and sociological factors but we are pretty definitively not selecting for diet right now. Long term we might be selecting for groups with diets that are sustainable (ecologically, economically and politically) in some vague way but we are absolutely *not* selecting for any kind of diet that aims for optimum health or lifespan.
we're both just shooting in the dark
That must be why they put it in pills.
I'm very fond of Sartre's response to the concept of "human nature": [Existence precedes essence](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existence_precedes_essence#Sartre.27s_view).
>excessive dietary sodium intake\n\nWelp, I'm still screwed. Thankfully it's only mild to moderate.
This is what I've been messaging people lately (such as the O.P.) as it seems sleep paralysis is so common lately. Honestly It's usually all sleep paralysis in nearly all cases (leaving room for the benefit of doubt that it may infact be paranormal in nature). Even I experienced classic sleep paralysis in my childhood. I post this here now for those that might think that their experiences aren't simply sleep paralysis for the purpose of attempting to help those specific people.\n\n\n From the stand point of reason you experiences are psychological (more neurological actually) in nature and they are the result of bad dreams and sleep paralysis and what most on that thread have said are true. However, as a ritualist, from a stand point of modern magick what you said could be a truth as well taking into account such things as the psychological model and others.. http://www.reddit.com/r/Paranormal/comments/nio03/if_the_trend_i_see_continues/c3a57t6?context=3 \nAs a ritualist, I've seen and experienced similar. I am going to give you two "holy names" of "spirits" and what I want you to first do is to consider them in the fashion of an archetype in psychology. Essentially they are the embodiment of an Idea or an Ideal. \n\nThe first name is "Gabriel" as in the Arch Angel Gabriel. In the magick/cabbalistic tradition he is the head angel of (yesod) and the head angel of dreams, speaking in a general sense. Gabriel in lore is used to control "Dream Demons" wich are from the dark side of "yesod" in lore, this is all you need to know in the conceptual context. \n\nThe second name is "Shaddai El Chai."  Think of it similar to an aspect of the holy spirit that deals with stuff like dreams. It doesn't have any seeming physical characteristics in the sense of personification. \nNow I'll give you a prayer incorporating these two concepts. "Shaddai El Chai, I call thee here to be with me in this and ask that you be with me as I lay down for rest tonight. I also call thee arch angel Gabriel and ask that you watch over and protect me as I lay down for sleep to night and protect me from evil while I sleep." The importance here isn't in the wording which you can change to suit your needs, but in two things: One mentally/emotionally connecting to the prayer, and two emotionally/mentally connecting to these concepts, ideas/ideals until you get a sense of them as really being there with you. Just call on them when you're scared at night and you'll discover what I mean. \n\nIf you actually do this you may notice one of three outcomes. \n\n1) this doesn't have any effect on these experiences but this silly little prayer helps you better cope with them. \n\n2) This prayer helps and you have more peaceful sleep, meaning that it could have been actually paranormal in nature. But if it was or wasn't doesn't matter as long as you are no longer troubled by these experiences. \n\n3) You try this and experience a violent paranormal reaction. Paranormal activity ramps up. In this case it is some negative entity, Keep hammering away at it with these holy names and call in an expert that can handle this situation for you/ with you.
That was just to terrible to read.\n
Charlie Brooker covers editing techniques (like noddies) in his Screen Wipe programme.  I highly recommend trying to get a copy of it, there are 29 episodes in all, and they're entertaining as well as informative.\n\n It's obviously from a UK perspective, but even non-Brits should find it interesting.\n\nETA - There's also News Wipe, the spin-off programme about the news media.
**Are you a member of the American skeptic community??**\n\nNo? Do you have any involvement with it? No? Then why do you make such outlandish claims such as "sexual hysteria" and other ridiculous things.\n\nLook at what I linked to. If David Silverman, Matt Dilahunty, and other big names are talking about it on an official platform, **it's obviously a serious issue that needs addressing**. Come on now.
I just mixed .5 in some PB and ate the pb. I don't need heat right?
I wish there was a way to mark a post as "Primarily here for the comments" -- too often off-topic (or even outright crappy) posts generate good comments, which makes figuring out how to moderate the post.\n\nI was 60/40 on keeping it, and I'm leaning more towards keeping it now. \n\n
Actually, Conservapedia _was_ infiltrated by a troll who did an IAmA here a few months ago.
The fuck is the context? Rather, what is the relevance to the paranormal in the link?  /r/webcomics would be a better venue.
Because you never go up against a Sicilian when death is on the line!
Interesting. Hadn't heard much of this. You mean like [this](http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/ghostgenes.shtml)? So it is like a genetic inherited memory? I found the documentary [here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toRIkRa1fYU). I'll check it out now.
Science
There is nothing better.
You see this kind of thing all the time.  It's a form of ad-hominem.  I don't like X for reason Y, therefore I can just ignore anything they say about topic Z.\n\nIt doesn't work that way.  Even if you're justified about reason Y, you've still got to do your homework and counter the claims about topic Z with substance.
Launch Biophoton Torpedoes!
He's referring to stuff like this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfruit that is marketed by inflating the supposed benefits of antioxidants.
Or was it ......... Fate?
That would just be the converse of what they normally do: have surgery, refuse adjuvant chemo, embrace alternative woo, and get better.  Of course after getting better they claim it was the woo, and not the surgery, that was responsible for their survival, and go on to write obnoxious books about how they bravely said no to chemo and how eating wheatgrass and doing coffee enemas was a miracle cure, when in reality it was the surgery that saved their lives, and refusing chemo only shifted their five year survival chances down from perhaps 60% to 40%, and they were lucky.\n
Idk where you got that statistic but everyone naturally goes into a stage of paralysis during REM sleep to prevent us from acting out our dreams.  The existence of sane hallucinations is very interesting, especially given how widespread they are, and our understanding of them really isn't that great (same with psychedelic experiences).  Since these experiences are largely "natural" I can't find an evolutionary explanation for seeing menacing figures.  Compare this with schizophrenia, which we consider a disease, aka abnormal function.  Yet this function is normal and natural.  IMO, even if it is sleep paralysis there is something going on that we don't understand.
I am pro-vaccine and pro-natural birth as well as pro-breastfeeding. But I decided against the eye cream, because it is only to prevent std spreading and to me there was no need for my son to have it. The vitamin k is another story, it is important. And breastmilk can be used for things like pink eye and ear infections, also on small cuts due to its antibacterial properties. (in conjunction with actual medicine anyway.)
I think he was referring to restaurant inspections. I think it is safe to say that in most of the US restaurants in general are monitored much more closely than any farm.
I understand it's an issue for both organic and conventional farms. However, I was under the impression that getting USDA approval for "organic" meant meeting stricter regulations regarding the biodiversity issues.\n\nMaybe I'm wrong though, I haven't looked too much into it.
This has been posted literally dozens of times.  KarmaDecay only found 3, but it pops up on /r/atheism almost on a weekly basis.  \n\nAnyone seeking more info might also check here:\n\ntitle | comnts | points | age | /r/\n:--|:--|:--|:--|:--\n[It's a duck](http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/uyfjb/its_a_duck/) | 2^coms | 1^pt | 1^mo | atheism\n[It's a duck.](http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/mpcrd/its_a_duck/) | 38^coms | 285^pts | 8^mos | atheism\n[Atheism vs. Religion...now with bunnies!](http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/mo0zs/atheism_vs_religionnow_with_bunnies/) | 2^coms | 13^pts | 8^mos | atheism\n\n*[source: karmadecay](http://karmadecay.com/sciencebasedlife.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/religiouslogic.jpeg)*\n
number one: I'm female.  Number two: I meant that entire thing written in quotes *sarcastically.*  I know guys that go overkill and open themselves up to being doormats because they were taught by a feminazi man bashing mother that men are scum and women are to be treated like princesses.  I have guy friends that apologize profusely for cursing around me because "it's rude to curse in front of a lady." Seriously, I want to smack them for it because I curse worse than they do so why should they give a shit?\n\nIf feminism is about wanting *equal* rights, where do we, as women, get off demanding special consideration during social interactions because the slightest thing makes us "uncomfortable" yet say that it's "equal?" Take the elevator man for example; if elevator man had been elevator woman, would she still have been uncomfortable? Probably not. But, if it were me asking her to coffee, as a bisexual woman, my intentions could have been the same as elevator man's. For her not to feel threatened by me but threatened by a man...isn't that sexist too?   So, I'm not a feminist and I never will be because the whole idea of giving or expecting too much consideration based on gender just annoys the shit out of me.
Or perhaps it's taught by James Randi. One can hope.
If you shout loud enough they can probably hear you.
Unfortunately I have the feeling that it's inevitable. I would imagine that's why they pass things like the USA PATRIOT Act and the NDAA and take away our rights to privacy and a fair trial and against indefinite detention. Terrorism is a ruse used to prepare for the possible hysteria.\n
These people are diluted.
Books I've enjoyed reading and re-reading tremendously over the years:\n\n* Cosmic Trigger - Robert Anton Wilson\n* Language in Thought and Action - S.I. Hayakawa\n* God Is Not Great - Christopher Hitchens\n* True Hallucinations - Terence Mckenna\n* This Is Your Brain on Music - Daniel J. Levitin
Yah, I'd like to be humming some MF DOOM and hear *that* on someone's passing radio.  Now, that would be a glitch!
That's a lot of balls.\nThat would be a pretty big sack he would have.
I almost posted this as well, pretty interesting.
I don't know much about Mormonism, but as far as my Pentecostal brother goes, heaven will be a renewed earth fixed by god, so maybe most Christian cults are waiting for similar "god is going to save us" scenarios.
What if they were a regular life form but advanced their technology to a point where they lived in frost resistant mechanical bodies? Or what if they hibernate for thousands of years? There are so many possibilities.
>Hell, if you said to people a couple of decades ago about being able to grow organs and bones through stem cells, they'd act the exact same.\n\nCan I recommend to you an article by Isaac Asimov, *[The Relativity of Wrong](http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm)*? It addresses the kind of argument you are making here. In essence, saying "science/scientists have been wrong before, they could be wrong now" isn't really a valid argument.
You're right, a cat kneading something is pretty distinctive. Sounds more comforting than anything.
> Assuming, of course, your story isn't some fantasy bullshit you concocted to play to the hive-mind while validating your dogma in the ensuing circlejerk.\n\nDude. Harsh.
To be honest, the flu vaccine is not particularly effective. [Cochrane review (PDF warning)](http://www.thecochranelibrary.com/userfiles/ccoch/file/CD001269.pdf)
Words are words. Most people when saying "agnosticism" mean what you mean when you say "atheism". It is a silly semantic argument. Uncertainty is the only honest approach to the divine.
The author works for a group called "The Crop Protection Association", which is funded by the following companies - not mentioned by the New Scientist: \n\nBASF. **Bayer CropScience**, Bayer Garden, Belchim Crop Protection, Certis Europe BV, Chemtura, Doff Portland, **Dow**,\nDuPont UK, Fine Agrochemicals, Headland, Makhteshim Agan, **Monsanto**, Nomix Enviro, Nufarm, Syngenta, The Scotts Company (UK) Ltd, United Phosphorus, Vitax, Westland Horticulture, William-Sinclair Horticulture.\n\nMake of that what you will.\n
climate change deniers say the same type of things...it's all them scientists in a big conspiracy for that $100,000 a year salary!!
Kill it put it in the freezer call the press before anyone knows.
Since terrestrial means from earth I can safely say what you saw was extra terrestrial :)\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrestrial\n\nIn all seriousness though I'm pretty sure it's the build up of a CME that snaps. Probably just the angle that makes it look odd. Good find anyway
I think it looks like a face, EMANATING LOIGHT\n
*Sigh* Well that's pretty pathetic, but at least it's nice to see a few people in there fighting the good fight against paranoia and irrationality.
Tell that to the guy one of the mods accused of sexual misconduct, when he was the wrong person involved.  They didn't even care that they ruined his life/reputation, and thought it was a big joke.
Exactly, thank you. Just as everything is in life.
Don't drink and drive.
Grab your pitch forks!  BURN HIM!
Getting the audience member to believe it was all real was necessary to get them in the right state of mind.  From watching a lot of his other stuff you'll know that set design is one of Derren's specialities when doing some tricks.  Besides, a blank can still kill you at close range.
Yea, it's kinda old though, and it gives a lot of contradictory statements. They call it "the Bible". :)
> If male circumcision was so effective at preventing these problems, the US (being about the only developed nation to still practice this) should have significantly lower rates of these infections compared to Western Europe, Australasia, Japan, etc.\n\nThat statement makes very broad assumptions. Is the prevalence of the disease the same in those countries? Are the rates of risky behavior the same in those countries? Are the rates of diagnosis of those diseases the same in those countries?\n\nYou can't take shortcuts like just comparing developed nations when doing epidemiological studies.
Says the historical record and current reality.\n\nVisit /r/MensRights and read the FAQs in the sidebar to find many examples.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=victorian+ectoplasm+photos - whats old is new again.
I'm not making any judgement about the theory, but I don't think that the comic accurately represents what "irreducibly complex" is supposed to mean.
You can already do it. I think it's inherent to our physiology, the problem is it's very weak.\n\nMaybe there exist people who could do it much stronger than normal and could notice the ability, and maybe that's where we get the idea from in the first place.\n\nOnce I show you guys how I do it, you'll be able to try it out for yourselves and I think will see it work for you. It's just a matter of knowing how to do it and having a setup the removes all the barriers to subtle force (this setup is what I'm keeping secret for now).
Lol I wasn't but now feel like an Idiot after looking around that site a bit more. I should take this down but now I am thinking it is hilarous
[Upvote for responding a lot more courteously than I did.](http://www.reddit.com/r/Paranormal/comments/rx8df/i_can_communicate_with_the_dead/c49h0la)
Swamp gas, weather balloon, and flying pikachu. Seriously though, good vid.
I don't know where to start. My favourite Meier gaffe is his [photo of Asket and Nera](http://www.thebiggestsecret.org/home/images/stories/ufo/meier-hoax/Asket_&_Nera.jpg), a couple of his Nordic UFOnauts, and he's just taken a [polaroid of women off the tv](http://www.thebiggestsecret.org/home/images/stories/ufo/meier-hoax/golddiggers+cover.jpg). They were [performers on the Dean Martin show](http://www.thebiggestsecret.org/home/images/stories/ufo/meier-hoax/golddiggers5.jpg) in the '70s. \n\n[This is what Meier claimed was a Plaeadian laser gun](http://www.thebiggestsecret.org/home/images/stories/ufo/meier-hoax/Fake_Plaeadian_w_gun.jpg). What a heap of crap. \n\nI find it difficult to understand why people believe a [garbage bin lid](http://www.thebiggestsecret.org/home/images/stories/ufo/meier-hoax/Kalliope_holding_garbage_can_lid.jpg) from [Meier's farm](http://www.thebiggestsecret.org/home/images/stories/ufo/meier-hoax/garbage-lid.jpg) is [a UFO](http://www.thebiggestsecret.org/home/images/stories/ufo/meier-hoax/Wedding_Cake_infront_house_B_L+highl.jpg) and [these kinds of pictures](http://www.thebiggestsecret.org/home/images/stories/ufo/meier-hoax/Wedding_Cake_infront_house_Korff.jpg) are genuine. They just [look so obviously hokey](http://www.thebiggestsecret.org/home/images/stories/ufo/meier-hoax/Weddingcake_in_trees+highl.jpg). I have never been able to understand why people accepted these. The enhanced photos that show the [strings](http://www.thebiggestsecret.org/home/images/stories/ufo/meier-hoax/Meier_UFO_exposed.jpg) have been around for years. \n\nAnd of course, [Popi Meier has admitted he faked it](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arMKT0r9cL8), too.
Newscientist is the National Inquirer of science.
Make no mistake, this will kill people by the thousands.  In South Africa, when the government of Thado Mbeki took the HIV denialist position and recommended good food instead, 300,000-400,000 people died as a result.  \n\nThis sort of homeopathy kills.
I think so man. \n2 Days ago I say my first UFO. \nI live in NZ and there a several volcanic mountains around the region of Auckland were I live. \nI was just smoking a bong looking out of the window, over a hill called North Head when I noticed a bright orangle light, hovering staionary a few metres above the hill. \nI thought 'wtf' and proceeded to stare at the light, it was then that it dipped just below the top of the mountain and dissapeared. \n10 seconds later it reappeared to the left of the mountain. \nIt was at this point I got startled by what I was seeing and called my brother to check this out. He stared out the window but the orb had dipped below the hill again by that time. My bro kept staring with me, untill we saw it reappear one more time, flying in a very very linear line, slowly. It dissapeared behind a tree and never revealed itself again.\n\n1. I know it wasn't a plane or helicopter. It sat stationary for about 45 seconds before moving in very unorthodox manners.\n2. It had no stobes of any sort, and I am used to seeing planes pass through that same patch of sky, and they have obvious strobe lights.\n\n3. I'm not saying it's Alien. But I'm not a stupid person and I know what I saw.\n
Thanks.\n\nLooking like I need to do a lot more research.
Ouch... That was painful to read. Such a poorly reasoned argument.\n\nHow was that potential sexual assault, but some guy chewing gum on the elevator isn't? It *might* be reasonable to think that the guy making the coffee offer has sex on his mind, but the guy chewing gum is highly likely to be checking you out if you're an attractive female either way.\n\nSo now we'd have any situation where a man and woman are alone on an elevator is a potential sexual assault situation.\n\nThat is rather ridiculous, but it'd be kind of fun to play along and ask what could be done about it... And suggesting that men never make try to pick up a woman is utterly stupid.
Are you fucking serious?  Is reddit really this fucking stupid and gullible?  As soon as the "psychic" word was used I stopped taking this seriously.  When I seen the gold foil, I knew this was a fraud.  \n\nWhy are people so fucking stupid?  If you believe in this nonsense it's no wonder you could believe in invisible super-Jews in the sky.
>Blaming all chiropractors for the quackery of some is not fair\n\nSo then the definition of chiropractic has mutated.\n\nI fight against "but it helped me to crack my back!" in the "skeptic" subreddit. I will unsubscribe.
> Does anybody really believe that just changing your fertilizer will greatly change the taste of produce?\n\nYes. Lots of people do. I would guess most of organic consumers, though I have no data.
In the cheapest binding, I hope!
So, not blogspam as per the sidebar, but I'd consider it blogspam:\n\nhttp://pandasthumb.org/archives/2012/12/the-disco-tutes-1.html\n\nWhy not link directly to that article? The one that actually did the research? Instead of a site that links to that article and provides a screenshot from the video in question?
How do you know that the reason H1N1 wasn't the predicted pandemic was **because** people went and got vaccinated againts and we had sufficient herd immunity for once? I don't, and nor do you, I bet.\n\nAlso, for you to sat that the H1N1 vaccine was useless, that means you have some actual **evidence** that shows that the hospitalization and death rates it caused would have the same had the vaccine not been given. So, do you? I'm also betting that you can't actually hold up any "useless" vaccines whatsoever to make you claim less vague and hand-wavey.\n\nAlso, the anti-vaccine movement was around long before H1N1. Dana McCaffery died in 2009 before the H1N1 scare. I suggest you go educate yourself on the topic before you shoot your mouth off next time, mmkay?
Thank you! Also, can you please get rid of the re-posts.
Purina does [import from china](http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/22/13399443-china-stiff-arms-fda-on-jerky-pet-treat-testing-reports-show?lite) where [dog meat has been eaten for thousands of years](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_meat#China).  If lower grades of beef in North America are used for pet food, it's not hard to imagine lower cuts of dog being used similarly where dog is on the menu. Even if manufactured here, the pet food ingredient 'meat byproduct', which is just about anything, could be shipped from who knows where.  As you mentioned, no direct evidence posted, but this claim is not outside the realm of possibility.  Maybe even more possible for generic brands.
I think he's saying we'd be in much greater denial about global climate change.
Well, but I think the goal is duration. I don't think they know exactly why this is. I'm just saying our diet affects us more than some are illing to admit. Would I make a different choice if it was me? Yes. But story tine: my father had prostate cancer. I was horrified he didn't want to have it removed or treated with chemo/radiation. He went to some wacko life extension guy who treated it with hormones and dietary supplements. He had been out of treatment for years in remission when he got leukemia. Doctors said he'd be lucky if he made it a month. Wanted to do chemo immediately. He chose to leave the world without that and just took allopurinol to control symptoms. Again, not the choice I would make then or now. But he lived another five months and wasn't bedridden until the last three days. Makes me question my judgment a bit.
Holy hell. I never knew other people had this too. Thats incredible
Have you seen something like that on other pictures taken with the same camera on different locations?.\n\nWhere I work (video editing) we had one camera that got moisture inside the lenses that resulted in fungus growth inside the lens (we had to take the lens apart to clean it). It looked something like this, though it was bigger and only one spot, was more apparent then shooting in broad daylight (if it was low light/interior settings you had to really look for it to notice it), and since it was inside the lens anytime we used the zoom it seemed to move (since the lens rotated).
There needs to be a basic healthcare literacy class in high school that teaches people, among other things, to always read the active ingredient before buying medicine.  If it says something like "zincum gluconicum 30X" then you know not to bother.
I cant believe no one else has read the book around here,...? or is everyone convinced if they give honest opinions of the mans work that MiB may come knockin to "interview you further",...?
And I'm saying that the perception of fair is complete and utter bullshit. There is no fair, whatsoever. Anywhere, outside of completely artificial situations. Yes, your situation is shittier, but if you're going to call it 'unfair' (which is a value judgement), then everything is.
Can you take a picture with your IPhone, of the pixie in the book? Also, when you were "frozen", were you in a sense paralyzed? I have heard of this little black creature you are speaking of.
That's quite the conclusion.
Scumbag submitter doesn't RTFA to find out that the journalist admits to having stolen the story from reddit in the first place...
There is no reliable evidence whatsoever that vaccines cause autism.
A consistent change in physiology is a consistent change in physiology it may or may not be responsible for lower stress responses in TMers to specific stimuli such as pain but if such a lower stress response towards pain in TMers is found, it provides a mechanism for why the measure would exist: TMers don't respond as much, psychological speaking, to pain, because the thalamus is actively filtering out more that particular input as the brain processes info.\n\nHowever, the more important issue is whether or not TM affects the way the thalamus works, and both studies suggest that it does. As the researchers (at least one of whom is very much a mindfulness advocate -the TM researchers who were also the test subjects were at her lab during a conference) point out, the change in thalamic activity is unique to TM.\n\nWHich goes back to the proposed mechanism by which TM works: it creates a higher level of filtering in the thalamus, so that external (and internal cortical-feedback loops) data isn't as big a factor in determining the activity of the brain, which allows the brain to optimize its own current state without influence from outside/internal sensory input and in the long run, it creates a situation where the connections associated with the restful alertness state (PC) are strong enough to remain a prominent factor in how the brain functions in normal activity.
Here's how it "works": Mrs. Jones says her cat is "anxious." So you ask her to describe the anxiety on a scale of 1 to 10. Then you give Mrs. Jones "FelineRelax (tm)" homeopathic drops to put in her cat's water. Later you ask Mrs. Jones to rate her cat's anxiety from 1 to 10. What do you know, it went down! You are well on your way to providing empirical evidence of the benefit of this drug. Too bad the cat doesn't get any benefit.
**TL;DR: In the early 90s investors in privately-owned prisons paid the music industry to create gangsta rap, which promotes crime, and therefore increases the number of criminals in prison.**\n\nTwo things immediately jump out at me. First, a confidentiality agreement is not a magic spell. They are broken all the time. The PR consequences for the company would be so disastrous, I doubt it would even survive long enough to sue for breech of contract.\n \nBut most importantly, the facts are just wrong. If gangsta rap promotes violence and is meant to create more criminals, why has violent crime fallen to record lows?\n\nIt's true that type of music also promotes heavy drug use, but so does rock. And drug crime has increased, but that can be blamed on War on Drugs without any secret conspiracy.
> how many credible people think it would be amusing to use their dying breath to fuck with us and get us all riled up about conspiracies and the government hiding things from us?\n\nIf by credible you mean NASA scientists, PhD engineers, and military general types, I would say almost *none*.\n\n> It just also seems possible we are getting trolled, and unlikely that we'll ever know the truth.\n\nPossible on such a miniscule scale as to not be worthy of the consideration.  Thinking that someone with over 40 years of dedicated service to the country having worked in many top secret, government projects with what's called "black clearance" would tell his wife or daughter that they've known about beings and ships not from this planet as a final "troll" before they died is an indication that you've logged WAY too many hours on Reddit, my friend.
Yeah, you're never going to confuse a solid cabernet with a fine pinot gris, by taste only. But there's a lot of overlap, and in some cases it might be pretty difficult to tell.
Parents should have the right not to vaccinate their kids.  However...\n\n1.  Their insurance company should know this\n\n2.  Public and private schools should have right to prevent enrollment of the children\n\n3.  The parents should be financially and legally liable for any sickness or death of their children or other children which are exposed.\n\nIf they want the right, then they have to take the responsibility too.
I had never heard of racetams before, thank you, gives me something to go learn about.
... and waited for 34000 years before living there for earth to be created first
This has a high probability of backfiring.\n\nIf you're going to give him a book like this, don't do it during the holidays because the whole family will be there to watch.
I think they're idiots for drinking it, but if that's what they want, by all means they should be allowed to.
I've had adrenaline rushes before, but I can assure you that wasn't what this was.
Hitler loved the New Age.
About the same thing me and my sister seen standing over us except what I saw had unnaturally squared off shoulders and head not a rounded shape... Blacker than the surrounding darkness Standing right over me so close that appeared to be really tall which Im sure it already was. It stayed so long I actually got frustrated because my sis wouldnt wake up no matter how hard I shook her after she told me she sees it to with no words spoken from me, that I looked down to see if it had feet then I thought maybe I should put my hand in it then my imagination visualized that it would vanish If I did that and that some how that was bad or that it would suck me into it... Cant remember exactly but I eventually just got tired and fell asleep then woke back up again and looked around gto see where it was it wasnt standing over me anymore since it wasnt block the street light from the window anymore and when cars would pass by the reflection would go across in a line across the room pretty quick and it was no longer i the living room I noticed in the pitch black hallway that it looked like it kept reappearing "walking" out of sight then reappearing in the same spot repeating itself then it went in the opposite direction finally right through my parents door which it had kept reappearing infront of but going down the hall in the other direction....  Still no explanation Ive since checked the house out on real estate sites its been 20 years and the house looks exactly the same as it did and creepy as hell vacant....
>And so the scientific search for verifiable knowledge is tainted because it's being performed by imperfect humans? \n\nI never mentioned perfection, and it's silly to even raise such a subjective concept in this discussion. Also, by using the word "tainted", you are implying that the scientific enterprise is otherwise in some pristine or perfect state, which is certainly not part of my argument.\n\n>Were we so tainted when we discovered the vast expanses of the electromagnetic spectrum that we can't even see with our eyeballs?\n\nThe fact that we've made important discoveries about nature in no way contradicts anything I've said.\n\n>The rest of your reply, combined with your initial responses, seems to amount to a lack of trust in the scientific process -- from claiming that Schoch's hypothesis is the most probable for dating the Sphinx (it might be! but that's very premature to say), to claiming that scientists are unable to approach these things "rationally due variously to emotional investments, fear of ridicule, taboos, etc."\n\n>Where does this belief in the corruption and bias of science come from? Why are you so suspicious and mistrusting of science? Is it because the approach doesn't support some of your speculations, and so it must be wrong? Is it because you feel the world would be a better place without the discoveries that science has yielded? I don't understand.\n\nI didn't use the term "corruption" anywhere. Your use of the word "corruption" again implies a "pristine" or "perfect" state for science, which is taking this discussion down the path of subjectivity.\n\nThe tone of your response indicates I've hit an emotional nerve, and unfortunately your response makes this into a discussion about *me* rather than about scientific methodologies. If you'd like to rephrase your response into something more sober, something which accurately represents the arguments I've made, and exclude the character attacks, I'll be happy to respond further.
I was you a decade ago, which is why I'm not coming out and calling you a retard. where you are in your life is actually further ahead than most people who've never considered 9/11 being a conspiracy in the first place.  you've made a step in the right direction toward critical thinking, but you are still seeing with one eye shut. again, I was you a decade ago, as were *many* critical thinkers my age. eventually, a smart guy like you will start thinking about these things for *yourself*, which you frankly aren't; you are regurgitating a contrarian viewpoint. you will likely work your way out of this, and you know that feeling when you first decided that the government lied about 9/11? that slap on the face feeling? it hurts more the second time, but it is a good kind of hurt. when you realize that the 9/11 debate is primarily taken up by two side of the same coin, when you realize that you've been manipulated by propaganda from both sides, you will likely say "never again". \n\n*that* is the moment I truly became a skeptic, and it seems to be a common theme amongst skeptics of my age. one thing that may be helpful in this journey I hope you take is to contrast the 9/11 truth movement with the young earth creationist movement; both have a handful of educated folk on their team, both construct their arguments from minor points while ignoring the mountainous points that refute such notions, both rely heavily on propaganda and play on emotions, and both are equally criticized in a forum of skeptics. \n\nskeptics aren't necessarily scientists, but respect for the scientific method is a huge part of the ethos of modern skepticism. again, I will not debate you because debate is entirely useless at this point in your transition (you think that you thought yourself into this point, which you did to a certain degree, but *you* alone will have to think yourself out of this; nothing I can say will sway you), but I do wish you the best in you quest for the "truth"\n\n<3 \n-RMD
I've had sleep paralysis many times before. I was definitely awake and conscious when this occurred and I could freely move.\n\nThanks though.
Use \\> to mark text as quoted. Check the formatting help link under the text box.
From the sound of it the man would enter a deep state of meditation, which undoubtedly allowed his heart rate to go down, significantly slowing metabolism and possibly conserving liquids and energy that way, making it a much easier experience than 18 days without.
Im not sure if it was mars or the moon.  One time I saw a zoomed sattelite photo of either of those planets and it was clear that the image was edited before release
I don't really have a problem with alternative medicine, but rather many of the people who practice these kinds of medicine. While I'm sure there are many who are responsible, kind to their patients and aware of the limits of their medicine, the field as a whole is unregulated enough that we are still faced with the occasional tragedy where someone dies of a treatable illness, or someone spends a great deal of their savings on a treatment that cost the provider very little. I would be much more comfortable if I knew that every homeopath and acupuncturist would recommend that their treatment be used only as a supplement for chemotherapy and not a replacement when it comes to the treatment of cancer, but this has shown to not be the case. I would also be far more interested in welcoming placebo based medicine if the patient was charged closer to what it cost to produce the treatment. A pill that contains no medicine doesn't need to cost as much as one that does, and a procedure that can be practiced  effectively after a few weeks of training from an instructor shouldn't cost as much as a procedure that requires years of field experience and expensive equipment. I acknowledge that sometimes a high cost treatment makes for a stronger placebo, but in such cases we need to find ways to refund the patient the extra money, possibly through discounts on parts of their treatment that are actually costly to produce, rather than letting practitioner pocket the difference.\n\nAnd so, to answer your question: I would find placebo based medicine considerably more palatable if it was administered by a group of professionals who also have a functional education in “ modern” medicine as it pertains to their field, lucidly acknowledge that their field is based on psychology rather than any sort of hocus-pocus, and are strictly overseen by an independent committee that seeks to guarantee that they are acting first and foremost in the interest of the general public, and strictly out of personal greed or delusions of grandeur. Then I would need these people to work in conjunction with "modern" doctors in order to offer the placebo based treatment as a alternative solution in cases where modern medicine may be less effective, and as a supplement when modern medicine will likely be more effective.
But this post doesn't say anything about that, honestly just making fun of something that is irrational without providing any context as to why it is irrational or really evaluating if the ideas presented are actually insane doesn't seem like something worthy of /r/skeptic to me. It is really fun and I very much enjoyed reading it, but I just don't think that it is that relevant.
Only if there's free beer/drinks involved. Otherwise, just walk away.
"It’s clear from results that the person in every one of the portraits has undergone an important transformative experience. I leave it to the viewer to draw their own conclusion." \n\nMost importantly, their cash stuffed wallets suddenly transformed into empty wallets to pay to *meditate*. It's not official meditation until you've and twenty other idiots paid some new age schmuck a few grand each to sit around for a month at the fancy place you just essentially paid one month of mortgage on. I mean, it's not like you can *meditate* at home. \n\nMy conclusion is that guy is full of shit.
Not being vaccinated means you help spread diseases to other people who aren't vaccinated. Good job on helping screw over the ones that can't get vaccinated for medical reasons.
Jokes on you, i know what everything is!
here we where having an interesting discussion and you go and get insulting. I'm being reductionist you nancy-sally: "nice" is a lot less specific than something like "being in a fulfilling relationship" and doesn't require people with no background in this look up "subjective well-being". And if you're trying to tell me the overall goal has nothing to do with better psychological health I don't even know.\n\n\nIt's nice to have someone else call that book a pile of bullshit; though, because that's what I said when I saw it, and thank you for the link to some ACTUAL scholarly work. Maybe rather than insinuating idiocy on my part; though, consider the kind of professor who makes a pop psych book required reading. I'm perfectly and vocally willing to admit my education suffered from my professor. Second year course, by the way and I don't claim to be an expert, just to have enough of an understanding to know.. Well the Seligman/ Csikszentmihalyi quote illustrates it pretty well: tell me how "to find and nurture genius" and "to make life more fulfilling" aren't rooted in ideology.
We live in America unfortunately :T one of her old friends is a Wiccan but sadly, he's not the brightest of people.  At the moment, I'd say it's fairly low key other than some malevolent giggling we heard a couple weeks ago, which I have to say scared the crap out of me XD
Good article, although the comments seemed fairly dismissive, and appear to have misunderstood the point of the article. Some try to paint the author as anti-global warming nowhere in this article is he proposing this. It is a fairly honest appraisal of current renewable energy standards and efficiencies and how we are still a long way from being able to completely move over and that not taking an evidenced based approach to these sources can result in large sums of money wasted by taxpayers.\n\nAuthor is also not suggesting that these energy sources not be subsidized just subsidized with a little better forethought and an honest look at how and where said technologies will be implemented and if there are more effecient ways of doing so.\n\nThe biggest criticism I could have for the article is it does not provide a lot of solutions.
Often enough that his wife had to debunked it.
Interesting, but it says the ship was scrapped, not scuttled?
I don't understand how educated people can be so ignorant and idiotic.
...except that they are a combination of poorly written science fiction, hoaxes, and or manifestations of mental defect.\n\nJust sayin'.
Sorry heh.  Honestly I was a bit rushed when I posted-  perhaps I misunderstood your intent?  I read your post as if you were thinking some sort of magic going on there- so I apologize for that.  As for the sensations you felt; well I'd chock it up to a group placebo effect, but in all honesty I don't know a whole lot about Reiki in the first place.  I say placebo because you were with a number of people who claim to be experts on the subject, so perhaps seeing everyone around you experiencing this sensation, you subconcious expected the same.  I used to experience something similar back in my christian days-  everybody around you is going into an almost frenzy-like state experiencing "the holy spirit" and it was hard to deny that I felt nothing at the time.  It seems to be a "group-think" effect.
the white sands clip is amazing
I like the caption of the picture.
I am skeptic about there being NO EVIDENCE against evolution.\n\nI wonder if /skeptic is ever skeptic about the information others post...
I hunted around that website expecting it to be people role playing. I was sadly mistaken.  They only discuss "Zetatalk" aka psychic communication with the aliens, that has been announced by a single person who has been doing this for years and is selling videos.  If this was simply a role playing group, they wouldn't limit themselves to riffing off of a single nutty psychic.
Just an FYI for you guys. It's veteran's day. Military aircraft are flying all over, even up here in Loveland Colorado. It happens every Veterans Day.
Can you please post a video of a "typical satellite" that looks like this.
Important one to promote as they are currently travelling nationwide and scamming people.
Haha, I'm soo with you on this. This subreddit is a cloak and dagger for anyone who has a marginal interest. They really should replace their stupid banner with Chinese lanterns.
Kia ora, out of interest who was the radio host? It was Leighton Smith wasn't it. \n\nWasn't it.
#27: *In October 1967, Roger Patterson filmed what appears to be a Bigfoot at Bluff Cove, California*\n\nBluff CREEK. There's no cove in the middle of the forest.
Right there you already display a fundamental misunderstanding of the scientific method.\n\nScience is, for the most part, a process of continual attempts at refuting a hypothesis or theory. Take medical testing, for (a very crude) example. You develop a pill designed to do *x*, you try it on a bunch of people, it appears to do *x*. What if it's just a placebo? Test it. What if it's an interaction with another drug causing *x*? Test it. What if there are dietary reasons for *x*? Test it. Were there psychological differences in the subjects? Test it.\n\nEach step of the way, you're essentially asking yourself "what if I'm *wrong*?" Each step of the way, you're attempting to disprove *yourself*. Each failure to do so renders your hypothesis or theory more likely to be true. Each time an experiment is repeated by another group of scientists, they are essentially saying "what if you made a mistake?"\n\nIn short, to answer your original question, *all of them*.
lol i'm baked after reading shit on here all day i saw something out the corner of my eye of a couple times lol\n
my mom is an angel therapist and it bothers the shit out of me.
hahaha questionable is one way of putting it lol
Most sweeteners have been around long enough that if there were a strong link to cancer there'd have been some evidence and, of course, residual class action lawsuits.\n\nDoesn't mean that there couldn't be some correlation, but if there is it must be really hard to prove.\n\nAs others have said, if you are going to drink a lot of pop, the sugar (even the throwback natural sugar) will have a much more adverse affect on your overall health.
>I don't think Rebecca is any more dogmatic or quick-to-anger than is P.Z. Myers or Chris Hitchens or Jerry Coyne.\n\nI'm unfamiliar with Jerry Coyne, having only read one or two things he has said. Hitchens I don't think is quick to anger, he's just quick witted and uses piercing insults. P. Z. Myers on the other hand, I haven't read his blog entries for a long time now, he is often simply too rude when it's not needed.
There isn't. But you need to read a whole lot if you want to convince yourself. I pointed out some studies that talk about cosmic rays. It's still an active area of research, but as you can see, the vast majority of researchers don't believe it is explanatory of all the effects we see. \n
I don't know if that is true or not. TM's short and long term effects are still being measured. Consider the EEG trace in figure 2: http://brainresearchinstitute.org/research/totalbrain/TM&synch_SignalProc05_Hebert.pdf\n\nLong term TM practice strengthens the connections that support that kind of trace, even during normal activity.
I had never heard of the Sharpshooter fallacy! Thank you.
You fail to grasp my point...\n\nWhich is: the concept of Yogic Flying, whatever the name, is that it is a mental technique believed to alter the practitioner's state of consciousness in a life-supporting way. Whether not any given individual or anyone in history ever has or ever will float, doesn't change the "entire concept of yogic flying."
Children with congenital skull defects.  We have evidence of those skull types in other burials.  Often children born with congenital malformations were considered special BECAUSE they were different not because they looked like anyone else.  Would you say the Elizabethans were also trying to mimic alien foreheads?
WTF is that at 05:00 ?
UPDATE: it's a secret UFO viral campaign
I have a confession.  My best friend is a complete stereotypical nut job.  He has been throwing this at me every time I try to explain the science behind why "free-energy" is impossible for the past 10 years.
So its visual and audible? The ones that aren't grey or cloudy...how can you tell they are dead?
Please tell me this was a joke.  32 of 3267 patients dying in 6 years doesn't strike me as terribly interesting.
I don't know how the school system woks wherever you are but that's not how it works where I live (Sweden). The school may start in the fall, but all the children are born the same year. The children start going to school in august, the year you turn 7.\n\nIt doesn't really matter though. The result is the same, although shifted a couple of months.
And you don't think you had a lapse in concentration and just didn't remember the journey? Or maybe you have an uncommon short term memory loss thing?\n\nAlso, when you *"teleport"*, what happens to time? I mean, you said "I went from being lost in downtown to suddenly in the middle of the campus." and I'm wondering, when you were on campus, was it just like 2 minutes after, or half an hour, or however long the journey is? I figure it seems instant, but what does your phone clock/watch say?
Dudleytown.  Lots of issues with permission/trespassing/police but it's a fascinating place.
I think that's a bad water in plaster entity.
I love the fact that the Homeopathy subreddit has 71 subscribers, while our Skepticism subreddit has almost 35,000\n\nPerhaps they're trying to dilute the number of their subscribers to nonexistent quantities as a way of spreading their news? ;)
But where the anomalies there before the circle was created? \n\nI've seen a magnetic field scan of a field. Over part of the field there was a much stronger field than in other parts. Turns out that under that part of the field was a different type of rock, which contained more iron. If a circle was built over that part of a field it would show it as different.  \n\nIf you look for every possible anomaly then you are going to find some, just by chance. \n
Oysters look like...\n\n\nnever mind.
Goldacre references his sources below the article, but I agree there's not much to go on there. My guess is that his reference to Moerman is where he got most of what he mentions about the differences between placebo administration methods from. I did a quick google scholar search just now and found some (meta)studies that may be of interest ^[1],[2]. But like you, I'd love to see a more accessible overview of what we now know about the differences in response between between various placebos. \n\n1. The Placebo Response in the Treatment of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis, [doi: 10.1097/​01.psy.0000156969.76986.e0](http://www.psychosomaticmedicine.org/content/67/2/301.short)  \n> Results: The pooled placebo response was 19.6% (95% confidence interval, 15.4–23.7), lower than predicted and lower than in some other medical conditions. **The meta-regression revealed that intervention type significantly contributed to the heterogeneity of placebo response (p = .03).**\n* A meta-analysis of the placebo response in acute migraine and how this response may be influenced by some of the characteristics of clinical trials, [doi: 10.1007/s00228-005-0088-5](http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00228-005-0088-5?LI=true)  \n> Meta-analysis was computed using Mantel-Haenszel, and a total of 98 papers were considered in the final analysis. After 2 h, 28.6% of the patients of the placebo group improved and 8.8% were pain-free. **The percentage of pain-free patients was the highest in the placebo and active drug groups in which the placebo or drug had been administered subcutaneously**, in parallel design studies (vs. cross-over trials) and in studies performed in Europe (vs. North America).  \n\n(Emphasis mine)
I wouldnt say I am a lot smarter that you...I dont know you. Hell, even a smart person can have a shitty day and make an ass of himself or herself online with angry rants and misspelled words, so even if I see someone who lacks reading comprehension and a basic grasp of spelling I dont assume they are stupid. That wasnt a snide jab at you, by the way...you can clearly spell and read. \n\nAnyway, you are assuming: \n\n1. That the people in the article really do have a paranormal beliefs and no mental illness. The two can show up together, but having a mental illness means that person is not in the correct frame of mind for basic understanding of logic, science or social interactions. A good example is that there are people who really are presidents and people with mental illnesses who think they are the president. They do not belong to the same group. \n\n2. You are assuming that I believe in exorcisms, demons, etc.. \n\nI would also say that you are assuming that belief in the paranormal is the same as being in a cult, but that isnt as much of an assumption as it is a misunderstanding of the definition of "cult". Unless you are thinking aboit it differently or have a different understanding or are not referring to interest/belief in the paranormal but something different...in which case, my mistake and I will ask you to elaborate. \n\nSorry if I sound like a dick, but when I am trying not to offend anyone I tend to speak more...formally(?)...and that is often misconstrued as me being condescending, so I just want to assure you that isnt the case. I am open to hearing what you have to say because I believe in discussions, especially with people who think differently. I cant stand when someone only is polite or gives the benefit of the doubt to only those with like-minded thoughts. \n\n\n\nEDIT: I am seeing some spelling errors...whoops. I am typing on my phone as I am walking so I am not entirely accurate right now.
I'm UK based, but it is just burned - they have a large flare to burn it. It seems like a waste, I'd agree.
I watched a very few of his shows when it first came out.  I didn't see any woo back then.  Maybe a little bit of fluff on diet.  I guess he ran out of material.
I can't deny your valid point about roles (so you earn my upvote here); your reasonable response sure beats out beastduels'.\n\nI'm just not one of those people who thinks a doctor's word is gospel (unless he demonstrates dedication to a job well done, or at least backs up a diagnosis with test results and reason), and frankly, his formal education isn't worth a damn if he doesn't listen to his patients, just like a chef's skills aren't worth a damn if he can't properly interpret a customer's order.\n\nI'm not arguing for this particular nurse in this particular instance, but you seem reasonable, so hopefully you can at least appreciate the point I'm trying to make. I'm not trying to imply nurses are on equal footing with doctors, but that (in my experience) they often display strengths which complement a doctor by compensating in some ways for doctors' weaknesses.\n\nMy response to beastduels contains an example of issues that lots of people have with doctors - it's not such a rare occurrence.
What kinds of names do skeptics get called? What's the mirror of "woo", "moo" or something? Like a cow, get it, cause cows are cattle and follow the crowd? Those crazy skepdicks and their moo. I honestly have never observed this technique being used against skepticism. I would appreciate a link to an example.\n\nedit: shit, I guess I wasn't so original with "skepdicks" because a web search turned up a few hits. I'd still like to see the name-calling or pejoratives being used on reddit against skeptics. Maybe "sheeple"? I guess that fits.
How does any of that address the first two sentences in my post? The rational, default position is non belief *in the absence of evidence*.
They just stated that it's back on as weather cleared.
 Don't trust me. I am just some guy on the internet.  Find the studies.  Learn about Tyramine reactions to MAOI inhibitors.  As for symptoms:  things like cardiac failure tend to be asymptomatic until its too late.  \n
Good point. I overlooked that.
They didn't have to come off. The rest of the pannel just ridiculed Uri. Then when he asked "how many of you beleive in ghosts?"... crickets.
I took a bunch of flash photos after dark and got the same effect -- turned out it was strands of my long hair floating over the camera lens and being illuminated by the flash. If there's any small particle at all floating in front of the camera, like spider webs or grass fibers or loose threads, they're going to be lit up by the flash and look just like "light" that you never noticed when you were taking the picture because a thin filament floating directly in front of your camera isn't noticeable.
Wow, amazing video. Horrible presentations, but fantastic video. The rate that "mother ship" is spinning should cause it to fly apart.
i understand, it must be very hard to digest. to be fair, some aspects of the phenomenon are even weirder, see abductee testimonies. if this stuff is to be believed, there is an element of mimickry or mental projection in the technological arsenal of whatever/whoever is behind it. so pretty unsettling stuff that neither you nor any one of us may get an answer to in our lifetimes. don't let it prevent you from living a good life.
Yeah be careful. When I was in high school, a friend set me up to use one with her. We were visited by somebody named "Eyovah", which happened to be a friend of mine I knew online. I found out later that week he'd killed himself not long ago. I dunno. It's weird.
because reddit hates everything it loves
Burden of proof fallacy. \n\nYour acquaintance needs to demonstrate it works. The only rebuttals you need are "how?" and "why?". \n\nYou let him speak, then ask "how?" or "why?". \n\nEventually, he'll end up saying something stupid like "water has memory" or "diluting medicine makes it more potent" (i.e. : less of X = more of X).\n\nOr you can try this: http://i.imgur.com/3ASWU.jpg\n\nHomeopathy is like perpetual motion or free energy. The laws of physics would have to be wrong for it to be true. The basis of it is that water can retain medical properties, even if that were true, the pills are DRY.\n\nIt's sugar. There is no medecine in them. There's no difference between sugar and any homeopathic pill. It's not just diluted, it's absent.\n\nNo need for any evidence, it's quite literaly impossible that it works.
All that and you missed my question: Who is suggesting vaccines are harmless?
I recently purchased a quart of raw milk once and my personal judgment was that it was much tastier indeed. I got the same feeling one gets the first time they have a tomato right off the vine rather than from the store.
I am skeptical about most people (especially those on television) who claim to be psychic, but I thought the premise of this show was pretty interesting, assuming that the medium and the detective are being honest when they say they work separately on the cases.  I have heard that some police use psychics/mediums, but I don't know what their success rate is with them.
I'm not sure I follow.
clinton was basically black.
Firefly perhaps?
Yea I noticed you were attempting to argue for it, but then you used the word natural which doesn't really mean anything. Then I knew you were talking out of your ass like I said.
how do you define clear?
It reminds me of Stargate, but the worm is way to... cartoony?
This is the whole thing. Earlobes? Might get earlobe cancer.
I did use flash, but outside the window it was pitch black. No cars or anything,
Maybe it's because we become more tolerant to the needle pricks as we get pricked.
Will be patiently waiting for your post about a T-1000 coming to get you and your child
this would save the LHC a ton of work!
Those pictures were leaked well after they were taken. Give it... I don't know... more than a day.
>They seem to have never researched a scientific topic in their entire lives.\n\nWell,...\n\nThey haven't. \n\nNor did they pay attention in high school biology or other science classes.\n\nBut these are often the same people who think science is a conspiracy, so yeah.
Have you done a statistical analysis to verify that? What kind of controls did your personal experiences have? Blinding? What data did you record and how did you correct for the various biases?
Because it was a TAM show and they are always fun?
Seasoning the pork with some alcohol (the restaurants often use rice wine, but beer works just fine) seems to help with the smell.
I suspect very few are *know* they are frauds. I think the majority believe they have these gifts. I think there is also a significantly percentage of them who exhibit 'willful blindness' knowing that they can't possibly have these powers yet they find a way to convince themselves that they have them. Therefore I wouldn't call these people frauds since they believe at least to some degree that they have these gifts.
I read books for enjoyment... this....it's a steaming pile of shit article, half of which doesn't even make sense. It starts talking about identity theft and marxist turned libertarian groups mixed with a shitload of other random conspiracy bullshit. It's fucking inane, idiotic rambling and I feel dumber having read it. A tl;dr could potentially save lives here.
It's common to hear noises and make them out to be voices, yes. It's called auditory pareidolia if I'm not mistaken.
What's wrong with canola oil?
Don't fight natural selection.
As a botanist, this article was so painful to read!!! I am very SKEPTICAL of the qualification of the writer. \n\nWhy would *Asarum canadense*, a plant native to North America, be used in "Traditional Chinese Herbal Medicine?" It isn't and it never has been!!!\n\nThe *Asaurms* used in chinese medicine are *A. heterotropoides* and *A. sieboldii.*  Both of these species have been well studied and neither of them have even been shown to contain aristolochic acid. *A. canadense* does contain aristolochic acid, but its toxicity has been well known for a very long time. Despite sharing a similar common name, it is not considered an acceptable substitute for the other species in the genus.\n\nI can't find a single place online that sells a supplement containing *Asarum canadense*, but found lots and lots of warnings about its toxicity from scientific sources and "herbalists". \n\n>Any product bearing the species name 'Aristolochia,' 'Bragantia' or 'Asarum' should be avoided.”\n\nThose names refer to literally THOUSANDS of different species. Many of them are used in a wide range of commercial products from shampoos to perfumes to food. There is no logical reason to avoid most of them unless you are fucking retarded. \n\nAnd if anyone was wondering "Wild Ginger" is not the same or even closely related to the "Ginger" that you have in Ginger Ale or with your sushi.
Don't know much about Mr. Randi, heard an interview with him from a few weeks ago and have the same impression. Doesn't seem like the type to group young people like that.
It's pointless to discuss anything with a person who shoots their mouth off and then denies responsibility when they're called on it. I'm going to wrap up my side of the debacle unless there is anything else you would like me to address in closing.
I've had deja vu in odd places, but I now chalk it up to places having a few qualities that are *similar* to places I've actually known. \n\nThe truth is, I sometimes get lost simply because I've gone with the "been here before" feeling... and have been wrong.
Similarly, my sister's house in Phoenix had the same layout as one of my friends' houses in San Diego. At least, the ground floors perfectly matched.
Something like this happened when I watched the first Pirates of the Caribbean in theaters. I swear when the pirates attack the town in the beginning of the movie, the well from the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disney World can be seen with the animatronic guy getting dunked in it. At the time I remember thinking that was a pretty neat way to pay homage to the ride. But when I saw it again on dvd it wasn't in there or on tv.
^that.
Today alone, I've heard two people complain that they went to vote "and they didn't ask to see any ID or anything!"
"no particular prominence or significance"\nWTC 7 was a very significant building, it held the offices for countless federal agencies including FBI, CIA, and the SEC just to name a few. The SEC lost a huge amount of case files on current and closed investigations. \n
Amount of aluminum in vaccines: ~0.1mg - 0.8mg per dose.\nAmount of aluminum in breast milk: ~0.04mg per liter.\n\nSo, 10-20 liters of breast milk equals one dose of vaccine.  In an infant's first six months of life, they receive way more aluminum from their mother's breast milk than they do from vaccines.
Happen to read your comment as he was talking about the mountain lions
Thanks for raising this very important point.  Many people with a distrust for science don't see the conflict between their beliefs and their actions.  \n\nFor example, they may refuse to accept evolution but they enjoy the benefits of modern medicine, such as flu vaccines, that are based on a scientific understanding of that biological process.  \n\nOthers may not believe in quantum theory but will gladly follow directions from GPS satellites.  The same ones which are calibrated to account for [time dilation](http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~pogge/Ast162/Unit5/gps.html) as predicted by the theory of Special Relativity.
Can you be that someone? thanks.
No matter how obvious the evidence may be you'll always have some moron calling it a balloon or plastic bag. Those people need to be probed before they start taking the UFO phenomenon seriously.
Actually it's\n~P. Therefore, P.\n\nLove for any person A is not unique.\n\nBut everyone that loves by definition has a unique love for the person they are in love with.\n\nTherefore unique love is not unique as everyone that is in love has it.\n\nMy love for person A is not unique. \n\nBut that is absurd! Accepting it invalidates the second preposition as we know love between two people is defined by uniqueness.\n\nThe argument must therefore be invalid and a unique love does exist for person A, and by extension between two people.
No need to bother the dead. Its best for them to see let them know they have passed on and to follow the light.
> Even in the modern day people are having sex with spectral phenomenon. Like that singer Ke$ha.
That's a totally badass skull that's filled with vodka... It's a shame that it's also filled with bullshit.
maybe they're cloaking device is just malfunctioning and it's just optical distortion.
People need to be more careful with their facebook comments. Someone who lists himself as the director of technology investment for a financial data provider believes this is real (or, at least, mostly real). If I relied on him in that respect and saw his comment, I'd stop relying on him real fast.
> Good rule of thumb is if you don't like what people write and you cant contribute in a positive manner whether right or wrong then move onto another post ...... Dickhead!\n\nMmmmm, delicious irony. Nom.
GO FUCK A HORSE!!! :P
Only a guy with tons of connections could have gotten this done. The book is done in a very rambling style with very little editing for content or flow, last I saw it. It was a pretty big mess.\n\nAnyway, I think this submission qualifies heavily as spam.
the hardest issue of the argument that google is the source to find the pictures kinda falls apart quickly. Yes there lots of databases and such for recorded sightings and pictures galore but how many are verifiable... the answer here is none. The US cover up isn't really just a cover up its the disinformation campaign that they use believers to spread. google is about a useful on the subject as, well say reading a political agenda.
As a cyclist I can assure you we hate the sidewalk-rider's too.
I don't really get the part with the blame - but for instance I would have liked to reply to that type of accusations when also involving me, however - as I said above - my fight with the anti-science got me banned in precisely two subreddits and I could not defend myself there - so I was adding my two cents now when the conspiracy theorists tried to also control this place :)
Well, that's just it isn't it....
EARLIER THAT NIGHT: \n12:30am: I fell asleep to the movie "road to eldorado" and set the screen on a sleep function of 60 minutes. I have a humidifier next to my bed, just saying since it's relatively new product I purchased In the area where the experience occurred. (probably has nothing to do with anything)\n\n6:30am (not sure of the exact time): I woke up from a dream I was having, but my eyes remained closed. I don't remember exactly what the dream was about but I recall it being slightly sexually oriented. (This next bit might be disgusting for some so if you don't wanna read it then skip to the next part. It's not necessary if you're just interested in the experiance).  Since I woke up with my eyes closed I decided to relieve myself without opening my eyes (can't explain why, probably because i never tried it before). I was able to do this cleanly as there was a "cum rag" near by that I could access without opening my eyes. I successfully completed my mission. Tossed the "cum rag" to the side to be dealt with later. Although I was hoping to do it all and fall back asleep without opening my eyes, I had the uncanny urge to pop open my eyes for less then a second, which is how I know the approximate\ntime this took place. \n\n**EDIT: At around this time I heard my bed creaking slightly. Although it was weird i dismissed it. Thanks to 'grottohopper' for leading me to remember that detail.**\n\nClosed them quick and when back to sleep on my right side. (I try not to sleep on my left)\n\n... continue to  "6:45am"  (above.)
I thought it was a fucking banshee.
this isn't really the subreddit for fitness medical advice, but search /r/fitness for sprain or strain (and also google around to know the difference). Muscle tears can take months to heal, especially when they're in a spot you use often.\n\nalso most doctors still over-prescribe NSAIDs like ibuprofen even when there's a staggering amount of research that shows that it slows muscle, ligament, and tendon repair. i can provide pubmed links if you're interested.\n\n
It's worse than I imagined!
Scary story!!!
If what [Carlos Diaz](http://www.sigh7ings.com/documentary/ships-of-light-the-carlos-diaz-ufo-experience/) filmed is real, then he has the closest, most detailed footage of E.T. crafts I've ever seen.  The movements seem entirely fake, but they are in actuality just like the movements described by an imminent military engineer that did an in depth study of their possible methods of propulsion.
Why weary of Childress?
Yeah, Rogan seemed like he was being sort of a dick. He kept calling him ridiculous, when if you listen to most of the other podcasts, you'll see that Joe usually agrees with him. \n\nIt was still interesting. It was just obvious that Joe didn't like him. I was expecting Joe to be *much* more open minded. Instead he was overly skeptical.
Sorry.\n\nI was not advocating attacking the teacher. I was trying to understand the teacher. In conflict resolution one thing that can provide a huge advantage is understanding the position (however contrary or illogical) of the other party.\n\nIn this case OP would like to effect action from the science teacher (stop handing this stuff out/stop talking about it.) I was trying to illuminate to OP a possible mindset of the teacher. The goal was to demonstrate to OP that energy expended on trying to change the mindset of the teacher is probably futile and [might even backfire](http://www.springerlink.com/content/064786861r21m257/fulltext.html).\n\nThe teacher is probably of above average intelligence. The teacher probably believes one or more conspiracy theories about big pharma, vaccines etc. While teacher might believe their conspiracist beliefs result from reason logic, [the truth is the beliefs are more likely to be doctrinal.](http://kent.academia.edu/RobbieSutton/Papers/1275313/Dead_and_alive_Beliefs_in_contradictory_conspiracy_theories) Arguing with teacher or attacking teacher is the last thing I would recommend.\n\nIf OP wishes to bring about change in behavior of teacher then OP should probably talk directly  to teachers supervisors, not attack teacher.
Ask your mom.
Perhaps "stance" would be a better word than "beliefs". We don't like them words round these parts, y'hear? :-P
It amazes me that they can get new converts.
Your image links don't work for me. Can't seem to find anything on-site by searching for your image IDs either.
Well I guess you're right, in a country like the US, where everyone can carry a gun... But in my country, this would be obviously a dispropotionnate reaction. Even the cops here get in trouble when they shoot their gun if they can't show that their life was in real danger.\n\nIf I'm in a bar and some drunk dude comes up to me and starts picking on me, looking for a fight, can I kill him? Isn't it excessive?\n\nBut in this case, he wasn't attacked by some agressive dude. He came up to him. With a gun. That's not at all like walking down the street and suddenly getting mugged.
I'm seeing him in Vancouver on Thursday!! I am so excited.
Ship them to a planet where there is no electricity. Duh.
I for one, welcome our slimey grey overlords.
I just want you to know that I am probably dumber just for having opened that page  :'(
> **If he had wanted to do a better job he would have stacked 50 plates (arbitrary number) on top of each other and then dropped the hammer.**\n\nExcellent point -- easy to imagine how much force it would require to drive the hammer through all 50 plates (noting the resistance of each plate along the way).\n\nOn a similar note, I mocked-up this visual aid one time:\n\nhttp://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/IDTLNprAWbVuqiO-7x2dJQ?authkey=Gv1sRgCJ7IkJC62YuAFw&feat=directlink\n\nTo be clear, this is not scientifically accurate -- just a conceptual illustration of the necessary ingredients for the official theory to have actually occurred.  (Note:  I always thought it would be nice to get someone to model-this-up into a simulation.  "How many 'top floors' does it take to crush 80 'bottom floors'"?)
None is needed up to a certain stage of development.
Aren't all the ships we send into space technically spaceships?
Repost of my comment to the same article on another sub:\n\nThe author is asserting that the placenta had a direct effect on her mood...or else the "cleansing herbs." Let's assume that she's right, then taking the capsules caused her psychological symptoms. With that (tenuous) assumption there are three possible conclusions and their hybrids. \n\n1. Her symptoms were caused by a placebo effect.\n2. Her symptoms were caused by the placenta tissue.\n3. Her symptoms were caused by the herbs. \n(Another option is there was a combo effect of the above.)\n\nI wouldn't doubt for a second that the herbs mixed in her capsules could have caused such effects. I wish she put forth a bit more effort to figure out what they were (should only take a call to the person who prepared her capsules, right?). \n\nIf not the herbs, and if not placebo, then that means her placenta had an effect on her psychology. She's giving almost even weigh (by my reading) in the article to the possibility of her placenta causing the symptoms and the herbs. If she believes it was the placenta, then she's kind of inferring that the placenta has real effects on postpartum psyche, which is actually supportive of the potential *benefits* of placentophagy. \n\nBlegh...it'd be pretty awesome if someone would run some controlled studies. I don't see how it would be that hard, unless placenta consumption couldn't get past the IRB.
That's not true
I'll watch these shows once in a while. They can be fun sometimes. But the biggest argument against their veracity is that, while the show is filmed with standard, high-resolution TV cameras, the investigators themselves use silly, low-quality recording equipment, like they're a bunch of teenagers with their mom's camcorder, exploring the garage. I think the reasons behind this disparity in quality of gear are pretty clear.
well you seem to have run out yourself... what is your beef? any obvious tricks that i'm missing? It doesn't look like CGI... and in all fairness, this would most likely be a 'human' saucer before anything else. \n\nOr can you tell me what kind of vehicle that is exactly?
yep. lim n->infinity of n/n = 1. I heard that said fuck you to deepak and npr that night.\n\nEDIT: Apparently I was d-voted for whatever reason, my point stands that I could not walk into a calculus or analysis class and claim infinity/infinity = infinity. Either I would not know what I was talking about or they would think I was trying to express lim n->infinity n/n = infinity. Either way I would be wrong. The different sizes of infinity deals with and my set theory is not the greatest. Cardinality of sets. Such as the cardinality of the set of natural numbers. Most non-math people are already confused enough about math without this guy spouting off non-sense and npr giving him the forum to do so.
It's not a good explanation.  When you look at the photo series on NASAs site the object moves through the field of vision, tumbles (or turns, whatever I don't care), and gives you all the information you need to see it's an object (the sun illuminates the correct and different surfaces as it tumbles).
The guys over on [this website](http://conspiracies.skepticproject.com/forum/2275/zeitgeist-debunked-and-the-venus-project-debunked/) spend a lot of time debunking these utopian sects. If you can't find enough ammo there, I'm sure you'll find enough references to other sources there.
Even if it wasn't sarcasm, I'd still be laughing :)
Please refrain from insulting those less fortunate. We want to keep the community free from vitriol.
Yep, your friend's got one ugly baby.
"When a creature has developed into one thing, he will choose death rather than change into his opposite." - Scytale in Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert
Once again... Your source supports my statements about craving more food. I have self-control. \n\nThe shit is not poison. It's simply a substitute for extra calories for me. \n\nSome people are like horses, they think because they drink diet soda, they can then consume more food. They'll eat and wipe clean any plate in front of them, I'm not like that (sort of).\n\nSo yeah, you can drink water or diet soda. Water is better, but diet soda isn't harmful unless you are literally craving more--unfortunately for the scientists, I'm not a rat who consumes more.
I think if you were swallowing mouthwash you would probably have more to worry about then the Fluoride in it.
Exactly
That's a rather harsh verdict, too harsh in my opinion. The world needs more testimonials like J. Alexanders.  I watched his body language, he believes in what he is saying, he shows signatures of repetitive reinforcement of his own beliefs, this is a lot more credible that some silhouetted whistler-blower who thinks he's going to get double-tapped if they even use his own voice and looks like he's sat on a fucking  ants nest through the interview. If you are going to believe in all the Bob Lazar bullshit, the J-Rod fucking crap, is it so hard to come to the conclusion that should a conspiracy exist then even military officials tasked with finding it could be lead down a dark path.  This conspiracy shit is get really tiring, because there's no end to it.  Even if you have all the facts, conspirasits will still want more.
Bitch betrayed me anyway, so no love lost between us.
Awesome.\n\nI hope that my daughter, Hypatia, will be that fascinated by space and science in general. Actually, you can probably tell from her name that I'm going to make sure she's scientifically literate.
>The only purpose of this top-level post is to notify\n\nThis submission is currently on page 4.  I don't think that a whole lot of people will see it.\n\nHope you had a good few days on the Appalachian Trail.  I have also hiked part of it and enjoyed it.
My fiance and I frequently do this to each other, too. We have ever since we first got together, but it gets more frequent as time goes on, so I'm thinking it's just something to do with how familiar you are with the person. I would imagine that it would make you subconsciously guess what sort of question they're going to ask, or what they're going to say. What really freaks me out, though, is that I've had several times where I've spoken with a complete stranger for the first time ever, and they'll pause for a moment and I'll think of what I expect them to say, and then they'll say exactly what I was thinking, verbatim. Freaky shit there.
*Boys becoming men, men becoming wolves!*
What's that cemetary called that's in the lansing area? Blood cemetary? Where some kids (allegedly) got in a huge car accident after running from spirits there? I'd be down to check that site out too.
An aspect of hospital births as performed in, say, France, is that many non-medically necessary procedures like C-sections and injection of Ocytocin, etc, are performed to streamline the process for purely managerial reasons. One problem is the lack of space in the hospital, and women may be induced more often because there's not enough space.\n\nPerhaps encouraging alternative practices in non-threatening cases would help relieve the system overall. Midwives are well trained and they can detect problems. I think a good risk analysis would be necessary to determine a country's policy regarding birth methods.\n\nOn the other hand where I live we have sufficiently large and accommodating hospitals where you can take your time giving birth and they are attentive to your needs so I wouldn't like a home birth. It's all about how the system can better take care of the birthing mothers and babies and how comfortable they can feel.
Evidence is not needed to reject a theory not based in evidence.
Hence, not useless, also, can be used as a weapon to acquire more pennies!
That's not a partnership. L&N is undoubtedly embarrassed, but they probably didn't even know who the other sponsors were.
Despite the criticisms here this is a well described metaphysical phenomenon. The general theme is that we all are co-creating a shared reality. The way we experience this reality is completely by choice. Sometimes we "die" - and we are asked if we have accomplished everything we wanted to in our life. If so we move on. If not, we come back to a parallel reality where the accident never happened or some miraculous recovery occurred. The concepts are explained in detail in this book: [Home with God: In a Life That Never Ends](http://www.amazon.com/Home-God-Life-That-Never/dp/0743267168/ref=sr_1_9?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1350742556&sr=1-9&keywords=neale+donald+walsch+books)\n\nBTW: this probably has happened to everyone multiple times in a life
Weak excuses for rape jokes is nowhere near the explanation for those comments.\n\n>  Furthermore, holding men and women to different standards is not equality...\n\nOh please, that's like denying lbgt people a pride parade because straight people don't get one. Ignoring different circumstances and clinging to status quo isn't equality.\n\nTreating everyone exactly the same leads to douchebaggery like rape jokes. You can hide behind this false equality of telling them to eveyrone and ignoring that rape jokes don't affect everyone equally.\n\n>  Feminist fight efforts to address MR issues. \n\nAgain, there's a difference between the movement and the issues. When a movement where a significant part are misogynists advocate for an issue, it becomes tainted.\n\nAs long as you deny the dark side of your movement, nothing will happen. But you won't even face up to all the hate revealed and distance yourself from it, it apparently just needs to be packaged in some magical context and it's not hateful anymore.\n\n>  The ideological denial of male disadvantage leads to redefinitions of terms like "sexism" so that only men can be sexist...\n\nI think you're confusing sexist prejudice (which men can be the victims of) and sexism as a social structure, which men don't face. Also, there are many dimensions of oppression besides sexism that men also have to face. All this is feminism 101.\n\n>  If feminists didn't stand in the way of equality, then MRAs wouldn't have anything to say about feminists.\n\nAll the unprovoked hate from MRAs is plain for everyone to see. Obviously the mere existance if feminists is enough to piss many MRAs off.
it's possible. I personally have dozens of random visual field phenomena that I experience frequently, and yeah, I'm pretty sure this particular experience is just one of the many.\n\nI've also noticed that the frequency of these things increases the more psychedelic drugs I take.
Well a bit of background knowledge and 30 seconds of googling means you can know about almost anything.
What scientific evidence is there of giants?
How does Mr. Chopra feel about people who aren't honest, don't communicate, and just do bizarre things, hoping you will psychically guess what it's all for?
I made bacon wrapped hotdogs for dinner tonight. I think I'm going to be dying a slow, painful death now. Eventually.
Life on other planets.  The universe is just too damn big for earth to be unique.
Edward Current has a short vid on building 7 and another video about how he used to be a truther for a short time:\n\n[Building 7 Explained](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFJa9WUy5QI)\n\n[I Was A Deluded 9/11 Truther](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UULUQfEQFuU)\n\nEd has no ties to any agencies or anything. He's just a regular dude who runs a (normally) satire video series, though these are some of his exceptions.\n\nAlso, if he wants, he can stop by [The Skeptical Libertarian Society](http://www.facebook.com/groups/skepticallibertarians/) group on Facetube, of which I am a member. We'd love for someone to come in and bring this stuff up as we haven't had anyone but ourselves to talk to for a little while. However, before he gets to the arguing part, he should look at our notes folder called "Docs", more specifically the [Refuting the 9-11 Truth Movement](http://www.facebook.com/groups/skepticallibertarians/doc/228467303852070/) document. It may answer a whole lot of questions without him having to ask any. We cite our sources too, so it's not just opinion-like or unsourced articles.\n\nEDIT: Oh, and we're not just debaters of 9/11 shenanigans. No. That's only one small facet of what our group deals with (antivaxers, UFOs, religion, and basically any other kind of mystical woo you can think of). Just need to remember to be civil during conversation and you'll be fine.\n\nEDIT 2: Sorry. I forgot the links to the Edward Current videos.
haha, maybe! what a friendly thief though\n
When I was about 18 years old I moved away from home for uni, I moved into a newly constructed apartment building. I lived with my grandmother who was constantly away, I was alone allot in the apartment and sometimes my friends or cousin would join me. There have been weird occurrences in my room and hallway linen closet And my cousin has apparently been chased by a dark shadow once but I just shrugged it off. \n Shortly after I started seeing a weird shadow every night from the corner of my door, sort of creeping upwards but never entering my room, I told my cousin about it who was staying with me she just told me it was my imagination. Well one night after countless apparences by said shadow which I know called Charlie, my cousin insisted I place a bible in my room because "there is no way that it would ever enter". Around 4am I heard my door creep open which I assumed was my cousin , looked over she was fast asleep and my door was still closed. I started feeling a weird tingling sensation all over my body and a feeling of dread, I looked over my shoulder and on my dresser where the bible was placed earlier was some sort of black shadowy figure wearing a long sort of suit , a top hat and I think a cane of some sort. It was about 6" feet tall and sort of gliding towards me, I dived into my bed woke my cousin in a panic and it was gone. I slept with the lights on for nearly 3 years after that.
Also enjoyable:\n\n> A real mind reader I would not accept Randi's one million bucks. He would be making billions on insider trading. Or perhaps serving his country by reading the mental plans of world leaders.
totally fake
I don't see what the big deal is. This 'homeopath' has used logic to construct a belief in a healing practice. If he forced that practice on other people he would be a dick, but it seems to me like he is mild mannered and rational.
Why so secretive?
Highly, highly recommended. The only skeptical podcast i listen, about 10 minutes, no filler and well sourced.
It's actually the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything.  \n  \nAlso, how do you feel about -13?
I'm back, ask away.
Not necessarily. There are exceptions.
Stealth blimps? Totally possible.
True, although I think it's more like a tree falling in the city and lots of people being around to hear it.
I had to down vote because one "fake" phone call doesn't dismiss the facts.
Please don't let rage comics infect this subreddit, if you wanted to you could make a long post in the self form about why you do not trust holistic cures. Instead you posted up something that uses an outdated and overused format. Presumably because you wanted the karma more than anything else.\n [pertaining to #EANF#](#EANF#).
well he never said he dreamed it. he said he felt like something was going to happen. And my dad hasn't done any type of drugs other than smoking cigarettes which aren't even a drug.
> I know this is an old post, but I was under the impression that the \n> debris that was collected was inconsistent with the kind of plane that\n> allegedly hit the pentagon. There were photographs of a few bits and\n> pieces, one of which was an engine segment that did not match up\n\nare you an expert to say with absolute certainty about it? Don't you think that if they had to stage the thing, they would actually use *the right engine* ?\n\n> wrong model/manufacturer. I don't remember where I saw this and \n> it could have been wrong. My point is that debris, especially small\n> scraps, could easily have been planted for photographic propaganda.\n\nYes, sure. They may also have detonated the thing themselves. Everything can be made into propaganda if you want, but damn... at least we have to use Occam's razor a bit sometimes...\n\n\n> Even if there's no proof of this, it isn't an impossibility.\n> As for saying that the missing plane and passengers were abducted\n> by aliens, that's just silly.\n\nOf course it is. as it's silly to believe that the airplane never hit the pentagon.\n\n> It seems like you're trying to make the idea sound far more\n> outlandish than it really is. Depending on who was actually on the\n> plane, a few different things could have happened. This is all purely\n> hypothetical, no evidence, but let's say that the passengers were all\n> in on it. They just have to live different lives with different identities \n> now.\n\nListen, I think you just read too much Dan Brown recently... how do you have 150 people *change their life, forget about their previous one, and fucking shut the hell up for the rest of their lives?* Come on... be serious.\n \n> If not, they just need to have been killed, or locked away someplace.\n\nYes, they have been killed when the freaking plane crashed on the freaking pentagon.\n\n> As for the security cameras, I don't know what reason they could \n> have for not releasing the security camera footage from the hotel\n> and gas station across the street.\n\nLet's put forward another, simpler hypothesis: decency? It's not like everything must be made into a show, and although I believe americans as the second biggest idiots on this planet (first being the muslims), I may understand a bit of grieving when it comes to show one of their planes crashing into the most representative building of the US military power.\n
That's because heaven is real. Duh. There's no other way to explain it. ;)
Oh, okay then.
sorry this are all fake, the real ones don't leave floor markings
> "... but it should imply you're agnostic."\n\nNo.. it shouldn't.  It should imply that you apply a particular process in the way you think and reason.  That is as far as this conclusion can go without imposing ones own conclusions, (possibly incorrect), upon others prematurly
Here's an intelligent thing to do, instead of looking for paranormal encounters why don't you study the equipment the investigators use and learn how it works, and the reasons why it is/isn't a good for hunting ghosts.\n\nLets take the [Thermal Imaging](http://www.inmes.hr/pdf/thermography.pdf) for example, how and why could this be used for paranormal hunting?  Would a ghost radiate heat or absorb it?  Why/how would it radiate/absorb heat?  If it can, can it conduct heat/cold into objects/people?\n\nIf you're truly intelligent, bite on that!  Now move on to sound with taking into context all the audio frequencies it picks up of which our ears can't pick up.  Then learn how night vision works and why paranormal investigators rely on it so much.  Then experiment on the correlation between air humidity and apparitions, whether or not they are related in some way.\n\nPut that intelligence to work.  I started too late, take my torch young one and brighten the path for others!
I'm not really that concerned about this...  Although it is a little disheartening that someone's personal, politico-religious ideology is so easily injected into public discourse...\n\nHowever, history books have always glossed over history - telling only the parts that are catchy or needed to pass a particular state-made exam.  There is a reason [A People's History of the United States](http://www.amazon.com/Peoples-History-United-States-Present/dp/0060838655/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268682252&sr=8-1) had to be written and continued (until Zinn's death, grhs) to be updated.  I'm not sure that any historian of any value would look put much stock in what books aimed at children say.
One of the reasons Shakespeare has lasted so long is that he doesn't use every story just to grind his own axe.  He writes characters who are not all the same as each other, who have different opinions, and he's pretty fair to them all.\n\nAs a result, just about anybody can find a quotation in Shakespeare which agrees with their views.  And because Shakespeare was such a genius with language, it'll sound good.  But that doesn't mean he was on your side, whatever side you're on.\n
Maybe we are a nearly extinct species from their perspective, and earth is their zoo.
Pretty much my thoughts. I saw one of the first blog post about atheismplus and it sounds like an excuse for bumper stickers.
Thanks. I was already messing around with soundcloud so I think I've managed to upload it publicly there. Let me know what you think! To be clear, it is not an EVP because it was heard by human ears as well, but we were lucky enough to capture it.
I've noticed that I always seem to wake up on the 47th minute of the hour when I'm sleeping...not sure if it's confirmation bias as I haven't recorded my sleeping schedule to determine if it only happens under certain conditions.
OK, I think I'm beginning to understand the skeptic position. (Which would still be overthrown by the idea that you could travel faster than light, btw...)\n\nAlso, happy cakeday.\n\nEdit: I'm sorry, I don't know if we can travel faster than light or not. *If* we could, the probability for aliens would be greatly increased, that's all.
That's my thing it didn't actually work for you.  You got better on your own (because the human body is pretty marvelous at self healing) and you credit homeopathy for it. Your advice to try it when I'm not grievously sick is the same as saying just wait for it to get better but why don't you give money to some charlatans as well.  I don't make you look like a believer, you are one, you did that all by yourself.
Have fun starving to death.
You're joking right? This is clearly a rocket launch into some clouds causing a trail
That's fascinating. Plus he looks like some sort of affluent video game villain in his photo.
This is an example of [samadhi](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samadhi) which I was introduced to by improvising music.\n\nThis is a taste of what meditation strives to bring about in normal day-to-day life.  Meditation is very similar to that feeling you get, but rather than having it apply to solely welding, to existence.
No evidence is not the same as evidence to the contrary.
It seems that you have a different understanding of "compelling" than most readers of this subreddit. \n\n
I may hold you to that I need a little ghost excitement Maryland poses boring at times
skepchickcon panel on gender diferences http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5uvPhZ29fs\n\nBasically neutronfish got his statement right.
Sorry for being so uptight on the specifics of neuroplasticity--I could've safely assumed that you were just being general for brevity, but did want to be sure.\n\n>As for safe, this thread only considered neurological effects on development.\n\nTo be sure, I also meant to couch my statements in my last post in the same limited context. Safety outside of any developmental neurological effects is another matter better covered by other threads.\n\n>I have not gone into deeper research on these as I am satisfied that different organic hot smoke has similar effects on tissue and is not reduced by the "magic" of marijuana.\n\nI agree that there is no conclusive evidence that marjiuana smoke is significantly less harmful than other organic smoke, but to be sure there is (apparently) research to this effect (some of which is nicely summarized [here](http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/cam/cannabis/healthprofessional/page4), as linked to by jcnz56 elsewhere--importantly, most of the confirmed positive effects were with THC delivered by some avenue other than smoke). As always, further study is needed. Of course, one need not smoke cannabis to imbibe the active ingredient, but again that's better covered in other threads.
You wrote about the Gunter and yet you spelled the name wrong ...more than once? Interesting.
Mine was like a ball of smoke.
"Inside this blue container"
did you try clicking the link?
I had a weird experience with a bench a few months back as well.\n\nWhen I first moved to where I live now, there was some train tracks that ran from lake Ontario to some lumber yard in the northern end of the city.  About 10-15 years ago, they pulled up all the tracks and made the whole thing into a walking path.   Most of it has trees on both sides, and a creek along parts of it.\n\nOne day, I was walking along the road that is parallel to the walking path.  I got to a part where you can see the walking path from the road.  There is a large church parking lot, with a chain-link fence, so you can see the path clearly for a good 100 yards or so as you walk past.\n\nIt was mid afternoon.   \n\nI saw a lady sitting on a park bench on the path side of the fence.   I remember thinking how odd it was that they would waste money by putting a bench in that spot.  If you walked another 50', you would be at the end of that segment of the path (and at a main street).\n\nNothing was odd about the lady, except the fact she was sitting in such an odd location.\n\nA few weeks later, I was walking the path with a girl I was seeing at the time.  I told her about the bench, and what a waste of money it seemed to me, but we decided to have a seat when we got to it anyway.\n\nAs we approached the spot, I started to scan up ahead for this stupid bench.  But it wasn't there.  There was no sign of it ever being there either.  There was a large concrete block along the way.  I thought maybe she was sitting on that, but it is in a spot that you can't see from the road.  \n\nEvery time I walk down there, I look for this bench, just in case I walked passed it, and didn't notice it.  But Nope.  There is nothing.\n\nNot really sure what is up with that.
This shadow was very, very detailed, you could see strands of hair just like mine, he also the slight fluid motion from standing, you could see the crinkles in his shirt and jeans... I can definitely say it was not a weed or some other random object. It was a human being shadow - cast just as if there really was someone there. I looked in all directions, even right left, up down, behind me.. thought I stepped into the twilight zone.
2nd verse\n\nrinse\n\nrepeat
pilots are obsolete
If they do, I'll stay far away from them to avoid creating some awful paradox. O_o
Maybe we *are* the resource.
Training a dog is *operant* conditioning, as is this, even though it's random.
Okay, but how do you know planets are pretty new?\n\nI realise that it took at least until sometime after the first generation of stars went supernova until the elements to form planets even existed, but I don't know either way whether some stars went supernova and planets formed several billion years before our own solar system got under way.\n\nAnd even if life was very new, a species like Homo sapiens that had merely a million year head start on us could be so far ahead of us that we couldn't begin to imagine what they've achieved.
Oh my goodness!  This woman IS psychic but she wasn't really talking to the person on the screen, she was talking to ME!  She was looking for an M or a J and my grandparents who passed a way a couple of years ago were Mary and Joseph!  How did she know!?
Yes, you are correct I do know what you mean, I saw an opening and I took it.
Honestly the first comment was, yeah. After that, no.
Got your nose!
I would like to see this taught as well. I don't think people would object to their children learning critical thinking skills. The problem would happen when it was applied to science, religion and other deeply held beliefs.
More like asking if the Earth revolves around the sun in /astronomy
Not saying you're wrong but can you post a link proving its a viral marketing attempt? I've looked and haven't found anything proving its real or fake.
The saddest part is that differently from Randi's investigation there is no big reveal or fraud like using radio receptors, because Popoff isn't making any paranormal claim or sleight of hand trick. He is just selecting people from the audience, touching them, cherry picking success stories etc. Nothing illegal per se, nothing outrageous per se. It's obvious he is a fraud and we find it hard to understand why anyone would give him money or recognition, but people simply do...
Someone in the comments wrote: "To define something you don´t know as fake, “woo-woo”, without deep research just demonstrates how trapped you are in the dogmas of the “religion of science”… after all the great thing about science is that it changes paradigms from time to time…"  Religion of science?  The whole conversation frustrates me.
No not sad at all. It's a very plausible reason. It's taken me a long time to get over it. I went through a lot of depression and anxiety. So it's more than possible. The feeling that someone was there was so real though. Was crazy
I ve looked into that sight,so let me get this correct.. I should believe a president of the United States met the aliens just cause some guy wrote that? hmm... it took me some time to get to the point in my life that I dont need religion,this my friend is just the same.I should believe something someone said to someone? with no hard evidence? no data? no research? cmon.. I would be the first one to jump from happiness if aliens appeared .. (good or bad,fuck it) but I cant believe something this far stretched.
Then he'll read "Bad Pharma" and be back with the conspiracy (which would mean he hadn't read it properly, but I wouldn't put it past him).
>You say you are not an armchair skeptic, but a scientist.\n\nActually those words were never typed by myself.  I think you incorrectly inferred them.  I am a conservation ecologist though.  It doesn't get much more sciency than that.  Being a literal scientist aside, the scientific method does not apply to hard sciences alone.  If you think you see a ghost that is your hypothesis, "I saw a ghost".  Then you look into the issue further, gather evidence and see if any of it supports your hypothesis.  It is a simple but essential concept, but I would not discredit these "armchair skeptics".  Why?  Well, you could simply call Aristotle or Plato armchair philosophers.\n\nSo now the problem isn't that the JREF is breeding mindless hordes of pseudo-skeptics but that the JREF isn't calling out people who misuse their name?  I think they call it out by existing as the organization they are.  The JREF stand on principles of sound logical argument and not misleading people with false information.  If that is happening than no matter what those **random people from the JREF forums** (I can't stress how unimportant that makes people, but it is very) they are not true proponents of the foundation.\n\nConspiracy theorists are attracted to the skeptical community.  Trolls just occur as a result of the internets existence it seems, and the JREF is not immune.  I am not a member, but I am sure they have more important things to do than call out community members.  That's what mods are for.
go get a police sketch of him and then claim he is your biological father that you have few memories of from childhood and want to reconnect with you...
I actually hesitated about posting from Gawker, but I couldn't find a better writeup (the original doctor's posted is a bit TLDRish), and they did cite their sources, which seem solid, so I made an exception.
I think as a fair compromise, we should be more tolerant of practitioners who are anti-vaxxer, and they should change their title from doctor to "doctor."
I'll agree that a few apples spoil the bunch; that's an accurate assertion.\n\nI'm not convinced that tradition (specifically) is a naturally occurring phenomena however. Tradition - at the very least, our conception of - may very well be a human or Earth-bound trait. We have no basis to compare.\n\nIntelligent species in Zeta Reticili (sp?) may not share any similarities with a species in another galaxy, or us for that matter. There are many things to consider that don't come naturally during the postulation of the existence of life.\n\nWould our five senses allow us to detect it/them?\n\nWould our technological instruments detect it/them?\n\nHow do we define 'life?'\n - this is a very important point, almost always overlooked in this debate: we discover (at a rather quick rate) forms of life that push the boundaries of what we consider possible conditions for life to exist Our understanding of life and its complexities is in an infantile stage: this cannot be argued. Of all the possible planets in existence, we have but inhabited and partially studied only one. Our paradigm, in which we examine the unknown, limits our understanding to terrestrial confines. \n\nAre they a space-faring 'they?' \n\nAre they inter-dimensional travelers?\n\nDo they/it require vehicles or facilities to make these *journeys?*\n\nWhat is the average lifespan/mortality of this species or entities?\n\nIf a species is numerous, are they individualistic? Do they feel? Compassion? Compassion towards other (even lesser) lifeforms?\n\nAre they a governed species and held to answer for their respective wrongs, or are they free to do as they please?\n\nThere's a myriad of variables in this area of discussion, but that's why it's so fascinating; everyone's got a different idea of what's out there. I like to think each of us holds a piece of the puzzle to answering these questions and, ultimately, furthering ourselves as a species. \n\n\n\n
A constant spin of whatever speed would accelerate the atmosphere to at least approximately what that speed is.  Especially in a closed environment such as a house.  Since the moving object is not carrying the atmosphere with it, the helicopter is bound by the earth's atmosphere upon launch and rises straight up since it is lifted by force exerted on that atmosphere.\n\nIf he had thrown a ball up from the moving object, an action that requires no sustained input, he would see the ball's trajectory match that of the moving object more closely.
Agreed.
>Aren't some of the crops in crop circles bent differently, as if they were exploded with heat from the inside?\n\nThere are reports of people taking the microwave transmitters out of ovens and connecting them to batteries to get this effect.
>As we all know, Carl Sagan once said that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. This is often countered by the old Sherlock Holmes quip: "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."\n\nTrue as far as it goes.  However, the Holmseian principle is useless for this purpose.  By eliminating all the explanations you can think of, all you've accomplished is to show that it isn't due to any of those.  You certainly have **not** managed to show that a paranormal explanation is all that remains, but only that you've run out of ideas to test.  Claiming any specific explanation without specific evidence in favour of it is a textbook [argument from ignorance](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance), and a great way to violate Feynman's dictum which you mentioned above:  "you must not fool yourself".\n\nSo certainly we are agreed on that one.\n\n>Based on what we know about our brains, behaviors, and beliefs, under what circumstances is it honest and helpful to introduce a paranormal explanation for an unexplained experience?\n\n[The words of David Hume](http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/h/hume/david/h92e/index.html) pretty much sum this up, if you take the word 'testimony' to mean 'evidence generally' - \n\n>"...no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavors to establish; and even in that case there is a mutual destruction of arguments, and the superior only gives us an assurance suitable to that degree of force, which remains, after deducting the inferior.' When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion."
>he isn't sitting on his laurels blindly accepting the hype\n\nYes he is, he's blindly accepting and spreading the hype that vaccines cause autism, and that HIV doesn't cause AIDS. \n\nHe just chose his own flavour of hype - extra nutty.\n\nAlso, that he chooses to imply he is a medical doctor is wilful deception.\n\nDo you agree with him that HIV doesn't cause AIDS? Why or why not?\n\n>If someone in a white lab coat [...]\n\nLet me shorten your rant: 'Doctors don't know everything' - yes, I'm aware of that.\n\nShould I distrust them on the issue of vaccines when no evidence has been presented that they are bad, and the same evidence has almost universally shown them to benefit both individuals and society? See [badui's post](http://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/9zp0q/not_commander_data/c0f7rpb) for a good overview of why this anti-vaccine 'issue' is just hype itself.
Perception of pain can absolutely be effected by placebo.  http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/altbelief.html
Sounds awesome. I used to live in the mountains near Placerville, CA and we would sometimes see the strangest things in the sky there. UFOs, like you said, in the truest sense. Strange lights moving around in ways that no airplane I know of can, etc. What was particularly weird about it was that all the locals knew about the lights and were just kind of like , "meh. no big deal. Been showing up over town forever." I grew up in a city so these lights were amazing to me. Never bothered with pictures or movies. Just so many of those around already, and I don't (didn't) want to look or sound like a kook, you know? Sounds like you saw a cool piece of new tech buddy. 'Grats!
Reminds me of the witness descriptions of the Phoenix lights. A couple of the witnesses who were directly underneath the moving lights described them as glowing, lamp-looking bulbs, without illuminating the area around them. Whether these lights are or are not reflections, they are pretty surreal to look at nonetheless.
If that is true, then it would be easy to prove that this is real...
best footage on the internet
Wait, I though they had already decided is was GMOs and Monsanto.
If you're American or have the right to free speech codified in your country's law, just point out that that right doesn't apply only to voters.
context?
Well thank god I moved. I have a feeling well water has none if any chemicals like fluoride in it.
I think the problem might come from the fact that science lacks the instruments/tools to measure or record basically any kind of paranormal activity. (Shitty grainy video and EMF meters DO NOT count, sorry) Then the question is how does science even create the necessary equipment, when we have NO idea what it is we're trying to measure in the first place? I really hope someday we are able to!!
Then you're just watching the wrong channels. I see TV like a bell curve, there's a ton more shows being produced now than at any other point in history. That leads to some of the worst TV ever filmed at one end, but some of the best TV ever filmed on the other. It may not be a symmetric distribution (since crap is easier to make than quality), but saying "TV is bad, look at TLC" is like saying "the Internet is bad, look at Facebook." \n\nWatch some AMC, HBO, USA, Showtime, hell even the networks have a few great ones, but don't judge a medium by it's worst crap.
youtube comments make me sad.
Ditto. Then I wonder if I screwed something up.
That's so great, thanks a lot. :)
I think that some intelligent people have ridiculous beliefs in much the same way that I think there are some innocent people in prison.
Are you a Pisces?
The memo does not reflect what you wrote. Also the right people at both USA and USSR knew that UFOs are a real phenomena with mind blowingly advanced technology.
Do you have the conversations still?  What were you guys talking about?
Thanks =D
It defeats the purpose if you get to pick & choose jurors?  You know there is a part of a trial called jury selection, right?
That's ridiculous. There is nothing inherently unhealthy about eating meat. \n\nYou could make the claim that it's easier to consume more saturated fat, and that would be true.  It would also be true to say that it is more difficult in a vegetarian diet to get complete proteins.\n\nBoth sides have ideological reasons and not a lot of hard facts.
What dose the F in UFO stand for again???
I like "arcane".
[Cognitive biases](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_bias)  exist and influence our judgments and the whole point of science (which is rather a bunch of methods than a world-view) is to  overcome our own weaknesses in this respect.\nAsk them, why traditional/alternative medicine didn't find out about how flawed our judgments are.\nE.g. "like-goes-with-like" is a reasoning heuristic that humans apply and makes homeopathy sound plausible.\n\nPoint to optical illusions. They always work, even if you know that what you see can't be right. If even our immediate perception of the world is broken, why should our memory and reasoning (which builds on our perceptions) be perfect and completely different from our senses?
This is my belief. The aliens left their home planet venus as the atmosphere started to get uninhabitable. Landed on earch and proceeded to leave a huge impression on, and significantly enhance mankind as a species. Then jetted off to wherever to leave us to evolve in our own way with no more interference, and said they would be back on 12.21.12.\n\nSource- Stumbleupon search criteria society-UFO's
Not really. The correct position would be suspension of belief. You don't need to conclude something when there's no reason to do so.\n\nI also think the uniform blurriness of the thing implies it's a shop. It also has two different dates on the exact same photo in two different shows. I.e., it's fake.
Oh nooo. He's into chem trails? Guess I'm not surprised. At all.
Looks [phishy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing) to me...
It could use an energy which we have an understanding of, but we are not entirely certain about it. As humans, many naively think that we know a shit ton about the world around us. In reality, we've barely scratched the surface.\n\nIn the case of Geology this is certainly the case. We have calculated assumptions pertaining to the activity and the components under the Earth's crust, but the exact way that the Mantle and Core affect Earth's electromagnetic field hasn't been pinned down because we don't have the first hand evidence needed to talk about such things.\n\nOn the topic of this energy grid, I've only heard about these ley lines on Ancient Aliens. But the idea is not completely farfetched, if there were Ancient Aliens, they are likely to understand sub-surface ecosystems better than us, who knows!\n\n
I feel very much the same, I essentially use this subreddit as just a good read. But it's more than that. I can't get into r/nosleep because it's 100% fiction from my experience, but this subreddit ppl believe it to be true, which I guess, to me, makes a better story\n\nI guess we grow more skeptical with age when we don't these experiences. That's what it's like to me. It has just grown a further interests in more weirder sides of science.\n\nAlthough at the moment I find the thought of a hollow Earth world and the Reptilian race conspiracy quite interesting because it's so far 'out there' :P
Good summary. Also nice to see a *single-page* cracked.com link.
You what..... The really weird thing is that i had this feeling like i was supposed to be at the mall.  I was pulled into the spot where my friends and i used to meetup. Iunno i just cant explsin why i felt like i needed to be there.\n
Not too lowly to theorize - too low on information to form reasonable theories. I also would never equate a more advanced civilization to being godly - we just know nothing about them, nor their intentions.
That's a good point, I wouldn't either. It wouldn't surprise me if it was political though. Shermer definitely seems like the type to have been disdainful of leftist politics during Sagan's day. All that global warming, socialist, pro-weed, anti-war stuff would annoy any strong libertarian ideologue.
Lol gone potty
Why do u even want to talk about UFO's all u guys are gonna do are fight whether UFO's are real or not\n\nIm just saying this is no point u know whats gonna end up, fighting, being annoyed, aggravation, wasting your life.\n\n50% of u probably are making this stuff up the other 50% is literal sightings u may not not know from which is real and which is not but dont fight about it, all i think about UFO's is that wow there MIGHT be aliens out there somewhere.\n\nBut for now we dont know for sure so dont be aggravated over this silly subject if u think that im just being a meany then keep saying that im just tellin u that this is a bunch of BS now please, stop fighting!!!
Anyone who believes a word of this needs to have their heads checked.  Oh, and I have a bridge to sell you....
well, we've already got the fat stereotype down, might as well branch out. I didn't mean to detract from your post. Only trying to bring a little humor to a wednesday.
My interpersonal relationships tend to go more smoothly when I let piddly shit like this go. I prioritize having friends over being a SCIENCE WARRIOR about everything but not everyone has the same priorities I do I guess.
back in the 70's my step mother's brother used to sell scrubbers and he is the one who mentioned where fluoride came from...he said it in terms that made the concept of consuming it in any way stupid.\n\nit is a toxic industrial waste which they would have to pay to dispose of. . .and certain people need to avoid it  due to health issues.\n\n
They made a strategic mistake in the creationist one IMO.\n\n 1. every scientist that they were introduced to should have been a Christian, \n\n 2. they should have included a persuasive theologian who would teach how Christianity and evolution are compatible.\n\n 3. should have included Francis Collins as a bit of a mix between 1 and 2.\n\nBut instead they pick Jerry Coyne, who is expert at debunking Creationism, but crap at *convincing creationists*.\n\nAlso: whales on the ark? What?\n
A momentous moment indeed.
Ideally, neither.
My sisters room was always colder then the rest of the house.  We figured it was just poor insulation or something.  Turned out it was because there was a blockage in the pipes.
>Sure, technically he's correct (the best kind of correct) but a bright 12-year-old can do that.\n\n*WOOSH*
>If you aren't able to identify it, yes, that's the exact definition of an Unidentified Flying Object. \n\nBut you are talking about the correct form of U.F.O's, NatGeo is not. So when Jamotron said that there were no sighting of U.F.O's before the movies he was referring to the alien kind, just like in the article. \n\nYou on the other hand are referring to the correct term, thus you are both right in your own sense, but you are not talking in the same context as the article.\n\n>Who said that? Wait, let me quote myself:\n\nyou wrote that comment after I had left mine, sorry for not being up to date on your comment history. \n\nHave a nice weekend!
I really dont have a clue about what I'm talking about, but probably aliens.
Oh... well.. I see then.
wait, I guess that should be in vino non veritas, dammit, sorry, I've been drinking.
Kind of like Wile E. Coyote only falling after he notices that he's run off the cliff.
wut
You should find out if their house was ever blessed. If not you should suggest it, if her and her family are christian then they should not have an issue with it. If ANYTHING, it should help ease your gf's worry but hopefully it will get rid of the ghost.
If I was a mod I'd ban you, totally uncalled for.\n\nEdit: looks like you changed your original post.
good god man, cars do not work this way AT ALL. like, not even close. i suggest reading this quickly, which explains the basics concepts of an electrical system, though in a bike. cars work the same way. \n\nhttp://www.cyclemaintenance.com/elec/electrical.htm\n\n
The article says that bystanders provided the CPR. So if there was an AED on site. It's pretty doubtful that it was put into use. \n\nWhereas if someone was trained and responsible onsite they would have A) made sure it was there B) put it into use.
Really? I lived there for 10 years growing up and I went there with friends, during the day, after dark, and all times in between, and we found absolutely nothing.\n\nThe absolute most excitement we had at that house was at 2 in the morning waiting for something to happen for almost 3 hours, then getting the cops called on us because we looked suspicious.\n\nAmong the locals who don't care about tourism, we all believe it's a tourist trap.\n\nAnd by the way, if you go on any of the tours, of course it's going to be creepy, it's staged. My friends sister was a tour guide. They actually spray cigar scent on the stairs before the place opens and other crap like that.
the ones that are real are 1. too complex to be made from the ground, 2. Too large to be made over night, let alone a few seconds that some are reported to be made in 3. stalks have been microwaved and layed down perfectly at 90 degree angles and not broken as it would happen with a wooden board, 4. have complex mathematical meaning, 5. many are made over night near military installations where people would be seen., 6. Never any paths leading in or out to area, 7. Many times those orb things are reported around the area before the pattern appears.
It's also not uncommon for a woman to say that she hates you and doesn't ever want to see you again, then the next day call and ask if you're still on for dinner.
That's [unbelievable](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waacof2saZw). \n\n*sorry, I had to.*
What the hell? Bizarre.
I don't know what lies beyond these people's experiences. I just think that it's important to remember that "unexplained" mysteries are either explainable or not true. "Unexplainable" phenomenon don't exist; we just don't know how to explain them yet.
The reasoning given for *why* in that facebook post is nonsensical but from looking at some of the studies there does appear to be a decreased risk (risk only, vegetarians are not immune to cancer) of some kinds of cancers for those on a vegetarian diet. Namely, breast and pancreatic cancer because a vegetarian diet alters the production of estrogen. There are some cancers, however, for which they have a higher chance. Namely, [colorectal cancer](http://www.ajcn.org/content/89/5/1620S.short). A large part of that might be because of the [high fiber content](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ijc.2910560204/abstract) of their diets and not necessarily because they avoid meat. Fiber seems to have a fairly well established beneficial effect on cancer rates and other things to do with your health. Avoiding meat does not, as far as I can tell, have as established of an effect.
You mean to tell me that in this day and age you do not have a cell phone with a capture video capability???  Watching for over an hour you didn't think to maybe look around to see if anyone was around to verify or call a local friend and tell him to look outside???
Have you had more OBEs since then?
There will be no be unnecessary moderation. Anyone makes a self post and both sides argue their points. \n\nPlease make sure to Upvote any posts you comment on or comments you reply to. There is no karma and we need to encourage debate.
I shouldn't say it, but maybe his physics degrees are from a faith-based university?
Wouldn't chinese lanterns appear rising from the ground? The objects in the videos seem to appear out of nowhere. What it could be is another elaborate CG hoax like the Jerusalem ufo.
I seriously doubt that most redditors really believe that *any* supernatural occurrence is the actual explanation for the tales in that thread. It's just fun to pretend sometimes.
>Please forgive me for my brevity! My fingers are getting sore. :) I hope the parts I quote and respond to reflect the crux of your response, and that I don't unintentionally omit something crucial.\n\nI understand. I've been reading papers recently as well. I'd like to know your thoughts on them, if possible :)\n\n>I agree! I guess the follow-up question is: if there is high-quality evidence, then why hasn't it been established already that we have enough evidence to presume that extraterrestrials visit Earth?\n\nIt could be that some UFO proponents prematurely claim the present tendered evidence to be sufficient, when in reality the data sampling and methodology behind said analysis was poor. That seems to hinge on the definition of "high-quality" evidence. It should also be noted that, with recurring revisions to the tendered data over time, the statistical Unknowns can drop considerably, owing to advances in technology, understanding of cognitive psychology, and examining previously overlooked elements in greater detail. There's also the need for indisputable physical evidence to be supplied for the hypothesis to be accepted on a systemic scale. \n\n[Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Blue_Book#Project_Blue_Book_Special_Report_No._14) notes that:\n\n>[The] 1979 French GEPAN report [...] stated that about a quarter of over 1,600 closely studied UFO cases defied explanation, stating, in part, "These cases … pose a real question."^21 When GEPAN's successor SEPRA closed in 2004, 5800 cases had been analyzed, and the percentage of inexplicable unknowns had dropped to about 14%.\n\n>I think, when we get down to the nitty-gritty bottom of it all, we're all aware that material evidence is the only way a UFOlogy-to-science breakthrough could happen.\n\nThis becomes more likely as I review the papers you provided :P Though I maintain it's not unreasonable to think that the presently tendered evidence is convincing, if accessed through military and scientific channels. There's a systemic, as well as individual element of acceptance at play here. \n\n>I understand. Yes, there is a challenge in the nature of UFO phenomena and the insistence of science on evidence. But the nature of the phenomena doesn't exempt it from skeptical inquiry, nor does it demand that it be treated differently than other phenomena. The Cosmic Microwave Background was really hard to find, too, as was the rest of the known electro-magnetic spectrum that we can't see with our eyes. To be honest, based on the frequency that UFOs are reported, I'm genuinely surprised that there's no material proof yet. And, to continue being honest, the longer that sightings continue to be reported without any material proof, the less confident I am that there's any actual unearthly phenomena occurring.\n\nFair enough. And in fact, it's been long known that humans can hear the microwave portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. Reliant on the frequency and length of the signal and distance from the radiating source, reported noises can range from a low-frequency humming sound to a high-pitched whistling sound. Interesting tidbit that I learned today :D Though I realize it's separate from inquiring into the CMB itself. \n\n>Imagine if particle physicists prematurely claimed that the Higgs-boson is real. Hypothetically. Other discoveries predict that they exist, after all, and their existence would make our standard model of physics more simple and eloquent. But that's not enough! It has to be proven. So earlier this year, they announced a [sigma five](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_deviation#Table) certainty that they found a new particle that behaves like a Higgs-boson, after years and years of colliding sub-atomic particles at near the speed of light in a [17 mile long underground tube](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider). Note that a sigma five discovery carries over a 99% certainty, and even then, the wording was carefully constructed in order to avoid any claims to fact. Extraterrestrial claims demand equal, if not more, scrutiny. A new particle accurately predicted by our standard model is huge news, but a new life form not of this Earth? Holy shit! That's huge! But we have to know that it's true -- I mean, really know -- before we say that it is true.\n\nThat's understandable. Though how do we determine the certainty of a hypothesis when it doesn't seem (to me at least) that these occurrences can be quantitatively described? Do we just refer to the probability of known scenarios and the likelihood of those instances occurring in particular cases? \n\n>Just wanted you to know that I know why the analogy was poor. :)\n\nThat's alright :) \n\n>Anything that is material is fantastic! The thing is, so far, none have been presented that I'm aware of. [...] If there are any crop circles that do have residual radiation, it can be explained by the [use of a magnetron](http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/08/03/high-powered-research-the-device-behind-those-mysterious-crop-circles/), which would also be useful in pushing down the crops. Magnetrons, GPS, and lasers being used to assist in crop circle creation is also discussed [here](http://news.discovery.com/earth/crop-circles-explained-with-gps-110805.html) and [here](http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-08/popsci-qampa-using-modern-tech-make-crop-circles).\n\nIt's a shame that some ET proponents cannot take research seriously. I stumbled upon a paper recently, titled "[Biochemical Traumatology as a Potent Tool for Identifying\nActual Stresses Elicited by Unidentified Sources: Evidence for\nPlant Metabolic Disorders in Correlation With a 'UFO' Landing](http://www.scientificexploration.org/journal/jse_04_1_bounias.pdf)" (1990) by Michael C.L. Bounias. It essentially looks at the functional relationships within the biochemistry of affected plank stalk purported to have been affected by a UFO landing to determine the stress source. In summary, it approaches the issue of residual radiation from a biochemical perspective as opposed to a morphological one. In this case, it concludes that (emphasis mine):\n\n>The level of photosynthetic pigments decreased in all samples collected at D + 4 and D + 40 near the epicentre of the UE **(unidentified emission?)**. Then, at D + 40 only, glucose contents increased. **These observations** [...] **are characteristic of an early alteration of the photosynthetic apparatus,** maintained and followed by a decrease in glucose utilization [...] [T]hey were quite **consistent with typical cases of biphasic dose/effect pharmacological or toxicological relations,** including **chemical,** but even **physical (electromagnetic) sources of stress.**\n\nI highlight this for comment on whether these effects could have a terrestrial origin, given that the extended metabolic disruption appears significant. Can a magnetron cause this? \n\nI *do* object to the apparent hand-waving on pages one and two. In fact, it's *very* relevant to our previous discussion on the principle of reproducibility in scientific empiricism:\n\n>One of the most challenging aspects of anomalous phenomenon studies is the question of their reproducibility, which is often considered as a condition for a study to be considered scientific.\nAnother critical aspect in such a study is the validity of human testimonies, which is the object of some specific branches of human sciences and has led to a number of famous controversies in terms of what is science (Abelson, 1974; Bauer, 1979) or what the value of\ntestimonies is (Loftus 1979). [See: Sturrock, 1987, for review in a similar area.] \n\n>Nevertheless, there are several scientific domains, undoubtedly accepted as full sciences, that do not actually need any experimental reproducibility. For instance, in paleontology, no one can say when and where the next discovery of an Australopithecus skeleton will occur, although this is never depicted in a joking manner as, for instance, observations (even including material evidence, such as photographs or sonar recordings) concerning the Loch Ness Monster (see Bauer, 1987, for review).\n\nIt seems to miss the fact that reproducibility refers to the ease of recreating the conditions for experiment itself. The need to control variables is done to mediate certainty in comparative experimental procedures. There are several instances in paleontology wherein variables can be controlled for comparative analysis. Determining whether a bone sample belongs to the paleolithic era certainly involves a significant degree of experimental control to increase dating accuracy. It's not recreating original conditions so much as creating conditions in which we can extrapolate to a desired point without taint. In addition, there's no need to recreate part of the experiment if by implication the desired subject for study already exists. It treats subject recurrence as the full scope of experimental control. The paper acts like the latter isn't a requirement; *it always is*.\n\n>It's the stubborn amateur scientist in me, though it's not as rare as you may think! You'd be hard-pressed to find a single scientist, mathemetician, or engineer working for NASA that doesn't have pipedreams of discovering alien life. Everyone in cosmology wants to find alien life! There's even an entire discipline of science dedicated to it: [astrobiology](http://astrobiology.nasa.gov/). Pretty awesome!\n\nI'll check that article out. Thanks! The second article I referred to was "[Effects of UFOs Upon People](http://www.ufocasebook.com/pdf/ufoeffects.pdf)" (1987) by James McCampbell. Here the author examines the reported physiological effects these purported objects have had on nearby witnesses. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
It's a term the woo-meisters love to appropriate and apply, wrongly, to their latest brand of bullshit. The same thing has been done with electricity and atomic radiation back then *they* were relatively novel and not well understood by the lay-person.\n\nIf anyone is using "quantum" to explain an effect you can perceive with your own senses unaided, they're talking complete and utter malarkey and you should make sure you know where you wallet and/or purse is.
Absolutely. Why shouldn't he if he's got that kind of control. I'd no-clip all over the place if I could only get it working right. This is the exact theory I've been working on for myself for years. We create our own world, and thus with enough belief and will we can change it to suit our own needs. Sounds like OP is just a few steps further along in the process than I am, but with out the philosophical foundation to build off of.
A good sceptic says something is false until proven true. A bad sceptic says something is true until you can prove it isn't.\n\nThe latter benefits big business and corporations, the former represents the public interest.
As a starting point, who don't you just complain to the shop manager? He/she might have simply thought: 'It's both cold medicine', and not realized what he/she was doing.
I've got the best experiences with not coming out all loud with my points of view, but first making neutral and uncontroversial statements everyone can agree about and then slowly building up towards my real points. That way people unconsciously puts you in group, not as an oponent, but as one with shared values. First when that trust has been established they will listen to you...\n\nSince your friends already know you are an 'enemy' they will never listen because you have 'evil' interests in their eyes.
>NOPE
> A law the prohibits bullshit\n\nis a law against freedom of speech.\n\n> A law that stops homeopathy\n\nis the first step on the road to authoritarianism\n\n>, for instance \n\nis a left-over from the copy-and-paste
In all seriousness, your rosehip oil is too concentrated for homeopathic purposes by a dizzying number of orders of magnitude.
But there have been countless times where I thought I was buying something for the first time when in reality I had boughten it before. Them being drunk, in my mind, makes it easier for them to have not noticed something like this. \n\nI'm just asking a question :). I could be way off from what has actually happened for all I know
So cracked called him dumb. But they still said than "you" think.
English is not my native language, can you explain the pidgeonhole tactic for me? (or link something). I've heard it in Minchins' Storm and all, but the meaning alludes me.
Somebody can. Definitely not me. But, definitely somebody. If i had to guess, i'd say about the thickness of that inner ring. A little longer. Probably a good place to start in terms of a base measurement tho. NASA might know something like that. Try google. As long as the size of the inner ring in this picture, is the actual size of that inner ring of course. I'd imagine a good estimate nonetheless.
Right! This is what I'm looking for here.
You're not crazy, quite the contrary. You see, time is not something that can be perceived in one direction only. Usually we experience it as linear because we like causality, it makes the universe easier to comprehend and it allows us to make better judgement on how to act at specific moments. On the other hand, it also limits us a lot.\n\nWe humans are still evolving, but the bias of evolution is beginning to shift from our physical bodies to our consciousness. We begin to find new ways to use the neurons in our brain to experience the universe. One of these ways is to experience time as acausal or synchronistic.\n\nNow you might think it's still crazy, and it is. But it's not crazy as in diseased, it's crazy as in new and fascinating.\nIf you don't believe me, take a look around you. You're not the only one experiencing this. As a notable example, Lewis Carroll. See what he wrote in Through the Looking Glass:\n>'The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday--but never jam to-day.'\n\n>'It MUST come sometimes to "jam to-day,"' Alice objected.\n\n>'No, it can't,' said the Queen. 'It's jam every OTHER day: to-day isn't any OTHER day, you know.'\n\n>'I don't understand you,' said Alice. 'It's dreadfully confusing!'\n\n>'That's the effect of living backwards,' the Queen said kindly: 'it always makes one a little giddy at first--'\n\n>'Living backwards!' Alice repeated in great astonishment. 'I never heard of such a thing!'\n\n>'--but there's one great advantage in it, that one's memory works both ways.'\n\n>'I'm sure MINE only works one way,' Alice remarked. 'I can't remember things before they happen.'\n\n>'It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards,' the Queen remarked.\n\nThis and a lot of the other stuff he wrote, is not just something he randomly came up with. Alice in Wonderland and TtLG were his way to share these experiences with the world without being dismissed as a lunatic in that time and era.
I did, and am still regretting it.
Most likely birds, bugs etc.  They all look like UFO's when they cross in front of a zoomed lens.
Nice try Agent Smith.
Money speaks louder than words. If you fire her she will think twice the next time another parent has similar concerns. It's unfortunate that you are unable to talk sense into her on such a dangerous issue. I recently had a run in with my daughter's dentist, who is apparently advising parents not to vaccinate. He's a flipping DENTIST who needs to shut his goddamn mouth. Sorry for the rant at the end.
Are you a fellow Pleadian too?
The moon does have significant effects on life on earth.  See [here](http://www.astrosociety.org/education/publications/tnl/33/33.html) and [here](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/how-the-moon-rules-your-life-433071.html).
I'd rather spend the money and not have my house constantly smell like vinegar.
This is taken from the end of a section warning about taking research from the lab bench on a few cells in a dish and extrapolating far beyond to make grand claims, so bear this is mind while reading the quoted text please.\n\nTo quote Ben Goldacre's book Bad Science (though I recommend that you get the book and read the entire chapter yourself).\n\n>Well, yes, there is some evidence that curcumin, a chemical in turmeric, is highly biologically active, in all kinds of different ways, on all kinds of different systems (there are also theoretical grounds for believing that it may be carcinogenic, mind you). It's certainly a valid target for research.\n\n>But for the claim that we should eat more curry in order to get more of it, that recent research" has shown it is highly protective against many forms of cancer, especially of the prostate," you might want to step back and put the theoretical claims in the context of your body. Very little of the curcumin that you eat is absorbed. You have to eat a few grams of it to reach significant detectable serum levels, but to get a few grams of curcumin, you'd have to eat one hundred grams of turmeric, and good luck with that. Between research and recipe, there's a lot more to think about than the nutritionists might tell you.
That sounds like a good way to see if it's real or not. But if everyones blindfolded I think that would make things difficult...:P \nI'll try this sometime though
This is a bad post.
This is actually less intelligent than the quotes I usually see from him. Fairly useless.
Somehow this doesn't surprise me at all...
Like I said on the other post. No shit. People couldn't tell the difference between a natural product, and one that Monsanto had designed (for decades) to look taste smell and feel like a natural product.\nThere wasn't an actual placebo effect making the food process in the body any better so who gives a shit? \n\nThe study was probably paid for by big agriculture in some way or another.....
Paragraphs.. do you USE them? I guess not.
But of course... I think.
Thanks for the link - I did eventually find it.\n\nThe Cochrane analysis that I remember was on the efficacy of Pc6 on post operative nausea.  It's been about a year since read it and I don't have time right now to find the link.\n\nI find most acupuncture studies flawed for the simple reason that there is no good way to blind acupuncture.  I understand that there are (as used in the study originally linked) "sham" acupuncture needles - in which the needle telescopes into the handle.  But I do not understand how the practitioner can be blind to this - as the needle will then not stay in the skin.\n\n\n\n
No, dude, it's LASER as in Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.\n\nIt used to be an acronym. Source: I used to be a laser show hobbyist and technician.\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser
Why do you use the word "proof" rather than "diplomatic cables"?
Agreed. Have a sample submitted to a lab for testing and we'll talk.
And if someone told you they'd found Santa's secret grotto in Lapland, you'd want reddit's opinion on that too?
When the placebo has the same effect as the "treatment", then scientifically speaking the treatment "has no effect".
This is high school level biology, I remember it coming up on a test when i was 13-14:\n\nQ Why aren't vaccines used to treat disease?\n\nA Because they're a prevention, not a cure.
He was writing a book....has this experience and now will write or resurrect the book he tossed and sell it w this as a promo.
She looks like she just read a few magazines and regurgitated everything she read as her predictions
You had, or have, mice in your house.  That is what they do.  For a few months I was finding dog food *everywhere*, in little piles.  On top of the washing machine, in drawers, even inside my large stereo speakers, and it baffled me for some time.  But yeah... mice.
"Time honored traditions" aren't worth a damn if they aren't supported by  rigorous use of the scientific method.
I can hear the first one clear as a bell. I can even hear it on crappy computer speakers. The one at 2min is very faint. I had to amplify it greatly and play it back many times in a row before I could make it out. I use Sony MDR-V900, they have a very wide frequency range. Not cheap either. I have played it for some ppl, and they couldn't hear it, while others picked it out right away. Everyone has a different range of frequencies that they can hear in. It could be that these EVPs are just outside of your range.\nI will try and separate the audio and boost it and repost.\nI can assure you though, the EVPs are there, and where very startling to me.
Fluoride , it fucks with your pineal gland. People have been saying this shit for years, nazis put it in the water in concentration camps to dumb down the prisoners. Harvard just came out with a study confirming it
Spring Lake, sup?
I would hope most take that approach.  I know Iowa does.  We do have lectures on CAM and one of the physicians, who I think it's probably more down the rabbit hole than I would like, had some very succinct and great advice.  Recommend when evidence supports safety and efficacy, accept when efficacy is inconclusive but safety is established, and discourage when evidence indicates inefficacy or serious risk.  It's not perfect, and I'd probably like to try and discourage in some cases where that dictum would have me accept, but it's a good rule of thumb.
so...I can only be protected from malpractice and poison *after* I've been a victim of them? And what if I'm trying to sue a pharmaceutical company, which due to it's virtually unlimited resources can just stall and bullshit until I can't afford to keep sueing?
I find this argument intellectually dishonest, or at least incomplete. What is the rate of [multi-photon absorption](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-photon_absorption) in a typical microwave oven? Can it be neglected? My guess is: Probably. But just saying "non-ionizing radiation" and be done with it is a little too easy. Not to mention that [UV radiation isn't ionizing either, but still a cancer risk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-ionizing_radiation#Near_ultraviolet_radiation) ("ultraviolet light, even in the non-ionizing range, can produce free radicals that induce cellular damage, and can be carcinogenic").
I don't get it - can you explain it like Im five?
Yea I agree this one is worth seeing. I often still reflect on it. I should re watch it soon!!!
Sorry about the quantity, a lot of them are similar but that's just a dump of the memory card from the camera. If you are able to zoom in very close you'll see that they're all slightly different in color and sometimes shape.\n\nIt lasted all night from when we saw it starting at 11:45ish. (about the same time we saw it a week or so ago, though that time it was only there for 45 minutes)\nIt was stationary for the whole time we observed it, but was changing colors from reddish purple, green, blue, white and sometimes would disappear entirely for a bit before coming back (you can see some of the shots just show an empty sky).\nCalgary, facing South-East.
Exactly. I hate this shit; well, I believe it, it must be true.
This is just a latin american TV station's advertisement for their airing of Back to the Future... Come on, man.
It's sad how many upvotes this got. (not the comment but the post)
And air resistance.
wut
again im not saying this is real, evidence is evidence.
> reproductive health services\n\nThat's really the key part right there.\n\n>I mean if anything new (better) vaccines should increase life expectancy (thus raising the population)\n\nBetter vaccines mean more children live through childhood, thus parents can choose to have fewer children, knowing that the children they do have will likely reach adulthood. It's a weird way to put it, but not an unreasonable conclusion.
I have nothing to fear. My tin foil hat is in place.
Well certainly we need to be skeptical.\n\nSome explanations from evolutionary psychology are very solid, such as why males will jealously guard their females. It's not at all surprising that most males do not feel comfortable with their girlfriends or wives spending time with other males, especially ones that they don't know. Or why we find dance in all human cultures, it's a great way of expressing ones physical and mental health, and we all here (I hope) understand that what is seen as health are the physiological (and behavioural) indicators of the "health" (health being measured by the likelihood of reproduction) of the individuals genes.\n\nOther ideas are more speculative.\n\nBut it is not at all, or it shouldn't be, controversial that certain genes have resulted in certain brain structures which result in certain behaviour which have had benefits to ones ability to reproduce, and have thus been favoured and come to dominate in the gene pool.\n\nIt's only really hard to falsify in the same way that evolution itself is hard to falsify, we don't find rabbit fossils in pre-Cambrian strata, and we don't commonly find behaviour that is antagonistic to the goal of reproduction, and when we do find individuals with such behaviour they don't tend to be able to reproduce. Obviously we're not going to find that all individuals behave in the best possible fashion with the objective of reproducing, but that's what we expect to find, evolution works by having variation from which to select from.
>Like the three prongs of Poseidon’s Trident, we enter the oceans as permanent residents \n\nReally?
I think he mentioned the "no tripod" as a good thing considering the other two things mentioned are terrible to include in a video.
Ahh I knew someone would be able to provide answers, thank you
I imagine that salt applied to your genitalia would be uncomfortable.
LMAO... create your own natural phenomenon...... problem?
>But what if there are actually like 5 videos of him admitting guilt and talking about the success of the operation and they were all confirmed by non-government experts?\n\nThat would be amazing.  Sadly, it's not the case.
Ask security for the video tape and tell him customers are leaving eaten and unpaid items
>I for one prefer being around someone that quotes the bible or goes to a monastery but is skeptic of extraordinary claims like a magical cure\n\nJust out of curiosity, how do you apply this reasoning when someone says "I'll pray for you" or "thank god the doctors saved him".  Isn't god and prayer a magical cure to those who believe in it?
Well I haven't heard of one at my Uni. I also researched the top 3 Agricultural Universities in the states (list from US News). None of them have an "Organic" or "Sustainable" programs at the Undergraduate or Graduate levels. I also checked my own Uni (UNL:ranked #9 Ag School) and it was without a program. They did, however, have outreach programs dealing with sustainable practices and addressing some of the myths of organic farming. They do, however, all have programs in Biotechnology/Genetic Engineering. I'm not saying they are mutually exclusive, I just find these claims from UCSC to be unlikely. UCSC is also a very liberal school (not to discount them, their Computer Science program is great) but they don't represent the scientific consensus when it comes to their views on organic ag.
The wonder of the full on conspiracy theorist is their ability to believe so many, often mutually-exclusive, crackpot ideas at once. It's like there's  some filtering mechanism in their mind that's irreparably snapped, leaving them unable to disbelieve anything.\n\nThat said, cancer quacks and AIDS denialists actually kill people, an obscene number of people in the latter case, so my goat is long gone.
I feel like it's easy to say, "There is a conspiracy!" or "Such and such is being suppressed!" but much harder once one thinks it through. Here is what is required - *at minimum* - to keep a cure for AIDS secret:\n\n1. All pharmaceutical companies need to get together and collectively agree to not manufacture said cure, and then all honor that agreement.\n2. All research regarding said cure must be suppressed. This means bribing, blackmailing, or worse for any research scientist or editor of a journal that might publish said research.\n3. All doctors must be prevented from using said cure. If even one uses it successfully, this will spark others to try it - what's to lose, right? - and the secret is out. All doctors must therefore be maliciously engaged in deceiving their dying AIDS patients, or perfectly ignorant of said cure.\n\nHopefully you can see how that might be ridiculous. Moreover, the "abstract" linked uses a lot of science-sounding gibberish and cites only one publication entitled "Is The AIDS Virus A Science Fiction?" from 1990. Its science is not sound, and its wording is nearly incomprehensible ("The device molecular crystal contains two mono and two trivalent silver ions capable of "firing" electrons capable of electrocuting the AIDS virus" - what?). Finally, just because you patent something doesn't make [it](http://www.google.com/patents?vid=6025810) [real](http://www.google.com/patents?vid=6960975).
So you're saying that the process appears not to work until you force yourself into delusion?
Yeah but I mean they went so far as to dust the back of the car for ghostly fingerprints before they thought to check the gradient. Urgh!
That's what i thought. I assume it's not compulsory at college?
I truly wonder what those said before human intervention.
Lol. This made my day :)
Since this subreddit almost never deals with original content (mostly news links and the like), how is this account's 'reposting' of the material bad? If anything it brings skepticism to a wider audience via Twitter. Unless there is something sinister about this account, I will think it is just fine.
Feel free to view this conversation and its conclusion as you see fit.
You say that they're trained in critical thinking. I'm just wondering how you know this? Have they done philosophy courses in critical thinking for example?
I read *The Holographic Universe* not too long ago, mainly out of curiosity and a desire to understand the so-called "new age" mindset, and it took me about ten minutes on the web to discredit almost every major claim the book cites as "evidence."  Sai Baba was the most obvious example of this, and the ridiculous level of reverence the author showed for him and his credulous followers destroyed any remaining shreds of credibility the book might have had.  It's sad how many people believe in this charlatanism without asking for any sort of proof.
But what would happen if you put your beer in it?
It can just be any board game like monopoly as someone suggested. But It's the symbols on the board that are important.
Like others have said, start by addressing anything that could be causing you mental distress. Before bedtime, do all you can to relax and put yourself in a positive mood-- take a bath, listen to music that uplifts and soothes you, etc.\n    \nIf you find no improvement in your situation, then consider the 'paranormal.' Lots of cultures describe phenomenon similar to the one you're experiencing. Negative, malevolent entities that are perceived as dark clouds or sometimes silhouettes of people/creatures. You could try old-school techniques, such as burning sage in your room and sort of 'blessing' your space. I also hear that smiling, laughing, humming/singing, and generally forcing yourself to put out some manifestation of positivity can really help to dispel things like shadow people. Whether or not they're external entities, or just our own demons in our minds. I wish you luck, OP.\n\n    \n*edit for question: Do you ever have these dreams/uneasiness when you sleep in other places?
Old movie trailers are so shitty.
I concur, this is my experience as well. Hippies seem to love studying rocks and plants for *some reason*.
Neither has coffee. It's put in the same class by the gov't. Clearly they should both be banned.\n\nWhether it has been proven unharmful is neither here nor there, because with something as complex as interactions with a human body, it's incredibly different to prove a negative. But the thing is, we know what EMR of the frequency we use in wifi and cell phones and such does. It slightly, and I mean incredibly slightly, heats things up. It's nonionizing at that frequency, so there's no method we know of by which it could even potentially hurt you. If it did hurt you, it'd have to be by some wacky mechanics we don't know of thus far, and if you're going to speculate about dangers based on that, you can do it for absolutely anything. Coffee's dangerous. Celery's dangerous. Vitamin C is causing cancer, obviously.\n\nIn my experience, /r/skeptic is one of the least circlejerky subreddits with any large number of members. They call eachother out for being overly skeptical of things that are proven, and they call eachother out for being too gullible. There's actually a little variety in opinions as well.
Think he'd do the same trick if a skeptic set it up?\n\n"Mr. Chopra, I'd be thoroughly convinced if you could just hang the string with a washer from the inside of this airtight, sealed container, then let me set it on a concrete slab, then make the washer swing in a direction I specify from at least ten feet away."\n\nEven this ridiculous "[psychokinesis training exercise](http://learn-telekinesis-training.com/pk-exercise-swing-pendulum.php)" page doesn't allow you to HOLD the STRING.
My friend had it in 5th grade and I am pretty sure she was vaccinated (her mom worked in a hospital lab and was not anti-vaccination or any of that cookyness).  I remember her being out of class for a month, even after she was no longer contagious, just because the teachers found her coughing so disruptive.  Screw anyone who doesn't think it's important to vaccinate.
i actually laughed when the guy started slamming the bottle on that pad.
>This is also how people become more comfortable with social groups they're not comfortable with or don't understand. \n\nDo you have any evidence for this assertion? This seems more like behavior that marginalizes a group by emphasizing differences and supporting stereotypes. Referring to gay men as "fags" in particular as an example: it's used overwhelmingly, today, to denigrate and indicate that anything related to homosexuality is lesser, contemptible, and disgusting.\n\n> it's a very basic technique of how people learn about and relax tensions between social and cultural differences\n\nI'm of the opinion that people learn about and relax tensions through direct interaction and treating people with mutual respect, rather than making jokes at their expense.\n\n\n
statistically, life in the universe should be abundant but self aware life e.g. humans (ect) might be a lot rarer than we think. who knows? we could be one of the early birds to the party, in this galaxy at least.
If you're not my doctor or wife I could give two flying fucks what you think of my diet.  I fry all my milk in bacon grease and then suck it through a straw made from the hollowed out femur of a baby panda.\n\nNOTHING irritates me more than someone chiming in on what I eat.\n\n"You know those chickens suffer before they're slaughtered?"  Not nearly as bad as your mere presence makes me suffer...  I hope you live through a fire.\n\n*Not aimed at NoWoo2, just airing some pent up anger.*
for the lazy\nhttp://www.platonicpillowtalk.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/The-more-you-know-by-deviantart-StathisNHX.png
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
I'll leave a comment here to watch this later. Ciao
Well, in my case, I'm glad my parents didn't have to shell out a dime for my immunity.  I think I'll even subject my kids to the same experience.
Obviously you don't watch National Geographic.  The Dog Whisperer is more than deserving of it's own slice.
Can we keep *evil* out of this? Unless you can provide an empirical measure of evil that can be applied to both the public and private sectors,  that term should be avoided.
The recounting of stories will never be convincing evidence but I still feel compelled to tell you one of my own experiences.\n\nWhile making christmas cookies at my neighbor's house with my grandmother, I asked if I could take a break and check my email on her computer. Going downstairs, I thought we were alone in the house, so I was surprised when I saw a man sitting at the bar in the basement drinking a beer. He looked surprised and irritated to see me and, being the awkward teenager that I was, I just went back upstairs seeking refuge of the older ladies -- I didn't want to deal with the possibility of this grumpy man telling me to get out of his basement. When I got back upstairs, I asked my neighbor who the man in the basement was. Collectively they gave me a distressed look and we all went back downstairs so I could prove that there was really a man down there. Of course, he was nowhere to be found. Then my grandma proceeded to get pissy at me thinking I was trying to play a joke.\n\nI believed in the possibility of ghosts prior to this experience -- but this experience did a lot in the way of affirming my belief. Maybe one day you'll have an experience that makes you unsure about your position on ghosts, spirits or energy manifestations -- whatever you call them. Until then nothing is going to rid you of your well-founded skepticism. It won't be until you experience something first hand that you'll change your position ( maybe even then you might not ). In the end it doesn't matter as long as you're being honest with yourself and open minded.
>because your only tools are insults and deflection.\n\nI haven't posted to /r/climateskeptics in more than a year, troll.\n\n>r/skeptic is for skeptics\n\n*Actual* skeptics, not deniers like you. You're welcome to try and push your anti-science propaganda here and see what kind of response you get...
According to their method, not taking it at all should be the strongest possible remedy.
Can aluminum do that shit?
Thank you.  I also wanted to mention that I've found that as physical beings we have power or authority over the spiritual realm.  We can help these entities move on, or force them to leave if need be.  I know you said you wish to remain a closet case, but I think you may find more peace if you reconsidered.  OK, I'm done preaching.
|There is little incentive to improve education without competition though.|\n\nNot true.  Traditional market incentives like income and fear of loosing your job has been repeatedly shown to be poor motivators of the kinds of people who become educators, especially in public schools.  The kinds of people who choose to become teachers are more motivated by social validation, prestige and a sense of importance in their work.\n [compatible ](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0018OR118?ie=UTF8&tag=polidebanews-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=B0018OR118).
I am inclined to think that the footage is legitimate. My first impression is that its a static tube shaped balloon or a blimp like this one. http://youtu.be/8kl3ofWXBP8\n\nI would note that this is Allen Epling's first impression also; "My first guess is an exotic balloon of some type. If its not that, its anybody's guess." \n\nIf some one has a link to a previous paperclip fake I would be interested in viewing it.
>let's totally cut the crap with "non-ionizing radiation can not cause cancer"\n\nLet's not cut "the crap", because that's the crux of this whole mess.  There is no known mechanism for non-ionising radiation causing cancer.  Prove there is and you'll win a Nobel prize.\n\n>if you say something like that you have already proven that you are a moron without a clue and you have no place in a scientific debate\n\nAnd you have proven that you are either 12 or have no scientific training or qualifications to speak of (and what makes you think this is even debate?).\n\n>the International Agency for Research on Cancer is officially linking childhood leukemia with the electromagnetic fields near very-high-voltage power lines\n\nWell there's a bold claim, but will it hold up under even the lightest of scrutinies? Let's see:\n\n>*The WHO/International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has classified radiofrequency electromagnetic fields as possibly carcinogenic to humans (Group 2B)*\n\nDamn that sounds serious.  [Until you realise that Group 2B (possibly carcinogenic)  is everything that hasn't been proven to cause cancer (and includes everything from coffee to talcum powder) and that Group 4 (things which the IARC have tested to death and back for carcinogenicity contains ***only one*** substance (nylon)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Agency_for_Research_on_Cancer#IARC_categories).\n\nSo you are asking us to conclude that everything except Nylon causes cancer.\n\n\n>see also [1] this and [2] this\n\nBoth studies show absolutely no causal link between RF and cancer.  *None*. What it does show is a weak correlation between living near power lines and incidence of cancer.  Of course, anyone who has even the most basic understanding of statistics will be able to tell you why this *means absolutely nothing*.\n\nWhat other weak correlations exist?  Well did you know that power lines decrease the value of nearby property?  And that poorer people overwhelmingly live in cheaper housing?  And that there is a strong inverse correlation between household income and education?  Lower household income correlates very well with levels of smoking as well.\n\nYou could just as easily say that living near power lines increases your chances of smoking.  That's how stupid a weak correlation is on it's own.  Crazy anti-vaxxers love using the same evidence to show how autism has increased with more vaccines, do you also believe this?\n\nStop reading conspiracy websites or those batshit 'electromagnetic hypersensitivity' blogs.  It's bunk and belongs in /r/conspiracy not /r/skeptic
The most important thing is to keep your mind receptive. *Look* for them. Talk to them, if you think they're there. There are no tips that will make an event more likely to occur other than this. "Seeing" a ghost is actually the ghost reaching out to you- not a passive event.
Because their not otherwise intelligent.
it plays a little too much to the current conventions of bullshit hollywood "paranormal activity" for me to buy it as legit. I felt like I'd seen the same sort of things in a movie trailer dozens of times. Just didn't ring true.
I like the Jackie Chan rage face at the top of this
I don't see the need to insult you, you seem to do a very fine job of it.
I attended that very TEDx he is referring to. And I cringed when the pseudoscience was presented. But I wrote the main organizer of TEDx Boulder ([Andrew Hyde](http://www.reddit.com/user/andrewhyde), who is a Redditor) with my feedback. [His reply](http://www.reddit.com/r/boulder/comments/10ca28/tedx_boulder_some_greatness_lots_of_mediocrity/c6c8kn3) explained that it's just a matter of taste. \n\nI think this post indicates that TED doesn't think that it is just a matter of taste.
I think the problem with your thinking here is that you seem to be grouping multivitamins in with food. They aren't food. It really should be thought of and treated like a medical intervention.\n\n
>because some people interpreted its image of a dragonfly's approaching two frosty drinks as reminiscent of the attack on the World Trade Center towers. \n\nಠ_ಠ
Compared to this, Zeitgeist is 100% factual and does not misrepresent anything.\n\nIn reality, the only thing I have any positive thoughts towards from that movement would be the Venus Project.
>"Along with this, you are given a report of the absolutely secret special service that exercises control over aliens on the territory of our country ... **More detailed information on this topic you can get from a well-known movie called 'Men In Black'** ... I will not tell you how many of them are among us because it may cause panic," he says.\n\nIt was obviously a joke.\n\nEdit: I just watched an [unedited Russian video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE_iUW0Jv3k) of the interview.\n\nAnd he said:\n\n>More detailed information on this topic you can get from a well-known documentary movie called 'Men In Black'\n\nAfterwards you can hear people laughing. So obviously a joke that the press is taking out of context as usual. Sensationalism sells, folks.
Sooooo, I guess you haven't read all the posts stating that this "Ambassador to the Aliens" malarkey is a load of shit?
Good grief.\n\nPlease feel free to go back to whatever it was that you were directing your snarkiness towards before I interrupted your life.
25,000 people dies every day from starvation. \nThe ones in your childhood did die, and more are born every day doomed to starve to death. The only way to stop it is population control.
Perhaps not being an advocate for holistic medicine. Now I realize there are natural remedies for things that aren't accepted by conventional practitioners of medicine but he has featured a **faith healer** and a psychic medium on his show.
I thought it was a decent video, then again i skipped around quite a bit. However there is a definite pattern to the craft. If you saw that shit irl you would prob shit bricks. Sadly common camera technology doesn't do it justice I'm sure.
Then wouldn't most of the possible causes be rooted in the political instability of those regions instead of the religion itself?\n\nAnd yes, Turkey has a much more educated citizenry, and is one of the richest nations in the developing world. They are also very pro-American in comparison to the Middle East. They are also primarily Muslim and over 99% of the population is Muslim. \n\nDoesn't that alone knock down your theory that religion is the one main factor here?\n\nThe effect of religion here is actually pretty easy to explain. It's a convenient way to form connections between people and thus form ideologies. What that control is actually used for varies greatly. You likely could use the power of religion to sway the population into supporting scientific progress if you so wished. And it's not just religions alone that have this power, it's any compelling world view or ideology with Nazism being a pretty good example of that. For good people to do evil things takes religion, but for evil people to do good things also takes religion.
Could you send me a link to the photo?  I know my cousin uses an ipad, so I assume it would be an apple app correct?
There are now ~7 Billion people on this planet. I think we've met the definition of "thrive" already.\n\nAnd if they know how to create limitless energy already, then just produce a technical video showing others how to do it rather than this sensationalistic, pseudo-scientific garbage.
I think compulsory vaccination is out of line when it comes to vaccines that have not been tested long term or are being used in new combinations such as the MMR vaccine linked above.\n\nIt turned out that the chicken pox and MMR vaccines, on their own, were perfectly safe and effective, but when used in conjunction with each other caused seizures in 1 out of 2,300 shots. \n\nSo now the CDC says "hey guys, you might want to separate those two shots..." but that comes as little consolation to the parents of kids who ended up with seizures.\n\nThe BIG problem I have are the folks who go "Jenny McCarthy is bullshit" when they don't take the time to do the research and see that there are, in fact, problems with quite a few vaccinations.\n\nAre thy all bad? No. But they aren't all good either.
The first one recommends chiropractic and acupuncture instead of physical therapy. The second recommends just eating garlic instead of taking cholesterol medicine. The third just recommends potassium and magnesium. The fourth is plausible. The fifth recommends "natural" lozenges and antioxidants instead of antacids.
It works.\n\nThis information comes from me, hearing from my mom, that my sister said it works for her dog sometimes. =)
And here I was sure this was going to be their president's [will](http://www.peta.org/features/Ingrid-Newkirks-Unique-Will.aspx).
>The main reason why Autism is associated with Vaccinations is because the symptoms of autism begin around that age, not to mention some just want someone or something to pin blame to.\n\nNo, the main reasons are because of the discredit study by Andrew Wakefield, who has had his medical license revoked in the UK.
I think the thing to keep in mind is that 95% certainly of ±4 percentage point sampling error rate out of a representative 280 million people is not insignificant.\n\nAll these surveys do, at best, is give a rough estimate of popular opinion.  And of course there is the potential for bias in a number of areas and the likelihood of a truly representative population sample being accessed via the polling method is slim.  However I think the problem is that you fail to realise the fact that those potential biases are already known.  Anyone who takes these numbers as concrete has absolutely no working knowledge of statistics.
Haaha, imagine that! I would mind fuck with everyone on a daily basis if I had a twin :P
mere months?
Agreed.  I'd hope if they're a friend then the cool stuff outweighs the dumb stuff.  Just ignore this and enjoy the posts that make you friends.
>i want to get to the bottom of this phenomena myself.  \n\nTV was on, problem solved. Thanks for playing.  \n\nAs to the rest of the rambling in your message? The fuck are you going on about? Some coherence would be nice.
I agree with you that Shermer is kind of jumping all over Hawking here in order to make his own point. They're both right, though. Science is the best method we have to overcome the flaws in our perception, and cognitive science has shown conclusively that individual humans are deeply fallible observers.\n\nWith all that said, I would like to add that it's often a bad idea for scientists to make conjectures about fields of knowledge in which they do not practice. I'm not saying Mr. Hawking doesn't have the right to take an interest in brain science, but making pronouncements about it as if he is an expert may not be wise.
Wow, I was in Round Rock on business Thursday and Friday last week.  Wish I'd seen that!
OP, Can we get the clip of video with this in it? Was it walking? Or did it just show up in this one frame?
Perhaps it is a shuttle. Might explain the size.
Finally a new post, I thought this subreddit has passed into the great beyond! Do you know if the tours are year round or just around Halloween?
That's the problem, they became 'determiners of guilt' when all they should ever haver been is another feint suggestion in which direction to go.
> It is a choice that you have to make, about how much of a skeptic you are willing to become.\n\nSkepticism is not "Deny all the things!"\n\n> If you choose to rely solely on reputation\n\nYou implied we should consider reputation, then called into question their reputation. Then you want to say we shouldn't consider reputation when you realize that they have some decent credentials backing them up. So what you have to do in that case is attack the system.\n\n> True skepticism is hard to attain.\n\nYou have no idea.
What does "alternatively medicated" mean? Herbs and such?  It can't mean homeopathy, because that's not even medicine.  (unless you count placebos)
Was zum Henker...?
Haha, I think I will do that next time.
Yay! Have you ever tried practicing? Had any success?
Intelligence and fame is not equivalent to knowledge of the world or the paranormal. Seeing something light-colored that moved by the door very quickly is a classic example of [Pareidolia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia). Can you describe the weird noises you were hearing? Were they happening before you saw movement by the door?
Blogspam.  Come on, people, this is getting ridiculous.
Being a skeptic doesn't mean questioning a well-substantiated explanation in favour of a wildly implausible one.\n\nWhat the truthers are saying is: there was something a bit odd about the way some building collapsed *therefore* the laughably incompetent Bush administration orchestrated the most successful, massive conspiracy in history, without a single person involved making a mistake or having a crisis of conscience.
Nobody is saying that vaccines are perfect, there are risk with vaccines but they are small, rare, and don't seem to have anything to do with autism. Medicine is never 100% right about anything, it is a matter of playing the odds. The odds that vaccines will protect your son from harm are much greater then the odds that they will cause a problem. It is just like seatbelts, there are a few rare instances where seatbelts can contribute to injury or death in an accident, however we wear them because in the vast majority of accidents they will help to save our life.
What are you talking about. I don't address either NIST or the possibility of a demolition. The NIST is regarded by everyone as a whitewash. It's not a conspiracy. Stop calling everything a conspiracy. I think you're some type of conspiracy theorist for conspiracy theories.
Has it been laden with cyanide?
Well mine has and this is what I've found.\n\n["starting this week, they will be part of a multinational effort near Estonia to help clear the Baltic Sea of underwater mines left over from as long ago as the First and Second World Wars.", " "Open Spirit" will be among the biggest naval exercises in the Baltic Sea this year "](http://phys.org/news/2012-05-undersea-warriors-medicine-future.html) phys.org\n\n["Military exercise OPEN SPIRIT 2012 held in the Estonian part of the Baltic Sea was participated by 19 ships from 12 countries, among"](http://www.jura24.lt/en/news/other/the-baltic-sea-contains-minefields-431088)\n\nCan anyone else find more on this "open spirit"?
He preys on people who are at their most desperate. I cannot see why he isn't in prison, unless he's willing to bring some peer-reviewed evidence.\n\nI despise Burzynski.
I was under the impression that quantum mechanics is not deterministic. Further more that the uncertainty is an innate aspect of quantum mechanics and has nothing to do with the physical problems that come up with trying to take measurements.\n\nI wonder if there are any physicists around here that could shed some more light on this.
I know Dr. Bob Sears. I wonder if I can get him to do an AMA if people are interested in hearing his point of view.
Good point, I will add a disclaimer to the image to explicitly state that it is nothing more than a computer generated composite used to help illustrate the article. I spent about 15 minutes throwing that together after writing the article and did not intend for it to cause any confusion, I assumed people would realize it was CG. Mainly I wanted everyone to focus on the content of the article which I feel is relevant and important given the amount of eyewitness testimony on this particular subject. We appreciate any and all feedback from our readers. ~ Agent K.
I reread your comment.  For some reason, I initially thought you were supporting evidence-based medicine.
I want a signed copy, autographed by the ship's captain.
That and the still-redacted documents *65 years later*.  If it was just a weather balloon wouldn't the government show the damn documents to the public in their entirety to shut everyone up for good?  Maybe the government is trolling the shit out of us.
What exactly is up? Asteroid hitting Jupiter? Asteroids hit Jupiter all the time. It's like the vacuum cleaner of the solar system. Jupiter is actually one of the reasons why life was able to develop on Earth because it protects us from asteroids and comets by pulling them in.
To my own fault, I've never looked at a 3rd party option
Honestly, it would require motivated professors who wanted to do vast amounts of paper work to make UFO related courses. The only way I see to do it would be under the Social Sciences. No matter what UFOs are, they are a widespread, cross-cultural phenomenon that demands understanding. They have shaped our history and perceptions as a species and are worthy of study, even if they are all hoaxes, hallucination, etc...
I'll bet you 1000 bucks this doesn't happen.
Ah, you're in luck, you're on the doorstep of the [IIG](http://www.iigwest.com/contact/index.html). \n\nI'm trying to get an IIG chapter going in Florida, but it's a long process that is even slower over the holidays. We want to a resource for people like you, that think they may be on to something, but not ready to risk the jref big guns. There is a $50,000 prize at the IIG, which is not bad. \n\nI'm curious to see where this goes. Keep us updated!\n\n
The psychological model does. Again though you're focusing on the magic and not the paradigms. Most have failed to consider how prevalent the psychological, the energy, and the spirit paradigms are to the collective understanding of the paranormal.
We've got some good coverage on /r/conspiratard...\n\n[The "Truth" behind the Aurora shooting, superimposed on a so helpful picture of batman.](http://www.reddit.com/r/conspiratard/comments/wxcca/the_truth_behind_the_aurora_shooting_superimposed/)\n\n[Alex Jones Says Aurora Shooting Was Staged By Obama](http://www.reddit.com/r/conspiratard/comments/wwxco/alex_jones_says_aurora_shooting_was_staged_by/)\n\n[r/conspiracy provides my favourite bit of Aurora nonsense so far. "Are there two James Holmes?"](http://www.reddit.com/r/conspiratard/comments/x4oxn/rconspiracy_provides_my_favourite_bit_of_aurora/) \n\n[More hilarity in /r/conspiracy as conspiratards discuss the Aurora shooting possibly being a "false flag attack." According to OP the shooting was "100% a false flag."](http://www.reddit.com/r/conspiratard/comments/wye05/more_hilarity_in_rconspiracy_as_conspiratards/)
Why would you hope this? Do you work for the AMA or something?
I know, personally I would also recommend doing powerlifts too, they generally improve your health and strength. And I don't know why you have been downvoted. I was just trying to point out that this kind of thing is at odds with skeptical thought.
i bet she can play one mean hambone.
Congratulations! You're a major subreddit. Get used to browbeating the occasional idiot who thinks skepticism means 9/11 WAS AN INSIDE JOB and that the pharma-cancer industry is hiding the healing powers of weed, maaan. Don't be afraid to downvote people who display symptoms of mental illness. Send anything funny to /r/Conspiratard.
No, there are not any reliable contemporary accounts either inside or outside of the religion of Jesus. \n\nIf you don't know this, then you may have been indoctrinated or just don't know what you are talking about.
I recall reading a BBC Science report on a recent study that showed some correlation between zinc and preventing infection from and/or faster recovery from cold viruses.\n\n  Quoting the Mayo Clinic:\n\n  _For years, cold sufferers have treated their symptoms with over-the-counter remedies containing zinc. But without sound evidence to support this treatment, doctors generally didn't recommend it. Now a comprehensive analysis of clinical-trial data on zinc and colds has concluded that zinc really does appear to be beneficial. The conclusion comes with a few caveats. Researchers haven't determined the most effective formulation, dose or duration of zinc treatment for colds. Zinc lozenges can leave a bad taste in your mouth, and some trial participants reported nausea as a side effect of the lozenges. Zinc-based nasal sprays, not included in the recent, positive analysis, pose a different problem; the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warns that these products can take away your sense of smell, possibly for good._ (http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/cold-remedies/ID00036)\n\n   Think this is the original article I read: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12462910\n\n  So, some correlation exists. I wouldn't call it bunk, but zinc's effects are clearly not thoroughly understood.
Money. There's not a chance that this would be released (or edited in a manner detrimental to the Dr. Oz brand) if the producers didn't see dollar signs as a result. I hope the net result is good but I'm not sure it will be.
we can still hold the concept because we can be aware that we are sharing a reality and we can assume that it is possible, at least in theory, to know the nature of this reality, what is true and what isn't true\n\nwe cannot know the ''winner'', we can only assume there are more or less clear and accurate views of what is
My encounter was also an orange, "copper" color, glowing sphere. Also in farmland area. However mine seemed to sense my presence and stopped over me at about a 15 degree angle for a minute or two before departing at a different trajectory than it had approached at. No noise, probably about 1000 to 2000 feet overhead.
This end of days crap is a cancer that requires each abnormal cell to be beaten with a sledgehammer repeatedly until it can no longer even consider forming a cohesive disease.
More likely her husband was the one who wanted to write the book. His testimony was very dodgy. He claimed to know nothing about homeopathy, but he had previously paid this homeopath, and he had written a book on nutrition that was dismissive of mainstream treatments for science. He was the one who introduced his wife to this charlatan. That much is clear from the evidence. I imagine he thought she really was going to get better and was already planning on crowing about it.
They already are "combined" in a sense. The only methods in chiropractic that have any benefit are those that were created by and refined by physiotherapists. \n\nPhysiotherapy includes all methods of chiropractic which have found to be effective (because they were physio methods originally), and they just exclude the methods that kill or incapacitate people, and those methods that are simply wacky and unevidenced-based. This is why it really makes no sense to say, "*a chiropractor can offer immediate temporary relief. As opposed to the gradual long term relief of physical therapy*", as any benefits a chiropractor can provide are provided by physios - in the exact same way, using the same methods, with the same results. \n\nEssentially, the above is the problem with talking of "good chiropractors", as "good chiropractors" (the ones that only use evidence-based methods, refrain from dangerous techniques, and don't promote woo and pseudoscience) are just poorly trained physiotherapists who have an extremely narrow skill set.
Hell, we could just swallow solutions of DNA for genes with medicinal effects and be healthy for the rest of our lives.
When people in here talk about being skeptics they mean the way it's defined in this [manifesto](http://www.skeptic.com/about_us/manifesto.html).
And if you're not...\nwell, I guess there are just a lot of ghost kitties out there.
>it makes no logical sense for a restaurant to want you to feel more satiated if their only goal is profit. They should want you to feel more hungry, so you would eat more, no?\n\nThis is like saying a barber would cut your hair badly, so you would come back the next day to get another haircut.\n\nedit: So, I'm being downvoted enough to put in a note.  If something doesn't fit the criteria of why someone purchased it (tastes good, stops hunger, priced well) people usually don't buy more.  I don't think people go to a restaurant, find out the food doesn't remove hunger, and decide to spend more time and money at the same establishment.  The only type of restaurant I can think of that would benefit from this is the one where food travels by conveyor belt and you pay by what you take as you go, and that's not the general case.\n\nI also don't think it's a stretch to say that a restaurant that dealt in low-quality ingredients would not add a low cost and otherwise unnecessary ingredient to make its food taste better, like sugar, salt, or MSG.  Obviously these are all legitimate ingredients in many recipes and are not a "cheat" in all cases, but they sometimes can be to some degree.\n
Here you go:\n\nhttp://www.skepdic.com/mercola.html\n\nhttp://www.quackwatch.org/11Ind/mercola.html\n\nhttp://www.quackwatch.org/search/webglimpse.cgi?ID=1&query=mercola\n\nhttp://www.quackwatch.org/11Ind/index.html
Brilliant! I so want to do that now!!
Grave objects should be a rich area for resources, a couple of things come to mind: The [Sutton Hoo](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutton_Hoo) burial in England, which demonstrates Anglo-Saxon beliefs that were still held as Christianity spread. Also, Oklahoma's [Spiro Mounds](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiro_Mounds) yeilded a huge array of artifacts related to North America's Mississippian societies ([this](http://www.amazon.com/Looting-Spiro-Mounds-American-King/dp/0806138130) book details how the placement of artifacts may describe the Spiroans' increased use of ritual and spiritually-imbued objects as their society declined in population and influence).
Good point. For the record, Isaac Newton was *intensely* Christian, so much so that he wrote more about religion than science & math and remained celibate his entire life. But then again, the man invented calculus and was probably the greatest intellect until Einstein.
Thank you for saying this. So many people I know think everyone with Autism is the same. They think people with it can't talk, can barely walk, and can't do anything for themselves. What most people seem to forget is, everyone with it is different. Some people function normally and you can't even tell they have it while others need total care their entire lives. \nAnother thing people forget is that there's worse things in life than being autistic. They treat the people with it like huge victims and say how they don't deserve it. Autism isn't a disease for the bad, it happens and for now no one knows why, but when people say others shouldn't be given shots to stop them from dying from deadly diseases because it might make you autistic, that's wrong and no one deserves that.
I'm not going to say that he's right.\n\nI'm just going to say that I fucking love Rendezvous With Rama, and that I'm steeped enough in science fiction to really, really want something like this to be the case. That doesn't mean I'm going to break out any supposed evidence for it, or live my life any differently based on the premise that life far more advanced than us seeded us as some kind of socio-biological experiment. But it does mean that I'm going to pretend it's true because I think it's fun to pretend it's true.
> another, probably cheaper, option would be available.\n\nYea, I agree that it is probably better to give homeopathic "drugs" to hypochondriacs than actual drugs, but it is still driving up the price of MY insurance, as is the case for every other non-hypochondriac with insurance. Instead of treating the problem, this strategy seems to be just feeding it. I do not know how cost effective therapy for hypochondriasis would be as an alternative.
YOOHOO
Horst Mahler on Gerhard Jagschitz\n\nhttp://i.imgur.com/9GnKf.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_China_Study_(book)
It seemed to me that the company was taking advantage of their employees eagerness to believe in the supernatural just as much as the customers. I suppose a person who really believes what they're saying, if only a little bit, is more convincing to other credulous marks.
>The common explanation that their doctors give them is that there is a chemical imbalance in their brain. But that’s a half-truth: the other half is that their low serotonin level is an index that their life isn’t working - their needs are not being met and they feel stuck - not that they’ve got something ‘wrong’ with their brain chemistry. Brain chemistry is not a cause, it is an effect.”\n\nDue to my own personal experience with depression, I have to agree with this statement.
Skeptoid did an analysis of it [here](http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4147).
Mitchell and Webb address the motivation for a hoax: \n\nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6MOnehCOUw
i was around 12 when my aunt committed suicide and i was also outside playing, heard the phone and told my brother 'someone died'...
Looks very much like a B2 bomber departing away and to the right from the viewer with a space shuttle like plane or perhaps a stealth cruise missile or space craft on it's back.\n\nThe profile of the bottom of the craft is almost exactly that of a B-2 Bomber leaving to the right.\n\nNotice the fat lower belly and the wingtips that are not raised.
"I don't mean to be a dick, but..."
I had to research this 1 ounce claim.  To take one poorly done study which could not be replicated and then claim "Science proved that the spirit exists..." is complete BS.\n \nhttp://discovermagazine.com/2007/jun/soul-search\nhttp://www.snopes.com/religion/soulweight.asp
>Oddly enough this time does seem different.\nIMHO it is because the government is newly elected and the President isn't worried about his second term anymore.\n\nI think it's different because children.
I suspect it is a piece of the Proton rocket used to launch the Zarya module with which STS-88 was to rendezvous. \n\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zarya\n\n\nNote the black fairing atop the Proton rocket housing Zarya.
Excellent story; to add to the sleep related events being unreliable, just last night/this morning, I was trying some techniques to induce lucid dreaming, and as I was drifting off amidst a swirl of colors, I heard a shuffle and a wooden floorboard creak from the next room over. My consciousness immediately slammed back into my head, but I was still paralyzed from what I had been attempting, so I couldn't move to check it out. Shortly, I regained control and calmed, before thinking, I don't have any floorboards, or wood for that matter, where I live, so wtf? Now, had I not been intentionally inducing this state of mind and aware of the hallucinations/dreams(?) it can cause, what would I have thought then? Ghost? Probably, mostly because I want to see proof.\n\nTL;DR You're disoriented when you wake up, as I've experienced, so don't trust what you see/think.\n\nEdit* for grammar!
"Break out the ghillie suits, honey! It's time or our Sunday stroll!"
So, who wants to drop the placebo bomb on him ?
Amen brother. \n\nMaybe 'amen' is a poor choice of words. :)
I don't see what is so difficult to understand here.  Not everyone who thinks of UFOs assumes there is an actual mystery, many people think all UFOs are explainable, be it a comet, star, bird, whatever. My point is, he could have been saying there are unidentified objects in our skies that are a genuine mystery, not just that they haven't been investigated and would turn out to be planes or stars.  It doesn't necessarily mean he believed these unexplainable ones were alien. Perhaps he was being facetious as well, as someone else suggested, basically stating that of course flying objects that are unidentified exist.
*We don't know, therefore aliens.*\n\nWhat has this got to do with unidentified flying objects anyway?
On reddit, though, posts get buried over time ... and proven hoaxes get upvoted.
If this were a presidential election, I'd have to go with MuuaadDib.  I find his tone more pleasant, and feel he's talking out of his ass only slightly less than grottohopper.  But I am only one man, so we'll have to wait and see what the polls say.  May the best man (or woman) win!
Nice try, dancingwiththestars
The logo on those shoes looks like a sperm cell.
Don't confuse this... unfortunate person with the rest of /r/skeptic. I like to think we're not entirely terrible people around here. :)
Bonus points for providing high res PDFs for free.\nhttp://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/poster
I've asked the current owners and they say nothing happens.
Damn, okay I'll look into it. thanks man.\n
To be fair, evolution is pretty much necessary to get to where we are without the assumption of a creator. Without it, a creator might be seen to be necessary (although perhaps another good explanation could be found).\n\nEvolution doesn't imply no creator, but no creator seems to imply evolution.
>Implies that you can only pick up the disease if you go outside the US.\n\nBecause you can.\n\n>U.S. children have been getting vaccinated against the measles for about 50 years. But low vaccination rates in Europe and other places resulted in large outbreaks overseas last year.\n\nThere's no contradiction, in both cases they explicitly state low immunization rates were responsible. Moreover, I was glad to see them state:\n\n>Generally, the Americans who got measles last year were not vaccinated. At least two-thirds of the U.S. cases fell into that category, including 50 children whose parents got philosophical, religious or medical exemptions to skip the school vaccinations required by most states, CDC officials said.
Well, from the article:\n\n>"in 1988 the subject seemed to be closed. Carbon dating experts from universities in Oxford, Zurich and Arizona "proved" that the shroud originated in the 14th Century and thus could not be an imprint of Jesus. \n\n>And yet many now argue that process was flawed."
Yes like a large Radar emitter. Those pose actual dangers, as is why they're fenced off. Cell towers, not so much.
universal karma
Lesbian horse?
i'm using fiber and I agree
Haha since when is accepting unidentified flying objects a belief system?  Not everyone who accepts that there may be something unexplained to it attaches all the alien and anal probe stuff to it, bias much?
Granted that even with scientific controls the results may still be unsure.  My point was that although the method is more (or even very) prone to error, it still arises in results that are certainly not insignificant; i.e., many cultures have developed legitimate medicines without the aid of the Western scientific process.  I was not using the term "significance" in any particular way; you're arguing semantics.\n\nAnd to respond to your last paragraph: can we?  We've had a long time to study it.  And to this day some people swear (placebo or not) that they have been cured by acupuncture, something no Western medicine could do (even a Western placebo).  So within the analogy, yes, sometimes it might be useful to seek out the witch doctor's remedy if your standard medication of Aspirin isn't cutting it.  A good example I can think of off the top of my head is using Ibogaine to cure heroin addiction.
Late reply but during that time I was not necessarily thinking about ghost especially during and after sex.  I've always been the one to back down from ghost huntings with friends because I always thought to leave things be, I never really wanted to ever witness anything ghostly. I do agree with the hamster though, it could have been a huge coincidence.  But after that night she started to go nuts and running everywhere and then I put her in the living room for a few nights and I never heard a sound from her, but like I said it could way more than likely been a coincidence, I just loved that hamster.
We aren't bashing religion, religion does a fine job speaking for itself. We just aren't going to give ANY CREDENCE WHATSOEVER to anything that can't be tested and duplicated. \n\nCall us crazy, but 'faith the size of a mustard grain' is not a scientific measurement. \n\nYou probably found this post through the front page. Stick around, you might learn something provable.
No, informed consent is some bullshit american lawyers came up with.\n\nThe whole concept of someone with no medical knowledge at all giving informed consent is ridiculous. That is why doctors have to study and learn and train for several years.\n\nAnd seriously, allowing placebos leads to sterilizing mentally challenged people? You forgot to mention Dr. Mengele and the Holocaust.
> I can't understand how we still have skeptics.\n\nYeah, bro.  Neither do I.  Seriously.  Neither do I.  I just facepalm ALL the time whenever there is really anyone that doubts the reality of ET life.  Makes me ashamed to belong to this species sometimes.  The existence of ET life is an absolute reality either by virtue of one's personal experience with ETs, or - even if one has never had personal contact with off world beings - by [a simple examination of the logic and numbers involved](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCMp9dZQdZA).\n\n> I understand how it can possibly throw the basic foundations of what we think we know into chaos\n\nAnd this would be a good thing, as what we know is really *very* little compared to what there is.  We need a swift, *hard* kick in the backside to get out of our hubristic stupor and wake up.
Those are MIGs. We had them flying In Seattle for the 2000 New years Eve celebration.
I don't "believe" that "the universe is governed by dependable, immutable, absolute, universal, mathematical laws of an unspecified origin". I simply evaluate all possibilities:\n\n\n1) Reality exists\n\n2) Reality does not exist\n\n\n(2) leads to a "nothing makes sense" conclusion. If you want to go there, feel free to, but I'll pass. (1) Leads to\n\n\n1.1) Reality can be understood\n\n1.2) Reality cannot be understood\n\n\n(by us humans, I mean, and in the sense that there exists a method to gain knowledge about reality - and so far the scientific method fits this description, if you know about others I'll be happy to hear about them). (1.2) leads mostly to the same conclusions as (2), since there is not much difference between a reality that does not exist, and one that exists, but we can't know anything about.\n\nThus I end up in (1.1), which is all that is required to be a "scientist". I don't see "faith" in any of this steps, do you?
.......................\n\nWrong cultures...........\n\nThe Mayans disappeared long before the Spanish showed up, that was the Azteca, and it was also the Azteca who performed religious human sacrifice.
Sure, I can agree that it's noisy and that the memes are repetetive. It's a special community that doesn't fit everyone. But I've also found a lot of thoughtful stories submitted and good discussions in the comments.
This assumes that they see us the same way we see an animal. We have no idea how we are viewed by them. Also, we spend alot of time trying to communicate with monkeys, and im sure that if monkeys could talk, we wouldnt study them from afar anymore, we'd go right up and start asking questions....
why the downvotes?  did i "do it wrong"?  I was reading reddit before work in the a.m.  i got sucked into this story so much that i further watched the 13 yr. old brother being interrogated by an officer who wanted to win no matter what, ..who was then  handed the 13 yr. old brother TO SOLVE THE CASE WITH!  this is what i saw...http://www.freep.com/article/20110111/NEWS03/301120002/1319/Watch-police-video-of-13-year-old-boys-interrogation\n\ncouldn't  finish videos, i had to shower, brush teeth, etc. , (ultimately that's probably fortunate, sooooooo disgusting, sooooooo ugly. - i'm glad they got around $half million, they deserve it, but the lawyers to get that much..eaeaeaeahh.). I wanted to tell people and i wanted to scream... and, suddenly find myself running late AND frustrated.  so, i raged. - Hey, i was frustrated.  how do you express pressured frustration on a typing forum?
was just a joke. I actually have watched a dozen doc's on the money pit. Cool stuff, as soon as I start to believe it I think to how they came across it. It seems to me that might have misunderstood what the found our just lied to themselves. lots of stuff on youtube, one doc is in about 6 parts about an hour long.
Tell him you ain't got no tree fitty!
I guess that makes sense, but I don't think that there's much to talk about here.  Surely, no one will come to the aid of those siding with those who'd believe that widows are harbingers of impending tiger-doom.
Did anyone have trouble starting their cars? Are you near a military base?
What do you mean by "everyone"? The only arguments I saw were concerning the banning itself, and when we consider that the subreddit is explicitly intended to be a 'safe place', it makes sense that people who promote oppressive and discriminatory attitudes will be afforded less freedoms than others.
I believe our pets stay with us. Our family dog died in our upstairs hallway from old age when he was 16. My cousins son, who was almost 3 at the time, came over about 2 weeks after he died and kept asking where our dog was. We told him that he wasn't here anymore and we missed him. Well 10 minutes later he comes running to us saying our dog was still here because he saw him at the top of the stairs. Of course my sister and I started crying. It was nice to know he was still there. <3 We have had other things happen like you did since then too like the barking, the sound of his tags on the collar, and the sound of him walking around.
The worst I can think of is still unvaccinated nurses tending to immunocompromised patients.
I don't read the blogs but [PZ Myers](http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/07/the_dick_delusion.php) seems quite active in the area and also claims the existence of dicks: "...it also seems like a dick move to try and associate a strategy with gender, since some of the most wonderfully dickish skeptics I know are female. But that's a separate issue."
I like you. I'm past all of that, but wanted to bring up what I typically think would be a big motivator for alien lifeforms- water. They wouldn't even have to come to the surface because it's so abundant in our atmosphere and is really hard to find out there. I'm sure they could mine a comet or something, but it would be so much easier here on a stable planet with tons of other resources. We're the Walmart of our solar system.
Also, while there are many real things out there, you need to be careful of scammers. MANY people will abuse your wanting to hear about a departed relative, and leech you for this. If they simply want to talk, I give them the benefit of a doubt. The moment they ask for cash to share something with you, get out of that situation as fast as you can. It sounds like this wasn't the case for you though, which is good. :)
i can't tell the difference.  i also can't tell the difference between coke made with sugar vs coke made with HFC and people always act like they're so much different.
I resemble that remark. Can I haz Scienceburger now plz?
botox
Except, as I learned (the hard way) in my aquatic ecology class, even blinking at water changes the DO levels.
Leftist? This isn't r/politics.
I think the issue is that to really affect personality, the differences in development would need to remain constant throughout *all* of a child's psychologically formative years.\n\nThis statistical trend does look promising if you only look at a child's first year of development. After all, a child born in January is already 11 months old by the time the child in December is born.\n\nThe problem is that after a few years of development, the slight differences disappear. Much larger and more important factors come into play, like genetics, nutrition, and home life (just to name a few). By the time a child is 7 or 8, the month they were born has essentially no impact on whether they are smarter, stronger, or faster than their peers who were born in different months.
This is abso-fucking-lutely fascinating.  Sorry for my french, but I absolutely LOVE this stuff.  Hearing it from you/a Redditor somehow makes it all the more awesome.\n\nYou seem to have accepted this reality about yourself, but I will still ask:  Have you *embraced* this ability/quality about yourself?  I mean please realize - if you don't already - that this is an amazing, a wonderful ability you have - a gift.\n\nAre the people you see usually neutral or nice?  It sounds like it.  Have you ever come across someone who is either lost, or scared, or - as a result of being lost or scared - what some would call mean or not so nice?\n\nHow do you see them?  Is it always in a dark, shadowy/ghostly form? or do you ever see anyone in a more 3 dimensional form that has color in it/in a form just like you or me?\n\nHow old are you?  If I may ask, are you a male or a female?\n\nThanks for this OP.\n\nEDIT:  I deleted a few other posts that I made to you because no sooner would I ask you a question in haste than I would then read in your next post the answer to the very question I had. :)  Sorry.\n\nEDIT2:  Oh!  Here's another question.  Does anyone else in your family have this ability?  Mom, dad, siblings, aunts, uncles?  How does your family feel about it?\n\nEDIT3:  Argh!  Another question!  They keep popping up - sorry.  Have you ever bothered to talk to them about just what exactly is on the other side where they are?  I mean have you ever questioned *them*?  Like asked them what it's like?\n\n"What exactly is it like over there?  Is it just like things are here in the 'living' realm?  Is it like that movie What Dreams May Come?  Can you just fly around or 'pop' from one place and time to another?  Do you sleep?  Presumably not, so what do you *do* with all your time awake?"\n\nI acknowledge some of the questions might be a bit childish, but you know . . . just a series of questions about how things are like over on their side of existence.
Ack, I did indeed mistake your reply for his. My apologies.\n\nYou raise an interesting point because it stands to reason that one's own healthcare data is better than anyone else's. And ultimately, physicians (epidemiologists excluded) are not interested in which drug/treatment has a 95% response rate, but which works for the individual patient.\n\nSo with that in mind, the answer to: "Should John stop drinking milk?" is yes.\n\nBut that's a different question than "Is John's acne *caused by* his drinking milk?" For that, we have insufficient data and a inadequately objective methodology.\n\nA more difficult question to answer would be "Is what happened to John of enough significance to tell other people about?" In other words, is he a statistical abnormality, or has he stumbled upon something prevalent but previously undescribed? To answer this question, it's up to the randomized control trial.\n\nThe problem with inferring from personal anecdote is that people are all too willing to jump straight to answering the last question.\n\nOur average citizen hears a story about someone.\n\nAt time t, "Someone" had some medical problem.\n\nAt time t+1 he did Something.\n\nAt time t+2 he no longer has the medical problem.\n\nFor a lot of the general populace, that's all that they need to hear to convince themselves that because "Someone" did Something before whatever problem they had was cured, then it means doing that Something cured him of that problem. That's the essential post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. Worse yet, some people are willing to extrapolate that answer to aforementioned third question, and go so far as to suggest that because Something supposedly worked for Someone, then it means Something should be used by everyone!\n\nJohn isn't so bad, he reproduced his experiment. But I have a feeling that most of the anecdotal "testimonials" on the internet are not the result of 6 repeated "experiments".
Yeah, and why would artificial life need food or oxygen?
I've always said "religion is a cult plus time".  All cults seem to be recent.  I can't think of many 100+ year old cults.\n\nI bet 100 years ago when Mormonism was still fresh it was considered by many as a cult (I'm just guessing).
> Have you ever seen any Ayahuasca documentaries or taken it yourself?\n\nNo, my last trip was about 10years ago.  It was a bad trip, I'm waiting for a latter point in my life when I really need a trip to process things.\n\nOr maybe wait till my kids are fully grown and I might trip with them.\n\nDon't worry about me typing stuff out, felt good to talk about that stuff.  It was a pretty big deal to call the cops on my mate so he could get help.
The Anomalist has a good rundown of UFO stories, follow them for a week and you'll get an overview of the best UFO blogs online and other Forteana.
It is plausible that an alien species could desired to wait for the right time before consuming us; to wait for us to be ripe. Not that I'm saying this is the case, we can't presume to know their intentions.
Wow, very good catch - almost word for word. I appreciate him bringing it to reddit's attention but I wish he had cited his source.
Oh! And no more bad breath! oh shit my tongue is melting
That's a nicely painted hand chart you got there. Do you have to use a bag of skittles to tell of your fortune while reading it next to the color marker on the hand?
Perhaps there are some that wish to remain anonymous.
"Helped the mujahideen in the 1980s"\n\nNo, that's Reagan you're thinking of.  Or as he was known in his later years after his conversion to Islam, Ronald Muhammad.
I would not call this "coaching."\n\nCoaching a dog requires conscious effort on the part of the handler. To give a fictional example, a cop at an airport comes across an obvious pothead *and tells his dog to alert* on the pothead's bags, regardless of what the dog actually detects. \n\nThis is all unconscious, however. To give an example of that, a cop at an airport comes across an obvious pothead and *the dog alerts of its own volition* on the pothead's bags, responding to unconscious clues that the handler gave by profiling.\n\nReally, there are three solutions: accept the status quo, stop using dogs to search, or police the unconscious of the dog handlers so they don't "contaminate" the dogs.
Gnosticism is opposed by agnosticism, and theism is opposed by atheism. The first bit describes whether you think it can be known, and the second bit describes whether you think it's a credible enough claim to be believed.\n\nTo be a gnostic theist means to believe that we can be sure whether there is a god, and you are sure there is one. To be an agnostic theist means you don't believe we can be sure, but you believe it's likely. To be an agnostic atheist means you don't believe we can be sure, but you aren't convinced by the claim. To be a gnostic atheist means that you believe we can know for certain, and you know for certain that the claim is definitely not true.
I'm so glad to find out that this wasn't about the [DAN](http://www.diversalertnetwork.org/) that provides medical information to scuba divers.
You have a day of watching youtube video's in your planning. Do it now, you won't be sorry. Keywords: Sylvia Browne, Peter Popov, the Tonight show, James Hydrick.
You may be equivocating terms here, though. Calling something Medicine means that there is enough empirical evidence that it is directly useful to treat specific medical conditions that American medical boards have approved it for such use. Thus far, that hasn't happened, unless I'm vastly mistaken about the MMJ situation. I'm aware of the countless anecdotes of it helping people with Crohn's disease and cancer to simultaneously deal with stress, pain and lack of appetite, but that hasn't been quantified, studied, reviewed and led to a medical endorsement.
Argh, that just makes me angry...  By the way, you should definitely X-post this to /r/atheism if you haven't already.  Might be some Australian redditors there who'd enjoy reading this.
you really hate Japanese don't you?
To be honest, I do not know for sure, since I have not been to the hospital, especially at the time of the incident. But there are possibilities that are way more compatible in our current understanding of the universe than having to invoke "spirits" and the like:\n\n* Maria saw the shoe on entering the hospital.\n\n* Maria saw the shoe in her vision and there just coincidentally was a shoe in one of the hospital windows (shoes aren't uncommon items; if she had read the serial number off the back of a television set \nin another room, that would have been more remarkable)\n\n* This goes with the one above: Clark (the investigator) embellished the accuracy of the shoes location.\n\n* Clark took a shoe that was already in the room and moved it to the window (planted evidence, another very common phenomenon).\n\nAgain, I stress that I do not know for sure. [There have been counter-investigations that should also be considered.](http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/keith_augustine/HNDEs.html)
A teacher of mine did a survey of people's "favorite rectangle" over several decades, similar to the one described here. Interestingly, people picked the standard A4 format for years, then, with the rise of computers, the 4:3 computer screen format jumped to the top! People just pick what they're used to.
Did you know that the placebo effect is so powerful that people who KNOW they are taking a placebo are still psychologically helped?\n\nThis means that no matter how much evidence that you see personally, it is still possible for you to think you're feeling better, and continue to believe that these pills do something.\n\nResearch homeopathy more.\n\nHey, I'm the first one to say that if there really is something there to learn from, we should totally do it. Let's learn more about it, let's put it to great use.\n\nHowever, there is no evidence that it actually does anything.
Where can someone buy this?
Also West Virginia here, we have Mothman and the Flatwoods Monster, and lots of UFO lore.\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mothman\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatwoods_monster
Do you have a source on your opinion that they would be denied a license for racial hate speech? Has this happened in the past?\n\n Your comment is speculative and not material to the debate.
The evidence that exists.  The evidence that's out there on the internet and other forums.  Where exactly is this evidence on the internet?\n\nI don't remember off the top of my head.  I'm sure this is disappointing for you and all the other redditors that regularly want "air tight, 'scientific', peer reviewed data and evidence" spoonfed to them so that they can know what to think, but it's out there.
Sorry, but acupuncture is rubbish. Sticking needles in people has been shown to have some affect. But it's not acupuncture, because it has nothing to do with energy flow points or other nonsense. As someone said, it's just puncture with out the "acu".\n\nAlso, your anecdotal evidence means nothing about here.\n\nI really recommend that you start reading some of the sceptic literature. Perhaps start with Carl Sagan's The Demon Haunted World.
Oooh, what's next. Is him going to start bawling and hammering the floor? Hmmmm? Re-insert your pacifier and calm down kid.
Looks to like some kind of aircraft most likely a helicopter above or in low lying clouds with a search light on and the light is not strong enough to pierce the cloud.
Some of these are flat out wrong:\n\n>Plenty of unhealthy fungi species, including the yeast Candida albicans, can grow in the gut if good bacteria don’t crowd them out. That may cause diarrhea, headache, and fatigue.\n\nCandida albicans is part of your normal flora, it lives in the guts of most people.\n\n>Solution: Eat better. Some doctors prescribe an oral antifungal.\n\nNo doctor would prescribe an oral antifungal to get rid of Candida albicans unless it was going out of control in your gut. Antifungal medications have much stronger side effect than antibiotics because both fungal cells and your cells are eukaryotic, so when you attack fungal cell operations you're more likely to harm your own cells. As such many antifungals are pretty toxic, and can harm you liver, so doctors only prescribe oral antifungals if they're really necessary.\n\n>Somehow—perhaps from eating animals treated with antibiotics—gut bacteria can develop resistance to those drugs. That means the bacteria can break down the medicine before it can help you, the person in whose gut they reside.\n\nQuite a large portion of the population has MRSA living in them, and it is doubtful he got it from eating beef since that meat shouldn't be contaminated anyways. It's true that the practice of giving antibiotics to livestock in creating drug resistant strains of bacteria, but you shouldn't be getting them from your meat.\n\nAlso, the bacteria don't "break down the medicine before it can get to you".\n\n\nThat said I don't know much about this. Whatever you eat your gut flora are going to adapt to try and break it down as efficiently as possible. Drinking alcohol as they state probably does kill some of them, but they grow back quickly so I don't know if that would be significant. It sounds sketchy, like there is science mixed in with hype mixed in with marketing.
It seems unlikely that a species intelligent enough to cross the gap between stars would be dumb enough to not have some sort of mechanical sensor to detect potentially hostile observes within 100 feet, or not to use it in on an inhabited world.
It didn't caused me any psychological struggle to me at first. I just imagined the data and all three cases.\n\nStill I am an ultra nerd which shouldn't be used as reference for human nature.
Man, I know how ridiculous abduction sounds... but I just don't know what to say of this. That is goddamn scary. He really doesn't talk about it? Man, I dont think I'll ever go camping and use the buddy system lol.
H20(aq) + 1atom(ingredient) -> cure
To me it seems it's just as suited for this subreddit as anything else that gets posted here. I'm specifically referring to [this part of the Hessdalen lights documentary](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNObDdZPsY8#t=07m50s) (watch from 07:50 to 14:20). Not sure what to make of that. The interesting thing is that there are so many observations.
What would you say are some key examples of modern skepticism? I'm really curious how we can be on such different pages in regards to what a Skeptic is.
> I think we should stop producing and CO2 but until we have that ability I do not want to pay excessive amounts of my money for the fuels that run or cars and our homes .\n\nThe truth is, whether they admit it or not, most people are probably going to do what is in their best (short-term) interest, and if being environmentally friendly is expensive, they're not going to do it.\n\nOf course, whether it actually *is* expensive is another question. You can put solar panels on your roof, and it will drastically reduce your electric bill (in some months, it might even be zero!) plus you get a tax credit. I haven't done the math on buying hybrids or electric cars, but my guess is if they're not cost effective now they will be soon...
I don't know man. They (whoever they are) could be using that technology to attrack less attention to them and still wander about.\n\nOn the other side, you could be right about US technology being more advanced than what they actually show. For instance the blackbird aircraft is known to have been developed in the 50's and it was almost 30 years layer when they acknowleged its existence.\n\nI cannot assure those videos l presented are real, but they are very onteresting nonetheless.
Terminal illness breeds desperation. I pity this woman.
Westall playlist: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL48B123BA1F2C4E43
Lets keep fear alive !!!
Sun spots
Awesome, thanks for your sharing your input. Noted.
I just like making the hysterical nut jobs such as yourself fly off the handle. You are the shining example of the hysterical Al Gore Camp.  Sure, you may not even like him - but given your insane rantings and name-calling you would fit right in.\n\nI can't stop, b/c this is fun. You've just proven yourself to be a hypocrite (on top of a childish idiot) :-) ... with this ->\n\n>No you retard, the graph was used by New Scientists in an article with the title Hyperwarming climate could turn Earth's poles green and which anybody can read here - but you did not even bother to link to that !!!\n\nNotice how I was actually the one being much more scientifically minded as I cited a pro-AGW source that, yes used an article w/ a *subjective* headline: "climate *could* turn Earth's poles green". Could. C-O-U-L-D. Do you understand that? That is an editorial-based comment, not a *scientific* one. Regardless, I was so unbiased that I actually pointed to a PRO-AGW source, and simply *reported* **THEIR OWN DATA** which **EXPLICITLY STATES** that worldwide temps have been much, much warmer in the past.  lol, problem?\n\n>proven retard that is trolling around here'\n\nWell, I admit I am having fun pointing out your hysterical outbursts and childish remarks. I reply w/ that kind of hysterical behaviour, just for fun, so I may elicit more of this idiotic behaviour. But, at the same time, I'm using a Pro-AGW source to do it.  So call it what you want. I look forward to more caps lock and swear-laden replies. ;-)
Accounts today do deviate. Recent reports of humanoids with green bark-like skin for example. But I agree that there is less diversity overall. There's a number of possible explanations for this -- including a preference to investigate grey-type aliens over others -- but I suggest it has to do with our overall desire to make the phenomenon *intelligible*.
I'm tired of hearing about this fucking thing.
I know right?  She is dead.  She should go be with her baby and quit being stuck in that house crying.   Someone needs to help that momma get to her baby.
Original: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlrYnPUAMZM\n\nThe guy that recorded that video also has this one in his account:\nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-N1dcoJTM6M\n\nWhere it's clearly stated that these "lights" are actually a fleet of "pillán" airplanes, manufactured in Chile.\n\nSorry, I want to believe too, but the truth is the truth.
Indeed it's not Mexican. It's very prominent in the Caribbean and Africa. I'm puertorican myself, I live in Florida and I practice it. It's actually quite prominent in Florida. It keeps growing,  are popping up everywhere.\n\nAside from that, I used to be quite the atheist until I encountered this through my mother. I've seen things. It's actually kind of beautiful. \n\n
Ah, poor [Bayard Rustin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayard_Rustin), always left out because he was gay.
I thought the scene where he "read the actress's mind" while flat out asserting he was using the same cold reading techniques as Joe was fairly decisive.
Just as a minor point of correction, negligence is *carelessness* or *incompetence*, not *apathy*.  These parents care, but their ideology has rendered them incompetent to operate in the real world.  It's a subtle difference worth noting.\n\nOther members of the same group were recently found [guilty of negligent homicide](http://www.oregonlive.com/clackamascounty/index.ssf/2010/02/beagley_verdict_comes_in_from.html) after their son died from a urinary tract blockage.
Wow.  After 8 years of running experiments, this psychologist has now found a way to predict the future.  He should take his life savings and make a killing in the stock market.\n\nThere is a lovely little article on "The Decline Effect" that is well worth the read.\n\nhttp://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/12/13/101213fa_fact_lehrer
BULL FUCKING SHIT\n\nshow me [another station doing this to rival reporters faces](http://mediamatters.org/research/200807020002)\n\n\nshow me a [single protest that the other media promoted like fox did the tea part](http://mediamatters.org/reports/200904080025)y.\n\n\nFind me a [single media org with leaked memos directing their employees to tone down global warming.](http://mediamatters.org/blog/201012150004)\n\nShow [me a single solitary news station that released dem talking points as their own views complete with typos](http://mediamatters.org/research/200902100019)\n\nshow me another media station with one single solitary dem candidate for president.. fox tried to hire them all.\n\nShow me a [news station that had a memo leaked where the manager directed the reporters to look for terrorists celebrating republican victories.](http://www.democrats.com/node/11038)\n\n\n\nShow me half the on screen errors that fox had. Make sure you pick corrupted dems listed as republicans on any other station than fox.\n\n\nThere is a reason why studies [show fox news watchers are less informed than people who dont even watch the news at all](http://publicmind.fdu.edu/2011/knowless/)\n\nand it isnt just one study, [year](http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/714.html) after [year](http://www.people-press.org/2008/08/17/news-interest-and-knowledge/) after [year](http://www.people-press.org/2007/04/15/public-knowledge-of-current-affairs-little-changed-by-news-and-information-revolutions/), fox news watchers are the least inform of almost all news watchers and often with people who dont even care to watch the news at all.\n
Valid. There are similarities. Not a direct alternative.
>As soon as the drug hits the market, it is going to be mixed with lots of other prescription and over the counter medicines, as well as herbal and **homeopathic medicines**. We now begin to see drug interactions\n\nWater is a hell of a drug, apparently.
There is a lot of videos of similar events, but why do we have to assume that all of those have the same origin? Maybe in one of the videos it was the sound of a tunnel excavation, in another it was the sound of a distant storm reflected in the clouds and buildings, and in some just a fake. This is starting to sound like mass hysteria.
I have never watched nor listened to Mike Adams on Alex Jones' programs, but oh, the circlejerk it must be. I imagine it is some how less annoying than Alex Jones on his own, like he would be screaming less yet his raspy voice would still grate on the ears, but it would also be more infuriating/hilarious when they infect one another with, and self-perpetuate their own credulous ideologies. Their "oh shit, we are really on to something here" moments would have to be humorous.
> Wasted an afternoon filtering through that nonsense, to see what it says and what it doesn't say.\n\nThen why do you keep asking about filtering when the authors *plotted* the data they received from the FAA. Charts #2-7 and #4-6 both clearly show that the authors plotted data points that they did not consider to be relevant. They didn't ignore them and focus on some magical 187 "unknown" returns. They plotted *all* of the returns and then looked at specific areas. \n\nAnyway, I expect you feel as misunderstood here as I do. Maybe we can have one bit of productivity out of this conversation before giving up . While perhaps you have answered this implicitly, do you mind answering explicitly my original question about how you know what you know about UFOs? Have you ever read a book on the subject? Do you have any good references? Or are your opinions based on your larger perspective about human fallibility and our propensity for epistemic foolishness?
Superstition is just a placebo to make people feel better. Unless it's harming someone, I don't see any reason to be against it, since you'd be a hypocrite as your life is based around irrational beliefs.\n\nI call this the atheist hypocrisy syndrome. "We hate religion/superstition/irrational beliefs so much and we're clearly so much smarter that we actively oppress and talk down your beliefs religiously." If there is a hell made of irony, most atheists will probably end up there.
I'd like to know more about this, particularly the 'protector'!
So, where's the Discovery Channel footage?
> You put too much weight on "trained psychologists" and nurses -- many homeopaths considerable training with time.\n\nAll healthcare providers (even fake ones like homeopaths) who spend lots of time with their patients acquire considerable experience over time. The difference is, the actual professionals start with a leg up because they have access to the accumulated sum of human study on the matter.\n\n> Much of the harm in medicine is not pursued in courts because it is covered up.\n\n[citation needed]\n\n> Many drugs are FDA approved and then withdrawn after troubles are found.\n\nYes. I pointed out Vioxx, which is an example of that. The problem isn't that those drugs are, generally, particularly likely to be harmful (although there are exceptions) - the problem is that they don't live up to the exceptionally high standards generally required for drug safety. A drug that has a 0.4% chance per year of causing a heart attack (which about 1 in 3 of which will be fatal) is considered wholly unacceptable - even though that's a 1 in 250 chance of a heart attack per year of taking it regularly.\n\n> Anyway, I fixed up the diagram -- but I still think you will see it as deceptive and full of lies.\n\nI actually consider the revision to be a significant improvement, overall. I still think you underestimate the effectiveness of scientific medicine, and overestimate the contributions of alternative therapies, but it's certainly a large improvement. \n\nI also think the 'ignored harm' is a sizeable factor, and saying that "Alternative folks tend to look at harm" isn't really the case when you consider that factor.\n\nAlso,\n\n> Orthodox folks so distain alternative medicine, they don’t want anyone to even mention benefit — even if placebo.\n\nThe point we (I'm guessing you'd consider me 'orthodox') make isn't that people cannot benefit from the placebo effect. The point is that literally *any* treatment could provide the placebo effect - including ones that are not expensive, and which do not lie to people about how the world works. \n\nBecause anything can produce it, you can't claim it as a merit of some random faux treatment; it's the default assumption because it holds true for *every* treatment.
Simply put, considering the scientific evidence (or lack thereof) for whatever god you choose, one cannot be both a good skeptic and a devout believer.
New remedy! *Homeopathy CDs*. Tired of pills? Tired of patches? Try out this new, revolutionary method of treatment. Designed by Buddhist computer scientists in the hills of Tibet, the *Homeopathy CD* delivers treatment to ANY illness via sound waves. Just put it in your media player and BAM say goodbye to cancer. Sure, it sounds like white noise being played, but we assure you, this is homeopathically tested and upheld to the homeopathic standards.
You're right. They made all of these artifacts themselves in their art gallery. They did it for the money and noteriety. Get back to me when you have ONE OUNCE OF EVIDENCE that these are fake other than your AD HOMINEMS
He's really getting old and feeble.
Yea, and as soon as it becomes minimally popular (if it hasn't already), it will turn into the same cesspool.\n\nThe problem is not this or that reddit, the problem is human intellectual laziness and gullibility.
Stop it with your facts, you!
do me! do me!
Non Americans are just as unscientific.
That and BAEs plant at Warton isn't all that far away, they probably have some fancy stuff flying in and out.
I'm with you.  or for doing unnecessary fucking spinal taps on children.
In the battle of science and government, government will never lose.
Quit JAQing off.  (Just asking a question).\n\nThe game where you spread conspiracy theories by "just asking a question" is one of the oldest tricks in the book.\n\nHonestly, the only alternative is to assume that you are a moron.  So which is it, conspiracy nut shilling a story or a moron?
I'm asking specifically about the 1997 event.  It's safe to say the others are clear hoaxes.\n\nSo, there were hundreds of 911 phone calls from witnesses that night, spreading across the state.  There's record of this.  So, for your hypothesis to be correct, there would be flight plans of these planes.  Seems easy enough to verify; but, that was never verified.  Any other hypothesis?
Autism?  We can crack their backs too!
But still, if it is true. Wow.
> Why vodka? Because ultimately it's just watered-down grain alcohol, so anybody can brand and sell it without all the work of more complicated distillation and the aging that goes with drinks like whiskey or tequila . . .\n\nFunny, cuz I just saw this stuff yesterday at the liquor store. Just thought it was a funny bottle, didn't catch any of the Akroyd-ness. Fucking "ultra-premium" vodkas . . .
Yesh, you're very shmart.  But you can't understand that is a meteor?
The mind is a labyrinth, ladies and gentlemen, a puzzle. And while the paths of the brain are plainly visible, its ways deceptively apparent, its destinations are unknown. Its secrets still secret. And, if we are honest, it is the lure of the labyrinth that draws us to our chosen field to unlock those secrets. Others have been here before us and have left us signs, but we, as explorers of the mind, must devote our lives and energies to going further to tread the unknown corridors in order to find ultimately, the final solution. We have to see, we have to know...
Was going to suggest this.  I love him!
Argh just noticed I fubbed the title of my first post lol. \n\nYeah this happened in 89. So it's a while back.
I remember back when I was in elementary school and, with the exception of religion, not vaccinating you kids wasn't an option. I was in about fourth grade when one or two parents started sending their "unvaxed" darlings to school. Every one else started to raise holy hell. It just goes to show that in the decade and a half since then, it's become acceptable enough that parents just sigh and say "Well, it's there right as a parent. We'll just not let little Billy go to their house."
Right on the last on the top row.  I often tell parents of kids with disabilities that "if it cures everything, it cures nothing."  I also tell them to spend the money they would pay on the quackery on "Disneyland therapy" Better to spend the thousands of dollars taking the family on a once in a lifetime vacation.
I think so... I usually bring my dogs with me quite often and they run around the barn sniffing everything.  The barn is one open space with spaced out boards for stall separation, so it is very easy to look around.
> Most people there are agnostic atheists, but feel people need to take a stand against religion for a myriad of social, political, and moral reasons.  There's nothing about being a strong/weak atheist that indicates how you feel religion should be dealt with.\n\nAgreed.  I simply have a problem with the gnostic viewpoint in general.  Claiming to know what you don't know and trying to claim it as unquestionably so is dogmatic.  There are rather few people who subscribe to this point of view, but they do exist.  It pops up about as often as the guys who try to argue that being an agnostic is somehow better than being an atheist or something like that.  I argue strongly with that one too because it just creates confusion.
Well, that sucks. I guess I'll just stick to beer with my pancakes.
Actually the Swedish Medical Products Agency (the one that approves medicines etc.) [went out with a warning](http://www.svd.se/nyheter/inrikes/natumedel-spetsas-med-lakemedel_6303496.svd) after his deed telling people that lots of "natural remedies" are spiked with actual medicine to create a false belief in the product. (and since it's unregulated they can contain a higher dosage than is safe)
Harris' actual point - that calling ourselves atheists is politically optimal - seems sound enough.
Interesting and thought-provoking stories are always welcome.  But "OMG, two years ago my friend saw slenderman juggling orbs!", is not.  And unfortunately, that covers many of the submittions to this sub.
I would assume there are several atheists who were indoctrinated into that belief through their families just like religious people follow tend to follow their parents religion. I don't see why someone would think all atheists are also skeptics.
The Chaser's War on Everything did a [great bit about The Secret](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usbNJMUZSwo).
I am not sure what to think, but watch "Out of the Blue" (its on youtube). A few retired high ranking officers go into detail about how its been covered up.
Actually I was kind of responding to "It's indigestable." Both lactose and sucrose are digestible. Vegans are considered vegetarians, but I mostly just mentioned that because it's true and related.
Obviously, but I feel as if there are certain crop circles which exhibit a far too intricate pattern, coupled with extremely peculiar details (such as wheat bending at 90 degree angle, manipulated at the molecular level) which leads me to believe not all of them are hoaxed. Example have been posted in this thread.
Also remember that pharmacutical companies get to patent their drugs for a period and combined with direct to consumer marketing in the US would mean that they would remain profitable for some time as the exclusive/world leader in curing disease X.
It's = it is.  Applied fifth grade English.
Until religion is less prevalent throughout the world, we're stuck with being identified by the word, though.
>Juicy Life is sold at the centre at $28 per one-litre bottle.\n\n$19 NZD\n$16 USD\n$15 AUD\n\nWow, what an utter rip off.\n\n>The 60-year-old woman said she had served more than 500 people with the juice since the early 1990s and had records of the benefits of the juice to her patients.\n\nGreat, did she also have control groups to compare against? I'm going to assume until shown otherwise that the records won't support the claims she's making, claims which are in themselves meaningless anyway...\n\n>"Juicy Life is composed of local Noni juice with vinegar and calcium and used to wash away toxins from the body this enhances the body's resistance to sicknesses," Sister Jen said.
oh ok, thanks!
anyone know what the pilot said?
I believe in evil.
I really want to see what it is..
I thought that another problem with HFCS was that, as you mentioned, it isn't broken down as readily by saliva in the mouth which cause it to encourage more tooth decay...which is the cause of a lot of infections and can dramatically shorten lifespans.  The HFCS goes in and doesn't leave the teeth fully until they are brushed whereas sucrose will dissolve and leave the mouth in a matter of minutes.
The spiritual energy of Halloween makes psychic readings almost impossible.  Everyone knows that, jeeeez.\n\n
Uh huh, do go on.
Let's see...Take a five year old boy on the verge of death, pumped full of "god only knows" what kind of drugs to the point of being in a coma and add in some religious parents helping him understand the experience. I'm sure his story is *exactly* what really happened.
I'm not a doctor but I am a scientist with a background in nutrition.  There's simply no mechanism for these types of specific cravings.\n\nTake salt for example.  If you haven't been getting enough, you get symptoms such as exhaustion, headaches, and weakness.  However, none of these things will increase the specific craving for salty foods.  That's not to say eating salt won't make you feel better or more normal, if you've been lacking it, just that there's no mechanism to increase the craving for salt, outside of your own knowledge of your diet, and whether or not you've been deviating from the norm, or eating weird things, etc.\n\nBut there's a chance I'm wrong so I did a pubmed search and I couldn't find any articles that links micro-nutrient deficiency with specific food cravings.\n\nThe article you linked is poorly sourced and comes from a website that promotes naturopathy, which is nonsense.  So I think unless you've got better sources and more info, there's no evidence that anything on that page is based on reality.
Explain, please\n
I have limited knowledge of brain anatomy- however- how much is really known about subtle brain physiologic features and corresponding function? They say the degree of folding was more pronounced in meditators- but how much more pronounced? What was the sensitivity of their measurements? What other means did they use to demonstrate that these extra folds really enhanced the function of the meditating brain? Maybe there are extra folds- but it's possible they make no discernable difference in brain function, cognition, etc.
Yes, I presented some light statistics of my current and ex sex life. Nowhere I claimed to be global statistics.\n\nLighten up.
This basically sums out why militant atheism is necessary. Because topic-to-topic based reasoning cannot reach these people...you have to undermine their dogmatic belief structure first, and then their pre-conceived conclusions all dissipate...
[Youtube link](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0Z7KeNCi7g), for anyone else who has issues with the TED player.
Sorry, as soon as I hear an accompanying soundtrack my interest goes to zero.
I disagree completely. A commitment to nonviolence does not in any way obviate the fact that an individual is willfully breaking the law. Specific to this discussion, there need be nothing inherently "violent" about the act of obstructing a peace officer in the course of their duties for it to be illegal. Such an offence can in fact be an act of passive resistance. Officer presence and verbal intervention might not work on a citizen who, despite being non-violent, is committed to remain willfully obstructive. Such circumstances necessitate an escalation to use of force to overcome resistance and allow the police to carry out their duties.\n\nI think it's difficult to come to terms with the justification when the police are dealing with a sympathetic cause, so consider this parallel situation: A judge issues an arrest warrant for Bernie Madoff. Naturally, the police go and arrest him in his office and, while dragging him out of his high-rise office building, are confronted by a group of Wallstreet bankers protesting the arrest (in their opinion, stealing money from investors isn't really a crime). They have locked arms and are sitting in the doorways of the building in superior numbers with the intention to prevent the egress of the police. What should the police response be, if not to use force to overcome the willfully criminal obstruction and deliver Mr. Madoff to the justice as demanded by law?
You are exactly right, none of them look like a saucer. But you did not see a saucer on TV either. You brain is telling you you saw one because you are dealing with the same emotional, mental road block people have when they have too much emotional desire for an outcome. That outcome being YOU WANT TO BELIEVE. I believe, hell 90% of the planet believes, hell the whole country of India believes, its all through out their religion. (look it up, its awesome) \n\nYou don't have to admit anything, wrong, correct or just undecided. But next time you want to call the communities attention, please don't.
I think of Shadow People as guides, in my experience it always seemed to be watching over me or leading me somewhere. As soon as I realized I hadn't seen mine in awhile things started getting very weird, very quickly. At one point in time I couldnt stand to be in my house alone, soon after I began feeling that way I woke up one night being held down at the shoulders by something invisible (sleep paralysis?) but this lasted a long time and I felt as though I had to will it away. Talk to yours the next time you see it, or just open your mouth, see if a name comes out.
That's when you have the time to spend on things you like to do anyway.
Well then I guess we agree. I haven't been able to prove anything with a Ouija board or guessing what someone is thinking beyond coincidence. I have an extensive occult library, including many out of print and rare books from the 1800s. I have studied the paranormal for many years, even going as far as to reading 777 by Crowley, and tons of A. A. Bailey books. I am *very* interested in the subject. \n\nI hate it when people assume that because I am skeptical, I have no idea what I am talking about. You didn't do that, and I am not accusing you of it, but I experience it all of the time. I am an agnostic; on the fence as you would say...but at this point I am leaning towards nothing paranormal being proven. There is so much BS, from the Pleiadians/Reticuli, Cayce, Crowley, Geller, Blavatsky, Castaneda, Bailey, Browne, to the Amygdala malfunction that causes Déjà vu. \n\nWhy believe in something that has so little proof, and so much scam-artistry. I find so much interesting with the occult (especially Blavatsky) -- but so little scientific proof of anything. I hope you understand my point of view.
I live in the west, I found out something cool about my town, a man was killed by native Americans in the 1800s. Not my general location, though it is a small town. Interesting. We live about 5 miles from the town cemetery, it was first used in the 1800s. I've been there before. I mean, my dogs barking at that corner may not be anywhere near something like that, but hey, always fun to research :D
do you not notice the ":p"?\nhes joking, silly
I gotta jump in and correct you on something. I spent 15 years as a cameraman. I know the reporter in the video said it this way so I don't blame you, but camera's don't 'pan out'. They zoom out. They tilt up and down and they pan from left to right. Everybody gets this wrong. Sorry. Cool video.
What are the mechanisms of interaction between nonionizing radiation and biological systems? If it isn't disrupting chemical bonds, I don't understand how any the localized heating is concentrated enough to have any effect.\n\nThe provenance of study seems to be that higher energy radiation has caused harm, so it is worth investigating whether there is an effect. Yet, since this same mechanism has been demonstrated not to be applicable at cell phone frequencies, what is the impetus for looking for danger? I ask, not because I think someone should be quiet, but because I think it says something about the tendencies of the researcher.\n\nWe know that there is a bias toward fearing what is new. We don't have data confirming that cell phone usage affects rates of cancer.\n\nI cannot criticize someone for conducting research, but I don't also don't see how this is different from searching for an orbiting teapot either. Without a reason to suspect danger, how is this different than investigating whether standing on your left foot, while pulling your right ear causes cancer?
Many atheists are convinced that all religions and all concepts of gods are nonsense, yet they still hold some beliefs in something supernatural, often even astroLogy.\n\nPeople are not perfect and many skeptics would still not wear the t-shirt of a mass murderer, even for money.
I knew where this was going before I even clicked this link... what a motherfucker. \n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regeneration_(biology)#Humans\n\nOooh, this makes me mad.
I happily explain, but let's have an understanding here. You are an asshole. Enjoy your wait.
Well, that claim actually has some merit or at least it is something well debated by philosophers. I certainly wouldn't dismiss it as any less supported than the claims of most religions.
There's a reason I'm unsubscribed from /r/atheism. I don't storm into other subreddits to talk about /r/starcraft  or /r/trees, because there's a more appropriate place for it. Regardless of my beliefs, I just don't give a damn to argue about something that will never have an answer over the internet (or judge people about it.)
Agreed.
> You appear to be dismissing the entire AAP recommendations because you disagree with the wording of 1 sentence.\n\nNo, this is a gross misrepresentation of what is going on here. Given that I openly stated what the situation is in my OP, I *shouldn't* have to repeat it, but I guess I must to clarify the situation.\n\nBecause an organization of pediatricians has released a position paper and technical report supporting male circumcision, I thought it important to re-evaluate my opposition to the practice.\n\nAs a skeptic, that means I need to investigate the technical report before being swayed by it. That will be a long process, as I have limited time to devote to it, and there are many claims and citations to follow up on (and of course, I will need to investigate the literature to ensure that the sample of literature being cited does indeed represent the best state of knowledge).\n\nSo far, I have read the technical report, and I found a claim that, if true, would have had a major impact on my opinion, and therefore decided to start by following up on that particular claim.\n\nI am not dismissing the entire AAP report - I have far more research to do before I have *any* opinion on the report as a whole. However, that does not prevent me from having an opinion about this *specific claim*.\n\n> This is - in part - what the CDC study concluded.\n\nNo. It's. Not. It is an assumption of the study. How do you have a PhD, but are apparently unable to identify circular reasoning?\n\n> You're interpreting it to mean the AAP is implying that they did a RCT in the US, whereas that's not the intention of the statement at all.\n\nIt's nice of you to tell me what I'm thinking, but you're mistaken. I'm taking the statement to mean that the study provided evidence *for* the existence of the effect, rather than them assuming the existence of the effect, and predicting the consequences - which is what the paper *actually* did.\n\n> In fact you're ignoring the paragraphs of text that come right after that statement describing the CDC conclusions.\n\nHere. Let me quote from my OP: \n\n>  I just wanted to add that they do discuss the CDC paper in some more detail, and do indeed get the content of the paper correct in that discussion. I'm solely referring to the claim I quoted, which leads off their discussion of the paper.\n\nThat was an edit added less than 5 minutes after the post went up - long before you made your first post. Clearly I am *not* ignoring that they indeed accurately discuss the paper in the rest of the paragraph, I am disputing the veracity of the *initial claim* (EDIT: I am also now disputing whether that study was eligible for inclusion in the review; by their stated standards, it clearly is not). I am open to alternate explanations which paint the statement in a better light, but the argument you are making simply *doesn't work*.
The thing that science seems to ignore is that almost all of the experiences are so similar. You can't say that for alcohol or drugs. Everyone experiences those in a different way.
Someone else posted a comment of their explanation.  Brace yourself, you will feel the stupid literally smack you in the face.\n\n>It is you that need to understand science. Radiation from the sun is not 2.4GHz Microwave unlike wifi. Radiation from the sun does not cause the bood to undergo the Roullieaux effect. Radiation from the sun does not break the DNA it gives us vital energy and is a source of Vitamin D. WIFI kills. carry n and use it if you want but don't enforce it on thosose that have have done the research.
The problem is that many people think the believe something while they actually believe something different, without being too aware of it.\n\nYou could see it with the rapture believers last year. When interviewed they claimed to be absolutely sure that the rapture would come the appointed day. When a reporter asked "What if it doesn't happen?" They insisted that it would, they were 100% sure, God guaranteed it. \n\nOne reported asked a question very much like the one in the story: "If it doesn't happen does that mean that there is no God?" Suddenly they came up with excuses and apologies like calculation errors and tests of faith. That didn't sound 100% sure at all. \n\nThey actually were convinced that they were 100% sure, but there was a part of them that judged an supposedly impossible event in need of being explained away so it still fit into their world-view. \n\nThey weren't lying. They just weren't actually believing what they honestly thought they believed.\n\nOf course there is another side to the same concept. There is the rational sceptic who doesn't believe in monsters and aliens and know full well that the scary movie they saw that evening was entirely fictional. Still when investigating the source of strange noise that night, their somewhat cautious behaviour does not entirely jibe with the fact that they are an adult who is 100% sure that there are no scary monsters hiding in their flat.\n\nOur honestly professed believes are not always identical to what we actually believe deep down.
In huna tradition the self is actually 3 parts, ourselves, the higher self and the lower self (body intelligence). This would be the body intelligence which is lost, not actually the father.
Yep. Sad but true.
Heaven is like God/Christ; it's represented as w/e the popular idea is at that time.
That's the best, and freakiest, part of John Dies at the End.\n\nWhile reading it you don't even notice that he's mentioning people who don't "exist," and counting the group size as being one off.\n\nVery very good stuff.
I didn't say that either. It was just an example of a working system. That actually works long-term (unlike Yugoslavia) and on a larger scale then Mondragon. (Although Mondragon might work, would need a chance for a broader implementation)\n\nNot sure what you are trying to argue here atm to be honest. You said you agreed that Parecon doesn't work and pointed out two examples with extensive workplace democracy. One of them failed miserably and was basically a dictatorship. So no real workplace democracy.\nThe other Mondragon, is far from a workplace democracy like described in Parecon. They don't let workers vote on all business decisions. It obviously works, but it has nothing to do with the original discussion. If you just wanted to point out, that there are alternatives to a capitalist system, then yes, I agree. If not, what are you trying to tell me?
Not very often. How often does something like 9/11 happen? So it was government's plan to have a plane hit the twin towers and some debris land on building 7, causing a fire? What if no debris had landed on building 7?
Cave Johnson?
And then downvote you for your heresy!!
ah I see
Just like muggers. If you give them the money willingly, no big deal. That gun is just *a backup*.
There is clear cut evidence that the Earth is getting warmer.  It is also true that the Sun's output has been at a low for the past few years.  The warming probably can't be attributed to the Sun, then.  \n\nSmall scale experiments clearly indicate that increasing atmospheric CO2 by only 100 ppm can cause the system to retain enough extra energy to shift the heat equilibrium to a measurable amount.  \n\nMy best analysis as a chemist indicates that there is a strong correlation between the combustion of fossil fuels and the global temperature.  I had a rather lengthy conversation with a climate denier (who knew nothing about chemistry), and he tried to say that water vapor, not CO2, was the major source of warming, and that humans couldn't possibly have anything to do with any warming.  I had to point out that when any fossil fuel is burned, you get more molecules of water vapor than you do of CO2 (most of the time - cyclic compounds excluded).  \n\nAs a skeptic, I feel compelled to say that people shouldn't buy into the "I'll plant a tree to help offset my carbon footprint" nonsense.  The movement I've alluded to is nothing more than a feel-good thing than a productive one.
Yes; I saw something similar in my hall several years ago, only it was clear, like a soap bubble. It entered through the open door and bobbed down the hallway toward my bedroom, but plunged into the wall when it appeared to *notice* I could see it. I got no emotional vibe from it one way or the other.
I tend to think that Cryptozoology is one of those fields that gets ruined by the crackpots. It is a certain fact that animals exist which we have yet to discover and catalogue. It is also a certain fact that humans are prone to mythologization and flights of imagination. \n\nCould that thing in the video be something as yet undocumented by science? It is possible. However, it's more probable that it is something very common-place that has been misidentified. \n
I got the link from [here](http://www.sacbee.com/2012/11/08/4970278/joe-bloggs-youtube-channel-documents.html).
" In short, many of these witnesses—in fact, probably the majority of them—are neither lying nor mentally ill."\n\nNot to play devil's advocate, but can you prove that statement?
[Example 1](http://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/y46y6/objectification_at_the_olympics/c5s76vj), [example 2](http://www.reddit.com/tb/h6eub), [example 3](http://www.reddit.com/tb/kkep0).
Welp, there are no aliens. When dust on a camera, or misidentified bugs/whatnot is evidence to a person, there is no arguing with them. How can one present evidence of something that *does not exist?* You are deluded. You show me proof they are here. Not dust, or moisture, or crop circles. Proof. Shit that would hold up in court. You can't. Deluded.
this might sound a little bullshity, but maybe it's something new? That no ones ever heard of before. and also you could always try making a pagen subreddit on your own ya know.
There might also be a counterirritant effect in play too.
Well said, sir.\n\nEducation is at the root of it all. If you keep presenting solid cases time after time, you have to *hope* they'll eventually crack and take an honest, second look at the pieces of the puzzle that don't add up. \n\nSometimes it feels like I'm beating my head against the wall, [especially in /r/skeptic](http://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/gqwvs/ufos_eyed_nukes_is_this_real/), but whatever. I just hope that a lurker or two will get a little more interested even if I get downvoted to hell.
looks like a gorilla to me...
Queue != cue
This has been resurfacing on reddit alot lately, but nobody seems to know who the guy is.\n\nThe man's name is Bart Sibrel.  He's a favorite classic knock-down conspiracy 'theorist' over at the Bad Astronomy blog.\n\nSibrel's favorite hobby used to be ambushing astronauts (such as Aldrin here), pushing a bible into their face, and screaming "Swear on the bible you went to the moon or else you're a LIAR!"
Wind from the swatter? maybe every time you were about to hit it, the wind would push it away?
Was kidding.  It's pretty cool actually.
in short, he asked.
No. Just because something which is presented with evidence does comply with common knowledge does not mean it can not be interesting. In fact, for me, that is one of the definitions of interesting.
It wouldn't really matter if it never occurred. She could propose this event as hypothetical and her thoughts on the matter would still be just as ridiculous.
High five!
No, the problem is the nature of the media landscape and it's effect on how our psychology in what we believe and why.\n\nLike talkshow when charlatans egg on a crowd or when some short interview where you have quickly deal with gish gallop, if you're caught as a skeptic in these scenarios  you may need some quick tricks to keep up.\n\nI do think it's a bad idea to still idly by while some charlatan spout nonsense especially if no one is around to respond, you can quickly pick up quick flaws or errors in the argument itself.\n\nTalking points are simply heuristics to deliniate fully thought out arguments.\n\nThe media format is the more the issue than anything\n\nThe assumption you're making is that all parties involved are rational agents, also a lot skeptics I think still hold on to pre internet tactics.\n\nWhich may not be needed anymore\n
I bet homeopaths will come out saying how great homeopathic medicine is after this because you can't overdose.
Seems that way. I'm a skeptic and understand that psychic powers don't exist (as measurable by our current scientific methods)- but I'm still intrigued by it and would like to watch some of these people at least give a crack at it, lol. Would make for good video atleast.
Maybe in a way I'm trying to redefine the event now because it's about more than just Rebecca at this point.  Other women have watched the way people responded to her and taken it to be more than debating about the facts of one situation.  They've taken it to be a discussion about how women should be treated in general.\n\nWhen they see men basically condemning Rebecca for what (from their perspective) is just her asking to have her wishes to not be hit on respected, it becomes further proof of the supposed latent sexism in our movement.\n\nThe problem with this occurrence can (as I think my post shows) easily be explained through something that is universally applicable.  I think we can avoid the feminist quagmire and instead pin this as a way that skeptics need to be conscientious of all people's rights to be respected, males or females.\n\nWatson remains a poor communicator who often makes feminist claims without good evidence or forethought.  Tearing her down is easy, but all you're doing in the process is ripping apart the example that she's using wherein the general case remains.  Women see that, and it becomes a point of dissonance for them.\n\nThat's the problem we're facing, in my view.
Agreed, but I think the problem is two fold:\n\n1. Lack of non-digital zoom on cell phones or smaller, compact cameras.\n2. Crappy camera sensors that don't do all that well in low-light situations.
A simple illustration: (assume equal calories from each source) Calories from carbohydrates bring about an insulin response.  Calories from protein bring about a vastly lesser insulin response.  Calories from fat bring about no appreciable insulin response.\n\nRegardless of the effects of insulin, this indicates different physiological responses to different types of calories, which tells us that calories affect us differently depending on their source.
Could have done with a [PDF] warning.
More proof that smoking kills
Yeah, the fake possession stuff is just goofy. I'm sure he honestly believes he's possessed too.
> Can you prove this?\n\nLook in the mirror. /s\n\nBut seriously, emergent behavior is everywhere. A lot of things we did not understand previously became clear once we start thinking of things in terms of the whole.\n\n> You have such an energetic atheist inside of you just trying to burst out of that agnostic suit.\n\nI'm both. That's what I've been saying. There is no one or the other.\n\n> I can't prove that a soul exists\n\nThen why act as if it does. You are basing your actions on something you have absolutely zero reason to believe. Why do you entertain this notion?\n\n> I assert only that we can't know for sure whether one exists. \n\nHowever, one of the answers is incredibly more likely than the other. It's like having a bag with a single red M&M and a million blue ones. If you put your hand in the bag and pull one at random, it's most likely going to be blue. Just because there are two possibilities does not make each of those possibilities equally likely.\n\n> When you fail, assert and assert again. And you have the gall to accuse me of hubris. What a laugh.\n\nHey, you're the one saying that you are preparing for an afterlife of being judged by a deity. All I'm saying is if the shoe fits...\n\n> Unless it happens to be the belief that there are no gods, in which case you get an exception.\n\nNot completely. Now, that person's case is a bit stronger than the converse. If he had said, for example, that he believes there are no cats. It would be simple to disprove him: show him a cat. But we can't show him a god. We can't demonstrate to him a god. We can't even form a logically consistent argument as to why there should be a god. The best we can do is get him to admit that there is a slight chance that he could be wrong. We actually can't effectively disprove his hypothesis even though there are a few easy methods to do so.\n\nNow the claim that there is a god is met with a higher degree of incredulity because of the extraordinary nature of the claim. You can't show me this god, you can't demonstrate him in a way indistinguishable from nature, you can't even form a logically consistent argument as to why he should exist. The best you can do is to get us to admit that these is a very, very small chance that you could be right.\n\nBut in science or any good research, something that happens with 99.9999999999999999999% certainty is what you base your work on, not what happens with 0.0000000000000000001% certainty.\n\nBut like it's been said earlier, atheism is not believing there is a god. It is not believing there is no god. A subtle but important distinction.\n\n> It's queer that you try to use physical criteria to evaluate metaphysical\n\nI find it queer that you try and postulate a realm of existence for which there is no proof in order to rationalize your superstitions and still try and claim you are skeptical.\n\nThe level of acceptance is too damn high for me. If we accept a "metaphysical" realm as a reasonable proposition then why not just say a wizard did it? It has about as much intellectual heft to it. Why not psychic powers or ghosts or leprechauns.That's the problem with saying that a soul is as equally likely as no soul. It becomes a Pandora's box of woo.\n\nWhere would a soul come from? And why couldn't we measure it in the physical realm. It obviously has an effect on the physical realm (namely us). So it must have a physical component. That's only logical. The minute you cop out to "well we can't see it, hear it, feel it, taste it, or in any way appreciably measure it" is the minute you might as well give up and walk away. There is no difference between something completely imperceptible and the non-existent.
Oh Haha. Not sure why I'm at the top.
The stealth fighter was designed back in the sixties (google it) we didnt see them until 1991. 30 years later. Now 50 years later china and Russia have copied our secrets and made there own stealth.  Whats more logical?  A government keeping the strange triangle seceret or little grays taking home movies to show the family back home? \n\nPlus there is more life in this universe than grains of sand on all the beaches. What makes us so special that advanced life would travel space and time to study one of a hundred thousand post primitive cultures?
Cause and effect isn't that simple. But you can isolate the effect of alcohol by seeing whether events with or without alcohol served lead to more or fewer riots, or comparing the percentage of arrested rioters who are drunk to the percentage of event attendees who are drunk.
yes very gory.
great stuff, thanks....
The disappointing part is that bob probably wouldn't see it being read.
I'm not aware of any hysteria being "whipped up" by occasional environmental activists. What I do see is that people are more scientifically-literate today than they were in 1975, and as such a lot more people understand the threat of man-made climate change.
is there a proper scientific/news source available?
I saw that. Problem is that Ernst is someone he rails against specifically in the video. He's not accepting this as science.\n\nWhat is interesting though, is that Ernst is a former homeopathic practitioner.
You never know, I may be totally wrong :)
Interesting side note: In Sumerian myth, one of the main reasons Enlil decided to exterminate us, is that after Enki and his wife tinkered with us using Annunaki DNA, they could hear our thoughts, and apparently weren't able to do anything about it.
I would recommend not even stopping. Having people at their booth generates interest from other shoppers. Better off pretending it's not even there.
Good point, have an upvote. That said, the Heartland Institute has not disputed the veracity of the leak, and Anthony Watts has already started to explain why the Heartland Institute financing him is no big deal. Generally, most climate change deniers out there are in full damage control mode, pointing out that Greenpeace has a bigger budget, that there's nothing wrong with spreading information to combat the global warming hoax, etc.\n\nAll in all these tend to validate the documents' authenticity.
>You just can't make up stuff this crazy.\n\nI think she just did
You saw the guy in a mirror the first time?\n\nI had something *kind of* like that happen to me, except I had seen the guy on a few different days in a store that has a few long mirrors. I really was convinced he had an identical twin. Coincidentally, my brother went to high school with the guy, I mentioned the "twins" to my brother, and my brother didn't know what I was talking about. Later, I'd see the guy, but he would always be solo.
Agreed.
So an inept police for is a good reason for a high speed chase then?  You think a speeding car is a murderer or drug dealer because he's driving fast? Grab his plate number and pick him up when you both aren't a danger to innocents.
> then there is no evidence to support that the observer saw anything.\n\nI agree completely. I am not arguing that the observer saw anything. I am arguing against a tactic used to respond to the claim. I am astonished you cannot see that.\n\n> Why do you accept that he saw something, and don't need evidence to corroborate that, and yet someone saw him drinking requires documented and independently verified evidence?\n\nWhere did I say that?\n\n> Your confusion seems to be that the observer wasn't drinking and claiming he was is an ad hominem, IT IS NOT. \n\nYour confusion seems to be that there is evidence, other than a written first person account, that an observer was drinking. The fact is that we cannot prove one way or another whether the observer was drinking. It is rather subversive to assert that the observer was drinking and then dismissing his testimony as bunk. I don't understand why you are unable to see this. I am not claiming that being drunk is an invalid argument, obviously it would be quite valid to this case, I am simply stating we have no evidence at all, other than a written first person account, that the observer was drinking. It makes no sense to even mention the argument, as it provides ammunition to conspiracy theorists to continue with their irrational beliefs.
I'll agree with you on the big labels, like Veuve, Mumm's, etc.. That being said, you can get some really interesting Champagnes if you're willing to explore the lesser known domaines.
If you're referring to the Billy Meier case, then iI know mostly peripheral knowledge about his case and the Pleiadians from being mentioned in lectures, books, etc., but I haven't given it a serious focus. Apparently, his body of work is rather extensive (I've read his Wikipedia entry and was intrigued). \n\nThe story goes he's a Swiss man in complete contact (physical, telepathic, etc.) with a [group of humanoids from Pleiades](http://www.pleiadians.net/WHO_ARE_THEY_/who_are_they_.html). \n\nLike I said, I haven't given the case much time. I'm currently caught up in meditation, alternative healing/living and exploring ideas in metaphysics. \n\n
Fuck yeah. Check out astral projection.
Collecting rainwater is not allowed in my city. It made news after a car dealership had a large collection system on their roof to clean their vehicles with. Technically any resident isn't allowed to collect water coming from their rain gutters either, though that isn't something we prosecute. \n\nI work for the water department. \n\nEdit: I guess this has changed. \n\n"Rainwater harvesting is now legal in the state of Utah, starting May 11 2010. Senate Bill 32 was approved in the 2010 session that provides for the collection and use of precipitation without obtaining a water right after registering on the Division of Water Rights web page (waterrights.utah.gov). There is no charge for registration." \n
This is eerie. I'm kind of excited. Crossing my fingers on this one.
Hmm, I didn't get that she was criticizing the *whole* frield from her talk. Didn't she say something in the QnA about there probably being good studies out there, but she—as a layperson—doesn't see them because they aren't interesting enough to make headlines? That tells me she was critical of a subset of the field instead of the whole thing. Now I'll have to go and re-watch the video to make sure I heard it correctly.
I suppose. Point being, anything that can be vaguely interpreted is easy to turn into a UFO. Entertaining though.
Yes except there are people who really don't grt that type of sun exposure.
I really shouldn't try to type or even read unless I've had my coffee. My bad.
To get the energy you'd get from 1kg of U, you'd need to burn 16000 kg of coal.   That would create about 50000 kg of CO2 emissions and a bunch of ash.  Coal emissions are *also* radioactive, and that component just goes right up into the atmosphere.  There's also the environmental cost of extracting the coal.  Maybe we don't have a way at the moment to contain something for 100,000 years, but we **definitely** don't have a way to recreate the entire mountains that are leveled to extract coal.  And a significant number of coal deaths are caused by extraction.
Thanks, I was looking for a page like that on their site but had trouble navigating it. I was also looking for editorials they might have written for, say, the New York Times (and the like) but I guess I should be glad most of the reputable media doesn't want to give them a soapbox.
I will watch it as the board suggests: as a skeptic. Haha.
The sad fact is that this may well be a sound investment. Immoral business plans are often highly profitable.
haha funny enough that came into my head while i was typing it.
I believe this is incorrect; my understanding is that pertussis vaccine does prevent the disease (this is how it is discussed in the medical literature, at least).  While I think it is accurate that the vaccine does reduce the morbidity and mortality associated with an infection, it does also reduce the attack rate.
>"Quantum", therefor everything I can possibly imagine is true.
I get the feeling that some of these stories can't really stand on their own, they become way more convincing and awesome if they're presented in a rapid fire way, like in the ["original" post](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/oeo0h/reddit_tell_me_your_glitch_in_the_matrix_stories). The original thread has a real addicive quality to it. I'm not sure how to implement/copy this, maybe there should be a dedicated thread for each day/week and everyone posts their stories in that thread.
Thanks for the video!\n\nAs a documentary filmmaker who is working on the subjects of both UFOs and epistemic truth, I have a lot of opinions about this video.\n\n The author of the linked video talks about, "people who want others to be more openminded about the supernatural" and a generalized description of how that group argues from using personal anecdotes. \n\nThis to me sets off alarm bells. The creator of this video is attacking straw men. I'd much prefer to see the video cite specific examples. I personally do not believe that people like Donald Keyhoe discuss the supernatural in the same way that my aunt talks about seeing ghosts, so it would be nice if the creator's worldview allowed for this sort of diversity of thought.\n\nLet's take the next point where the author concedes that even if an individual had a personal experience that could not be explained, that "in NO WAY strengthens the argument for any supernatural concept."\n\nAgain, broad strokes are dumb and teach us little. There are many ways that a personal anecdote could strengthen an argument. For example, if there is good enough corroborating physical evidence to verify the anecdote, it may very well strengthen a specific argument. The author of this video himself later admits that given a testable hypothesis with valid evidence, a broader perspective might be warranted. But even here the author goes out of their way to say that it isn't really justified for these Forteans to be talking about the unexplained unless their audience is going out of their way to bring it up! \n\nThe author of this video is saying that we shouldn't even talk to each other about the things we can't explain. Taken literally, that is simple-minded and hypocritical. \n\nBut the video is well made and sounds more convincing than it actually is, so kudos to the filmmaker there!
>you can just look at your meter\n\nIn my case, 11 floors below, in a locked room.  A lot of people don't have easy access to their meters.
Which is why it should be savagely downvoted.
Don't ask about Saturday the fourteenths then.
Welcome to r/skeptic, the home of "we demand evidence of your claims" skeptics rather than the pure "I don't believe the official story" semi-skeptics that also use the word.  You're among science dorks that enjoy debunking everything from psychics to bad medicine.  The [JREF](http://www.randi.org/) is a big part of that.
I see.. so the only study found by the author of that chart is about diabetes, and the evidence is conflicting. \n\nWhat about the rest? Skincare, general health, .. I cannot believe there is no research.
The idea is that if the baby had a particularly long time in the birth canal, gentle stretching and holding (letting gravity work) will help straighten things out. \n\nThe "adjustment" is basically the chiropractor holding the baby up from under the arms and supporting the head while letting the weight of the lower body do the work and checking the spine to make sure there isn't scoliosis that isn't correcting itself naturally. They can also do some stretching. I have a kid who spent so long in the birth canal that when he came out half of his head looked smooshed. It corrected itself over time. It's supposed to do it.
I was looking through phone apps and even pictures of old womens faces to see if he would have made it that way, but couldnt find anything
HAHA \nOh my god, Boards.ie! I haven't been there in about ten years.\nLast time i checked in on Boards, the entire userbase was trying to ban Bubbles for the umpteenth time.
Are any of these experiments documented and available or should we just take his word for it? (serious question)
I just finished watching the video. I got as far as 7 minutes in. Firstly, thank you, because I had never heard of Ollantaytambo before. The structures are remarkable! I can't even imagine what the work site must have looked like. Anytime evidence of a pre-Incan / pre-Mayan / pre-Aztec city/fortress/temple is found, it's exciting.\n\nI stopped watching at the 7 minute mark because it became unbearable, and I'll explain why. Everyone who was commenting was an author. Not one archaeologist, not one pre-Incan historian... just authors. One claimed that the stone blocks were "fused together by an unknown form of energy" using "radiation and lasers." This is accompanied by CGI effects showing lasers fusing these blocks together, followed by the author concluding with: "There's no explanation." And with authority! What is this, a movie?\n\nImmediately after, we've got Giorgio A. Tsoukalos stating that criss-cross patterns found at the quarry site were saw marks. He states that this is "irrefutable proof of ancient machinery."\n\nThen Erich von Däniken is on screen, and it's time for me to stop the video, because he is an established fraud, and any production that uses his input as evidence has lost any integrity it may have had beforehand.\n\nThis isn't a scientific show. It's purely speculation and entertainment.\n\nThank you for introducing me to Ollantaytambo!
I agree with you except for when the highest light, which was stationary for a *while,* starts to blink then flies to the right. Correct me if I'm wrong, but unless I'm missing something, that wasn't a plane or helicopter.
Mission to the moon is not a family trip to the countryside, everything has to go according to plan and the craft is maintained at a level of near-perfectness. Unobstructed view is vital to the mission, and if there was a tiny scratch or spot on any of the five tiny windows they would be obliged to clean it. I also looked through some photos from presumably the same window, and there were no dark spots on the glass. \n\nEvery photo and clip are numbered, and if there were any photos or videos with distinctive UFOs in NASA archives, they would need to "accidentally" destroy the whole set, or edit certain areas.
These objects would have to be massive to be able to see them from that distance...
No idea. I haven't looked into whether it would help or not. I have a poor understanding of physics, which I should really remedy, otherwise I'm probably open to being mislead.\n\nA quick google seems to be throwing up a lot of nonsense about ionized water though, like it'll help to slow cancer and other stuff which is almost certainly nonsense.
You're thinking of one of [these](http://img.diytrade.com/cdimg/924341/9044930/0/1242465542/LED_Magic_spinning_ball.jpg)?\n\nI support scientologist2's [theory](http://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/p5bz6/interesting_looking_ufo_over_russia/c3mp811), it's a star out of focus.  I have a telescope myself and have seen similar effects, even the plasma-like colors.
This is known as a [Martingale betting progression](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martingale_%28betting_system%29).\n\nMathematically, no "betting system" alone can overcome a negative EV game (any game with a statistical house advantage) in the long run.
Did you make this? Sorry, I know Poe's Law and shit, but seriously, did you make this? This looks intentionally shitty.
Right by it yes
Uhh, how else can I put this...\n\nOK, simple example, PC's and Macs. Technically, all Macs are PC's, because a Mac is a computer and you use it yourself, *personally*, so it's literally a personal computer. But should we call them that? Same with artificial selection and genetic modification. Yes, they both do affect the genes, but they are not the same thing.
If I understand you, yes. The evidence and theoretical models are suggesting that certain phenomenon, traditionally called paranormal, may be products of non-local, a-temporal consciousness. \n\nThe difficulty discussing these comes from the on-going philosophical divide between materialists - who tend to lean towards atheism - and dualists - who tend to lean toward theism. Put another way, the centuries old battle between science and religion has caught the study of non-local consciousness in the crossfire. It is not made any easier, when the public champions of redefining such phenomenon are sloppy frauds like Deepak Chopra. \n\nMy own research is in the area of "inherited" memory and representative perception. It is not laboratory tested under controlled conditions because of economic, institutional and philosophical constraints. However, it has been demonstrated in clinical settings.
At least he's fairly harmless, sadly delusional though. The nutjobs in Hong Kong who built a Noah's Ark theme park concern me more, though it was funny when some of them claimed to have found Noah's Ark a couple of years ago and an ex-team member who despite believing in Noah's Ark said that the find was a complete fraud.
There are libertarian anarchists (anarcho-capitalists).
HA!
What a wonderful, horrible cakeday post. Ugh, Texas...
Had your wife ever mentioned anything about her experiences before you told her what happened to you? Is this the first strange thing that's happened to you in the house? Do you you know the history of the house you're in? Sorry for all the questions, I grew up in a house with very similar occurrences and it felt like a benevolent thing. Don't be scared, unless you are being physically attacked, fear is pretty much the only bad thing that will upset you. Good luck!
But Robert Lanza, M.D. is.
*sigh*.. what an obtuse asswhipe.
THAT is the million $$$ question, Jim!
There's another one of these about aliens. Great stuff.
When I was forced to attend a Christian high school, the "science" teacher told us that solar and wind power were wrong because the Earth constantly generates oil and thus we'll never run out. \n\nI still don't quite understand why supporting the oil industry and opposing renewable energy is somehow a Christian value.
Please tell me more about SOSU campus paranormal activities.  Never heard of the old woman before.
Many times thank you! It's great reading arguements by someone who actually knows the topic, not just blindly believing everything onefind on the internet. I wish my friends and the media would understand these arguments, they all seem to believe the eco-terrorists propaganda. Dankeschön and keep up the good work!\n\nAlso OP, please try to avoid such misleading headlines, obviously the e.coli is not *actually* the palgue
I agree. This is obviously a very loaded word, but it has other meanings than those with religious connotation. He could be using this word to refer to the mind's 'essence' or 'total conscious self.'
VERY well said. It's an issue of ahistoricity.
Not facing up, facing backwards.
You're just going to whack them on the head with it, right?  Use a phone book - they're free, and still very useful after the fact.
STAHP
You have to have faith that it's really Randi.  Beware, you are treading a dangerous path, non-believer.
I think it's confirmation that John Smith was right. I'm converting to Mormonism immediately and I suggest you all do too.
Soooo frigging dumb.
I love this. He's so straightforward about it: it was good, life was good, but "I've never been happier."
You should go back to him and tell him that you've already read many theories online about UFOs/ETs and that nothing he could say would be totally unbelievable/mind blowing.
Here is the evidence - \n\nhttp://www.reddit.com/r/climateskeptics/comments/qniou/remember_that_lindzen_hatchet_job_in_rcorg_and/where \n\nAnd please note that both the submission and then the top-level comment from publius_lxxxi are modified - among other things since for the first 2 days he was not admitting that the graph was wrong but instead claiming it was based on data that NASA mislabeled (and Lindzen has not yet blamed it on somebody else), so point 1 and 6 have been added much later and mainly to cover his very embarrassing crap on how it was all in the older files that were mislabeled from NASA's fault, even if I show with extensive proof that the files can not be confused by accident:\n\n> Again you are spreading crap around here - Gavin discovered very precisely what happened, somebody used the 2008 **land only** data against the 2012 **land+ocean** data, in spite of the fact that one type of the data files start like:\n\n> **GLOBAL Temperature Anomalies in 0.01 degrees Celsius    base period: 1951-1980\nsources: GHCN-v3 1880-01/2012 (meteorological stations only)**\n\n> and the other type of files start like:\n\n> **GLOBAL Land-Ocean Temperature Index in 0.01 degrees Celsius   base period: 1951-1980\nsources: GHCN-v3 1880-01/2012 + SST: 1880-11/1981 HadISST1**\n\n\nSo I say it is pretty clear who is the liar now ... and there is never libel when what I claim it is true :)
In my mind, having a belief means there is no other truth.  That is, if you believe in God there is no possibility that said God does not exist.  And, conversely, that if you do not believe in God there is no possibility that said God *does* exist.  I find it contradictory and illogical to say I don't believe in god but I believe it is possible that God exists.  To me, that is a round-about way of saying, "I don't know."  Just because one way to describe something is the shortest, it does not make it the most correct.  I have never hid from the question and nor do I ever intend to.  If I truly did not believe in a God I would have no qualms with calling myself atheist.  However, I do not "not believe" in God.  I simply do not know because it is impossible to know.  That is not "hiding" from the question.
I put it in quotes because it doesn't seem like an entirely necessary distinction, but it is the name given to this sort of thing. Racism of any sort is not a good thing, but I happen to think that 'reverse racism', against the ethnic majority AND group in political and economic power, is a great deal less effective at inducing discrimination and socioeconomic hamstringing than racism against a disenfranchised minority. It should never be encouraged but I don't think its worth investing resources to fight it in the same way that discrimination against those at risk of marginalization is - it's just about targeting the source of greatest societal harm.
The amount of fluoride used in the study is much higher than the amount is in the water.
Ah, yes, I forgot that MIT was giving those OpenCourse classes, thank you for reminding me.
OOOOOOH, me! Chinese Lanterns
No horizon DO NOT Make documentaries about "Israel's boarding and killing of aid workers on a boat"\n\nHorizon is a current and long-running BBC popular science and philosophy documentary programme [here is a list of all the episodes ever made](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Horizon_episodes) and you can see the is no episode about israel. \n\nSo get your facts straight first before make baseless claim about "the propaganda machine" with no supporting evidence.\n\nThe bbc may not be the right 100% of the time but when the wrong the say they are wrong and its good to take most things with a pinch of salt which is what i'm going to do for your comment.
Invisible dragons are 2.5 times the size of invisible pink unicorns.
Skydivers, balloons and flares. Oh my!\n\nAnd crappy CGI on the last one.
Anyone know how this would effect Jehovah's Witnesses who refuse blood transfusions for their children?
While I don't necessarily doubt his claim, if Karl says this is his costume, then he should have some actual pictures of the costume being built. Pictures of the back would be nice, rather than a bad still from the movie itself.
It's almost like I should be getting my drugs through someone whose job is to understand their efficacy, best use with my personal case and better alternatives instead of me calling the Pfizer hotline and ordering a shipment of Lipitor.
Not necessarily.  It may be that helmets increase the severity of torsional injury to the neck, on account of the greater leverage afforded by the thickness of the helmet.  It is also possible that a helmet may impair vision or hearing in ways.\n\nI'm not claiming that helmets are definitely bad for you for any of these reasons, but the burden of proof remains on helmet proponents to show that they are definitely good for you.
Care to share an example of the Austrian School doing 'extremely well' in terms of economic analysis and prediction? In particular, something that was unique to the Austrians.
Just to avoid confusion: I'm using the term "common sense" here in the sense of "seems more or less reasonable given the assumptions you make in the first place". That's the definition I personally feel what most people understand as common sense, in opposition to "you're just assuming that out of thin air". In a stricter sense the term wouldn't apply, but hardly anyone uses the term common sense to mean "in accordance to current scientific understanding". To the contrary, I think what people see as common sense would often be totally wrong.\n\nAnyway:\n\n*If you buy into the idea that positive energy = high frequency* then it all makes perfect sense.\n\n*If you buy into the idea that the flow of chi is responsible for your health* then it all makes perfect sense.\n\n*If you buy into the idea that there's a spiritual world at a higher vibrating frequency than the material world* then it all makes perfect sense.\n\nAnd it all follows logically and naturally *if and only if* you buy the premises. It makes sense, because you can draw analogs to things you know in your everyday life, like, for example, electrical induction.\n\nIt's not that those people don't apply common sense. They do apply common sense. That's how they reach their conclusions. They just work with shitty axioms and invalid data. Logic and reason can only give you accurate results if you feed in accurate data at the beginning. If you believe in things that aren't true then you can be perfectly reasonable and sensible and whatnot but still come to mindboggingly stupid conclusions.\n\nTheir common sense works fine. In my opinion it's actually the other way around: knowing about things like cognitive bias, "correlation != causation", understanding probability or even applying Occam's Razor as a heuristic tool, all those neat things that enable you to be a skeptic are really *not* common sense, unfortunately (as much as I think they should be).
That's...not even close to what you said at all.\n
Unfortunately as long as there is money to be made someone will always be doing this. We have to keep educating people so there isn't a such a lucrative market and pushing politicians to pass legislation outlawing or at least more heavily regulating the pseudosciences.
Atheists are not necessarily skeptics.
Pretty sure OP drives to a FedEx/Kinkos, handles business, then goes about the day. Much like everyone else.
hmuuuuuu...\nDead in two days?\nOr the debris will disapear....\nor he will be discredited\nor the labs (all of them) will be said to have made a mistake.\n\nso dont bet on it.
That's definitely disturbing. While I couldn't make out anything please understand that I do believe in the paranormal. I just couldn't make out what this VM was saying.\n\nIt almost sounds like someone is speaking in reverse. I would try doing regular EVP's in your Grandma's house.
This is why I raised my son the way I did. He's 21 and recently he thanked me for "raising him to be a critical thinker".
I have been there twice, went to the graveyard at night (Got throw out 20 minutes later) and went to the Wade House both times, creepy shit.
Touche
I have a 4 month old baby and I seem to be surrounded by other mums insisting that I try one of these for miss drooly-pants.\n\nI can't seem to find any decent information against them, though I have found many sites claiming that they're "just like sleeping on magnets or copper bracelets for pain relief!" \n\n
That's right!...\n\nAd revenue only or you're a scammer.\n\n/sarc
* lulz: people read, people giggle, people carry on with their lives.\n\n* circlejerk:  a pompous, self-congratulatory discussion where little to no progress is made.
Pffft. Too easy. \n\nThe crop circles weren't made by a UFO. The crop was merely curdling from the screams of the background music.
Agreed.  Thanks for the link!  It's been a long time since I read that.
that's not the point. in situations like this, often a light that looks as shown is an oncoming airplane, but for it to turn around like you say it would would require a wide berth which it does not take.\n
hide yo wife...\n
Great post, would love to see what else you link!
>As per the wording in the UNESCO Declaration I mentioned above, stupidity and ignorance, as much as you or I might want them to be, are not valid enough reasons to suspend informed consent unless the government has declared a state of martial law. \n\nSo a parent can decide not to give their children antibiotics? This also has nothing to do with martial law.
My question is, which would be more effective, having the trash company do it or have everyone else do it? Some of the local garbage companies pick up trash as usual, transport it to their facilities, set it onto a conveyer and have people pick through it and separate and clean everything. This seems to tick all the positive boxes and none of the negative ones, except for higher fees. The added benefit is the creation of jobs.
This is a very good talk, listened to it a long time ago.\n\nSteven has torn apart some commonly held, but false, ideas that many people in our society have.\n\nToo many people on the Left buy into the idea that modern society perverts humans from their peaceful nature, when the reality is that in more primitive societies you have more than a 50% (up to 65% in some tribes) chance of being killed by another human. *Bob Marley was wrong.*\n\nThe other dangerous idea is the tabula rasa, or the blank slate. The idea that humans don't have a nature. I have had people say this to me in /r/atheism and then proceed to try to defend it. The idea that humans don't have any nature, and can thus be moulded has lead to some of the most appalling situations in human history, heck even right now we've got North Korea which is still trying to mould the 'perfect society'.\n\nPeople really need to understand how much better modern society is than primitive human society. There is too much apathy and disdain for our society from both the Left and the Right, and I'm kind of concerned that Western society is starting to decline.
My vegan friend gave me some of this stuff when I had some cold symptoms. When I asked him what it was, he said it contains duck liver, and so he's technically not vegan, wink wink, and that I would get better in a few days after eating it.\n\nIt sounded like total bullshit, and I hadn't even heard of homeopathy at the time.
need some background story here.
This guy needs an axe in the head.
its this simple.. They wish they never created the Atom bomb.. and now that they created a antimatter  weapon or/ drive...  there is no way in hell they will let that technology out of the bag when one could destroy a country or maybe the world with one.\n\nWhen we are all friendly and only want to keep each other alive that's when we will see this technology.\n\nthat's the only disclosure there is stopping the world from another arms race.
Interesting vid, could be chinese lanterns though. The relentless stream of dudes, bro's and no fucking way's this guy is producing makes me want to rip my ears of. I can understand the excitement bro but enough is enough dude.
Can you elaborate?
Because I'm on the wrong side of the leg, "your" is the idea of movement from one place to another.
it's difficult not to get pissed off, especially because the level of dumbness is so large that they can't even understand they have been outsmarted with overwhelming proof and reasoning.
Agreed. Never a more solid form of evidence than ectoplasmic fuckin'.
They did a limited release in the states for a while there, same with pepsi and mountain dew, i dunno if they're still selling them or not.
I'm kind of disappointed with the skeptic crowd with their response to this.  Her post is pretty decent and challenges our group think.\n\nAt worst, she may be succumbing to main stream conventional wisdom as to what food produce what health benefits.  But who among us are really such experts in dietary health that we know enough of the studies to separate out the true claims from the bullshit?  Let's face it.  Are oats oversold in terms of health claims?  Honestly, most of us would have to look it up and do some damn research.  Does a diet in animal fat increase risks of heart disease and cancer?  Do you really know the answer off the top of your head?  These are such mainstream ideas that it's difficult to even begin reasearching them properly to separate fact from fad.\n\nIs the fact that some herbal remedies really do work so horrible to us?  Can we not address our concerns practically?  Issues such as variable dosage control, lack of research into appropriate dosage, products being oversold and over hyped as to how effective they are?
the post is from his BBC blog, which is an awesome read if you have a spare month. the series of posts entitled 'Kabul: City number One' is especially good, all insights about the history of western activity in Afghanistan.
Well you don't need to come off as a complete cunt. They are your recordings, and this is /r/paranormal so i thought you might like credit for your own recordings. You have made a claim, and you have not backed it up due to 'laziness' or what have you. The burden of proof is on you to back a claim, but whatever. \n\nI'd love to be in your shoes one day and "know" something that has been deemed supernatural does in fact exist. I just hope if that ever happens, that the person who delivers the proof is not such an asshole.
Wrong subreddit?\n\nThe idea that kindness is needed more than cleverness seems wrong to me, and basically a false dichotomy. Without cleverness kindness is powerless, without kindness though then cleverness has often been used for harm.
No.  Escaping, which is what prey animals do, involves sprinting and evading.  Humans, by contrast, are the best long-distance runners of the animal world, but have a pretty slow top speed.  It's this contrast that allows endurance hunting to succeed: prey animals can out-sprint us, but in the long run we can chase them until they drop from exhaustion, whereupon we can just walk up and stab them.
Ik this is a stretch but it may be something mimicking an angel.
Interestingly, it looks like a face when viewed both upside down and right-side up.
You and your wife are definitely not crazy, I wouldn't worry about that. I don't have answers (I'm sorry) but I'm just curious: Have you or your wife, or really for that matter, anyone else other than your son(s) experienced anything that would suggest your grandfather's spirit/ghost/essence or whatever?
Well thank you. :)
3 fluorine molecules in a methyl group != fluoride.
Not just demons. Aliens can be substituted for angels without disturbing much of the Bible's message. I agree with OP. Disclosure, if it happens, will not be on the govt's accord.\n\nWhat if there is > 1 race we've been in contact with? Some could be benevolent and others malevolent. We can safely assume that we're not keeping aliens away. They're hanging back. We still need to prove we can operate on a galactic level or we will just be slaves to another order (unlike what most of us live in currently). \n\nWe're at a point now where we don't need to wonder whether videos are genuine or not. I think the better question is whether they belong to ETs or us.\nWe really live Plato's allegory of the cave. Religion might be one of the biggest reasons disclosure is surely not to happen willingly. \nFree energy, thought, and necessities aren't something those that are in power are ready for the world to have. And until then, I don't see why any alien race would want to make contact with us. \n\nBut who knows?
All of those Mexican guys named Jesus are vying for the position of second coming of Christ too.
All right, this is almost irrelevant, but\n\n1) make the 'victory' or 'peace' sign with your fingers.\n\n2) turn your hand sideways, with first finger nearest you.\n\n3) tap your first knuckle against your mouth.\n\nThis is sign language for 'that dude's a vampire'. \n\n\nUseful when Putin's on the tv.
So, year after year the UFO returned and the guy didn't have the foresight to get the best camera equipment he could find...night vision...tripod...stabilizing system?
I'd say release it, humanity needs to evolve, we are already killing ourselves so anything new isn't going to change much, it might unite us maybe.
Flares. That is all.
well then check out skeptic with a K, little atoms, reasonable doubt, pod delusion, righteous indignation all very good.
We do find beer and deer corpses, though.
Tachyon therapy: Heal before the hurt!
Henry Kissinger got the Nobel Peace prize, it's hard to get more nuts than that.
Na Aberdeen is like the "city of the North" for Scotland with 15,000 students in the Uni alone so sort of spreading the word and also joy that another Skeptics in the pub has opened its either the 4th or 5th in Scotland :D Just sayin' :P
I'm part of the TASVideos community, and so I've seen extreme glitches exploited in the video game world.^[1](http://tasvideos.org/1686M.html) ^[2](http://tasvideos.org/1945M.html) The most amazing glitches are incredibly low probability events that anyone playing under normal circumstances would never encounter. Successfully exploiting them requires access to memory addresses in order to ensure that the values are correct. If only there were a way to observe the 'code' of the real world... M-theory?
space faring civilization.  ha!  :)
The whole door was not in clear view. It's fairly simple that one could have opened it while crouched on the ground and out of the frame. Anyone with skills at film editing could make that ghost. Plus, why was the camera sitting there? I'd like more backstory about that.
> I'm still looking for that investigation in a controlled environment, you know, a scientific study\n\nShould you find it, please post it on reddit. I do have my doubts though:\n\nIf a proper scientific study showing even a correlation between essential oils and cancer were found it would be all over the news.\n\nThe influence of cannabis on cancer has been looked at in various studies and you hear lots about it, if you look into that.
I think he was referring to the one with the bio-engineering degree.
A cardiologist says so.
So he thinks it has a paranormal explanation too?
No, I mean I don't see evidence of an object flying in the video.
Well, she's not entirely wrong. There IS such a thing as a natural frequency, at which oscillating systems resonate, and everything does vibrate due to thermal energy. But this whole "20MHz = death" chart is just fucking ridiculous, aye.
Twice by late December 2011 slow horizontal moving object with bright orange light almost like fire, suddenly appearing and disappearing in the distance
Well I've seen this on /r/creepy And its a fake if you look at the Truck before and after the "Teleportation" its slightly to the right of where the skid marks are
Yes, why would a boat identicle to the type you see on earth be on mars.
I'd also need more information. I once experienced an attempt to be taught critical thinking skills. It was a degrading experience that left me with a lingering feeling of ennui for days after.
I liked the pics just because they were so different, not your run of the mill orb, cigar, triangle, or disc. Initially shocking because they had such a malevolent look to them. I think a few guys from droneteam.com went out and found the actual locations of all the photos.\n\nThe CARET docs definitely were the pièce de résistance. So much work and attention to detail. The backstory was amazing to tie it all together.\n\nThere never was a payoff, tons of speculation, but never a "a ha! that's what it is/for". To do something like this, for no reason, amazes me. I kind of thought it was a resume builder, sort of a demo reel for someone in that business.
Sounds like you my friend have a demon goodluck
Your FBI chief post is a text post instead of link. I'm guessing two downvotes (a.k.a. oblivion) are because of that.
Are you happy that it's bullshit? I've always loved science fiction and fantasy, and it's a great source of sadness to me that we're trapped on this little rock, and that there really is no magic, dragons etc.\n\nAlso, are any of the stuff paraded about by neopaganism and satanism etc worth it? I'm not suggesting magic is real! :) I'm asking if they teach techniques such as self discipline, reasoning, thinking techniques etc - or if they do teach them but put the credit into something else.
Well, we know how she finds the pictures for her [testimonials.](http://www.joyunexpected.com/archives/002254.php)
The website mentions that there are 2 UFOs but it looks like there is only 1 dematerializing and rematerializing.
I really like the way it moves off at the end - that thing is on a mission on the last few frames. Cool.
Considering that Facebook doesn't have an option to strike-out text and put red comic sans above it, I'm pretty sure it's just an image someone made. This is an example of people saying "hey look, this is dumb, isn't this dumb?" and circulating it. Hopefully some people who think it's not stupid will see it and see lots of their friends making fun of it, though.
How have I lived in Florida all my life and have never heard about this?! haha, thank you for this! I know where I'm heading for a little vacation :P
His most recent [anti-vax](http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/13/bill-maher-vs-the-flu-vaccine/) statements that I was able to find seem to be during the whole H1N1 crisis in 2009. Don't know if he's really said anything about it since then...
We wouldn't expect people like you to understand what actually needs to be done when it comes to dealing with religion.
Scarcity of what? Things like food and shelter are more than plentiful enough to cover the current world population and then some. A lot of scarcity is also caused by capitalism because it is profitable to create it, such as in overselling products in order to drive up prices, or DeBeer's stockpiling of diamonds in order to drive up prices, and so on.
Vitamin supplements are good if you're short on vitamins.  Otherwise they are useless (most likely) to harmful (rare, but possible, with otc vitamin supplements).  A doctor can run tests to determine if you're deficient, or you can decide to take them yourself on the offhand chance you're deficient.  If you take them as the label indicates, you're unlikely to go into dangerous zones with excessive vitamins (or minerals, since many also contain trace minerals).  But it may be throwing money away.
I liked Paranormal Cops, but that show lasted all of about a season.\n\nBring back [In Search Of, with host Leonard Nemoy](https://www.google.com/search?q=in+search+of&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a#hl=en&gs_nf=1&tok=QgcZQ2YXoojx5Grher5OPw&ds=yt&pq=in+search+of&cp=14&gs_id=1qe&xhr=t&q=in+search+of+leonard+nimoy&pf=p&safe=off&client=firefox-a&hs=Zf1&rls=org.mozilla:en-US%3Aofficial&biw=1366&bih=613&tbm=vid&sclient=psy-ab&oq=in+search+of+l&aq=0&aqi=g4&aql=&gs_sm=&gs_upl=&gs_l=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=3956db7b494374b)!
>Each planet, time passes differently.\n\nThat's like saying that on each planet, a centimeter is different length.
Actually, never mind. May I be succused?
WOT says its manipulation proof.\n\n**[Can a site's reputation be manipulated?](http://www.mywot.com/en/faq/website/rating-websites)**\n\nWhen someone first hears about the concept behind WOT, their first objection is that someone could easily spam the system with tons of ratings and rate down their competitors or otherwise manipulate reputations, but that's not true. In order to keep ratings more reliable, the system tracks each user's rating behavior before deciding how much it trusts the user. WOT applies sophisticated algorithms to detect and eliminate any manipulation of reputation.
Heh, how about that! Apply modern science to the UFO/ET phenomenon!
It was actually the bookstore at the university I attend, and the sugar pill is called "Coldcalm" (Marketed by "Boiron")
>negative weight\n\nThat makes me want to rage. :D
To quote Futurama:\n>That just raises *further* questions!
I think this is a lazy man's skeptical argument; It reminds me a lot of the logic used to support religion. First, there is no possible way to prove it wrong, because the secrets that haven't gotten out cannot be pointed to for proof. Secondly, the people brought in on the secret aren't your average person; they would be selected. It's not like entire departments are brought in and the mail boys know... Lastly, we would have absolutely no idea what their motivations for keeping it a secret would be. What if it being completely open with all of this would cause genuine security concerns? The people working on it would know that to be true, not just accept it, but know it. \n\nWe know that vast conspiracies have taken place in history and have likely only increased as we have advanced. Also, 10's of thousands of people? It could be managed much better than that. You would break it up and compartmentalize everything. If there is a vast conspiracy, you can bet your life on the fact that there are tons of people working on helping whatever the cause is in complete ignorance.\n\nLet's not have this discussion in the abstract. Let's approach it as if it were real. It is entirely possible to control this, so long as spaceships aren't falling down in major cities every other day.
Or here - http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=81354
Could be a guardian angel. Could be a relative that is deceased
An example of more rigorous taste test\nhttp://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1750-3841.2007.00277.x/full\nThey found no significant differences in taste between organic and conventional.
Sometimes, but then again I sometimes I feel that everything that could possibly go wrong does when I dont need need it.
There are university programs for occultism and esotericism at universities in the UK, France, Holland, Sweden and (iirc) Italy.  Some of those have underpaid research positions, and a few are even in English!  ;-)
Surprise!
Man, I fucking ordered a homeopathic computer (it was twice as expensive as a regular computer, so I figured it would be better) but when I opened the box it was just full of moist packing peanuts.
to be honest, that episode with the completely obvious computer gen alien behind the news woman put me off of the show\nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHnV2qTpl88\n^that one\nAlso, I didn't notice this firsthand, but someone said that one of the screams from the natchez swamp ghost lady thing was ripped straight from Left 4 Dead's witch.
>I'm a dietary vegan for purely emotional reasons. \n\nThis, I'm absolutely cool with. I wish more vegans would simply admit it's an emotional choice and not try to justify it with bullshit.
BBQ is more than enough rationale for eating animals in my book.\n\nOn a more serious note, the human body benefits from a healthy balance of plant matter and animal protein, among other things.
I don't get at all why you don't want the study project to see you at all and try not to be visible at the same time.
So you came here to tell us? \n\nHey reddit, I saw a guy wearing a tinfoil hat today!\n\nHey reddit, A guy on the train said that we didn't land on the moon!
First time I saw the title of the link, I read it as "Box Ghost" and immediately thought you were talking about Danny Phantom. Oops.
It floats like a ballon
I think the worst thing that could possibly have happened was "Climategate". A REAL example of "scientists" exagerating the effects to suit their agenda. Honestly, what were they thinking.
I had a laugh at the official explanation of temperature inversion, meteors and excitement.\n\nIsn't it funny how sightings, over the ages, have all been explained by the US government as mundane phenomena and people just imagining things. If it weren't so dishonest, it would almost be quaint.\n\nIt doesn't get any more damning than this:\n\nThe panel recommended that the Air Force and Project Blue Book should take steps to "strip the Unidentified Flying Objects of the special status they have been given and the aura of mystery they have unfortunately acquired"
No proof, no credibility.
Mike Duncan's History of Rome is the one podcast that renewed my interested in history.  Even if you're not generally interested in history, I would suggest giving it a try.  I wasn't really into history before I started listening to it, now I can't get enough of it.  I look forward to his podcast every week, more than Radiolab or TAL (but maybe not quite as much as SGU).  Can't recommend him highly enough.  :)
In our graduate school there was a theoretical political science course that focused on the political forces in the Harry Potter world. Shit sounded badass.
Sometimes we use "peer review" to refer to the full scientific review process stretching perhaps years after publication, so i'm actually OK with that language. But you seem to be suggesting a somewhat Novellan refinement of *science*-based policy, with which i fully agree.
>before I know it, twenty or thirty minutes have gone by in what I felt must have been ten. Other times, it's the opposite and I believe I've had a twenty, thirty minute meditation when an hour and a half has gone by.\n\nThose aren't opposites…
There is a tonne of evidence that shows that spinal manipulation (whether provided by a chiropractor, medical doctor, physical therapist or osteopath) is effective for low back pain. Depending on what your condition is, they may use other techniques, such as rehabilitative exercises, therapeutic ultrasound, or electrical muscle stimulation. Stay clear of any that talk about how a subluxation can put pressure on your nervous system affecting your health.
Thank you hippie.  I just upboated you for trying.
There are others who came to her house who filmed it. They had the same kind of footage she took.
The main barrier between a sceptic and a believer is experience.
Are there multiple GA episodes from there?
The journals you provided, expecting cochrane, are not peer-reviewed *by scientists* either.
Great post there. I too have strong beliefs that there is inter-dimensional activity and that yes the military does have basic knowledge of such things (most likely trying to weaponize it someway). It was not until I read DMT: the spirit molecule, written by Dr. Rick Strassman, that I learnt there are ways for the human consciousness to reach these 'other realms' of existence. In fact Strassman writes that "Only later, while the study was well under way, did I also begin considering DMT's role in the "alien abduction". The 'trips' that the people had during the tests were almost identical to many alien abduction reports. Patients claimed to having met with other beings, guided, communicated telepathically and were tested on, one was even raped by 'reptile aliens'. But yeah, I just found it a very interesting correlation to what you posted.
Well last time I knew, vampires were a myth. I'm just trying to tell you what it sounds like to me.
it would only take one piece of legislation really. But god I hope it comes.
It got me when she said some of them are sensitive to electromagnetic radiation.  All in their heads.  I think that makes it sadder.
Mostly acupuncture.  What I mean by "Works" includes the placebo effect.  The argument is that we ought to encourage anything that works, and that the placebo affect is a valid medical result....
Fish oil is worth it if you don't eat a lot of fish. If you work out, creatine is also worth taking.
Actually, that's why it was so painful for me to watch.\n\nI need to stop using the word *actually* just like I stopped saying *I reckon*.
Can't handle the logic, resort to personal attacks.
[Feminists generally have a more positive and less hostile view of men than non-feminists](http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog/2009/07/non-feminist_mo).
Weird, but cool. Not sure if you've seen the videos by Dawkins and others about how cold reading and hitting on details have some high statistical possibilities. But the things you are saying are freakier than 'having the same birthday as someone else in a room of only 20 people' or 'guessing the name of a dead family member by selecting a popular name in the WW2 generation'.\n\nWhy don't you spend a little time researching how to 'develop' psychic skills? You would at least put yourself through some documented exercises over time so you could see your true stats of being right vs being wrong. \n\nThings I've seen from light research are writing down any dreams you can remember when you wake up, and writing down thoughts that pop into your head randomly throughout the day. Also writing down when you get weird feelings or sensations, and the situation you were experiencing at that time or right after, like an object that your eyes fell on while you randomly had a strange itch that made you contort to scratch.\n\nThen over time, you can see how many of these thoughts and premonitions you have and compare them to what occurs.
Judging from how angry this guy was, angry enough to build a goddamn flamethrower, I'd be willing to bet that Bigfoot did more than simply hold him down..
well one inherently judges people for not being masculine and the other is telling you to be quiet.
You know, you can be either a moron or a liar...trying to pull off both at the same time will never end well.\n\nSo bit of helpful advice....since you can't do anything about the first condition, I'd strongly suggest sticking to the truth...it can only make things easier for you ;-)
In this economy?  Good luck with that.
I'm seeing Charlie Sheen with some Asian dude.
That would almost be worse than having them remove the clit as well.  It's extremely sensitive and constant exposure is either painful or makes the woman be stimulated constantly.
Well power bracelets are all about the marketing. Being able to sell these things does show that they've got a good marketing department, and getting them into a movie just provides more evidence of that. Just a shame that they're using their powers for evil.
They have found an effect like that when sticking mice with needles, certain chemicals that helped in pain relief would appear at the insertion point. The Italian scientist(s) who conducted the study then made the non-sequitur conclusion that acupuncture works.\n\nIf you google for the key words "Italian acupuncture mice" you can probably find more about it.\n\nWas a long time ago so I might be misremembering some stuff.
If you inform the patient, Yes. It also seems that [placebo works even when you know it's placebo](http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/dec/22/placebo-effect-patients-sham-drug)\n\nIf you don't inform the patient I think there is a moral issue.\n\nReading some of the comments, I would also make the argument that using placebo as a control mechanism is useful, even if it exists a drug that has beaten the placebo. From what I remember through a friend, who works with making and trying out new drugs, the drug being tested has to work on twice as many people than placebo for being allowed to be sold as medicine. With a placebo success rate of 1/3 the drug under test has to work on 2/3 of the patients. Mind that this is in Norway and that the rules for what you are allowed to sell as medicine is quite strict.
Is it his ass?  Is it his ass?  I would just love for him to finally have discovered how much energy he's generating by talking out his ass.
Rods lol, I still don't know what to make of it.\n\nLens flare ? Crappy Camera ? High speed microbes (like in that cave basejumping video)?, Some kind of "optical illusion" like when you close your eyes?\n\nOr nothing at all.\n
Haha I love it, I'm gonna make a "pro-death" tee shirt =)
On a lonely planet spinning its way toward damnation amid the fear and despair of a broken human race, who is left to fight for all that is good and pure and gets you smashed for under a fiver? Yes, it's the surprising adventures of me, Sir Digby Chicken-Caesar!
maynotbethinking,\n\n>You've already made up your mind about me, that I am irrational and illogical\n\nyou can change my mind by NOT *being* irrational or illogical. Plenty of people here have given you ample opportunity to show something to support you claims. You only had to present some evidence. Instead you link to nonsense articles and you tube videos. None of which can be rationally regarded as evidence. (if you dont understand why then you need to a) learn some very basic science; b) read the articles).  \nYou force me and anyone else to conclude that you are indeed irrational, illogical and perhaps under 12years old.\n\nI saw for myself and it proved to be bullshit. \n\nYou linked to what you thought was the best evidence you had and it was all nonsense, utter bullshit. *Your links!* You didnt actually present any viable information. did you actually read any of the articles you linked to? are you able to understand why they are so poorly presented that they cannot be considered by anyone as evidence? \nand youtube videos? come on!    \n\nI invite you to develop your understanding and you can see for yourself\n\n>I am not here to sell you, or anyone else anything.\nI am not here to convert you to some religion.\n\n..you clearly are...that is exaclty what every comment of yours has been doing. And you admit that you dont have evidence when you say 'find out for yourself'. Thats saying 'i cant actually provide any evidence for this so i hope you can find it and stop calling me out on my lack of evidence in front of everyone'  \n\n>being a freethinker  \n\nyou are absolutely NOT a free thinker. Ypu have shown so far that you have failed to arm yourself with a basic understanding of science, or critical thinking or of rational thought. So you are a slave to what nonsense anyone throws at you. You apparently have no choice but to assume the youtube videos etc are true because you are enslaved by 'inability to think'. I am so haopy to have moved beyond that situation by becoming a real freethinker.\n\nso Maynot its very easy and I'll say it once and clearly: Please feel free to provide some actual evidence of you claims. Take as much time as you need and I invite you to learn some science too. Then you can see for yourself what is real. Then you can also become a freethinker. Like me.
I'm more upset with the group-think reddit has developed in the last few years.  People tend to downvote intelligent discourse and upvote conspiracy theories and anecdotal evidence.\n\nAs I stated in another comment, I probably should have made a self-post to fully explain what I was attempting to say.  My bad.
Since there's no one GM food, it would be ridiculous to claim that GM foods are safe. What is true is that the current GM foods we use have been extensively tested. No substantial harm has been demonstrated from any of them.\n\nHowever, anti-gmo activists often claim that the very technology is inherently dangerous, using spurious claims about uncontrollable thinks they can't ever point to when pressed to provide evidence.
Maybe just look up the comments on a submission from the last time TN did this, or Kansas, or Indiana, or Pennsylvania...?
Oh no, I believe it's a genuine thing that happened to me and I do believe it suggests something greater about the universe. I tried to rationalize it, but this relative wasn't sick, there were no warning signs, I hadn't spoken about her for a while or even heard from her in a while. The only thing in my rational brain is that I wish there had been *more* to it. I don't know, her telling me what the universe was all about or something, giving me the national lottery numbers. Telling me she could only communicate with me via this method. Just something I could walk away with "AHA!" that could prove it to others and myself. The only proof I have is that my mother can verify it was my dream that prompted the phonecall. She still asks me about it sometimes, even though she's an atheist, because even she can't explain it (she tends to try and make up those weird "sounds scientific but isn't" ways to explain it, like slips in time, worm holes, etc the kinds of things which require as big a leap of faith as "the dead can communicate with us" because no science has shown those things exist/work like that yet either).\n\nBut in my other experiences of sleep paralysis/sleep wakings there's nothing I'd deem paranormal, they seem to clearly be imagined things.\n\nThe heavy sensation was in my sleep, I don't believe I was really moving. But it felt very real. In regular sleep paralysis I can't move at all. I don't know how to explain it, but I knew this experience was in a dream, whereas in sleep paralysis I normally don't really know if the sounds I hear are real or imagined. \n\nI just don't know what it all means - is sleep paralysis some kind of conduit to something? I feel like if anything is, it's our dream world, where so many people seem to experience similar things I did while sleeping. But I do think it's interesting how sleep paralysis/dreaming was involved in this one experience of mine. I just wish I understood it. If people can speak from beyond the grave, why only like this? Why can't they explain things to us? Be more visible to us? Visit people in dreams all the time? The whole thing just raises more questions.
Thanks everyone. I am another of the comics on this show... \nalbeQQ: we would love to got to NC!  Being personally unfamiliar with the area we would certainly need some help with finding the right venue and promoting if you can give some suggestions!  \nSemilogical: seriously that sounds like a really great idea. we would definitely come out and do our show there and could help you get some speakers/presenters if you ever do it and need any help!\n
Bah... more likely he can't be bothered wasting his time.
Because there is no testable evidence.
> scarification, tattooing, piercing, teeth filing\n\nAll things that, like circumcision, you can elect to do as an adult. If you want to slice yourself up, fine. If you want to slice your kid up without a pressing medical reason to do so, then you shouldn't be allowed near your kid until you have your brain fixed.
From your link...\n\n>Chapter 6: Polygamy and the Nature of Men\n\n>We are designed for a system of monogamy plagued by adultery. Polygamy flourishes where it is allowed [is this contradictory?]. 3/4 of tribal cultures are polygamous. Powerful men have always had more than one mate, though usually only one legitimate wife who produces the heirs. Males are usually the seducer, women the seduced (exception: jacana, phalarope).\n\n*addendum*\n\nIt says that women do cheat, but implies they do this less.
Never underestimate people's imaginations.
I can remember a dream from when I was 4-5. It involved us going out to the desert and taking family pictures. I remember seeing from the ceiling of the van, looking down at all of us, at me. Then also being behind the person taking the picture, looking at my whole family.\n\nExcept this really happened. We have one of the pictures of me that day hanging up in the hall, and I have seen the others. Its odd that I remember it being dream like and from 3rd person.
This is not for real.  It is an obvious joke, sarcastically explaining what people like politicians, religious zealots, and anyone else who wanted to disprove a claim for other than scrupulous reasons would do.  The author didn't take it seriously, nor should you.  It was a mildly entertaining read though, and it is fairly accurate for the purpose it fallaciously pretends to want to accomplish.  Not bad, as it does shed some light on some of the tactics used by the nefarious and cognitively dissonant.  And that should help someone wanting to be sincerely skeptical, as they have an easier time recognizing this sort of thing.  It gives you something to prepare for when arguing with someone who might use these fallacious techniques.
rather sensationalist title then no?  \n|Claw games have nothing to do with skill.
To me, that's what SGU lacks. I am a skeptic and an atheist, but it doesn't mean my heart is made of stone.
Actually the narrative goes like this: \n\n1) The FDA is an evil organization that works at the behest of Big Pharma™ to keep sick people sick and continue to sell drugs.  \n2) If the FDA were allowed to regulate [enter pet woo therapy here], it would regulate it out of existence.  \n3) The noble companies and organizations that support [my pet woo] would never let that happen.  Therefore, they fight constantly to keep [my pet woo] classified as non-medical food (or whatever).   \n\nThe idea that it isn't regulated as medicine because the pharmaceutical companies and the FDA are too busy dealing with reality on a day-to-day is not ever entertained.
Hindsight is 20/20.  So looking back at something and saying "see what he did there with his hand?  That indicates that he was lying.  Forget the fact that we already know he was lying, and it wasn't discovered through body language interpretation."\n\nSure there might be something to body language, but how many possible expressions can humans display and perceive with their body?  Does everyone display the same expressions.  Does everyone perceive those expressions the same?
Its actually a rosary, i had it for a long time. It broke at my old house (which also had strange things going on but that is an other story) it was a gift so i keep it. I wear one just like it (not broken) at all times.
I'd respect your statement a lot more if you took out ["a real scholar"](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman) and just said there are known flaws in self-reported data.
It's stuff like this that will ultimately bring about the dissolution of the United States of America. Good.
BUT THEN WHO WAS LEGO?
Mmmmm.....   You had me at cookies of the damned.
The mention of GEIPAN in r/UFOs is worthy of praise alone.
Mythical endorsing mythical? Sounds fitting. Actually I hope they become associated with each other. Hopefully it will discourage anyone seriously considering buying one for nonexistent benefits. Would your mom buy one because Iron Man uses it?\n\nI don't really care if people buy jewelry because they think it's pretty though I would prefer it not be from a company like this.
i will tomorrow
Bowling pins are designed to tip over easily. I want to believe but I didnt find this video very convincing.
What are you disappointed by?
Respected physicist Michio Kaku disagrees with you.\n\nhttp://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2010/09/from-the-x-files-dept-physicist-michio-kaku-ufos-are-real.html
Oh man, I did this too. But I didn't know until like a week later. But I think squirting liquid up your nose is half the battle of a stuffed nose.
I didn't follow any of the links in the posted story, so I wasn't aware of this.  Thanks for the additional info.\n\nThat they are trying to get the convictions overturned show just how clueless they really are about what they did.\n\nSMH.
skepticism implies factual arguments being used, cynicism does not.
OK, your fucking with us. Is that a child or a doll?
That sounds awesome. Re-inform reddit when you do this, I'd love to help any way I could.
He has a convenient set of pipes along the ceiling that would make it pretty simple to rig up with some line.  A few criss cross lines and things don't have to move in just a linear manner.\n\nAnd the backwards sound effects... common.
I noticed some in a dodge commercial yesterday and some other car ad. Are you noticing this?
I agree, it's just that many people cuddle under blankets with a fever and that traps heat. I'm just afraid that if she's so skeptical of medical science she may do things that actually exacerbate a fever or flu.
not implausible.  no more so than bomb-sniffing bees
That... is an out of focus speck. Is that not plainly obvious...?
You are saying there's only one primary source for autism and ethylmercury?  No shit.\n\nWhat I'm saying is that your reading of the primary source may be novel, but not interesting or useful.  Your reading of a primary source is simply your reading.  It's what you think; and, nobody gives a fuck what you think.\n\nIf you want to debate this, we have to debate what secondary sources say about the primary source.  That's because secondary sources are written by a qualified and independent third party.  I don't trust you to interpret the primary source; you just learned the difference between primary sources and secondary sources.\n\n[Here's a secondary source](http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/press/042105.html) that says, "few health effects data exist for ethylmercury."  Do you agree or disagree?  Lets debate that!  Your buddy disagreed with that, but he also did not know the difference between primary and secondary sources.
/r/luciddreaming
"The person I'm arguing with cited a source! Better pretend I didn't see it."
watch the whole video please, this is adressed in the video\n
Check out the "about the man" page for some [obvious Photoshop](http://www.miraclemineral.org/about-jim-humble/).  Or enjoy the [insane ramblings of this interview](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGjUp1zoov8) where he claims to have set up atomic bomb and ICBM tests as well as (if I recall) mentioning a space station on the back side of the moon.\n\nThis, of course, says nothing about the cure.  But it is worthy to note that the man appears to be a pathological liar, so his claims should hold little if any water (or bleach, for that matter).\n\nYou should [search for MMS along with Rhys Morgan](https://www.google.com/search?q=MMS+rhys+morgan), a young UK skeptic who found MMS being pushed on a Crohn's disease forum, investigated it, made noise, and got the Food Standards Agency to warn everyone about it.  The kid even has a [Wikipedia page](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhys_Morgan).
Sorry, why is that?
"Father of GM food"? Citation needed? Father of the green revolution, sure, but that's not the same as father of GM food (which he did support as a way to increase yields).\n\n
If you have dry air this could very easily be sparks from static electricity. Blankets rubbing together, a pillow slipping off the couch, that sort of thing.
This has happened a few times to me. A couple of times the dreams were so odd that I wrote them down, and a few days later the event occurred. Other times I have related the dream verbally to others before the events occur. It has only happened about five times in my entire life.
Well it took me two years to get my service records changed to the default CofE to atheist, had to have an interview with the O.C. Squadron and the (Christian) padre.  Also I was made to feel like an outcast for exercising my choice when it came to church parade (mandatory church attendance unless not of the Christian faith.)  Attendees wore their normal uniform and I had to wear my parade dress and stand around for an hour for no reason.\n\nThis was in the British Army, around about '95 or so.
Legitimate explanation: You can't trust everything you see on the Internet.\n\n- Posted at 14:32, January 7th, 2013
Sorry, man r/trees probably not the place to go to get questions of a scientific nature answered. I already switched it to askscience. Yes, nicotine patches are designed so that they can be absorbed by the skin as well as  topical antihistamines but lotion usually is made to go no deeper than a few layers of skin. \n\nDidn't think there was any legitamacy to caffinated soap since the skin is a membrane designed to keep things out of us not absorbed. Hey, I could be wrong though.
You wouldn't by any chance mean [this documentary?](http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2011/11/burzynski_the_movie_subtle_its_not.php)
If the calories out part of their dietary equation is the same (or very similar to modern humans), then the only thing that can be different is their calories in.  Something is causing modern society to eat far too many calories.\n\nAn interesting question that I would love to see definitively answered, although I think it might be near impossible to prove:  Why do many people suffer from malfunctioning appetite?  \n\nI could eat my fill of "normal" commercially prepared foods or homemade foods and gain weight as long as I'm including breads and flour products, but as soon as I swapped to dropped the bread, starches, and flour I began losing weight even if I ate to what I thought was excess (but was actually calorically very reasonable) every meal.
I've ignored several "repost this in 30 seconds" texts, and unfortunately, I've died twice.
I would assume so if lights hit it right.  You can see the moon during the day sometimes
It mentions in the article that the enzyme flavanol is thought to keep infection from clinging to the tract wall.  I don't, however, know where that idea is from...
again, bullshit
>Doreen, who holds B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees in counseling psychology\n\nFacepalm.
Agreed, in fact some people argue that it's *the* most important element in therapy (I've a lecturer who estimates it's about 70-80%), although I'm not sure I've heard of anything to suggest that psychoanalytic perspectives create better relationships than any other approaches. That's is the kind of thing I worry about though. The relationship is so important that it's possible that the psychoanalysis did nothing at all, in the same way that placebos' power can be strong enough that aromatherapy seems effective without scrutiny. As for your "bullshit, uninformed answer", I think there is something to that indeed.
A spokesperson from the Transportation Security Administration released a statement today saying: 'After further analysis of the suspicious substance we have determined the source to be Americanized Bees, yes ladies and gentlemen; Killer Bees, bees that would deprive us of life and liberty, whose fanatical determination is only matched by their cunning tactics at subverting our security measures.  But, thankfully, due to the ever watchful eye of the TSA, the American people can sleep peacefully in their beds tonight, yes, safe and secure in the knowledge that we alone, alone on the front lines of terrorism are there to protect you from these insurgent bees. However, we cannot rest on our laurels, we still have many exhaustive tests to conduct; will have updates as soon as the toast is done.'
I'm glad skeptic weighted in on this, I voted no, despite many of my peers urging a yes from everyone. I came to a no vote with doing a ton of research -- I found not only is GMO safe, the testing they do on the crops are insane -- more testing than, say, what the meat industry does to test for disease.\n\nAn article called GMO "the climate denial of the left". I think I agree. And this article states it bluntly; it's hatred for a multinational. Sure, Monsanto is shitty. But these scientists -- they work hard. And Monsanto, at the end of the day, is still a company. They aren't going to risk putting out a crop that has an allergen and lose a ton of business. The fact is GMOs are safe and the crops Monsanto provides seeds for thrive -- and the yes voters just infurating, somehow.\n\nBetter idea: this movement has legs. Start a regulatory commission that can test if something is GMO-free, everyone kick in a few sheckles to pay for this non-profit. Your organic grocier will eat up this label. And it doesn't depend on the government regulating it.\n\nIt's so perfect it already exists.
It really makes you think. Creatures like [the rake](http://creepypasta.wikia.com/wiki/The_Rake) and [the grinning man](http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2011/05/the-grinning-man-alien-apparition-or-mib/) have been reported time and time again by many different people. I think we can safely assume that not all of them are hoaxes but then that brings up another question what are these things?
He can still get his wish.  Bury him in his ghillie suit and let him freak out some archaeologist 500 years from now.\n
They think I am an asshole just for saying *anything*, usually. Though I don't believe a non-committal shrug communicates quite enough skepticism for me. I am getting tired of being the "argumentative know it all" though. \n\nI swear I don't try to come across that way but I suppose when you try to "teach" adults things they get pretty insulted. Well, I don't - but these people do. : /
No shit, they didn't even draw the fish to look enough like kittens, how the fuck am I supposed to anthropamorphize this shit?
Of course
I used to repair books for a library, and I remember one had a title along the lines of "Learn how to see auras in hours!" or something like that.\n\nI flipped through it, and it suggested placing the subject against a plain, light colored wall, and squinting until you saw the aura. If you wore corrective lenses, it would help to remove them.\n\nAmazing! =P
Educating people about snake oil and false scientific claims is central to r/skeptic.
Funny you should mention that... \n\nThere's a place here that is some monastery or something, for Buddhists practicing the martial arts. They live on premises and eat, train, practice all day. One night hubby was desperate to use the bathroom so we stopped there since there was nothing else around. It was about 11 pm and we were in the foyer. He did all the talking, as he asked politely to use the bathroom -- I said nothing. \n\nNext thing we know, the head guy (I don't know what you'd call him?) comes sweeping down the stairs... locking eye contact with me.... and comes straight to me. He doesn't speak any English, so the other people translate, as his eyes never leave me. The energy was palpable. It was just so bizarre, to get singled out. They say, "He says he felt an energy and came down to see you. And that the swords have chosen you, and he would like to give you a personal demonstration. This is quite an honor. Please, follow... "  You could tell by the looks on their faces that this was highly unusual... \n\nSo they take us into the practice room and the Master or whatever he is gives us a private demonstration for about an hour... at 11 pm at night... I am thinking, "wow this is cool, but they probably just want to make us sign up for expensive lessons or something" but this guy had no interest in my husband... just me. He wanted me to quit my job and join them. No money required, just commitment to the discipline and training. \n\nI declined...but I keep thinking about it.... it is up there with one of the weirdest moments in my life. \n
So you're a libertarian? I don't want to preach, but do you know what liability means? If a company knows that the courts WILL hold them responsible for a harmful product then they will not take the risk of putting it on the market. Also, why do you care if people waste their money on medicine you consider a rip off. They're not forcing you to buy it, whereas with the monopoly on health care, big corporations kill off competition and force you to buy their products without any way of compensating you for defective or damaging treatment.
Bye.
>I added the actually helping part because, in my experience, when I am friendly and helpful to a request like that it opens the door to more meaningful discussion. Instead of the usual line of "I don't want to argue about my beliefs," I will often get "I believe this because blah blah blah." If I then go on to explain why I believe that they are wrong, they might actually reconsider, and if they don't they at least are still willing to talk to me about it later.\n\nI see what you mean and I agree it's the right way to do  it. However, i'm pretty sure that thread wasn't the place for an in-depth discussion.\n\n\nI appreciate your story and I see how patience and actual complete explanation is the right way to educate people, change their opinions, etc. I am happy that you've reached a more scientific mindset, it's always good news :)\n\nNevertheless, I still believe some reaction to BS-claims is better than indifference. Then much better is, of course, actual patient explanation. \n\nAlso, there seems to be a confusion between homeopathy and herbal medicine in your post. Using herbs effectively excludes the concept of homeopathy.
I'm going to go with two small drops of water on the lens or something like that. The two objects and their relative positioning are too similar.
[Related news item](http://brainerddispatch.com/news/2011-06-10/18-month-old-crushed-chiropractors-office).
I have a truly amazing DSLR. But unless I had a $5000 lens, and happened to have that lens on a tripod, AND the UFO was bright enough, but not too bright, for the auto-focus to catch it, you might get your "amazing" photo.\n\nTake an "amazing" picture of an airliner at cruise at dusk or at night and get back to me about how UFO pictured are crap.
Thanks for the insight! Do you have a recommendation on what kind of voice recorder to use?
manufactured slaves.
Yea I get that about your mom.  My mom got cancer and died after chemo and radiation. All her choice of how she wanted to deal with it. I got cancer after she had died and decided to go at it in a different way.  So I did diet, acupuncture, herbs and other natural options, diet being a big one. I had been told I had 6 months and yet it went into remission and it is now about 15 years later. To be honest I think healing is a mystery. One I think you have to belief that what you are doing will help. Really all I am saying is I get your frustration. I just don't think there is one answer and it all works for everyone. Good luck to your mom and to you.
I know just what you mean. You missed out two apostrophes.
This could easily be a blimp. Just sayin'. It doesn't do anything to lead one to believe otherwise.
Ya this is really good!
Mysterious Universe?
There is a complete list (and I mean COMPLETE) here.\nhttp://skeptools.wordpress.com/2012/04/10/how-many-skeptic-podcasts-are-there-please-help-me-find-them-all/\n\nBTW, Righteous Indignation is, sadly, no more. But the newest is Consequence by the JREF. \n\nYou can get a lot of info by browsing old episodes of podcasts as well, look for those with topics you like.\n\nTwo I NEVER miss as soon as they come out: Skeptics with a K and Monster Talk.
Shortcut for those that want to bookmark the [Quackwatch website](http://www.quackwatch.org/).
oh come on. When did fun become a bad thing :)
I will take the absence of any links to citations as further proof that you are simply another conspiracy nut. Usually we come here to escape the nutjobs but one of you drops by occasionally. So: nice to see you and have fun with your tin foil hats.
But...he's *human*. Beliefs and values are the norm for us...or did the alien overlord not send you that memo?
The guy my wife cheated on me with lived in a haunted apartment but it was much weirder than that. Basically unusual shadows, extreme hot/cold pockets in rooms and even on walls. He and his roommates saw a "orb of light" in the main bedroom which kind of bounced around (never touching anything) and then went ultra fast at them then immediately away and through the wall leaving a glowing dot on the wall for 5 minutes (which was extremely hot apparently).\n\nThe orb thing sounds like ball lightning but indoors, no thunderstorm, otherwise quiet night... and no scorch where it hit the wall.\n\nOf course there was the usual shadows, noises, and things flickering, all of which go with apartments of that age.\n\nUnrelated to that, there was a double murder in a nearby apartment when my wife and I still lived in our apartment. We have some furniture from the murder scene (post release of course). Also we have plates, silverware, and some other unclaimed, released shit belonging to the murderer and the girl who survived the unfortunate incident. We opted against the chair with the blood spot though. It may or may not have been a chair someone died in.
She is speaking in the hypothetical, clearly.  At no point is she saying ET exists, just that the phenomena (should it prove to be ET and not just unidentified) would need a global coordinated response.
Can I just say that I am a woman, and in my heart I have always been a skeptic/atheist in my heart, since I was young. However, I would like to thank all of you for making sure I will never be apart of the larger skeptical community.
Isn't this what scientologists believe?
For sure, but the people performing these procedures in the West know what they're doing too. They aren't just some whack jobs with knives. Despite not doing it in a hospital, these procedures still take things like hygiene and safety very very seriously. It sounds like you think that these are mostly done by amateurs with no real understanding.
Haha! You do realize this *is* a conspiracy  ...I'm skeptical of your skepticism
Exactly my thoughts. If this is indeed an extremely delicate and secret subject, why would all these ex-military officials come out and say this stuff without consequences? \n\nI just want to see something for myself. I'm waiting.
But then you have the Mursi lip extensions, the Neck rings in Africa and Asia and the ear stretching in Africa, Eurasia and some parts of the Americas. \nSelf transformation seems to be an old custom.
I have never really used one, but I have friends who have and they are bad news. Indeed they work, but they can definitely open portals into your home. I honestly wouldn't suggest it, just be careful. :)
For a long time I just assumed chriopractors were the experts in this area because I didn't know who else would be. Now I know better. FYI to all: if you actually have problems with your muscoskeltetal system the type of doctor that would be able to help you is an orthopedist.
I have seen them several times in my life.  \n\nFirst time i saw one I had sleep paralysis and it was standing there over me.  When I awoke fear took me over I started yelling at it to go way.  It leaned down to look at me and I got the impression that it did not want to scare me.  It then moved around behind my head which freaked me out even more since it was now out of sight.  My paralysis broke and I jumped up and went through the house looking for it and found nothing.  There were some other odd things that happened in my earlier days, but I don't think they are worth mentioning in this contexts.  \n\nA few times after that I literately stumbled onto them in the woods.  Their actions indicated I took them by surprise and they quickly faded into the ground or into some flora.  One time my shepherd actually tried to attack/get one.  That was probably the single most unique experience I ever had.  Every time I saw one like this I froze and went into a super-observation mode and watched them closely out of fear and curiosity.  \n\nOne time at college I woke and I saw one that quickly moved behind my head as soon as I opened my eyes.  I got the impression that this was the same one I woke and found standing over me before (only a feeling, no way of knowing for sure). With out moving I said, "If you are not here to hurt me would you give me your hand" (or something like that).  I saw a dark hand reach around on my left side just below my shoulder.  I rolled over slightly and reached for it with my right hand and as soon as I felt the touch of the hand it was gone.\n\nI haven't seen them for a few year now, but I think I will eventually again at a certain point in my life; thats just a feeling I get and nothing more.  I never saw eyes on the ones I saw and I never felt anything negative from them either.  My father has indicated to me more than once he had seen things as well, but hasn't ever wanted to go into detail.\n\nNowadays, I almost always sleep with a light on somewhere, because I get the feeling something may happen.  That may seem childish, but I actually had an experience in pitch blackness only a few months ago.  I have no way of knowing if that experience is in away related to the shadow people I have seen.  I also have a daughter now, so I am not so thrilled about the possibility of exploring the unknown right now.\n
Noted.  My memory of college Latin has failed me once again. :)
TL;DR: The study is flawed, but not without value.  It includes lots of speculation which is not backed up by hard evidence.  The study was performed on mice.  Due to their size, an acupuncture needle inserted into a mouse at the "Zusanli point" will always be very close (within a few mm) of the sciatic nerve.  The relative size of the needle compared to the nerve will also result in a more pronounced effect.  When scaled up to humans, the needle is comparatively far smaller and further away.  It is unlikely to have the same effect.
Yep. Legally, tomatoes are vegetables (for limited purposes relating directly to import/export duties). This does not mean they are biologically vegetables.
When I was a kid I had an uncomfortable feeling whenever I looked at the dark at the door. So I kind of wish to sleep in a closed white room where every door is closed so I can have a better control when a situation arises (like a monster jumping out of the dark). If a monster was to come at me, my kiddo mind convinced me that it must get through the door. During that period, I would have enough time to set up my defense and ready to fight to death with it. I just hate being attacked unprepared. I need to be in control of the situation.\n\nAnd that became a habit to this day.
Agreed.
Psychic who had bad tip wants us to count her hits and ignore her misses just as she does.
Ask for forensic evidence.  Gives you deceptive rhetoric.\n\nYou have much to learn, young padawan.\n\n\n- Treblinka: [why the gas chambers are a myth](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GKC2NYZ1glc)
Those are, most assuredly, satellites.  Satellites can appear to flash, slowly or quickly, taking a straight path through the night sky and can sometimes appear to vanish completely the closer they get to the horizon.
>Sadly, this sort of thing is addressed on a case by case basis in most jurisdictions.\n\nI agree.  We're lucky in our community that we have a very vocal disability rights movement, and we've worked very hard to educate both prosecutors and defense lawyers, as well as police.  I know many people throughout North America and Europe who are working to develop the same kind of understanding in our police/judicial systems (when you talk about non-verbal people, in N. America one of the huge problems is that a non-verbal person may not be able to communicate adequately with law enforcement, which can easily lead to tasering/shooting, let alone not being able to speak up for themselves). \n\nThis is the first case in a while that I've seen where FC was considered to be an acceptable means of communication in a judicial setting.  It reminds me a lot of the [day care pedophilia witch hunts in the 80s](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_care_sex_abuse_hysteria), in which 'investigators' found exactly the 'proof' that they were looking for from non-verbal 'victims'.  \n\nIt is a tragedy, and a travesty, and will likely make things more difficult for non-verbal victims who can 'speak' for themselves through scientifically valid alternative communication.  That appalls me as a parent- my son is a prime target for abuse in some ways- he lives in a group home due to his extreme self-injury and aggression, and is non-verbal.  The only real protection that he has against abuse (other than his size, and the fact that anyone who chooses to wave something disconcerting in his direction is going to get it bitten off) is that he is able to communicate using a bit of sign language, and a communication device.  Hopefully enough information and activism will help to educate enough communities that people who are most at risk will have a way to make themselves heard in court if necessary.  We are making progress, but it's much too slow.
>Dude it's that Big Science. That centralised organisation that produces all the science.\n\nThat "centralised organisation" you're talking about is us! Anybody can challenge the findings of science. Anybody. It's not some smoky back-room stuff. All of the journals and peer reviews are there for the reading. Science is not a corporation.\n\n>I had some science hidden in a box under my bed and they fucking came in detector vans and shot my fucking dog.\n\nI don't know what this means or what you mean.\n\n>A conspiracy theory is hard to unconvince someone of because you're either part of it or simply "too blind to see it". Circular thinking.\n\n[Okay](http://xkcd.com/258/).
It seems the majority of references to interdimensional beings have alluded to the idea that they have something to do with crop circles. I just think that without more evidence it's hard to make that leap.
Ya chomsky is a communist and stole the term Libertarian.  To be fair Libertarians stole the term Anarchists so, fair is fair.
Yup! Your body evolved in concordance with zeitgeber stimuli. Disturbed/irregular sleep is associated with all sorts of negative clinical outcomes. The HGH/cortisol curve is awesome. Makes sense too. Cort mobilizes energy stores, and is pumped into your system about an hour before "wakeup" if you're on a normal schedule.
Never mind, here's a better one with more likes.\n\nhttp://www.facebook.com/pages/Stop-the-Burzynski-Clinic/245153425547820?sk=wall
Total BS! All of these analyses are classic Astrological Barnum statements: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnum_effect
I actually think Greer is genuinely unwell, psychologically. This is difficult to prove of course, so I won't try, but I've seen him in enough interviews to know my instinct tells me something is up with him. I'm no doctor, (and ironically he is, or at least he says he is - not that it matters if it's true or not) but my gut tells me from his mannerisms, hand-gestures, forced-intelectualized word grouping and his very strange smile, it says to me he may be a schizophrenic - or something. If UFO's are real he only gives sceptics large straws to grasp.\n\nI do not think he's a con man or a charlatan. I find the whole disclosure project bitter-sweet, because he's involved.
Elementary! \n\nI have no idea if that works in context with your comment, but I had to say it really.
> I'm sure you realize that your experience can't be extrapolated to others, and based on research your experience is atypical (only 36% of people retested 9 months later have the same type).\n\nI realize the limits of personal experience. I have not read the PDF you linked yet. I'll be interested to see how they got their findings. At place I worked many years ago we found a free MBTI and almost everyone took it for fun. about 1/4 of the people had taken it in the past and all of them reported getting the same result. That's not a scientific study, but it still makes me wonder how the numbers you quote can be so different.\n\n> You can say you *think* that's the case, however, the only way we can know with any certainty is through objective methodology.\n\nAgreed. I've seen some objective studies in the past, but the goals of the studies were, of course, subjective. Doing a good experiment on a strawman only tells you so much.\n\n> How much of what psychologists have said about the MBTI have you seen\n\nOnly a little. I didn't pursue it because it was only finding things I already thought were true: MBTI is not a scientific psychological profile. That's the big strawman as far as I'm concerned. This changing of types you mention is totally new to me.\n\nI will read that pdf some time soon.
It isn't always the case that you can.  Some people simply want to be deluded.\n\nThat being said, the best approach is probably to find examples of times that someone (preferably the person you're trying to convince) was clearly fooled by their senses.  The important thing is to establish common ground with someone first, and then take small logical steps from there to the point you're trying to make.  If someone is willing to be persuaded, that will generally persuade them.
>These are called "miracles"\n\nNo, it's called gullibility.
Solar output is 4 MT/s, of which Earth intercepts 2 kg/s flux (about two Tsar Bombas going off per second) or 120 PW. Humanity will need some 100 TW by 2050 (some say ~45 TW, but they're not factoring in additional energy use for food production in a degraded ecosystem and dilute resource enrichment, so 100 TW is a safer bet).\n\nThat much solar will have further impact on HANPP http://www.eoearth.org/article/Global_human_appropriation_of_net_primary_production_%28HANPP%29 so you will need start to develop capacities to tap extraterrestrial flux by way of using solar power satellites made from lunar material.\n\n
I think you mean before Reddit entered its 'eternal september.' Really though, communities before that stage are plentiful. Most of them are poorly quality or niche and wont get beyond their humble beginings. The next 'big thing' is protecting the small community from the constant influx of new users, which reddit has as good a chance as any at doing.
*magnificent
When there's little divot missing from your windshield.  Often caused by pebbles or other small debris kicked up by trucks.
Uhh, I thought that Monckton was Sacha Baron Cohen's latest character, and wasn't to be taken seriously?\n\n*Addendum*\n\nOkay, turns out that isn't true.
not once did I state that I believe everyone is crazy, your perception on what a psychiatrist is and does must be really skewed.\n\nSo to recap this situation: You over(and miss)-interpreted my comment, formed false conclusions, upon these conclusions you found it necessary to insult me on two separate occasions. \n\nCongratulations,\n\nYou are a grade A human being!
Thank you.  I appreciate your support even if no one else agrees.  (Delayed response:  I just got internet back after moving.)
>I see a lot of comments on this subreddit that makes me think a lot of /r/skeptic simply believes whatever the scientific community currently agrees is truth\n\nYou have no idea how the scientific method works, do you?
I am interested. What is the link?
http://lunar.gsfc.nasa.gov/\nPlenty of very high res images here.
If the discussion with sexists and their apologizers were in danger of being silenced, I'd agree with you. But it's not. They're everywhere online. Having a few forums where they don't steamroll every discussion is a good thing. Feminists (and atheists for that matter) aren't isolating themselves, they're creating safe spaces.\n\nI'm not saying /r/skepticism should be a safe space. That's of course up to you, although I'm quite sure you'd be saying something different if reddit had the same reaction to skepticism as it does to feminism. People don't hunt you down and harass you for saying homeopathy is bunk. So as skeptics we're talking from a privileged position.\n\nMy experience with talking sexism to atheists and skeptics isn't all that different from anyone else. Ideally being rational in one area would mean you're rational in another, but that's often not the case. Social sciences also work differently than natural sciences, and are easier to dismiss as opinion and not knowledge.\n\nI think you might be right about how these issues have divided people unnecessarily, but just to an extent. I think it has also revealed a truly ugly side of our communities.\n\nAs for emotional responses, some of the issues here are emotional or subjective in nature. I've heard people dismiss fear of sexual violence by quoting rape statistics at women. That's not being logical, that's being an insensitive ass. Thunderfoot became one of those when he wondered if there really was any harassment at conventions, because *he* had never seen any. Maybe we could do better with cooler heads, but at the same time these issues require passion to care about. They come from traumatic experiences that make people emotional. People also tend to react differently to strong emotion in women than in men.\n\nI respect your views on bans in this subreddit. I just used it as an example and it turned out to be inapplicable. There's plenty of other examples to back up my point though.
My friend's dad (we'll call him Bob). Bob was sleeping one night, and had a crazy nightmare. I only got a description from My friend of the dream, so I don't know how much of it is accurate, but it consisted of a shadow covering his house, and being escorted out of the house by some wierd "aliens".\n\nMy friend woke up sweating. He had a dream that something was going on with his dad. He ran into his parents rooms to see that he was okay. Bob woke up as soon as he came rushing in the room, and asked my friend what was wrong. He told him he had a wierd dream, and Bob explained his dream he was having. They thought it was wierd, but went back to bed.\n\nThe next day, they sit down for breakfast, and Bob notices a pain in his arm. Right in the center of his forearm, were three cauterized dots, that formed a perfect triangle. At the center of these three dots, he noticed a small bump. He went to the doctor and had it removed. It was a small pill like piece of metal. He still has the pill, and a scar.\n\n\nStory 2:\n\nMy friend (we'll call him Tom). Tom and his parents were looking for a house to buy. They found one out in a pretty rural town. They were taking a look through the house, and absolutely loved it. They went downstairs to check out the basement. Tom's mom immediately says "I don't like it down here", But they continue to check out the basement. They go into the office room, and Tom's mom bursts into a sobbing mess, and runs upstairs screaming, and crying. She didn't know what was wrong, or what came over her. When she got upstairs, she was fine. They ended up getting the house, despite this. They own a dog. The dog refused to go into the basement. Nothing wierd about that. I don't know a dog that likes basements. It would sit at the top of the steps and bark down at the empty basement. Stop. Go lay down. And after a little while, go back and bark. Same time. Everyday. It still does to this day, if you leave it in the living room, where the door is. Tom noticed when he was down there, he'd have cold chills (it's a basement, so again, nothing wierd about that). The air felt dense everytime he went near the office room. And there was a closet in there. He opened that closet one day, and just felt reeeeeaally strange. It felt like something ran past him. He swore to me he heard someone screaming. They talked to neighbors about it.\n\nHere's the story behind their house. It was built on top of a burned down house. I don't know the full story, but the young boy of the family (I believe he was 8-10) and their family dog were trapped downstairs when the fire started. The boy and the dog hid inside the closet in the office room. They, unfortunately, didn't make it.\n\nThe dog still barks down at the basement, Tom's mom refuses to go down there, and Tom still gets chills when he goes down there. They've lived there for like 10 years now.\n\nBoth stories are true (at least from what they've told me). I've witnessed the dog's periodic barking, and seen the metalic pill, and scars. It could just be because I heard the story and am paranoid, but the air in that basement is so dense, you'd need a knife to get through it. I haven't gone more than a few steps down.
Search for "U.S. Department of Internet Security Terrorism Task Force" and you'll get nothing but references to disclose.tv.\n\nThe organizations mentioned don't exist.
"The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him." - Master Tolstoy. \n\nI tried explaining my dysthymia to several peoples. Some cut me right from the beginning with "Stop this bullshit, you are fine!" other listen somewhat carefully and still ask me to snap out of it. \n
Being arbitrarily obstinate about the sciencyness of a particular treatment is not a valuable skeptical attribute.
I'm hearing something about tv, yes the spirits are telling me. It's British, no maybe Australian... Is it Australian?  I hear something with an accent. Is there a program where they talk with an accent?  Yes, good...  tell me about this accent.   Did your brother, no mother, no father watch a program where they talked with an accent?  Yes, who?  Yes, your cousin, that's what I heard, it was your cousin.
I know right, thats not how arguments work, with facts and data to back it up! That's the type of science straight from the pits of hell!
My thoughts went [here](http://i.imgur.com/ATvUo.jpg) instantly when I saw that.
Hey look it has skepticism in the title.  Must be bunk, eh?  Seriously, why is this posted here?
No, because gravity isn't a science and there is all sorts of evidence that explains gravity.\n\nI didn't claim that music therapy is a pseudoscience, what I merely stated is that if someone is touting the efficacy of a therapy system that has no scientific proof, they are promoting a pseudoscience.
I made a comment on an Alex Jones video on Youtube (he was saying that the British royal family sacrifices and eats toddlers in a Satanic ritual to gain their powers), something along the lines of 'this is fucking stupid', and within a couple of hours I had received not only the typical Jesus blast and death threats, but this as well "You are a troll. You're trying to sow disinfo as you're probably in govt / a person who likes harming innocents".\n\nI replied with "I don't know whether to laugh, or to go ritualistically eat a toddler to gain the power to curse you..."
any major crop circles recently in the US?  The fact that these are all in the UK seems to take credibility away from them
> The true reason that we have herbivore-like characteristics\n\nI'm under the impression that our primate ancestors, like modern apes, are overwhelmingly herbivores.
Human thought and activity pumps out a lot of energy into the local environment and it interferes with other forms of energy.  Something like 'ghost hunting' or occult rituals require you to be very sensitive to minor fluctuations in the energy around you so it's best to undertake such activities while the population is at it's least active (1am - 5am).
But then we have [this](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_13_Ghosts_of_Scooby-Doo).
Had a dream the other night where I was explaining what this box was to someone. No scary dreams or shadowy figures in the corner of my eyes yet.
I make a joke about somebody's mother and they apologize to me. Livin that gooood life.
But they're in NJ and there are lots of creepy places there you can go and just scare the crap out of yourself for fun.  Like The Pine Barrens.
He's so sure of his arguments that he doesn't have a place for you to comment and refute his uppity ass anywhere on his obnoxious drop-down menu of a web site.
Here's a tip . . .don't watch TV. It's not like they owe you something.
> Mr. Douglas said he could not wait until Sunday — “I’m going to show up at her house so we can have that conversation that’s been years in coming.”\n\nWish I could be a fly on the wall for that one.
I am equally unsettled by the number of anti-vaxers, Moon landing conspiracy crackpots , Homeopathy , Psychics , People who don't believe in evolution and a number of other things and quite often people who fall into one fall into the others. \n
If you honestly believe that the evidence at hand for intelligently controlled objects which cannot be explained as human constructions is on par with evidence for God, then you either haven't looked the UFO evidence, or you are closing yourself off from thinking this through properly. You also seem to be using the terms "proof" and "evidence" interchangeably, when they refer to quite different things.\n\nYou're being very selective in your response to the points I've made in favour of the ET hypothesis, and now you're back on the pink flying elephants again. How do you think Lieutenant General Nathan Twining of the Air Materiel Command, who reported in 1947 that ["the phenomenon is real and not something visionary or fictitious"](http://www.brycezabel.com/files/twiningmemo1947-afterdisclosure.pdf) would respond to the claim that it's "just like pink flying elephants" or "God"?\n\nI really think you need to have a closer look at what's going on with UFOs. The evidence for some form of nonhuman intelligence is overwhelming. The primary obstacles to widespread acknowledgement of this are ignorance of the evidence, and dismissal based on prejudicial thinking.
i usually like to see more than one photo. you would have to think if this was real there would be about 50 photos, i know i'd be excited as hell if i saw this **CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-OMG-CLICK-omgggg-CLICK** so mannnyy prooofs\n
I have friend who has two brothers that are chiropractors, they laugh at how stupid their patients are. They admit in private company that it's all a scam.
I wouldn't say credibility has flown out the window.  It still had very much to do with astronomers, just on the the amateur type.  The event is still very much real.
huh. The oldest reference in Hinduism to pure consciousness is the Mandukya Upanishad, where it is referred to as ["turiya"](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turiya) or "fourth" [state of consciousness]: "turiya (or caturiya, chaturtha) is the experience of pure consciousness. It is the background that underlies and transcends the three common states of consciousness: the state of waking consciousness (jagrata), the state of dreaming (svapna), and dreamless sleep (susupti)."\n\nThe point of turiya is that it is NOT something unusual. It is merely the background upon which experience is projected. In sanskrit terms, there is rishi (knower), devata (process of knowing) and chhandas (that which covers [the knower] -the known).\n\nIn the process of TM, the activity of the mind subsides as the nervous system starts to rest. As the rest deepens, the attention tends to be more and more on the mantra. At the deepest point just before pure consciousness, the attention is only on the mantra, which by this point is a simple vibration in the mind, which fades away, leaving...\n\njust awareness. alertness by itself. The observer, process of observing and object of attention have merged into silence, leaving only the observer, awake, but aware of no thing, just aware.\n\nIt isn't a strange or unfamiliar state. We pass through it vaguely during transition between any major state of consciousness -twilight sleep, for example. We tend to fall into it for an instant when we see something remarkably beautiful for the very first time.\n\nYou can find it mentioned in all the world's religious and spiritual traditions. E.G., "the peace that surpasses understanding."\n\nIt is the idling state of the brain. The activity upon which all other states of awareness are based. We can even see echos of the sanskrit terminology in our modern western description of what happens electrically. A brain that isn't doing much of anything tends to have more coherent alpha. When some object of attention arises, either a thought or an external situation, the alpha frequencies are "blocked" [pure awareness is covered] while more localized gamma frequencies appear, presumably a sign that unique data is being processed.\n\nIn long term TMers, this process occurs as well. However, the ratio of gamma power to alpha power is lower in long-term TMers. The globally coherent alpha tends to remain, even as activity of the brain localizes to deal with something.\n\nin long-term TMers, the [global coherent alpha EEG pattern seen most strongly during pure consciousness](https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=4124680926078&set=a.2219338093698.2126866.1555020826&type=1&theater) starts to become a trait that persists outside of meditation, not just during waking, but during dreaming and deep sleep.\n\nEventually, the meditator starts to notice this calm awareness as a background to all activity, in all states of consciousness and automatically starts to identify that constantly-present pure observer state as their "real" self.\n\n\nWorld champion athletes have been found to show this pure consciousness marker (coherent global alpha EEG) more than their fellow world-competing athletes. It seems to be what separates the gold medalists from the lower 50% of olympians. They have the ability to think and respond locally to immediate demands on their attention and then relax back into an alert idling mode. \n\nResearch on long-term TMers doing a demanding task shows that when they have reason to expect a given hand to be used for the task, they prepare for it just as much as a normal person does. However, when it is uncertain which hand will be required for the next task, their preparation level goes below that of the normal person, who tends more to still favor one hand more than the other, even if there is no information available as to which hand will be used next. Assuming that the pure consciousness marker in the world champion athletes is a sign that they show the same kind of preparatory brain activity, this easily explains why they do better than the average olympic athlete: they prep when they have reason to and relax better when they don't have reason to.\n\n\nYour assertion that pure consciousness is unique only makes sense if is associated with very high gamma EEG activity, as is found in most meditation techniques. Most meditation techniques actually [promote a compartmentalized function of the brain](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811912000596), both during and outside of meditation. TM, on the other hand, promotes a more relaxed, global functioning of the brain. Both situations often lead to similar descriptions from practitioners, but given a choice between compartmentalizing my brain or resting, I'll choose resting. If I want to increase mindfulness, I'll learn a new juggling trick or practice my guitar. \n
This is what I got out of it: \nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8OL7I3hpYA
The hunt for Bin Laden funded Bush's war machine, making some people very rich.
Incorrect. It is not the same thing. \n\n> Law differs from a scientific theory in that it does not posit a mechanism or explanation of phenomena: it is merely a distillation of the results of repeated observation. \n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_law\n\nA "law" basically says "this causes that to happen, and it *always* happens." The theory is *why* the law is true.
Late to the party, but me too please\n\nEdit - deleted netspasm double post
> If it's a trick it's a bloody good trick and it's probably worth the $60 for the band.\n\nNo. No it's not. If you can get an equally effective band for $2, then there's no rhyme or reason to paying 60 fucking dollars.
Ok, now I'm done.  You aren't following what I'm saying and then pulling the strawman fallacy on me.  I'm out.
Science still is not certain how animals “navigate” home: by the position of the sun or by the earth’s magnetic field? Thanks to some sixth and superior sense of direction? And what about lost animals who find their way to their owners through unfamiliar territory?
I think their date is off by one day.
And from reading the comments in that article, I find that John Hughes has died. Bummer.
Im thinking its staged, if you pause at the correct frame at 1:03 the flash of light seems to come directly from the left of the screen, off camera and behind the wall. The entire right half of his body isnt being lit up and is still dark and shadowed. Its just some guy on the ground with floodlights. Its made even more apparent that this is fake as what I presume to be the guy leaving his place of work walks away from the gate leaving it wide open.\n\nAlso, these arent thermal cameras, his vomit is still the brightest thing in that last shot.
I'm very sure. Although in the spirit of skepticism I'd love for you to prove me wrong.
Yes you are right, but the end result is that we ended up borrowing more money on the backs of all americans, so that the richest could keep more of theirs.\n\nBush also did have a rebate where he actually did give money to a lot of americans (most people got a couple hundred dollar check), but that wasn't what I was really talking about.
I find refreshing your 'extreme skeptic' point of view, and the itsnotnova link is great, but let's be honest here - I am no climate scientist, you are no climate scientist and definitely Poptech is not one (and certainly not a skeptic either) - but when you list some papers and a few of the authors explicitly tell you that you are grossly and intentionally misrepresenting the paper(s) and request for the paper to be removed you know that somebody is just lying. Yes, it is very common for climate scientists to publish comments to a peer-reviewed paper and claim that the author might have missed something, but that is not the case here, what we have here is precisely the same as some stupid creationist claiming that "On the Origin of Species" is in fact proving creationism :)
Well I'm convinced.  Sure all medical studies have shown that homeopathy doesn't work, and for it to work it would have to break all sorts of laws of physics.  But Cindy Crawford believes it, and that's all I need to know.  Catherine Zeta-Jones? Icing on the cake.
I'm a computer programmer, which is pretty unrelated, but I might have some relevant thoughts anyway.\n\nA properly-managed project will use version control, so we have a snapshot of all the code at every single modification. We have a graph structure which relates all the changes to each other, and this gives us very powerful tools down the line. If we discover a nasty bug that was introduced potentially months or years ago, it's going to be really hard to just inspect the code in its current state and figure out what went wrong. If the bug came from a change a long time ago, there could be large chunks of the program that are *based* on that bug. Instead, we write a test for the bug and let the computer run that test on every version of code in our history. It's a surprisingly fast process. It also helps to be able to ask "who wrote this line of code?" or "what else was changed alongside this?"\n\nThe takeaway is that in order to make an effective analysis later, you need to be collecting information *now*. There may be a similar argument that's more relevant to your field. (I realize my example is a bit of a stretch.) If nobody's studying the "Deal of the Day" phenomenon now, then in ten years, there may not be enough information about what people once thought about it. It may be too early to write the end-all-be-all analysis, but I can't imagine it's too early to start.
Great.  Are we done now?
There is nothing mystical about the Mayan calendar. I don't know what else to tell you. Please [read about 2012 from reputable sources](http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012.html).
Come again, that made no sense.
Great video, lad!
"We all know the Moon's not really made of Green Cheese... But what if it was made of BBQ Spare Ribs? Would you eat it?"
How the hell do you think every doctor gets their patients' diagnosis? They excuse themselves and go online to get the facts straight. I'm not lying. They all do.\n
http://i.imgur.com/CeVSZ.jpg
Soy, milk, nuts and shellfish?  Pretty much sums up 98% of ever allergy right there.  Blind reading anyone?\n\nLemme guess... there's a male in the family whose name starts with M?
Bentwater \n\nIf there was ever a case that challenged me, as a skeptic, it was bentwater. they have eyewitness acocunts from the military personnel. There was film (that was taken by the military). They have a craft on the ground. A major coverup..etc.etc.\n\nIt was one of the better documented cases. \n\n
http://lostfiles.tuxedoinn.com/pics/disappointed.jpg
Really quite amazing footage! Um...there is some dust in it...and some bugs ...which don't begin to resemble the little glowing circles. What are they? Something that will someday be scientifically quantifiable. Truth is stranger than fiction.\n
If you think following the diet alone will help you lose weight, you're dumb.  (not you personally, but those who think that....)  Only calorie restriction will do that.  My wife ate a strict paleo diet for 6 months and lost 0 weight.  Then she started tracking her calories and in 2 months has dropped 15 lbs. without feeling starved at all. The nice thing about the diet is that it's far easier to maintain a caloric deficit without feeling hungry.  Fat and protein keep you full and satiated for far longer than simple carbs do.\n\nThis is why paleo isn't just a diet.  It's a *lifestyle*.  Exercise is a huge part of it.  Heavy weights.  Sprinting.  Some long distance running.  All a part of the process.  And yes, I realize exactly how douchey it sounds to call it a lifestyle.  I'm okay with it.
The balloons have never laughed harder at us idiots below.
HAHA, fuck that guy!
What evidence and/or literature do you have to support the assumption that government is incapable of making good decisions for society? In fact, it's rather easy to produce simple examples of government decisions that directly correlate to an increase in net happiness of a community. Take for instance the establishment of a fire department. The construction thereof allows employees of the government to prevent the loss of life and property. How anyone could say that this form of government decision making is "bad" for society is beyond me.\n\nThat said, decisions in government can also greatly benefit the scientific community. The US Governments funding of NASA in the 1960's and 1970's led to an explosion in technology and innovation unseen in American history. Absolutist statements about government being incapable of making "good" decisions for society seems demonstrably ludicrous in my opinion.
[This video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvFTpAIwAWs) has always puzzled me. The weird rotation of the object at around 2 minutes in, and of course the strange shower of sparks that happens, and the way it jets away in the end.\n\nThese strange showers of sparks are reported in quite a few other cases; I wonder exactly what *that* is all about? Is the object possibly dispersing something, or is this a by-product of some kind due to an advanced technology, or maybe an oxidation reaction to our atmosphere? Flares don't tend to jet off quite like that. \n\nDrunken speculation.
Why the fuck is this shit still legal?
Id like to add that they are made of Light and Gold.\n\nGold can can be easily shaped with heat and speed. The color changing is just the different ways our eyes see the Light.\n
Accuracy of sources be damned?
All the more reason to let the nice homeopathy companies bear the burden of all that money and let your bank account dilute to infinite wealth.
There's a definitive test for celiac's where your stomach lining is checked, if you don't have celiac's, this diet is a waste of time, effort, money and will not help your niece if she doesn't in fact have celiac's.  My niece was diagnosed recently and this diet has made all the difference.  By the way, to follow this diet strictly is extremely difficult and if you don't follow it strictly you may be wasting your time anyway.
I doubt the person I know prescribes sugar pills or lies about active... "ingrediants".
Probably the exact state of mind you need!  The Russians trained a group of frumpy-looking women to move stuff around back during the Cold War.
You could have just said that to begin with instead of using vague rage faces.
you thought i was serious?
You're just supposed to buy it, I think.
This article was a great read.  Good post Zerg.
And to you for that cool story.  My father and stepmother were driving through the main drag in Woodbury, CT in the summer of 1987 when they noticed people standing near their cars parked along main street.  Everyone was looking up.  My dad and stepmother pulled over at the town ice cream shop and watched this huge boomerang shaped object move silently in one direction, stop and reverse.  They watched it for 10 minutes and if nary made a sound.  Even a dirigible would make a noise.  It was one of two things in the minds of those that saw it:  either a top secret military vehicle or an intelligently controlled craft from some other place/time.
Relevant: [The Quest for the Historical Muhammad (Ibn Warraq)](http://www.amazon.com/The-Quest-Historical-Muhammad-Warraq/dp/1573927872)
It's all fun and games until someone adds cheese!
I don't really roll that way. Websites deserve to plant some ads for revenue, its only fair. But when those ads become what this site did, it becomes a little more of an annoyance.
Wouldn't that be necrophilia?
i flew in from LAX to Santa Rosa (100 miles north of san francisco) flew over San Francisco at about 8pm.. I had my eyes glued to the window as I sometimes do watching for other planes and stuff like that... I did not see anything.
sorry, but it looks like you or your friend just used paint or something.
According to all the studies listed under the Wiki page, it seems to have short term immediate effects. Just doesn't have any medium or long term effects - but I think short term (wearing the tape while you are doing the sport) works.
What, no bananas?
Tomato tomato.
My vote for best answer.
Also see: "air is good for you" and "the easter bunny isn't real" for other astonishing statements of fact.
How this organization is still able to exist I'll never know.
What's quite worrying about this report is that I have looked up other articles about the child and they are almost exactly the same. [Mirror](http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/sherwyn-sarabi-britains-brainiest-toddler-1213056) [Sun](http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/4469903/Toddler-Sherwyn-Sarabi-is-Britains-cleverest-two-year-old.html) [Daily Mail](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2183125/Meet-toddler-genius-clever-identify-single-country-world-AND-flags.html?ito=feeds-newsxml)\nThe fact that the articles are almost identical suggests that they all originate from one press release and that no investigation into the claims has been made by the newspapers. Certainly, this does not mean that the claims are false, however, it does mean that the claims haven't been thoroughly tested yet.
I'll just adblock them.  I'm not clicking ads to get rid of them.  Easy way to get viruses.
It's just called bullshit.
Looks like a pro-union piece that accomplishes it's goal.
People do conduct experiments.  Hell, in the case of cryptozoology people actually have some general idea of where to look and, hopefully, capture said animal.  Yet on these expeditions, time and time again, people come short.\n\nI mean, are you open to the idea that there might not be anything to look for?  And that sometimes people are just generally confused and make mistakes?  One time I thought I saw an alligator in the mississippi.  Turned out to be a log- but if I had gone with my first impression- one made at the spur of the moment, i would have sworn it was an alligator.  Then I'd told everyone I saw an alligator in the mississippi.  Ok, well, that's not totally out of the question, so they go look in that area- turns out there's nothing there.  But now the idea that there might be alligators is suddenly on everyone's mind.  now, occassionally, people look at the lake, see a log, and think to themselves "that's not the aligator, is it?"  It isn't, but they might identify it as such because that possibility is now on the table.\n\nThe issue I have with cryptozoology and ufology is that they almost always seem unable to walk away from a dead end.  It consumes them, and people start blaming conspiracies and the paranormal.  I think we're all open to the idea that cryptids might exist, as are we aware that life in the universe is a statistical likelyhood, but nobody wants to dedicate their lives to chasing wild geese.  \n\nEven if there was a dead alien found, even if the government is covering it all up, it won't matter- we cannot know without definitive proof and that's not something we can get from looking at videos or asking people questions.\n\nEdit:  I mean, even if a dead alien was found and the government covered it up it wouldn't matter unless we could get it from them.
Must be true, then.
You got it wrong: it would be reason for concern if the local average was below the state or nation average. Assuming normal distribution, that would imply that *more than 50%* of the schools would be below average. 50% being below average means that the local average is the same as the state/nation average, which is no reason for concern, but just obvious for normal distributions.
Thanks for looking further.\n\nThat website doesn't seem to provide any interesting details though.\n\n>2008\n\n>    Libya Deal of the Year:\n    Central Bank of Libya\n    The Banker\n\nSeems that they got involved well before the rebellion, back when the wonderful (if you believe the video) Gaddafi was in charge.\n\nFrom what I remember the video was claiming that Gaddafi had stood up to them and kept them out to keep the people of Libya free, if they got involved in 2008 that claim would seem to be bogus.
I didn't have time to watch the one about global warming, but is it as outdated as the one about recycling? In that one the points they made were outdated and it turned out that modern recycling is in fact saving resources, even if the technologies in the beginning were indeed ineffective.\n\nBecause their global warming episode is almost 10 years old and we have a great deal more insight since then.
Thanks very much. Although I now notice that I start almost every single paragraph with "so." Now I'm gonna notice that I do the same in conversation and start twitching. Well, another day where people think I'm weird.
"I don't see why needlessly perforating my child is a bad thing!"\n\n*seriously*
So you guys heard me then? Why didn't you send help? I had laryngitis and was stuck in the attic with a broken ankle. I could hear you guys talking about ghosts and shit. Thanks for nothing!
Hilarious but vandalism isn't how I would chose to communicate a message.
why are you vegan?
My point was debunking the blanket statement that recycling is worse. When you look at specific cases you'll often find that recycling is obviously a good thing.\n\nFor instance, in a large city the distance to a landfill is often very great, those landfills are rapidly filling, you get excellent economies of scale in moving things around, and the industry to take advantage of the recycled materials is nearby. In that place, recycling an easy-to-recycle plastic makes far more sense than importing and refining oil to make new plastic.\n\nI also think the cautious choice is to err on the side of recycling. Each time we discover a new environmental problem like the [multiple ocean garbage patches](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/science/10patch.html) or that [microscopic plastic contamination](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/05/0506_040506_oceanplastic.html) has [some new toxic effect](http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es0010498), the cost of not recycling goes up.
yeahhh, we are  going to have to cut our vacation short, kids
skeptic*\n\nEdit: TIL skeptic is spelled sceptic in other parts of the world.
Agreed....and a delicious peach chutney upvote for you, kind sir.
LOOK AT IT CLOSE UP - http://i.imgur.com/uiU4r.jpg
I did consider that to, another reason for the lack of them could be dissipation of their energy in the water
This is ridiculous tripe. Amusing, certainly, but I had to stop reading after \n\n> But science, as Dawkins conceives it, will lead us nonetheless to omniscience. Already, he tells us, "We know exactly how DNA works". This is untrue, absurd and dangerous. If it was true there would be nothing new to find out. \n\nShame on Tudge, he's usually better than this.
Is vaccination against whooping cough common in America? I'd wager that many in the UK have never heard of it.
Seriously shut up about your magical fairy weed. The biggest thing hurting your stupid cause is how you fuckers can't shut up about it for five seconds.\n
I see what you did there
do i get it right that  you have enough money to afford doctors and medicine from drug stores but prefer not to use it?\n\nmay iask how did you earn it?
Then all that fuss about original sin, redemption, etc. was for...?
Agreed 100%. However, we use "proof" in the less strictly philosophical sense. On a pragmatic level, we *can* demonstrate that something confirms a theory/model -- e.g. DNA, fossil records and other lines of evidence are "proof" of evolution in that sense. And, pertinent to this discussion: It doesn't mean that any random claim is equally valid.
But seriously, this cable appears to be priced insanely high everywhere... what the hell?
yes. my advice is to open all the windows get some sage- from a local mystical book store. Fill you whole area up with the smoke. every corner open every drawer, closet, crack. Then with another scent like lavender or whatever smells nice to you go through the house again. Flush any bad thoughts or feeling out the windows. Imagine your space being filled with white light.  spring clean take out the trash. you have the power
Your link purporting to explain how the Egyptian pyramids were built is to an article consisting of little more than hand-waving.
Is this meta?
Perhaps there's some racism involved, but not necessarily.  I think the fact that there's a lot more in the way of writing passed down from the ancient Greeks and Romans makes them more well known, and people are less likely to buy the idea that aliens had anything to do with their buildings.\n\nThere's far less in the way of information that has made it's way towards general audiences about the civilizations of ancient Egypt, or the Mayans, etc... (although people who actually study these cultures and do have a familiarity with them shake their heads at the weird ideas people come up with about them)\n\nSo it works out kind of like a god of the gaps.  People have less familiarity with these cultures, so there's more room for them to work in whatever half baked ideas they can come up with.\n\nI do a podcast, and I've done a number of episodes where I debunk Ancient Alien claims if you're interested:\n\nhttp://www.dumbassguide.info/category.php?cid=11
That's right. Something like the the VP is doomed to fail from the start because it fails at a fundamental level of taking the laws of economics and human nature into account. Also, I believe they're completely basing this whole project on speculation and anecdotes. As far as I'm aware, there have been no experiments and there has been no hard data or evidence to suggest a project like that would work. People have examined and shot holes in the ideology that is the VP, yet the founders and followers alike disregard it and staunchly defend it even though their project has been shown that it can't last.\n\nTrying to talk someone, such as a believer of the VP, out of something they willingly got themselves into, is akin to attempting to convince a theist via debate that their god doesn't (or can't) exist. Trying to debate, or otherwise convince someone their idea is wrong through heated discussion, will end in failure the vast majority of the time because during such an activity, the brain naturally goes into a defensive mode where efforts to convince the person otherwise will not be successful. The person you want to change must willingly change and that takes time and effort on their part. If they do it willingly on their own, the defensive mechanisms in the brain tend to subside and the person more readily accepts the new ideas. So the trick is getting the person to doubt their position enough that they would willingly go out and read and try to understand the arguments against their ideology. Persuading them is rather tough though, and a lot of people aren't that willing to put that much time and effort into such an endeavor.\n\nThis guy lays out why the VP is fundamentally flawed: [The science that is missing and completely wrong in the Venus Project](http://anticultist.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/the-science-that-is-missing-and-completely-wrong-in-the-venus-project/)
This reminded me of a psychological experiment I participated in once in college.  It involved a group of five people looking at pictures on a screen, and having to answer questions such as, "Which building is taller? Which person is older? Which ball is bigger?"  The correct answers in every case would have been obvious to a toddler.  \n\nThe twist:  When participants came into the room, they were told that it was a test of basic human perception or something along those lines.  But it was really a test similar to the Asch experiment.  What the subjects of the *real* experiment didn't know was that some of us had met previously with those conducting the experiment and had been coached to give the wrong answers in a way that was natural and convincing.  For example, sometimes we would answer quickly as though it was obvious, and sometimes we would really think about it.  (But the correct answers were always obvious, and we always answered incorrectly.)\n\nOut of five participants, two to four of us would be planted, and we would always make sure to sit down so that we would answer first.  It was unbelievable to me at the time, just how many people would deny their own senses to follow the group.\n\nOf course they would be briefed afterward as to the real nature of the experiment.  Some of them laughed in embarrassment but I remember at least a couple of them getting really angry.  All of us who were in on it thought it was pretty damn funny.
*99 Luft solar balloons...*
I frequent r/paranormal pretty regularly so I'm sure I will see anything you post in the future.
It indeed sounds absurd. If she's not deficient and she's taking supplements, she could actually cause harm to herself. There is an upper limit to certain minerals/vitamins and going past that can cause problems. \n\nIf she were just taking a multivitamin then there's no risk, because they have been proven to not work or have no effect. But if she was taking something specific like Vitamin D it can result in [toxicity](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_D#Overdose_by_ingestion).
Some lovely photos on this blog by my friend Melanie.
> if technological suppression was occurring via direct physical intervention (via patents and control of the tech), through how funding is allocated (research grants) and through mob mentality (scientists tend to pool together and defend their 'positions', shunning those who challenge their belief systems), then whether it's 1971 or 2012 is beyond the point.\n\nI want you to stop and reread this:\n\n> if technological suppression was occurring via direct physical intervention\n\nThat's a HUGE if. There is no reason -- none whatsoever -- to believe that there is any major leap in technology related to *any* field that is being withheld from the public or the scientific/engineering community. Spend some time reading peer-reviewed journals and this will be clear to you.
The brain has an amazing ability to re-create events or just fabricate them entirely from incomplete information, based entirely on what it "knows" to be true (in the religious fanatic sense of the phrase "knows to be true").  Part of this is why disreputable psychiatrists are able to construct false memories within their patients and why eyewitness testimony (without any intent to deceive) can be completely different from video of the same scene.\n\nPlus we already know that dreams happen at a faster time rate than real life - did this guy learn nothing from Inception?
Where did you procure them? They sound like something I want on my bed!
Well played sir/madam
Does Issels treatment?\n\nWhat I meant by my comment, is I wonder if he smoked marijuana *and* thought of it as medicine in addition to the stuff you mentioned.
Brains are surprisingly capable of [rewiring themselves](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroplasticity) when you retain working signals from the outside world and a working model of memory all the way up to the hippocampus, on the inside. When a part of the brain breaks down we generally lose use of it but there are always other paths that are close enough or equivalent enough to compensate. There's plenty of literature with interesting case studies on this, although medical science has yet to establish a good model for either diagnosing or treating many of the conditions.\n\nFrom the videos I've seen of her, I believe this to be a genuine neurological event rather than any kind of psychopathology, but I have no idea whether it was triggered by the flu shot or just a freak coincidence. I'm pro-vaccination and against toxic additives since they're just a cost-cutting measure, but in her case I'm willing to lean towards freak coincidence.\n\nLikewise, I don't think she was cured by alternative medicine, but rather that the brain's capability for rewiring after damage was impressively demonstrated. Even the accent is consistent with the idea that the nerve paths being mostly in charge of her speech and vocalization are no longer available for use or are otherwise selected against by the brain on the neuronal level. The damage could have been caused by some form of [excitoxicity](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excitotoxicity) with the primary paths burned out by overstimulation, and the brains adapting as they best can. I doubt she'll ever fully regain her "normal" accent, just like a lot of otherwise healthy people are unable to learn out of an accent or manner of speech.\n\nI don't think the mainstream videos "prove" anything to one direction or another, but to me they serve as a powerful reminder that the brain remains the greatest uncharted territory for human race, infinitely more interesting than travel to other planets.\n
Seems sketchy dude. For added awesomeness you should wear a horse head mask whilst you video flaming hand action. Also, you probably just have thick  calluses on your hands.. Do you work in some kind if manual labour? Calluses can resist heat/flame temporarily
You know, your thoughts on having to have a generation die/retire before shifts made me think of something interesting here:\n\nI can see the politics of the cold war having a lot of influence on skeptical people who keep a strong ideological bias about free markets.\n\nThe equivalent for my generation would be if some kind of neuroscience or scientific sociology showed that anti-theism was "incorrect" for some reason, that religions were necessary and helpful to society. \n\nI, and many skeptics of the "new atheist" generation, would probably stick with my anti-theism in the face of the evidence for longer than we should because it's such a core part of our political/sociological worldview. I hope I wouldn't move from skeptic to ideologue, but I could see it happening.
I doubt it seeing as they'd been up for days now but that's definitely a possibility. She wasn't online but eh, who knows. Sometimes I turn my chat off because I like knowing that people don't know i'm online.
At best it makes for an okay definition of *pseudo*skepticism.\n\nPeople who peddle nonsense love defining skepticism in this way because it implies pessimism. No one likes a pessimist. Nonsense spreaders attempt to isolate skeptics critical of their beliefs as people just being negative and nasty for the sake of it. That, or they'll define skepticism in such a way to prove that *they* are the real skeptics. \n\nA classic example of the latter is the 9/11 conspiracy crowd. They usually tout off nonsense such as "I am the skeptical one here! I'm skeptical of the official story! You just buy what the government tells you!" Well, by definitions such as the one you've provided, sure. All that means, however, is that you disagree with something. It says nothing of your reasoning process. \n\nSkepticism is a process; it's not a belief or position. 'Not easily convinced' may be true, but 'despite supporting facts' is a load of horse shit. Supporting facts are the very core of skepticism. Their absence is *the very reason* that skeptics are 'not easily convinced'.
Cool idea. Only problem is, cell phones produce EMF. I don't know of any researchers that allow cell phones to be powered on during an investigation, myself included.
How do people lie to themselves so well? Homeopathy is openly a joke in general society (not even just the scientific or well educated community). What could possibly compel these people for so long? No results, only scientific evidence showing what you do is BS. Ridiculous.
I think you are making a logical mistake by implying that "the most qualified" has to be worth anything at all. Just because someone has a high level of *relative* expertise, does not mean that they really have any expertise.\n\n
Fluorodosis is costly, though it would have been insanely expensive if my dentist hadn't just decided to do it because he hated the way it made my smile look. To be frank, after I had the repairs done, my self-confidence was much better. So I am very against fluoride in the water. People ought to have more personal responsibility, but then again most people are dumbasses.
|effects\n\naffects\n\nSorry. I wouldn't normally, but if you're going to be a writer...
First the NWO is real as you and me my friend if you don't agree well I wish I could believe that too.\n\nThe Annunaki is a direct translation for: From those from heaven to earth came. Sitchen discovered this in the Summerian tablets from 6000 years ago, why on earth is this a problem for you? Whether it's legend or fact, Sitchen did not invent this term.\n\nPeleidians could exist, the Peledies is a big group of stars, however did Billy Mierer have contact with them? Who knows.\n\nI think its hilarious though is people on this subreddit bash those above that I have mentioned which have data to support their possibility of being legitimate and then they turn around and post articles/comments based on the "findings" of the COMPLETE FRAUD that is known as Alex Collier and his magical Alien Monet because they "Beleive him". WOW, just WOW.\n\nFucking hypocrites.\n\n
> And let me tell you: you can't go through the process of creating an actual AI and still believe in the soul.\n\nAgreed.\n\n*This entire premise is based on my understanding that if one cannot tell the difference between (A + X) and A, then X doesn't exist.*\n\nIf there is a soul (highly unlikely, given that there's not even a concise definition of it), then one must be able distinguish a creature with a soul from a create without one.\n\nFrom what I've heard so far, souls are apparently immortal (maybe this is wrong / not universally accepted?). According to our current understanding of the universe, [nothing can exist forever](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_death_of_the_universe). If souls are able to overcome this limitation, then they should automatically be considered supernatural, since it doesn't behave according to our laws (which in this case would be the [second law of thermodynamics](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics)).\n\n\nAre we able to repeatably observe (i.e. measure) something that is considered supernatural? Is that even possible? The definition of supernatural says that it doesn't behave according to our laws, which probably means that it violates *at least* one law (so in this case, the second law of thermodynamics). I know that this is the weakest part in my argumentation, since I can't prove that measurement the of supernatural is categorically impossible. \n\nI only see 3 possible end-scenarios:\n\n* If it (measuring supernatural phenomena) is impossible, then according to my premise, X doesn't really exist (it would be interesting though to hear arguments against my premise).  \n* If it is possible, then I don't have an answer.  \n* If souls aren't even supernatural (and therefore merely natural), then there must be a way to observe it
Honestly, I don't remember. It was about 4 in the morning when I had to deal with it.
I know how vaccines work, but because they don't reproduce, then you can get a dose which doesn't fully trigger the immune system. You see that in a case when they still get the disease, but with less severity. And that means that the disease can be passed along after experiencing the anti-body response.
Some Gov't vs. No Gov't? it is not even a debate. The interesting question is HOW MUCH Gov't.
 Yeah, I've always wondered if sleep paralysis isn't simply a strange hallucination (apparently you're awake, but hallucinating) but also a gateway into another realm that we can't see or interact with in waking life. It seems strange to me that people often see such similar beings (or in our case, things), for example. That can't just be chalked up to the brain doing silly things.
The environmental impact of organic is not obviously better. As has been pointed out, because organic farming uses less effective pesticides, they need to use more land to get the same amount of harvest as farmers using newer more effective pesticides. More land being used can lead to more deforestation and other issues.\n\nThe whole organics thing has really pushed this whole feel good notion, but as far as I'm aware they haven't produced the data to support it.
Sweating is not pathological.
>Our Dr. Brown’s bottle features a patented two-piece internal vent system that works unlike any other bottle design. The vent system fully vents our bottle for vacuum-free feeding, which we call positive-pressure flow, similar to breastfeeding. As the baby feeds, air is channeled from the nipple collar through the vent system, bypassing the breastmilk or formula, to the back of the bottle. Air never mixes with the breastmilk or formula which minimizes oxidation and helps maintain essential nutrients like vitamins C, A and E.\n\n>Babies feed more comfortably because the vent system allows them to nurse without fighting the negative effects of a vacuum or the discomfort of ingesting air bubbles. This helps to reduce feeding problems like colic, spit-up, burping, and gas. The breastmilk or formula flows freely, without nipple collapse.\n\nNeeds substantiation.
I'm not sure what you did, but if you use the same url as the other post it shows up as other discussions (it hasn't here). I don't think you need to acknowledge it in the title, maybe put a link in the comments though.\n\nCross posts are good, they show a link to more people. But when I see one I would like to see the comments from the other submissions. What you have done here does not let me do that,  I can't find it in the top 200 submissions in /r/atheism.\n\nI assume you included the 'crosspost' in your title to give credit to the original submitter. What BevansDesign is saying is that because you used a different URL (somehow) we can't see that page, can't upvote it or read the comments.\n\nI really wish there was some 'spammer' who would just take posts from one subreddit and post them in other * relevant* subreddits (like you have done)\n\nSorry that is a very longwinded reply for something minor, but for some reason people think cross posting is bad. It isn't, reposting the same story in the same reddit 24 hours later (after it got lots of votes) is bad.
It would help if we actually had qualified people to make hiring decisions, had teachers govern themselves on standards rather than people not even in the educational system as is true with practically every other field ever (medicine, science, etc.), and had adequate funding and teacher training standards.\n\nBut man...that just isn't what happens.
I think they mean a trans person who is also a skeptic, not a person who is skeptical of the existence of trans people.
False. Power bracelets work as a bracelet.
Agreed, this is utterly stupid, but this *is* /r/skeptic...
Upvote for this not being a scary recounting of a dubious memory from early childhood that you attribute to dead people.
I should've planned better, I should be there today!
the girlfreind thing is right she was demanding i take care of her bro and cousin basically\n\nthe business thing I don't know I do rather have open time to go to the beach or something but I'm trying to turn myself into a money maker the business was born Nov8th but if your refering to night time that is when I usually do work and plan.. please clarify about being born under the moon
Your metabolism slows down.   You become more lethargic and fatigued, and reduce your caloric burn.   You can fight your hormones all you want, but as any teenager in puberty will tell you, that's a losing battle my friend.  ;)
Legitimate question: At this level of competition, where a 1% edge can be the difference between a gold and not medaling, isn't even a small placebo effect going to be significant? I know if I were an olympic athlete I wouldn't care whether something actually worked or was just a placebo effect, as long as it made me perform better (assuming the treatment is benign, which this is).
the scratches showing up in 3. Generally a sign of a demonic haunting, especially if there is bodily harm, are scratches, and they normally show up as 3.
Your most welcome!
In entirely unrelated I've been reading about Keith Raniere's cult the other day, the guy trademarked the words 'Rational Inquiry™' , which the title reminded me of. Clicked the link and glad it wasn't that.
I think you just voided them by posting on fb, honestly.  You could still sue/demand to be taken down, but how will you know? Also, it's kind of too late now that there will forever be a mirror somewhere on the Internet.
> So if anyone likes posting in SRS\n\nWhy would anyone want to do that?
Love it how he keeps talking about skepticism as if it's a bad thing. I bet he is a major source of foreign aid to Nigeria.\n\nEDIT: Was mistaken about the gender of our "master" debunker here, for whatever reason.
I'd have bought one just to use as a candle-holder, but the spout is at an angle.
It sounds like you might have a bias there.
strange... or paranormal?
> then preserved with a cancer-causing ingredient called sodium nitrite\n\nSounds like original research.
Probably someone calling asking him to support Romney.  I can't wait for this election to be over so those fucking phone calls stop.
I feel I must point out that we've gone to a lot of effort and expense searching for extraterrestrial bacteria, or even signs that some once existed :)\n\nBut yes, the implications of crossing the galaxy don't sit well with the UFOs are aliens explanation.
Wellp, I'm sold. How could a 2D 0xFFFFFFFF circle appear on a grainy film, unless it's real? There's just no way.
My wife has one, she definitely says it has helped.  She especially likes the results she got on her underarms and bikini area.  It has really helped her out with the bumps and ingrown hairs that shaving her bikini area would cause.\n\nI'm not sure about the 70% hair reduction after only 2 treatments, but you will definitely see improvement with continual use.  Be aware that it won't work on darker skin, though.
Look up Mysterious Universe podcast...they did a whole show on this.  It's CRAZY.
Oy vey.
If penis enlargement ads have taught us anything...these people need more labcoats, beakers, and test tubes if anyone is going to believe it works.
Please read my response to *anonymouslives* who already asked about building 7.
> reliable sources\n\nThere's the trick.
>How is that any more condescending than assuming that religious belief stems from conditioning and past treatment? That's why we object to religious education, isnt it?\n\n\nIt isn't. That's part of my point.
That's not too impressive. A lot of HR departments use the same set of tests on prospective hires. I took the same stupid computer psychology test at least five times.
Is the source .jpg? If not and source is lossless, can you convert to .png and repost?
I actually liked it. Being an Australian myself, I'm not fond most movies we produce. But this one really surprised me with how well executed it was. I wouldn't say its the scariest movie I've ever seen, but it definitely confirmed (in a fictional way) my fears about the Australian underground areas.
Eh, there is an "11" on some hardware. 10 usually denotes the maximum something can do without breaking down. "11" is stuff like [WEP](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_emergency_power); it can do whatever it does harder/better/faster/stronger, but it ain't ever gonna do anything again.
Between fiction and non-fiction ---- between esoteric and mundane ---- The Heavy Stuff
I'd bet the Rebecca/elevator-man/Dawkins fiasco would rate. I'm team Rebecca
Yeah. And Dr. Edward and May Mellanby stumbled upon a similar dietary plan (around the same era) where vitamin K was also a linchpin.
Is it kosher to ask for help upvoting this ad on r/reddit.com?\n\nhttp://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/d153q/domo_arigato_mister_exmoroberto_exmormons_launch/\n
[Here is the abstract for the paper in the competition he won second place for](http://www.jufo-dresden.de/projekt/teilnehmer/matheinfo/m1). It's hard to argue with a primary source, but the story surrounding it, especially the claims of relating to a 350-year old Newton problem (case in point, your source says 300, others say 350), is proving difficult to find details for.\n\nIt may be overzealous to be skeptical on a story that just broke today, and the [Wikipedia history](http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Shouryya_Ray&action=history) shows the issue pretty clearly, with an accusation of [recentism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Recentism) from one editor. There is one editor who cited The Mail as a source for most of the facts, and the prevailing edit tagged the claims of Newton's involvement with a \\[citation needed\\], but that was barely an hour ago. [The JREF forum seems to be discussion this, too, if you want to follow it there](http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=236821), but they're having similar problems.\n\nThe problem with focusing on this story is it's very, very new. It's easier to find ditto-head press releases and articles than an actual source for most of this. We have an abstract for the paper, however, so we should be patient and follow the peer-review process for it, submitting to mathemeticians to substantiate the claims.\n\nI'm interested how this works out, but I don't see anything happening today, or even this week, unless it just comes out as a complete hoax, which seems far-fetched. If you learn anything, please let me know.\n\nEDIT: Have you considered x-posting this to math subs? Try to get some educated opinions. Around here most of what you find are people concerned with facts and educated in cognitive bias an slanted media techniques, but our collective expertise usually falls very, very short of erudite knowledge on most topics when compared to AskScience and other expert-only threads.\n\nEDIT2: I should have thought of this, there are a few articles claiming Dresden University showed this problem during a school tour as an example of something supercomputers can only approximate. With a little bit of offline journalistic effort (and probably a bit of German), one could probably track down and discuss this problem at more length with those who first introduced Ray to it. That's probably your key, other than some patience.
friend's* place\n\nGood luck getting to the bottom of the experiencing and getting some peace.  \n\nCheers.
Citation needed.  \n\nAs I am reading it, Watson's whole point is [summed up thusly](http://skepchick.org/2011/07/the-privilege-delusion/):\n>You may recall that I related an incident in which I was propositioned, and I said, “Guys, don’t do that.” Really, that’s what I said. I didn’t call for an end to sex. I didn’t accuse the man in my story of rape. I didn’t say all men are monsters. I said, “Guys, don’t do that.”\n\nThe problem here is that everyone is so focused on this *one moment of time in an elevator*.  It wasn't even a thing.  Guy hits on Watson, Watson declines, everyone goes to bed.  But the point, as she keeps making clear, is that this was *one example* of the problem that she had *just given a speech about* before she was hit on at the conference.\n\nAll the misandry I see being displayed has not come from Watson herself.  The disappointing part for me is how hysterics and hyperbole are completely overshadowing the main point: a lot of women are uncomfortable with the behavior of men in these circles.\n\nEqually disappointing is how a gentle suggestion to ease up on the sexual advances has turned into Feminists vs. Men's Rights.
Sounds like a shoddy ticketing system.
The easiest way for ancient man with limited knowledge of engineering to build high structures. An idea that i believe was discovered independently due to its simplicity on different continent at different times.
Reductio ad absurdum: Building a house is against God's will. God made the trees that way on purpose and we have no right to cut them down and shape them to our will. Who are we to tell God how to shape His trees?
It looks like something being thrown. In every situation the object has an arc. It appears low in the frame then generally increases in height and then as it leaves the frame it ends at the low end of the arc. I'm not saying it is this but the arc looks very similar to that of a frisbee being thrown.
Not the entire membership of PETA that's for sure. It's obviously done by a freelance author. \n\n>realize that all living things deserve the same rights as humans\n\nThis is not PETA's goal.
I believe I have already answered this. My brain is quite alright. I do not believe I am having "difficulty processing information". Especially since this has been happening as long as I can remember.
[Amazon Buy Link for the Lazy](http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Science-Quacks-Pharma-Flacks/dp/0865479186/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1289938622&sr=1-1)
Well, there does seem to be some sort of referral in the URL.  Actually, it's not a bad idea.  There are redditors that pay for Amazon adverts on reddit, just for referrals, so I might give it a go myself.
This is the episode you're thinking of: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/406/true-urban-legends\nThe one piece that you're missing the really struck me is: "Only 25 percent of the studies paid for by the industry showed effects, compared with 75 percent of those studies that were independently funded."\n\nThe conclusion is, we don't really know and we're performing the largest medical experiment in the history of the world to find out.
I agree that the other posts on the topic are getting tiresome, but this one doesn't seem focused entirely on the debate that the others were and is instead tackling a new issue that is only tangentially related to the Watson discussion. \n\nI think Myers raises a good point about the flawed logic behind people criticising Watson for not being an expert as it's clearly a ridiculous argument, and the concept of "shut up and sing" is a really interesting one that I'd never consciously considered before - so, for me at least, this post in /r/skeptic has been incredibly useful (unlike the other blog posts on the Watson topic that probably could have been linked in the same thread as they were rehashing the same info).\n\nI think the blog post sets him up for what could be an interesting series of posts criticising evolutionary psychology.
I know this will probably be downvoted to shit, and I don't even really believe in acupuncture, but I do know that there is effectively no harm done by it when done properly.  The only harm this could possibly be doing the child is by taking cash away from his college fund.  Judging by the fact that his crunchy parents are taking him to acupuncture means that they are probably not hurting for cash. The claims people are making on here about creating sources for bacterial infection or nerve damage are simply ill informed.  Acupuncture when done right uses sterile equipment and should not even pierce the dermis.  In all honesty, the practice in America of prescribing antibiotics for every kid that pulls on his ears at night is probably much more harmful than any amount of acupuncture the kid might ever receive.  Alright, rant done, let the circlejerk commence.
>"human beings are functionally no different" assumes the point you're trying to make.\n\nI probably should have said "to the outside observer."  A machine which behaved in the way I described would be indistinguishable from a human in any meaningful way.  I grant that subjective experience is quite a different animal.  I've read a lot of similar articles to the one you linked, but I'll take a look at it later.  \n\n>In this sense, "unpredictable" and "free" are essentially equivalent.\n\nIf that's the case, then I'm not sure that the most interesting elements of 'free' are preserved i.e. moral responsibility as traditionally characterized, the 'human spark', etc.\n\nAre you familiar with [compatibilism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism_and_incompatibilism)?  I'm getting the feeling you might like this theory.
You missed the satire, I think. Tamino is not a climate change denier - quite the contrary, he's one of the most vocal critics of deniers.\n\nSeems like a case of Poe's Law, as others have pointed out...
Sorry you're getting downvoted for pointing out you don't take these seriously.
Resetting your spine?\n\nGo see a doctor.  If this was your car and someone said, "Well, one half of pseudo-mechanics believe that air filters are the cause of all car problems.  The other half just think the air filter is really important, but they don't really have to have a good GPA to become one or anything."  Apply the same standard to your health.
I am not talking about the effort that goes in to making things, but the reason for making them.  Most inventions are to make something easier or less tedious, it is in our nature.  I am not saying it is a bad thing, on the contrary, if it wasn't for the laziness of our forefathers we would be doing a metric shitload more work.
Hey uhh, that's a really important question.  How **did** Prometheus keep regrowing his liver and heart?  That could really help doctors today.
I'm merely relaying information. :-)
Note that there are no specific medical claims on that bottle. They claim it "supports" all those things. There is no medical definition for "support", which means they're basically saying they have no actual evidence that it does anything. So long as they refrain from making specific medical claims, the FDA only does post-market regulation of dietary supplements, meaning they don't even touch it unless there is good evidence that it's making people sick. The manufacturer is under no obligation to do any testing for safety or efficacy. It is actually in their best interest to sell a product that does nothing, because then they have zero liability.\n\nTell your friends that if they can find some controlled, peer-reviewed trials showing that kombucha does anything beneficial at all, you'll change your mind (there aren't any). Meanwhile, you can also mention that animal trials show that it may actually be toxic, potentially causing liver damage.
Sighsighsigh, like a year later.... That check was the death of me.
I thought it has more to do with aluminum byproduct disposal, why pay to dispose of a chemical when municipalities will pay you for it? I am not 100% sure, but that is what I have gotten out of limited research. Does anyone have any insight?
34, healthy (run 5k) employed and functional.
Where is any of that "settled science"? Most of that isn't scientific statements at all. In fact, many of those people quoted weren't scientists at all. And the rest are personal opinions of individuals, rather than "settled science".\n\nNow, some of those quotes *are* related to things which were widely held to be impossible at one time or another. However, simply demonstrating that scientists have been wrong in the past provides no basis for disregarding the best information presently available, unless you have some reasoning as to *why* the current best information is wrong.\n\nIf you are going to argue that scientists have been wrong in the past, therefore all of their conclusions are suspect, you should be consistent about it, and reject the conclusions of *all* science - including things like modern medicine, airplanes, GPS, and computers, as well as more general bodies of knowledge like the age and composition of the Earth, Sun, and Universe, evolutionary biology, atomic theory, and so on.\n\nHowever, I suspect you're not going to be consistent, you're just grasping at straws in order to deny science which you dislike the conclusions of.
You misread. Mainstream researchers have decided that CO2 alone is sufficient to overwelm all other factors. Models indeed quantify other factors but do so in order to account for or elliminate their influence in light of CO2 dominance. ie - they presume CO2 dominance and then reduce the influence of other factors. it's no wonder that only one computer run out of thousands will give a result that mirrors present conditions and that *none* have given an accurate hindcast. If one's models can't account for historical data there is no way that any can be claimed to accurately predict the future.
Damn, spotted again.
You need to contact another Catholic priests. I know people on reddit hate catholics, but hopefully you can meet a good Catholic Priests like the ones I know. Specifically tell them everything thats been happening because they do have priests who specialize in demonology.
My guess is that they can sense electrical activity. Like EMFs
There is sufficient evidence linking c-spine manipulation with stroke (via dissection): [1](http://www.aan.com/press/index.cfm?fuseaction=release.view&release=33) [2](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12195461) [3](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10460445) .\n\nThe American Academy of Neurology has made several statements about it, and several articles can be found in quality neuro journals. \n\nI'm not sure about things in the USA, but in Canada (with the exeption of the francophone Trois Rivieres) any reputable university does not have a "school of chiropractic care" in their faculty of medicine.
so the guy appears to have done an about turn on the story, but the Belgian F-16 fighter jet pilot has a story about locking onto that ship and it flying away.\n\nIs the redaction a curiosity worth looking at? Probably not. I believe the unit was a TR3-B Electromagnetic/ Jet propulsion craft from hidden tier development.\n\nultimately, it doesn't matter if it's real or not. It's only fodder for musing and discussion. Nothing has yet happened to immediately effect us all and wake us up to the reality or falseness of the whole thing.
That's exactly what I always thought! In a world where the future is already written, I always tought of the deja vu experience as like hitting "checkpoints".
If we found scientific evidence? I think it would be great. It would open a whole knew filed of exploration. However it better be hard proof by peer review.
Already did buddy :) I was the first to post a comment!
I think he's a good role model. Dawkins' behavior isn't going to make a guy that isn't an asshole into an asshole. Nor is someone being incredibly nice going to make an asshole a nice guy. People will find their place in the community, and we have lots of room. We keep each other in check and call out dick moves when we see them. I think it works.
thank you kind sir
At the very end, the chairperson looks to the audience for assurance that the power point had indeed been working throughout, after "taking it on faith" that it had been.  He looks to an audience to confirm what he already believes and assumes they have no reason to lie to him.  Best part of the entire clip.
Thank you. This is very informative.
> Amount doesn't matter\n\nlol... so you've managed to overturn all of modern medicine? Have you ever heard of the [dose-response relationship](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dose-response_relationship)? Yeah, that applies to everything, including mercury. Amount matters, no matter how many times you claim it doesn't, it does. A tiny amount of mercury isn't going to harm you.\n\n> It will damage you.\n\nNo, it won't. (The neurotoxicity related to [mercury](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_poisoning\\#Mechanism) (not ethyl mercury) doesn't occur until you either are exposed to a massive dose (many, many, many times what is even possibly found in any vaccine, again ignoring that we're talking about elemental or methyl mercury) or are chronically exposed to elevated amounts of mercury (aka many times what you'd ever get from every vaccine that you were given as a child regularly, aka you'd have to take a great many more vaccine shots multiple times. Of course this is once again ignoring the whole it's not elemental or methyl mercury you'd be receiving.)\n\n> You can not prove mercury or ethylmercury is safe, because it's a neurotoxin; it is not safe\n\nYou once again have made this claim that you can't prove that mercury and ethyl mercury are safe... You just reiterated your initial claim without actually saying why mercury compounds are magically unique amongst all other chemicals? Why exactly does the scientific method not apply to them? You keep making this claim, and I've asked you to back it up, but all you've done is repeat it. \n\nAnd anyways, they have proven that there is zero harm that you can find if you make sure to keep under a known amount per kilogram of body weight (ie a population exposed to under certain amounts of mercury is health wise no different than any other population not exposed, aka the two populations are no different). You can't claim harm if the two groups are medically identical. It is DISHONEST! \n\n> Even if the damage is not noticed by individuals or people studying the individuals at small doses, mercury is still found in the brain after a dose of ethylmercury, and that mercury is doing neurological damage.\n\nEven if you don't give someone ethyl mercury you're going to find mercury in your body! You NATURALLY have levels of mercury in your system! You do understand that right? \n\nOh, and btw mercury =/= ethyl mercury. Ethyl mercury is a compound of mercury, and it isn't breaking down in the body. \n\n> Thiomersal is the **ethyl mercury-releasing compound** sodium ethylmercuric thiosalicylate, C9H9HgNaO2S, which is made from the combination of ethyl mercuric chloride, thiosalicylic acid, sodium hydroxide and ethanol.\n\nEthyl mercury is the final output of thimersal breaking down, it doesn't turn into regular mercury! \n\nEdit: Oh, and it should also be said that this debate doesn't even matter, because there still is **ZERO** evidence that autism and ethyl mercury are in any way connected. And I must make a correction, [Andrew Wakefield is not under investigation, he **lost his ability to practice medicine** because of how fucked the study was and how unethical he was in making the study!](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield#Professional_misconduct_charges)\n\nAnd I think an apology would be appropriate for this comment:\n\n> Wow, you are a moron. Please describe these different forms of gold.\n\nconsidering I proved ya wrong.
This is totally a UFO.
Ding. And someone walked in front of it. \n\nI realize OP said,\n\n>There was No one at all around when this was taken,\n\nBut, being a relatively decent hobbyist photog, I can tell instantly that this was someone walking in front of a long exposure.
And anyone who believes that is a simple-minded, credulous dimwit. Brown loves taking the piss out of those people.
Weed, not even once.
Sixth picture is maybe a hand holding a mic? Gotta say though, that third picture looks cool even if it's nothing paranormal.
Scipio Wasn't *obscure*!  How dare you!
> Illnesses from occupational exposure to organic pesticides are proportional to those from conventional pesticides.\n\n[source](http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4166).\n\nAlso, even in jest, "dawg" is never acceptable. \n\nAnd are these "beyond organic" commercial farm with giant plots of land? because obviously, in my home garden I don't necessarily need pesticides, but when conventional giant farming and not a cute lil boutique farm, you're gonna need pesticides organic or otherwise. I guess I could be wrong, but on a large scale it seems improbable that it would work in a long term scenario. \n\nedit: and if you read further it says that most deaths from pesticides are just third world farmers who don't know any better. The USA accounts for 1% of pesticide related illness. So perhaps non-organic do kill more technically, but they are used WAY more. But in a comparative analysis they are very similar. It's like cars kill more than scooters, but there are 50X more cars so of course they do. Both are lethal if you're in a bad crash (perhaps a bad example because scooter crashes are probably more lethal but you get what I mean).
Nah my man. Always chillin. Just trying to make you realize how a grown mind tends to think.
Sooooo misleading.
Kava works as a relaxant (I prefer powdered root). \n\nScullcap works like a mild tranquilizer (I prefer extract in glycerine).\n\nNote: Excessive reliance upon either of these may not be healthful.  Some persons may react negatively to even small amounts of either of these.\n\nEdit: I don't know why this was downvoted.  The information I provided is true.
Good luck in your search :-)
The Kennedy assassination indeed has many unresolved issues
You're not alone in that. I came up with the idea that Jesus discovered a karma exploit in the multiverse (or whatever) and that prior to that point karma was an signed integer (of way too many bits to comprehend). He worked out he could get everyone to pass on their sin to him and was able to underflow karma to get a huge positive score, cashed it in and got to heaven.\n\nSince then positive and negative karma have been unsigned int's and recorded separately.\n\nHe was actually genuinely nice guy, but also a white hat reality hacker who got his just rewards.\n\nUnfortunately for his current followers he's no longer accepting negative karma, so any sin karma they're trying to pass on and get forgiven for is actually still theirs.\n\nDrugs can make you think interesting things - some of them might even be true, but truth is subjective. I'd better shutup before I fall in a rabbit hole - some of them have huge gravitational pulls.
It's usually spelled "Velikovsky", and his writings are nothing but pseudo-science gobbledygook that makes outlandish claims, such as the fact that Venus used to be a comet that emerge from Jupiter before settling in its current orbit. Apparently the close passage of Venus near the Earth caused the plagues of Egypt.\n\nPlease continue defending Velikovsky. The more you do, more you make yourself look like a loony.
it's real.\n\nI've been noticing it over the last few years.\nLocal Belgian new agencies have gone from never printing something like this, to printing one every few months to basically printing one every week.\n\nNot to mention television. History channel became ufo channel and even the discoveries are upping the ante.\n\nimho
Good list.  My one small nitpick is that osteopaths don't belong in the same category as chiropractors and acupuncturists.  As I understand it, osteopaths are actually fully accredited medical doctors, they just do other chiropractic type nonsense in addition to that.\n\nPerhaps instead of "osteopath" a better example would be "naturopath"
I've noticed it happening when people do so while refusing or being unable to offer up any actual evidence. Yes, when someone makes an outlandish claim and says it's true "because a friend of mine saw it happen!", it's not very convincing.
I have to agree. Diet Coke leaves me with a slightly overly-sweet-acrid aftertaste (albeit after a few mouthfuls) and a slightly waxy or oily palate. Ugh.
Happy reddit cake day!\n\nThanks, a friend posted them on my fb and everyone was all "God is great!" and I just wanted to inject some reality into the situation.
[A ship's sail](http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/cut-of-your-jib.html)
For bonus points, take coffee and dilute it for potent alcohol. Or better yet, dilute your very-weak-beer solution even further to turn it into a powerful booze!  It's a winner all around.
Keep an eye on it.  If it gets worse over a course of a few days, then this is a definite possibility.\n\nI get these occasionally, but they only started appearing after I stopped taking anti-depressents (Paxil), it's a common side effect and can take weeks, months, or up to a year to clear up.  After the first initial 6 weeks, they started dissipating, I rarely get them now, only when I'm extremely exhausted.
science fiction != fantasy
Nope. When product disappears or becomes unsellable, that's called shrink. Most places tend to associate shrink with theft. An increase in shrink (especially when it seems to be by theft) means three things to a store manager: Get tighter security, be suspicious of your employees, and make sure to stock up on that hot product that keeps getting stolen. \n\nGranted, I'm assuming most skeptics doing this aren't actually stealing the bracelets, but, esecially in a large grocery store, things can disappear for years. As a night crew worker, I've pulled cans of food from the back of the shelf that were over 5 years old. And that was at a store that took proper stock rotation seriously.
FDA warning here.\n\nhttp://www.casewatch.org/fdawarning/prod/2005/cellquest.shtml
The point is that in general terms, synthetic pesticides have the same potential downsides as organic pesticides. Some are harmful to humans, some are not. Some are extremely effective, some are not. \n\nThere is nothing inherent in a pesticide that would make its organic or synthetic nature the sole deciding factor in what makes it harmful, dangerous, or otherwise detrimental to human beings. Each pesticide is harmful/safe, useful/ineffective, cheap/expensive based on that particular pesticide, not whether or not its organic.\n\n\nIf you are aware of some innate factor to organic pesticides that make them better than synthetics, I would be very interested in hearing it, but I would say that the burden of proof is on the side of those claiming that organic products are in some way innately superior to their non-organic counterparts.\n\n>It really makes me wonder where else you have drawn such completely illogical conclusions\n\nIf you have a specific complaint with anything I've said, then feel free to bring it up to me. I'm a human being and am fully capable of making a mistake. It's possible, although I disagree with you, that I said something factually incorrect about this topic. That in no way invalidates anything else I've said unless you have an actual argument against what I've said.\n\nOtherwise you're just being petty.\n\n>but you have done little to convince me\n\nI was never trying to convince you. I was posting a link to a good place to get general information on the subject, and then presenting my own layman's understanding of the topic based on what I've read.\n\nIf you really want to get into the subject in depth, then I would simply say that I have never seen compelling evidence to suggest organic food is in any way superior to non-organic food, and that without such evidence, I see no reason to believe it. You are more than welcome to provide evidence to the contrary.\n\nAlso, here's another good source for information on the subject: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/2011/07/18/mythbusting-101-organic-farming-conventional-agriculture/\n\n
>"It looks like a linear streak artifact produced by a cosmic ray," said Alfred McEwen, a planetary geologist at the Lunar and Planetary Lab at the University of Arizona and the director of the Planetary Imaging Research Laboratory. McEwen is the principal investigator of the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE), a powerful telescope currently orbiting Mars.
It sounds like one of the indian gods with many hands. Or is it a taoist/budhist god? You might wanna look that up..
Also why would you come to this subreddit and be derisive about the subject matter discussed therein?
I had my secondary school reunion last year. I was talking to my math teacher and when she asked how I had been I confessed I had been a bit ill in recent months. Without any further questions she recommended homeopathy ಠ\\_ಠ\n
I don't remember this one. What episode was it?
That is pretty darn freaky.
> I find people that insult other people's intelligence abhorrent, especially when it comes to something so incredible as UFO's and Aliens.\n\nI can personally testify that this is very common on reddit as soon as you discuss any opinion that goes against some sort of main-stream hivemind, including but not limited to religion, morality, near-death experiences, out-of-body experiences, UFOs, crop circles, spirituality and materialism. A number of people are immediately extremely aggressive, arrogant, demeaning and insulting as soon as you dare get onto any of those subjects and do not bow to the (extremely simplistic) "consensus".\n\nI take these reactions just like racism as a sign of feeble, insecure minds that need to spout hate in order to preserve their flimsy internal sense of security. I don't think you'll get rid of those people, they are part of life on this planet unfortunately.
my deep feeling, if it indeed can occur is that extra sensory "brain noise" rarely manifests in large enough amounts to even be detected by fMRI in identical twins and the fact that such small pieces of information are such rare events cannot be interpreted by the brain usefully and is therefore a useless to try and find or even account for anyway.
How does the land naturally have fluoride in it?
The "robot with feelings" idea is interesting, and has been explored in fiction many times. I think it was in an Asimov story, where a robot explains what he means with 'pleasant', something like 'my decision-making processes become more straightforward, allowing for a faster reaction time; I interpret that as pleasant.'\n\nI think the main problem would be our empathy. Unless robots are programmed to express their feelings in a way that we can recognize, we would be impaired to properly interact with them.
I should have listened...
I'm not saying it's the most suitable thing, I'm just pointing out that in the *skeptic subreddit*, there's a whole lot of assumptions being tossed around.\n\nI have been to China, and seen raw pork sold in open-air markets without refrigeration. No whole pigs, live or dead, but raw meat nonetheless. Yes, if I had to I'd buy a live pig over a dead one at such a market for freshness, but that's not the issue at hand.
If there's natural fluoridation in the water, then the drinkers get much fewer cavities. I have heard that's how people first realized that artificial fluoridation may be a smart thing to do.\n\nIf there's too much natural fluoridation, which sometimes is the case, then the teeth can get browned and pitted (in youth while they are being formed, not after).\n\nAlso, no links to cancer. In fact let me help your cognitive biases with this one:\n\nSome researchers (who may or may not be experts in the field, and may or may not be only this poster) claim that drinking fluoridated water reduces occurrence of most common cancers. The greater scientific community reserves judgement until the results are corroborated by further studies, but until then, why risk it? If your drinking water is not properly fluoridated, call your congressman today. In the meanwhile your local alternative health centre should be able to provide a natural fluoride supplement, extracted from sorghum, which you can add to all your drinking water. A personal favourite is adding a triple-dose to my bathwater - fluoritastic! Here's a quote from someone who may be an expert on fluoride in the human body, and who may also be right:\n\n"In actual point of fact, fluoridated water has the most miraculous reaction against cancer cells. I would recommend nothing less!"
He's got a built in look of disapproval.
You're backtracking.\n\nYou explicitly stated that you have some "abilities" and you "know" stuff.\n\nYou said you can sense when bad things will happen.\nHell, you even said it's some kind of crazy hereditary thing.\n\nJames Randi will give you $1 million if you can even prove you have *even a little bit* of these "abilities" you say you have.\n\n\n
Good luck with what you're going through.  seriously.
How would you feel if it was normal for girls to have their clits cut off?\n\nYou know *why* circumcision took hold in North America? To make sex less pleasurable.
Right, because rationality breaks down at the level of popular culture ... /sarcasm
Have you seen a doctor? A month is long enough time for lack of sleep to cause health deterioration. Not trying to scare you, but you shouldn't leave it like this.
>Well, then congratulations. Go ahead and ignore a very relevant piece of work that covers pretty much exactly the same stuff we're talking about here, namely Descartes' epistemology.\n\nThat's not relevant at all. It's actually a formal logical fallacy called ad hominem tu quoque. Arguments stand on their own. Your argument is that X is wrong because Descartes made Y argument in another work. You can't even touch X (because you don't even know what it is).\n\n>If you want to make the claim that Descartes is someone we should look to for advice on how to treat things skeptically, you cannot ignore other things he has written which contradict that.\n\nI never said that Descartes is someone you should look to for advice on how to treat things skeptically.\n\nI said The Method, which you haven't read, was a good place to start being skeptical about your own ideas. Now you're lying.\n\n>Um, your claim that Empricisim is radically different from science and the modern skeptical movement?\n\nThat never happened.\n\n>And please explain to me how "create" and "produce" mean significantly different things.\n\nCreate has the pejorative connotation of Creationism in an argument about how the Universe came about.\n\n> that the existence of the universe implies that something else existed beforehand - and pointing out the similarity between that and the creationist cosmological argument.\n\nThank you for admitting that you committed a guilt by association fallacy.\n\n>Assuming that there must be something else that "produced" this universe leads to exactly the same problem with the idea that the universe must have been created by something, and it deserves just as much respect (read: very little).\n\nAnd yet you can't even contradict it.\n\n>Pretty sure I'm done with this conversation.\n\nYou don't even know what it's about. You haven't even read the fucking book. The correct thing to do was nothing instead of humiliating yourself trying to win a fight with your eyes closed.\n\nWait until you actually finish the class, at least.\n\n\n\n\n
She is angry at the doctors and teachers for not recommending and believing in her woo. She's also trying to convince other parents to avoid medical treatment in exchange for magic.
You linked me to a thread about how he's actually doing theoretical work and publishing papers.
> Even some of the brightest people I know are utterly convinced.\n\nWhere do you live? You might want to move.
A lot of those look fake, though. There was that one where it looked like someone just pasted a face from another photo in there and then damaged the area around it to look like a spirit.
I do (know how to react, that is). Freedom of religion. If Christian people want to be kicked in the face as part of their beliefs, in the hopes it will cure their cancer... I support them entirely. That's their choice. I believe in the rights of Christians to be kicked in the face for God. \n\nI'll even help, if they think it's useful. Because I'm a great guy.
I've had similar things happen with many objects. The one I remember most vividly was a couple of hair clips I took off while reading on the couch one day. I got up to do something different and went to grab them and put them back in, and they were not on the arm of the sofa where I'd put them. I assumed I'd knocked them off, so I searched all the cracks in the sofa, the floor, my clothing... nothing. I searched for half an hour or more. Finally I gave up and went to the bathroom. When I came back into the room, there they were sitting on the arm of the couch where I'd left them. I was alone in the house.\n
I think that just because that they use witches to explain this doesn't mean that the sighting should be thrown away because we don't believe in them. If that's all they have to draw from to explain this, that doesn't mean it didn't happen.
Don't you know... They were in on it... they decided with the US years before who would win the Moon landing... yeah yeah that's it\n\n\nLOL
You can do the same thing with a cold. It only takes 3-7 days.
Everyone does this. Evolutionarily speaking there are good reasons to not upturn your entire belief system on the basis of one wayward piece of information. Unfortunately for us, there was no advantage to primitive man to be able to evenhandedly take in every piece of information and verify it objectively before incorporating it into his system of understanding.
While it is true that Ghost Adventures is probably the most over dramatised "ghost hunting" show ever in the history of ghost-related tv shows, I do believe that there might have been just a few instances where they might have caught something that was real. Finding Bigfoot, on the other hand, is the most hysterically fake "paranormal-type" show I have ever seen.
Well.... they do really make them :(  \nhttp://www.ritecare.com/homeopathic/guide_firstaid.asp
Opinions are not facts.
I think the point here is that you seem to be running by a different definition of 'skeptic' than what is understood by /r/skeptics and the [James Randi](http://www.randi.org)an skeptic community.  Skeptics scrutinize claims based on evidence.  Conversely, cynics doubt without evaluation.  The latter, which at this point seems to be your definition of a skeptic, tends to side toward conspiracy theory culture, as the prerequisite is to deny the "official story" as it were.
didn't tesla create a blueprint for a massive wireless-electricity tower, which would have been - had it been build - usable by anyone? \n\nit wouldn't have been possible to limit the electricity to some people, if i understood the concept correctly, thus creating "free" energy for everyone which could access it.\n\nmaybe the prof didn't read the full article from which he took this knowledge.\n\n(it was never built, as the construction would have been way too expensive for a proof-of-concept and way too wastefull with the energy transmitted. also no comercial applications, as you can't sell electricity without monitoring who uses it.)
Glad they're closing down. They might be the biggest of the producers, but there are many many more out there, all selling the same rubbish. Alas, it'll never go away.\n\nEven at the end he's going on about how (he believes) they work and how (practically) no one returned them.
A PhD is a *philosophiae doctor* -- doctor of philosophy of a certain field. Basically it means you're so learned and so advanced in your field that you're at the leading edge at the point where you're just philosophizing about what's in the unknown (at least that's how it was explained to me). \n\nAn MD is a Medical Doctor.\n\nA JD is a juris doctor -- doctor of law.\n\nThey're all doctors, but they're not all medical doctors. Different locales handle who may call themselves using their laws. In most places in America, however, you can open up a doctoral school in a shopping mall and offer 5 hour courses before granting PHD of [whatever] degrees (*with the exception of medical and law degrees, iirc) to anyone who pays you the money. There are a ton of people who have shopping mall doctoral degrees calling themselves doctor. This is probably why there's such a confusion.
Wait... she doesn't want to be labeled as a scientist because she thinks the general public, internet, and news have the wrong ideas about women scientists. So she want's as stronger presence of Female scientists, and when that happens she'll be happier label herself as a scientists. um.....
It's kind of funny in a sad way how basically any new or different scientific theory is said to have originated with Einstein. Quantum physics is the worst though.
Yes. This.  Or Carl Higdon.
I wrote this late at night so after taking another look at it I'm not sure if my logic is sound. Here was my thinking though, if you have a bag of marbles and you asked me to guess how many were in it, I could guess 1, or I could guess 100. I don't know if there are 1, 100 or 1million marbles, but I know there is at least 1, 1 has to be in there. Since I don't know the limit as to how many marbles there could possibly be, the safest guess would be to guess inside the limit I do know, which is the least amount of marbles.\n\nex: So if I guess 1 marble, the limit of marbles in the bag happens to be 1, I guessed 1/1 so my chance of being right was 100%. If I guess 2 marbles, I'm giving myself a 50% chance of being right, because I'm supposing there are 2 possible answers. Although, the answer could be 3, and I would have had a 33% chance to be right, I still want to go with the best possible guess. If I guessed 100, and the number of marbles was 100, I would still have guessed 1/100 possible numbers and had a 1% chance of being right. The same as if I had guessed 1marble and the number of marbles was 100. This is assuming you pick a number inside an infinite possibility of numbers.\n\nI don't think this applies if you can actually pick infinity as the number, though i suppose that wouldn't make much sense since I think infinity is a concept and not a number.\n\nPlease correct me if my logic is flawed.\n\n
Okay, I was being flippant, but it is clear you have an axe to grind, or maybe better stated a vested interest.  (Is there someone close to you that is a homeopathetic?).  \n\nSure, it is a better strategy to embrace them than to ridicule them (to their face and if they aren't on the fence).  And, it is better to demonize the con men than their marks.  But, at some point, one must admit that there is a certain level of attention to nature that we should require of our fellow humans before we categorize them as morlocks.\n
Do you really not see a difference between deciding yourself when you want to be sexual, and when others want to make you sexual?
WTC 7 hadn't been hit by a plane, but it had been hit  by substantial debris from the collapse of WTC 1. [Here](http://911myths.com/assets/images/WTC7Corner.jpg) is a picture. \n\nThere aren't many pictures of the damage, because anyone who was between the main WTC site and WTC 7 had other concerns, but the firefighters who were there and saw the damage were convinced that the building was going to fail. For example here is an [interview with deputy chief Peter Hayden ](http://www.firehouse.com/article/10567885/deputy-chief-peter-hayden?page=4), where he says he realized it was going to collapse by about 2pm. \n\nSo the idea wasn't the insane conclusion of the BBC, it was simply doing their job, talking to the FDNY and finding out what their people on the ground were thinking.
Simply because the sun doesn't provide enough energy.
So you're raising an incredibly important point, and in a bubble I agree with it entirely.  As far as I'm concerned, there isn't really any social function that requires consumption of alcohol. Hanging out at a bar can be done without drinking - hell, get a coke. And even beer festivals need DD's. In reality, not being able to drink alcohol isn't a whole lot different than not liking Mountain Dew. "Dude, then get something else."\n\nThe reason I'm challenging it actually has nothing to do with alcohol and everything to do with his tendency to self-victimize.  If I'd found out coincidentally through conversation that, hey, he stopped drinking because of "an alcohol allergy" the most I'd make is a passing comment on the questionable clinical validity of such a claim.  But he's melodramatically standing on a soapbox while refusing take any action that might mitigate his anxiety over the "loss" of alcohol, and I feel that the most likely route to promote a more psychologically healthy behavior is to incentivise it with the elimination of that "loss".\n\nThat is, however, all contingent on him *not really having an allergic reaction to ethanol itself*, which is something I cannot find any scholarly evidence of.  Admittedly I haven't spent more than half an hour or an hour looking, but everything points towards other ingredients.  Pharmacologically, a reaction specifically to alcohol doesn't make much sense to me, either, but now we're pushing *way* past my pay grade.
look at the right of the photo
And thus started my quest to be the know-it-all, starting with [this book](http://www.amazon.com/Straight-Dope-Cecil-Adams/dp/0345422910/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1353175147&sr=8-2&keywords=cecil+adams)
Entirely possible, I won't deny that we like to troll one another once in a blue moon.
Don't feed this troll Utopic. He's posted above as well and he really seems oblivious to all this stuff. \n\nYou would think that people in this subreddit come from a culture of questioning the establishment and it's perceived lies, this guy comes off as a sympathizer and simpleton. \n\n"Wha? who? NAH they don't control or influence us in anyway! GO VOTE!! DERPP!!!"\n\n
Reread what I said, please.  Carefully.  Contamination can happen both before and after samples get to the lab.\n\nAs I've said, these results make no sense whatsoever.  Contamination is **much** more likely than that these results are correct and represent the actual genome of an unknown primate.
He's also grossly misinformed;\n\n>Would you buy domestic Champagne (well, actually Americans do, and in large quantities, often unknowingly, for the very same reason – there is no law here against bogus labeling).\n\ninternational trade laws prohibit sparkling wine grown outside of the champagne valley as benig labeled champagne. California has a huge sparkling wine industry that is and has been producing superior product for years - they are forbidden from calling their product Champagne, and it has actively hurt their business.\n\nThis guy is a snob. He's just a fucking snob!\n
You can be an atheist and not be a skeptic. I've met many atheists that believe in aliens and alt med. I run the Michigan Skeptics Association and we allow all people, atheist or not. To be honest, I would rather have a scientist that goes to church every day and is a evolutionary biologist than an atheist that thinks the moon landing was a hoax.
M R Ducks.
[Darwin wants you to eat meat](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKNMmVnp2WQ)
So...what is a soul?  And why would such a thing exist? - Any thoughts?
Yes sir.  They are indeed one and the same.  However, you must understand just what exactly this means.  "They" (God and ETs) are one and the same for the same reason that God and *humans* (indeed God and everything) are also one and the same.\n\nYou see, God, by definition, is All That Is - Everything.  As such, God is not only the E.T.s . . . God is also *us*.  God is everything.  Think abstractly for a moment and imagine God as an Ocean.  E.T.s and humans are two separate drops in that ocean.  As drops, they are individuals.  They both come from the *one* ocean, however, and when *in* that ocean, they are both inseparable parts.\n\nAll this being said, there does indeed seem to be quite a bit of evidence (Summerian writings, among others) suggesting that human beings are indeed a genetic creation/manipulation on the part of a much more advanced race of beings.\n\nRealize, however, that even if this *is* true (which I wouldn't be all too surprised if it were), it generally only applies to the "vehicle" that we are in presently and at the moment.  In other words, the human body is only the encasing inhabited by the animating force, and while E.T.s may have very well created that "genetic encasing", the energy that animates that encasing is much more sturdy and long-lived (some say eternal), and considerably more difficult to manipulate.  In other words, your body is no more the actual animating force that drives your body than the car you drive is *you*.  You drive that car.  But you're *not* that car.\n\nIn the final analysis, Identity continues to create and find Itself in the different forms within which it manifests (E.T., human, etc).  These different individual identities will all ultimately grow and develop/evolve to understand their fundamental unity with (and as) God Itself, The All, The Everything, whatever one wants to call it.\n\nSo you see?  You are indeed correct in what you wondered about - although perhaps you may not have considered it in this particular manner. :)
Something is definitely fishy about this.
But isn't that what homeopaths (and other alt-med defenders) do? Not exploring the possibility that their stuff might be worthless? Ignoring or downplaying the *mountain* of evidence that stands against their few cherry-picked studies? I find that disingenuous.
AHHHHhh...\n\nWell, I think my point still stands lol.
Too right. This type of crap should be reported since it's blogspam and adds nothing of value.
If you don't have a set of equations to govern it, it's probably not energy.  No credit if the units don't simplify to kg m^2 / s^2.
By this standard, Harry Potter is FAR more reliable than the new testament.
It isn't set in a fantasy galaxy, either.
No, I'm not excusing it. Remember, it takes two to tango. She was only accepting the lies she wanted to believe. It takes two to lie. One to lie ans the other to believe it. She solicited lies.
the old reddit swi.... nevermind
* Homeopathy is fairly uncommon in Northern Europe.\n* We have excellent health care in Sweden.\n* You do not understand socialism, social democracy or logic. Work on that instead.
Let us assume for a moment that that is what actually happened(I have a huge respect for Tesla by the way). Now that only proves that JP Morgan stopped funding Tesla  because they saw the long term implications of such an invention as a drawback to their business plans - which probably is making more money. Why fund something that is eventually going to hurt your profit. Agreed. But how is this related to world domination and control over earth's resources(which seems to be the core focus of the thrive movement)?
For the most part, it encourages a varied enough diet that it's fairly solid. The concept that 'grains and dairy are bad' though is really just hyperbole. Eating a ton of simple carbs has been known to be a major contributor to obesity for a long time, so this isn't some amazing revelation.\n\nAlso, the assertion that 'paleolithic man never ate grains' is just hogwash. Humans began cultivating grains that they had been finding in the wild for generations. It wasn't like one day, some guy stumbled on the first wheat plant and said "Holy crap, we can grow this new grass in a field! This changes everything!".\n\nThey just ate whole grains, and ate fairly small amounts of them.\n\nI've got a friend who swears by the diet, so I've done a little reading, and generally nutritionists say that it's pretty solid. For folks that have a gluten sensitivity it's excellent. My friend actually discovered her gluten sensitivity *because* of this diet. When she started it for simple health reasons, several mild to moderate digestive symptoms suddenly abated.\n\nThe closest thing to a consensus I've been able to find suggests that it's great, but you shouldn't *entirely* remove grain and dairy. Just stick to whole grains and low fat dairy products, and practice moderation with them.\n\nLike any diet though, it only works when you also practice it in moderation. If you are eating a ton of fatty meat, or over eating even otherwise healthy items, the weight won't simply melt away.
Where was this.\n\nNever say "where was this 'at'".  Ever.
I just found out that in Canada, using Chrome, you can just delete the layer above the video and watch it like that just fine.
From what I have been reading this last past year...it seems AGW credibility has been slipping. Computer models and actual results do not match.
Flares? Haha
<hick accent> Yeah, and he's full of shit, too. </hick accent>
I understand the origins of diabetes type 2 and type 1 are more complicated than you seem to be capable of understanding. I overlooked that you inserted an irrelevant comment about type 1 because the entire conversation has been about type 2.\n\nBut FYI, type 1 is also not "indisputably genetic". The majority of people who get it have no family history. There is no single origin of the disease. I have a solid professional background in both diabetes and genetics. I have taught genetics at the college level, and focused on diabetes research for 8 years. I suggest you try pubmed instead of whatever trashy journalism you've been basing your simplistic views on. Good day.\n
I went to a private christian high school and I clearly remember my theology teacher telling us that Billy Graham had died. He was really upset about it as Billy Graham was a sort of hero to him. This is really strange to me. How do I not remember this correctly?
Creepy after looking at this thread I glanced at the clock and WTF time is it? 3:33
We're not in a scholarly debate or some sort of symposium here, Sir.\n\nThe pattern is there if you want to look at the material. If you are truly interested in the subject and not trolling to declare "There's no such things as ghosts...blah, blah", you can read about cases such as the Enfield poltergeist or hell just check out the wikipedia page on poltergeists.\n\n\nBut I suspect your only interest is in the former, if not I apologise for the assumption.
That may seem small, but if it's true that would be nuts!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiU_NmYUy7U&t=0m32s
Tony Robbins is *really* convincing.
[rebrand this](http://www.outdoorfare.com/pouches/natural-high/can-t-believe-it-s-pizza/cheese-pizza-6-pouches.html)\n\n\n(I can't believe it's lifeforce energy!)
Or instead of that, you could go fuck yourself.
Personality changes from strokes are actually [relatively common](http://www.strokeassociation.org/STROKEORG/LifeAfterStroke/RegainingIndependence/EmotionalBehavioralChallenges/Personality-Changes_UCM_309905_Article.jsp#.TrtCkkNKMWF), but I've never heard of something this specific/all-encompassing.\n\nAnyway, the answer to "what do I think?" in relation to this article is "not much". I have literally no basis on which to judge whether or not this might be true, or even possible. Ask me again once they've done comprehensive brain activity scans before and after a patient suffered such an alleged personality change, and we'll see.
Agreed.
I'm totally with you on that. I don't know how it doesn't freak me out as much as I feel like it should. You're story is pretty fucking creepy too man. The light? Fuck that.\n\nYou know, I'll keep you and the subreddit in mind if I do decide to visit a hypnotist. I think I might actually go through with it.
Yeah I was surprised by that one as well.  The voice of reason!  From Arkansas!
no part 2 goes he ran from that house like a bat outta hell never to return again.
Exactly. What needs to be done is proper scientific investigation into the more likely of these cases, and try to see if we can replicate them. If we find a repeatable glitch, then not only would we have proof of that(and we could try to communicate with our creators), but we could also exploit the glitches for the benefit of humanity.
This is no laughing matter, I am Bear_Porn, destroyer of woo and seeker of truth.
More people need to think harder about things like this instead of just jumping on the 'Green' bandwagon.
*sigh* No I don't 'admit' that at all. What I did was make an off the cuff comment. I'm sorry if I upset anybody.
The sad part is if you're born into families like these, chances are you will believe this shit no matter how intelligent you may be.
Agreed.
I'm surprised no-one has commented so far.\n\nJust to try to encourage more people to read this I'll quote from the abstract, and list the alternative treatments they look at, many of which will be familiar to regulars here.\n\n>These alternative cancer cures have often been described as “unproven,” suggesting that appropriate clinical trials have not been conducted and that the therapeutic value of the treatment is unknown. Contrary to much popular and scientific writing, many alternative cancer treatments have been investigated in good quality clinical trials, and they have been shown to be ineffective...... The label “unproven” is inappropriate for such therapies; it is time to assert that many alternative cancer therapies have been “disproven.”\n\n* Livingston-Wheeler\n\n* Di Bella Multitherapy\n\n* Revici\n\n* Burzynski and Antineoplastons\n\n* High-dose Vitamin C\n\n* Chaparral\n\n* Hydrazine Sulfate\n\n* Laetrile\n\n* Shark Cartilage\n\n* Metabolic Therapies: Gerson and Gonzalez\n\n* The Risberg Cohort Study\n\n* Psychotherapy as a Cancer Cure\n\nHopefully that'll pique the interest of some people.
[Scoreboard!](http://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/phknn/sketchy_unfocused_video_of_rumored_mammoth_in/c3pg7vl)\n\nSince the rise of Youtube, my first assumption on any fuzzy video is hoax. People just love putting fake videos on the internet for free these days.
do this for me, put one finger behind the other finger and make the further back finger move without moving it. you cant ? didnt think so.
I would respect your ability to generally trust other people, yes.  The difficulty here is that faith does not have that meaning for the vast hordes of the religious.  They use trust as a replacement for evidence and reason in accepting claims (in their case crazy religious claims, similar to those of a Nigerian price, they are also expecting crowns of gold, mansions, rewards in heaven, etc.)  Where you live sounds wonderful by the way.  I wish I weren't surrounded by people who would all fall for the Nigerian prince's email...  We have this discussion over and over, because we are trying not to encourage them, and as it's a rather large problem for us here, it's easier to simply tell them we don't respect faith, and try to limit our use of that word to its religious context i suppose.
i believe
Can't even read. Too infuriating.
One of my favourite comedy clips of all time. It should be required watching in health classes and for too-serious skeptics!
I'm not knowledgable on specifics on any of these organazations but this is how it generally goes. The CEO's are PROFESSIONAL FUNDRAISERS. They work their way up to these jobs over years and decades because they are really, really good at bringing in the cash. Yeah it sucks that a nonprofit is paying someone a seven figure salary, but if that one person is bringing in eight or more figures, then it makes sense from a business standpoint.  These people are paid to bring in cash. They pay for themselves many times over. I don't think they deserve it ofcourse, but I see why they get it.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKzzsM-__sg](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKzzsM-__sg)
> "We have our specific role that we're responsible for, and that is to monitor threats to our nation," he said. "But at the end of the day, it's not our job to identify every unidentified object that's out there. \n\nNorad's job is to protect the air space of USA and Canada, yet when a UFO appears suddenly they become uninvolved in the whole operation.\n\nI thought you were supposed to monitor and identify EVERYTHING, how would you know if something is a threat or not when you still don't know what it is?!\n\nI'm not 5 years old, you know!
Agreed.
Some thoughts...\n\n"*Yes, organic farmers (including this one) sometimes use sprays to control pests and diseases — sprays that are carefully reviewed to ensure that they do not pose a risk to public health or the environment.*"\n\nYeah, and non-organic farmers also use pesticides that undergo a similar review.  So, what's the point here?\n\n"*But, for me at least, this is the kicker: all of the top ten synthetic chemicals used in agricultural production are either soil fumigants or herbicides. Organic growers don’t use fumigants such as Dichloropropene (the sixth most commonly used pesticide nationally), a probable carcinogen.*"\n\nThe [IARC](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Agency_for_Research_on_Cancer) lists this as a [class 2B](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_IARC_Group_2B_carcinogens) carcinogen.  Which means it's *possibly* carcinogenic.  This pretty much includes everything that isn't in a higher grade.  Other things in this group include coffee and pickles.  I assume the author added this to make dichloropropene sound scary.  Being a possible carcinogen isn't the important info, it's *what method of exposure* creates the carcinogenic condition, and *what amount* is required to be at risk.\n\n[Here](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=1%203-dichloropropene%20carcinogen) is a DCP + carcinogen search on Pubmed.  It's a possible occupational hazard.  This isn't new info and is true of many things.  But there's no conceivable carcinogenic effect on the end user.  The carcinogenic effect on the person eating a vegetable, previously grown with DCP, is zero.  If it's possibly higher than zero, no one has demonstrated this.\n\n"*When researchers at Washington State University compared organic strawberries and industrial ones, they found that the organic berries had significantly higher antioxidant activity (8.5 percent more), ascorbic acid (9.7percent more), and total phenolics (10.5 percent more) than industrial berries.*"\n\n10% of this or that is laughably small.  Why even mention it?  And if a non-organic farm produces over 10% more berries, it's already "beaten" the organic method in total nutrition on those 3 nutrients alone, in addition to all the rest.\n\nNot to mention, the variability between items from the *same harvest* almost certainly have more variability than that.  Fruit for example gets loaded with potassium as it's being formed, but the plant takes most of it back as it ripens.  When you pick the fruit in part determines the potassium level (but once it's picked it remains fixed).\n\n"*No, I supposed you don’t have to choose between organic and industrial food. But here’s the great thing about the free market: you get to choose. At least three times a day you get to make a choice about what you want to put in your body.*"\n\nWell for one thing, almost everyone does *not* get to choose.  Maybe in your fluffy suburban neighborhood you get a choice.  Must be nice.\n\nAs far as choosing "what you put in your body", since when does someone eat a strawberry and think "wow I can really taste the 10% increased vitamin C, that I wasn't in any danger of being deficient in to begin with".  Since when is eating something with 10% less antioxidants that you didn't need anyway somehow harmful?  (Side note, antioxidants are like anything else, they have a purpose, but more is not always better).\n\n"*The most dangerous myth to be found in Wilcox’s essay is the idea that organic practices are incapable of producing enough food to feed the human population.*"\n\nNothing in this article swayed me very much in this regard.  Organic farming *has not yet* approached regular farming in terms of yield per acre.  The article suggests that studies show it *could*, some day.  But the reality is it so far has not.\n\nNeed any more convincing that this guy is a douche?  Well, here you go:\n\n"*Jason Mark is editor of the environmental quarterly Earth Island Journal and a co-manager of San Francisco’s Alemany Farm, a three-acre fruit and vegetable garden that employs agro-ecology methods.*"\n\nNot to say that biased people can't be right, but not this time buddy.
reading this gave me chills.
>Eh, they can still be helpful.\n\nHelpful at what? Producing a negligible positive effect on lower back pain (that is equivalent to aspirin, massage, and warm baths)? Sure. Beyond that, I haven't seen any evidence for their helpfulness.\n\n>Maybe he's implying a chiropractor in place of pain meds?\n\nWhat kind of pain listed by his problems in the image could be helped by chiropractic? \n\n>Drugs, while effective, are no replacement for a healthy lifestyle.\n\nBut, importantly, no matter how much you change your diet, you're not going to cure your ADHD.
Once again, some retard mistakes a camera defect for a UFO.
"David Tennant is still the best"\n\nWhy would a skeptic say something so illogical?
> **Empirical** evidence is what differentiates opinion from data.\n\nFTFY
http://www.golfdisputeresolution.com/?p=2126
> Rather than 5% of A.A. members remaining at the end of one year a more accurate estimate is that 36% remain attending A.A. at the end of one year and 32% are still attending at the end of 20 years.\n\nThey redefine success to mean dropping in occasionally rather than actually quitting drinking as one would expect.
No, she said being asked to go to his room at 4 am for coffee and then being silent was what maked it creepy.
Behold the crippling force of indoctrination - solid indoctrination.
You're making a logical error here by assume that, because a theory can't be proven, then all theories are equal. It's not a matter of "proven/unproven", it's a matter of whether the empirical evidence supports the theory or not.\n\nIt's not that complicated to understand, really.
I've said this in other glitch posts, but there are many stories with this same idea. Very interesting. I love these stories.
OMG its the 21st, its starting!!!!!
If PBB encompasses and includes the phenomena that have been witnessed thus far, then perhaps you might be right.  I don't know.  However, I personally am not sure if PBB *does* indeed encompass it.  Perhaps you can elaborate on what parallels you see sufficient to link what I stated here *with* PBB.
How does your racist straw man in any way invalidate my rebuttal to eggsandbeans criticism of the article?
Have we established that there ARE alien crafts made out of a known-to-us metallic composition entering our atmosphere?
I'd definitely recommend keeping to whatever your diet was before, at least until you get tested.  Also, keep a food diary of everything you're eating for a week or so.  If you go to see a gastroenterologist or a decent nutritionist, they'll probably ask you to do that anyway. \n\nThe blood test I took awhile ago (EMA) came back negative, but the biosopy they did of my small intestine came back positive.  As I understand it, that blood test is sort of out of fashion these days and there's a  number of them that are better at detecting what is going on. Hopefully, you won't have to go the biopsy route.\n\nIf you really aren't feeling well, it's a good idea to get it checked out, just to be sure.  I actually gained 40 pounds after I stopped eating gluten, but I had the symptoms of being drastically underweight and anemia due to inability to absorb nutrients from my food properly.
I would have peed myself.  I once thought the little girl I was babysitting got out of bed.  I walked past her room on to the bathroom and while in the bathroom I saw a little girl in a white gown go past the bathroom door into her moms room.  When I got done... I was washing my hands and glanced out and into the moms room.. I saw the little girl standing at the foot of the bed... "Holly, honey your moms still gone lets go back to bed." I said as I was exiting the bathroom and going into the bedroom...  but when I went into the room there was no little girl and Holly was sleeping in her bed.  I hated babysitting those kids after that.\n\nIts strange because your brain tries so hard to comprehend what you saw or are seeing at the time..\n
Yeah. It was a bit misdirected. I went a bit overboard since a number of anti-libertarian posts (not mine) have been downvoted with impunity regardless of content.
Very cool, would be nice to have a 9th planet again.  What does this have to do with UFOs?\n\nAnd I don't mean that critically, just curious if there is an association with Planet X and UFOs that I haven't heard.  If nothing specific, it's still in the range of unidentified celestial objects, I think it still belongs here.
Argentina:  The Great Evil-Sealing Can
Could you please expand on what you were saying about Bob Lazar?
Funnily enough my research group read and discussed this article recently... The article makes some important points about how we should report our analyses, but it by no means shows that all psychology findings are bunk. In fact, the criticisms apply to all statistics-using disciplines. And actually the article doesn't show that we can prove almost anything, it just warns that certain data collection and analysis techniques lead to an inflation of the Type I error (rejecting the null hypothesis when the null hypothesis is true) rate.
Just learned about the Hessdalen lights recently from this sub-reddit.  I didn't realize how often the sightings were and that the objects even responded to lasers being pointed at them.  Woah...
 People with your ideology have been guilty of far more murder beyond comprehension in history; you're a fascist.   Lemme guess...,you're pro abortion too.  As long as it hasn't come through the hole it isn't real, once it has, ...I'm a smug moral bigot!
Hi, thanks. Can't say the objects in the videos are definitely airplanes, although they do have something in common with my friend's video - they were shot just before the sunset. Video 2 also shows two trails from what could be engines on wings.
Oh fuck right off.  Being a native has absolutely nothing to do with facts regarding science.  Stop being so PC and start being logical.
I wanted to present a bit of geographic and racial diversity to /r/skeptic and I distrust the dogma of /r/atheismplus.
Woosh. Every point you made went right by him/her, as they kept repeating the same vague claims ("gives your digestive system a rest," "removes toxins").\n\nThe first comment, though, put them on the defensive and would generally cause someone to rally their defenses.
How so? Your saying there is nothing absolute anyone can say to any of these questions?
Came here to say this. I know an atheist who believes in ghosts. Aren't scientologists technically atheists? They're not skeptics. \n\nReminds me of the South Park episode where everyone's an atheist, but they still have war because they fight over what to call themselves. Lol. \n\nI get the point to the article and I think some of it's valid, but skeptics and atheists are two different things.
If people (the police) are having trouble finding them, then I dont see that they represent quite the atrocity that they are being painted to be- \n\nI am not pro-crystal planting, but labelling it as "defacement" is a bit of a stretch
Along with the flash of light?  I have felt an earthquake before, and this was very different.
\\**wide, incredulous eyes*\\* By... testing it?
slenderman is made up, but its the only image i could describe the shadow and it's lurking.
"Hey, lady, stop yelling at me - I'M PROTECTING YOUR CHILDREN'S TESTOSTERONE LEVELS!"
I just posted 2 of the pics
And dear god there's a lot of mean people to disagree with.
Can someone guess as to how large a bird must be in order to appear as a white dot on footage from that distance away?\n\nHow can you be sure?  Honestly, there is not enough info here to make any kind of determination.  \n\nYou guys so easily deny that this is a possibilty given other many thousands of UFO sightings and footage?  How can you possibly know for sure?  Birds?  That chopper is far away, and if those are birds, they would have to be fucking huge, besides.....what birds fly in a formation like that?  If at all, they'll the the wedge type right?  \n\nBe reasonable, don't assume like you know for sure.  Leave it up in the air.  You know we're not alone anyway so you might as well get used to saying there are UFO's out there.  It will happen eventually.\n\n[They didn't make this all up in order to just cover it up!](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77FjyBe7cQM)
straight guy here. I have to agree with you
vid gone? ಠ\\_ಠ
The Beaches area.
Oh, we're playing the implying game huh? Alright, I like this game.\n\n>Implying SRS has any legitimate claims which would need as much as even a 'poor' argument to show-up.
Currently I'm watching this seeing if I have anything more to contribute, but I've said this on this subreddit before, and I will say it again to hopefully stave off any more confusion:\n\nMy thesis was on the subject of **philosophical skepticism**. This is very different from **scientific skepticism**, the term coined by Carl Sagan, and what this subreddit is about. Philosophical skepticism states that we cannot truly attain any knowledge, because we cannot rule out we're all living in the Matrix or are just in a very realistic dream, for example. Thus, knowledge is impossible. Scientific skepticism is more about using the proper methods of attaining knowledge, while assuming knowledge is actually possible.\n\nRule of thumb: When you hear a philosopher criticizing skepticism, assume they are talking about **philosophical skepticism** unless you have evidence to the contrary.\n\nThis becomes all the more clear when listening to some of the statements from the video. "For skepticism is no doubt a pessimism when it comes to knowledge.", clearly this does not describe the scientific skepticism-movement, who vehemently argue against the postmodern position that knowledge is all opinion.\n\nIn the first part of the video, [this schematic](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cG7MyZtGSB0&t=1m20s) appears. It is very important to realize that ALL these terms are technical philosophical terms, and if you're going to try to apply your common definitions to it, you're gonna have a bad time. For example, idealism isn't some left-wing ideology of world peace, but the idea that the world is immaterial and comprised of 'ideas', and thus purely mental. This is as opposed to materialism. Realize please that if you do not know these terms, or know why Godel uses the ones he uses, you're going to misuderstand what he says.\n\nThe video quickly becomes too technical to be open to quick interpretation. This is not a text that is designed to be easily accessible, or make a point to the general public. Really getting to the bottom of it would require, frankly, more time and effort than I am willing to spend (as in, days of research and cross referencing), as I am not an expert in this particular area. I am confident, however, that Godel is making larger historical and philosophical points, and nothing directly related to scientific skepticism.\n\nEdit: merged everything into a single post.
Not to go all skeptic on you, but.. citation please? :) I'm not trolling, I actually am interested.
I'm a supporter of MSG (have a shaker full of it and I use it plenty). But it *probably* has an effect on my migraine auras, I found out by trial and error of several chemicals (saw the claims that MSG triggers auras after I pinpointed the cause, so I doubt nocebo effect). I still use it, but in smaller amounts. \n\nAnyway, that reaction is claimed by many but haven't been shown in placebo controlled trials yet. Also, some people supposedly are allergic to it. So, it \\*may\\* have some mild effects on a small subset of the population, but then again, so does phenylalanine (though not so mild).
I am also in contact with these aliens and i would like to pass on a message to you: stop filming us with your iphone. We are an advanced race that deserves to be recorded in only the best HD quality. Justin Bieber gets HD videos. The galactic overlords are not pleased.
I don't get it. Describe something that is unnatural and how it is "bad". Technology is completely natural, if that's what it is referring to.
I've had a similar thing like that happening to me once, I was playing soccer with friends and I was never particularly good at it, we were playing a game where 2 people have to bounce the ball in the air and after 3 passes they have to kick/hit the ball to the goal, and if you score with your head was worth 100 points (goalie and players swapped places every couple of rounds) and I was doing really bad as a goalie and this friend headbutts the ball in a perfect angle and I thought "I'm fucked" but I look at the ball and for a second I could swear to god it was not moving and I jump for it and catch it, It wasn't a reflex thing, it was a fast ball too, my friends were really impressed and I was really confused.. And mentioned to them\n\nWho I assume got it in a more figurativelly way, though I was being pretty serious...\nCrazy stuff.
I can too, but they just won't listen.
Wish this would have included "spoiler alert" before I read the spoilers...
Holy shit, I'd never read that before. I love the speculation to credit our recent technologies to what was found in Roswell.
Use of the word for Milloy is apt. He is nothing more than a gun for hire.  Since the tobacco money has dried up he has moved on to greener pastures.
Agreed.
I'm also a beekeeper, and I've thought the same things.  People have asked me if I could get them royal jelly, pollen, and bee stings.  I've turned them all down.  I've tried to find some evidence of any of it working.  Until then, it's sticking with the bees.  The only thing coming out of those hives are honey and wax.  \n\nI believe that they do make 'traps' for the royal jelly.  As apop said, it still seems like it would be very labor intensive  for the bees and the beekeeper to get.  From what I know about bees and how royal jelly is used, I would guess that a strong hive wouldn't produce more than a teaspoon of royal jelly in a year.  Since there is no regulation on the supplements, I wouldn't be surprised if there was very little royal jelly and mostly filler in the pills.  There may be a process that royal jelly producers use that is escaping me, but significant amounts would surprise me.
How is this even possible? Aren't there straightforward mathematical formulas that define what is and isn't a statistically significant effect? Where is there even room for opinion and interpretation of something like this?
This is an excellent capture in my opinion. Even without prior knowledge, I would have seen the figure. Reminds me of this pic uploaded to ghostsstory. While it's not as clear... it seems [something](http://ghostsstory.com/007000/photo/view/queen-mary-ghosts-2-3/) can be made out of it.
One thing that much be factored in as well is the need for stability that farming dosen't provide.\n\nIf my 1.5 acre mini-farm were to be hit by a bad hail storm, I'd be done for.  So when calculating for all of society, we need to add in extra production to make up for unexpected losses, and for transportation of that food to needy areas.  By spreading out production in both geography and species, we reduce the chance of all crops failing at the same time, but we can't every reduce the uncertainty to 0.\n\nI wonder if someone has already calculated the amount of average unexpected crop loss world wide, and how much buffer we should produce given a perfect delivery system.
Most all of these claims can be reduced to a minor and yet still technically valid claim. But the bulk of practitioners or believers do not limit the concepts to their most limited form. \n* Tarot and Astrology would be well replaced by a checklist or flowchart for problem solving. Rather than promising a good harvest. \n* Prayer would be called meditation, no need to telepathically connect to some entity. \n*Geocentrists would have to create complicated equations to explain the motion of the planets, stars and our sun.\n* Witches would be a religious group who believe in Wicca.\n* Vampires would die of mundane things like heart disease and cancer. * Souls would be called emergent brain behavior and cease after brain activity\n* Psychics, Auras, Clairvoyance, ESP would be called intuitive guessing.\n* Karma wouldn't extend beyond life\n* and all the mythical creatures and events would devolve into campfire stories that have been exaggerated over time.\n\nIf they want to be taken seriously they need to stick to the non Extraordinary.
It makes sense, after all, the stomach and the heart are in the same body !
I concur. I upvoted this for content, but the presentation is lacking to say the least.
This. To get to this stage in your pregnancy pretty much means this was a wanted, beloved greatly anticipated 'baby' to the woman (and probably the father too), and something has gone terribly wrong. Some abnormalities that are incompatible with life cannot be detected until 20 weeks (anything after 20 weeks is a 'late term' abortion), and the decision has been made to end the baby's life painlessly while in utero and remove it rather than let it suffer for minutes/hours or risk the mother's life in labour. If this procedure is not available the mother is put into early labour and if that doesn't work, a c-section is performed.\n\nIt is a sad situation that leads to this procedure, but the procedure itself isn't sad.
I'm sorry.  I'm not sure I understand what you mean.  Can you explain what those stances are and why you're in favor of them?
These are the same points that often come out in anti-GMO articles. A lot are deliberate misinterpretations of the literature, some are valid concerns about the unknowns and some are issues with business practices.\n\n1. This is a valid concern but doesn't prove anything. In the linked article, David Schubert makes the point that more studies need to be done - "Truly sound science must prevail in the debate over genetically engineered foods to ensure the safety of both consumers and the environment". That's all fair enough but it doesn't prove a point either way.\n\n2. This is the deliberate misinterpretation bit. It links to a review that apparently states that:\n>mammals fed GM corn or soy developed “liver and kidney problems” that could mark the “onset of chronic diseases.\n\nIn actual fact, the review states clearly that\n> Some of these tests used controversial protocols which are discussed and statistically significant results that were considered as not being biologically meaningful by regulatory authorities, thus raising the question of their interpretations.\n\nand:\n>The 90-day-long tests are insufficient to evaluate chronic toxicity\n\nThe whole review focuses on the fact that studies to date have not been sufficient to promote or condemn GMOs and they propose longer and more stringent studies.\n\nIn the two year study cited, they have again misrepresented the facts. Stating that rats developed tumours "bigger than a quarter of their total body weight" sounds scary, but bear in mind that these were Sprague-Dawley rats which have a [spontaneous tumour incidence of 45%](http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/33/11/2768.full.pdf) anyway. Furthermore, there is no direct correlation in the report. When mice are fed GMOs, for males, mortality increases when fed 11% GMOs and then actually reduces when fed 22 and 33% GMOs. There is some effect when using GMOs treated with Roundup but again, levels drop slightly at the highest amounts. So are we meant to conclude from this that low levels of GMOs and Roundup are bad but high levels are good?\n\nThe key point of this and the 19 studies in the review is that they are not testing toxicity of GMOs, but the toxicity of plants sprayed with Roundup. Even if it were proven that Roundup-treated plants are dangerous, this would only indicate the danger of a specific application of GM technology (and a particularly crude one at that, personally I have very little respect for the way in which Monsanto apply GM. It makes for a good business model but GM could be applied in much more sublte and effective ways).\n\n3.The previous point leads into point 3. Again it is an issue with herbicides and pesticides. GM used correctly could potentially reduce or even eliminate the use of these chemicals but again, this is not a issue with GM but rather with modern farming techniques in general.\n\n4."Inserting a single gene can result in multiple, unintended DNA changes and mutations". Yes, an inserted gene can interrupt an endogenous gene but the most that will do is to prevent its function. This cannot lead to some scary new trait. It will be a loss of function mutation which if it causes a detrimental effect to the plant in question, it will never make it to field trials anyway.\n\n5.This is a problem with business practices. GMOs are patented technologies and our IP law allows the companies to protect their property. Yeah Monsanto can be dicks (although most cases about them suing farmers are exaggerated) but this is not a problem with GMOs per se.\n\n6.Again this is a point about business practices. Maybe with less scare mongering about GMOs, there would be more businesses willing to invest in the technology and therefore less of a monopoly by any one company.\n\n7.This is a contentious point. Population is increasing, people are starving and much of the worlds land can't be used for crops
I wasn't referencing any specific from this board in recent memory. Rather, a friend sent me a clip today that they'd captured in their yard that had them rather freaked out. I'd already seen this sound interpreted as paranormal several times in the recent past (sorry, I don't really remember where, I could search if you really want examples), and thought this might help some people in their efforts. \n\nParticularly as habitat loss forces more red foxes into suburban and urban areas, where inhabitants have likely never heard these sounds before. From wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_fox#Urban_foxes\n\nI certainly agree that every possible alternative explanation doesn't deserve its own thread. Rather, the unusual and exceptional nature of this audio seemed to make it a good candidate for pointing out.\n
What amazes me is that there are people who actually buy that line of BS.... But I guess a fool and his (or her) money are soon parted....
Yeah, pretty much. If you use a tripod, filter and setup for long exposures there's no reason a dSLR can't do IR. Good idea to setup your photo and then put the filter on, as you will struggle to see through the IR filter with the naked eye, obviously. Auto-focus is unlikely to work either.\n\nIf you have an old body you no longer need then you can remove the sensor's IR protection and do a full convert and you'll have far superior photos (i.e. no hot spot) but it's completely feasible with just a filter.
The face I see is very unsettling...
What I want to know is why they are buying hollow points for target practice.  They're usually more expensive... it makes me sad to think of the waste :(
I honestly don't know why you believe this. Here are excerpts from the [factsheet on circumcision](http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/resources/factsheets/circumcision.htm) provided by the Centers for Disease Control.\n\n>A systematic review and meta-analysis that focused on male circumcision and heterosexual transmission of HIV in Africa was published in 2000 [5]. It included 19 cross-sectional studies, 5 case-control studies, 3 cohort studies, and 1 partner study. A substantial protective effect of male circumcision on risk for HIV infection was noted, along with a reduced risk for genital ulcer disease. \n\n.\n\n>Another review that included stringent assessment of 10 potential confounding factors and was stratified by study type or study population was published in 2003 [6]. Most of the studies were from Africa. Of the 35 observational studies in the review, the 16 in the general population had inconsistent results. The one large prospective cohort study in this group showed a significant protective effect: the odds of infection were 42% lower for circumcised men [7]. The remaining 19 studies were conducted in populations at high risk. These studies found a consistent, substantial protective effect, which increased with adjustment for confounding. Four of these were cohort studies: all demonstrated a protective effect, with two being statistically significant.\n\n.\n\n>Three randomized controlled clinical trials were conducted in Africa to determine whether circumcision of adult males will reduce their risk for HIV infection. The study conducted in South Africa [9] was stopped in 2005, and those in Kenya [10] and Uganda [11] were stopped in 2006 after interim analyses found a statistically significant reduction in male participants’ risk for HIV infection from medical circumcision.\nIn these studies, men who had been randomly assigned to the circumcision group had a 60% (South Africa), 53% (Kenya), and 51% (Uganda) lower incidence of HIV infection compared with men assigned to the wait-list group to be circumcised at the end of the study.\n\n.\n\n>Male circumcision may also have a role in the prevention of HIV transmission in the United States. CDC consulted with external experts in April 2007 to receive input on the potential value, risks, and feasibility of circumcision as an HIV prevention intervention in the United States and to discuss considerations for the possible development of guidelines.\n\n.\n\n>As CDC proceeds with the development of public health recommendations for the United States, individual men may wish to consider circumcision as an additional HIV prevention measure, but they must recognize that circumcision 1) does carry risks and costs that must be considered in addition to potential benefits; 2) has only proven effective in reducing the risk of infection through insertive vaginal sex; and 3) confers only partial protection and should be considered only in conjunction with other proven prevention measures (abstinence, mutual monogamy, reduced number of sex partners, and correct and consistent condom use).
>...their belief is born not of selfishness but of faith.\n\nCan't it be both?
I think it's more that everyone knows it's not going to happen, but there is no way to convince those that think it will happen, that it won't happen, until it doesn't happen... yeah.
*singing* Looooooooo looo lo-looooooo... :O\n\n*posting lies on Youtube*\n\n... loooo-lo-looooooo loooooo lo-lo :O
It's about time...he's [still doing "research" though!](http://www.statesman.com/news/local/censured-doctor-says-hell-resume-autism-research-in-698214.html)\n\nI am very glad that he lost his license in the UK, but unfortunately he hasn't given up yet. Fortunately the anti-vax movement does seem to be dying out even among autism parents, but the damage that he did is considerable, to say the least.
Good job picking an article with sources cited
Incorrect. The elimination of the white cells is not showing how evolution works, it is showing how a beneficial mutation (eating of a certain food) allows one population (the grey cells) to produce more offspring than their competition (the white cells) such that the competition dies off and the beneficially mutated species predominates. We could liken this to what Homo Sapiens "did" to the Neanderthals.
What was their size?
What part of the country?\n\nIs the whole apartment building haunted or just your flat?
there appears to be some underwater "stripes" in the upper right coast of the island.
The group is a good idea and seems to be somewhat organized, but the name is fucking horrible.
I know it's the Daily Mail, but I was still caught off-guard by the comments. I managed to read just the first ten or so before a headache kicked in.\n>A very minor scam....unlike the one perpetrated by the global warming fiends.\n- xsnake  \n\nRrrright...\n> The real cause of climate changes, volcanic activity, intensification of seismic activity etc., is the planet Eris getting closer to our solar system. It was named 2003-UB-313, and known in Antiquity under various names as Nibiru, Marduk, Nemesis, Hercolubus, the Gods Planet, the Planet of the Empire, and the Planet of the Crossing. It was first observed on October 21, 2003 using the 1.22 Oschin telescope, at Mount Palomar Observatory (California). Discovered by Michael E. Brown, Chad Trujillo, David L. Rabinovitz, on January 5, 2005. Further observations published in October 2005 have shown a satellite around Eris named Dysnomia (Gabriel). The planet Eris/ Nibiru periodically gets closer to Earth once in 3,600 years generates numerous climate changes, one being the global warming with its natural consequence: the melting of the glaciers. Nibiru doesn't "crash into Earth". It passes and causes pole shift, as it has for millennia, wiping out great civilizations from Sumer to Atlantis.\n- Hylian  \n\nO_o\n>All you people make me laugh. run around like spreading rumors and lies and then all puffed up saying it's all false. You create a problem then stick out your chest saying you've solved it. Yes your all heros and all lost.too. You didn't make this world and your too thick to talk to the God who did. God has come here, He even came as a man, but most of you are just too smart too comfortable to educated to receive Jesus Christ. Humble yourselves, receive Jesus Christ as Savior or not. That is the reason your here. Decide. stop pretending.\n- Jeff Kern
You had me at scary ass dolls. Great story!
Haha, okay, the second one got me :-)
The movie better be good.
Don't forget "harmonics" and "force".
Rottweilers less so.  Pitbulls and dobies though sometimes have breeding issues that have few outward symptoms but cause pain.  In dobermans, the brain sometimes outgrows the skull a bit, causing the dog to be in great pain and also have some cognitive problems.  This makes them snap and was one of the big reasons everyone was afraid of dobies in the 80s and 90s.  Pitbulls have a common issue with muscle growth leaving them prone to certain diseases and conditions.  This is sometimes thrown in as a tributary cause of sudden aggression from sweet pitbulls.  It may or may not be, but pitbulls are a seriously strong dog with a ridiculously high pain tolerance level. It's a dog that when it does go off, it will fuck something up.  They also tend to be bossy.  There are recommended guidelines for dogs and certain dogs *require* certain traits and practices from their masters.  pities are a very difficult dog to rear but people don't respect that and get them because they're cute or tough.  Rotties are people dogs and are more often dangerous to other dogs.  It's a fairly old breed without many breeding issues.  For decades they were thought of as nannies and the perfect companion for children.  Very smart and loyal but big and tough and requires consistency and someone who can dominate them.  Not half as problematic as pities.
I thought that was disproven?
Thanks for this. I, too, am skeptical of skeptics blogs that fail to cite evidence done through testing or study.
I'm curious as to how you wound up in the Skeptic subreddit, seeing as you're doing a really bang-up job of spouting memes like someone from f7u12.
I would also very much like to know that. If someone is out there and knows something, please say something, anything.
The heater was 20 years old, and it could very well be it. That the heater worked on over-capacity during the cold. They don't smoke and they dont have any psychiatric condition.\n\nBut still, so many fires, it can't barely be just coincidences.
>So "soldiers literally kill children directly with guns for unjust reasons"?\n\nYes some do. See this argument : \n\n>Why then do we expect any rational to be aware of the effectiveness of vaccines - and are justifiably irate when someone directly causes the illness of children, and yet we find it acceptable that people literally kill children directly with guns for unjust reasons?\n\nSimilarly, not everyone who refuses vaccines gets ill. We don't see that person as any less ignorant or obtuse for doing so. We blame them for the intent and action itself, not the result. \n\n>The average soldier is about as smart as your average Republican.\n\nOnce again, a faulty justification based on intelligence. We, as a society and as skeptics, are irate when even the stupidest person refuses to vaccinate their children, because it puts other people at risk. We don't say, "Oh, they're as smart as a Republican, so it's alright."\n\nIn the same way, becoming a soldier without proper research of the military activities of your specific nation is putting other people, other children at risk. You may not kill innocents directly, but again, like with those who choose not to vaccinate, it is the intent itself and not the result.\n\n>Even those of us who do realize that Iraq was unjustly invaded recognize there is potential for lasting good, that the removal of Saddam was a good thing, and that we should do our best to help Iraq become a stable democracy. The invasion cannot be justified, but we broke it we bought it. We are leaving soon, hopefully Iraq will not descend back into chaos.\n\nBut your argument is incorrect, sir. America has imperialist tendencies and motives, they have historically undermined democracy for their own economic and political motives. \n\n[In Iran.](http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=3050912)\n\n[In Bolivia.](http://books.google.ca/books?hl=en&lr=&id=K5OnWYLhQBAC&oi=fnd&pg=PA7&dq=America+coup+d%27etat+attempt&ots=JtGdAoLiPw&sig=8oZH26prHXKpA3MeLH7pbmnR3_g#v=onepage&q&f=false)\n\nAnd of course Venezuela, Chile, and others. Sometimes America removes a dictator, sometimes they removed a democratically elected leader. Democracy by the sword is another issue here though.\n\nDo a quick google search, and it's easy to find the data that most Iraqis want you to leave, *now*. \n\nhttp://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=1Qn&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=iraqis+want+us+out&aq=0&aqi=g2g-m2&aql=&oq=Iraqis+want&gs_rfai=\n\n>Thousands have died as a result of collateral damage and the chaos, does allowing further chaos and more death make any more moral sense?\n\nYou try to make the point here that staying causes less damage than leaving, as though that's an axiom. It is not sir, not by any stretch. Most of the deaths in Iraq are still caused by Western forces. \n\n
That change direction by 90 degrees, for no apparent reason and without slowing? The ice explanation seems more implausible than UFOs, IMO. Just sayin'.
Countdown until some preacher says that he converted on his deathbed, a la Carl Sagan: 3... 2... 1...
Deserve it or not, humanity would arguably be better off without them. I have no sympathy for the stupid.
made an account to say yes. the gov just said there are aliens alive. what does that mean for everyone...
I cook with all of them, but not because of any specific health "effect". They simply taste good and provide various nutrients that are good for me. Just because something can contribute to overall health doesn't mean that it's also magical.
Have you ever seen how dim that bulb is?  It's 4 watts, and not 4 CFL watts that we're pretending are 16 but actually 4.
I'm not talking about that. I'm referring to comments that get downvoted when it is clear that it's simply a difference of opinion or possibly a grudge from previous discussions. It's just petty. I brought it up because it is happening more and more in r/ufos.\n\nFor example, people often downvote someone who is simply asking for additional information or clarification, or downvote someone who believes something that others don't, or doesn't believe something that most others do believe.\n\nSolid facts can be difficult to obtain with this topic. Much of the most interesting conversation here is pure speculation, and there's nothing wrong with that. \n\nIf you downvote somebody because you believe that your facts are better than their facts... I personally consider that to be lame. Instead consider presenting your version of the facts and then actually discussing it with them rather than copping out by simply downvoting them. Educating someone is always better than trumping them. That is what community is all about. It isn't a dick measuring contest.\n\nIf you are interested in a verified fact-only subreddit regarding ufos try r/UAP.\n
You could start a podcast.  Any idiot can do it, I can attest to that.\n\nYou could also stage some sort of paranormal investigator's workshop where you pretend to have some witnesses to a paranormal event that actually turns out to be something mundane.  \n\nHave participants question the witnesses and examine the scene, and prizes perhaps can be given to the people who figure it out.
Your last paragraph is more or less correct. I only say this because I find myself locked in combat against fools who won't listen to medical science or their doctors on a fairly regular basis. \n\nOne of my most tiring conversations to have with people is in regards to the many fad diets we Americans have to choose from now, which includes the oh-so-popular-with-youth veganism. It is completely rampant where I live. Now, I'm not saying I'm against veganism, and I'm not advocating people go out and consume a pound of meat a day, either. In fact, as I understand it, in some cases, veganism might be a healthier choice for a person with certain afflictions (of course, consult your doctor first). But should you ever visit my little corner of the world, you would see that most of the people I meet are doing it because it fits their trendy lifestyle. It's something they can proclaim at social gatherings, and use to call attention to themselves. And they do, often and loudly.
no, i'm pretty sure that was god.
Could you do another overlay showing orange shirt on the right and blue on the left, to confirm that big ol' chocolate chip on his face?
"Destiny, an esoteric turd."
Well. Azazel is mentioned is the hebrew,islamic, and hebrew dictionary. His name means" he who god strengthens" and in that respect he cant really do anything big time till a possession. Since you have spoken with him you need to find his reasoning fpr being there. Why he doesnt like you, why he likes your friend(possible target). One thing you have on him is that he straight out told you his name. A demons name is a source of power and weakness in most texts and can at least keep him at bay. You may want to study up on him and ways to prevent him from entering and exiting. And quiji boards are bullshit dude.....theyre about as harmless as transformers. But yeah...arm yourself with knowledge
I'm listening to the Knocking on Heavens Door audiobook now and please allow me to say that her grasp of the philosophy of science is one of the most solid I have heard from someone who is willing to talk seriously about the problems between faith and science. Her final position is something that lots of people might see as accommodationist but she does an excellent job discussing the issue clearly and concisely and it's one of the best things I've ever read on the subject. It's a shame it's only one chapter. \n\nAlso, reading this book after freshly reading the structure of scientific revolutions might be a very unique experience. Lisa alludes to the concreteness of our theoretical epistemology in a way that other great communicators (Krauss, Carrol and even Tyson) often forget.
But, you have presumed that the "religious" (vague to whom you are referring) ideas on God are in fact the true nature of said God.  That is not necessarily the case.  God could, in fact, exist in a different nature than assumed by the religious.  Therefore, debunking their ideas actually does little to truly debunk the existence of a God.  The question is outside of science.   \n\nEdit:  I realize this comment is in the territory of a logical fallacy.  I think that arises because the term or entity of God is so vague that it is outside of simple reasoning.
When was the last time an airline Pilot was blinded by a Laser Pointer?  You are only helping to spread misinformation.  It is near impossible to blind a Pilot with a Laser Pointer.  They are not looking at the ground.  There is reflective glass angled up in relation to the Ground.  And if you did happen to get one eye, they usually have another.  And if they didn't, they have a co-pilot.  And if they didn't, they have auto pilot, navigation and a myriad of other ways not to crash.\n\nBringing down an Airplane with a Laser Pointer is not possible.  Messing up a Heli Pilot with a Laser Pointer is.  But you won't bring them down or blind them.  You will only force them to pivot in the opposite direction.\n\nEDIT: I almost forgot to mention the video.  Most of this video looks like people on the ground pointing a laser at helicopters and then search lights pointing back at the source.  Nothing more.
can someone please just tell us wtf we just watched?
Early Orionoid?
Regarding almost drowning. I think it's very common to almost drown as a child at some point (at least if I look at myself and some friends of my).
Unfortunatly that statement is more true than it should be on more levels than it should be
Sure, its subjective, but its fairly clear that there are moral judgements being made. The same can't really be said for stars or volcanos. \n\nHence a universe without conscious beings to make decisions is not a moral universe. Morals just don't mean anything in this context. With or without a God to watch over it.\n\nSo using this thought experiment you can fairly clearly see that Morals are dependant on conscious beings not on there being a God.
I don't want a doctoral dissertation here, but you literally gave no examples of what you're talking about. This is like me saying "You know, Cows give you cancer." and refusing to elaborate.\n\nAlso, getting defensive because I called you out about a stupid comment you made publicly is ridiculous - you made a terrible argument, you got called out for it because it was literally without worth, there was nothing to do or respond to with it other than pointing out it's uselessness.
Yeah, people shouldn't be listening to this nutjob- they should be putting their faith in Jesus!  We are in Texas, right?
>given my naturopathic allergist's on-the-ground success rate with my issues (where 20 years of medical treatment had been a miserable and painful failure)\n\nDo you believe this is because he somehow improved your "energy force"?  That is what naturopaths claim to do.
beliefs are not useless in science, they're the driving force behind science.  they're just not called beliefs, they're called hypotheses.
That thing is freaky.
I didn't say feign interest. Sounds kind they like talking about these things. Pseudo-science is rarely uninteresting. There's always something that that draws people in and sometimes a real scientific question buried underneath all the woo. Find that and it gives a great starting point.
Not to mention my whole family and I would be dead by now because we used dish soap for everything.
I make a negative remark about Obama and you instantly *assume* I would vote for Tit Romney?\n\nYou don't see any other choices, do you?
Can you elaborate?
>However, I believe her when she says she didn't feel safe at TAM, and didn't go anywhere alone for that reason\n\nPersonal issues with insecurity don't get fixed like that. Just like with the police, they mostly offer the illusion of safety.  To deal with feelings of insecurity, a person needs to think, meditate and possibly consult a specialist.
The very first definition your link lists is "intentional deception resulting in injury to another person ".    Nothing about crime mentioned on that one.  And that is the first and therefore most common definition of the word.  So, no crime is required.  \n\nHung by your own link.
well this is very interesting. how long have you been seeing them? like what year? like recently this 2011 or 2012?
You know what would probably help?  Ritalin.
http://articles.cnn.com/2003-04-17/health/obit.atkins_1_atkins-diet-atkins-center-diet-guru?_s=PM:HEALTH\n\nHere you go.
Sounds like some epic trolling to me.
chunks of ice illuminated by the sun?
Yup, it's a ufo alright. Just not the alien kind.
Nobody knows. That's the thing. \n\nI refuse to make something up to feel better about not knowing something.
Absolutely a brilliant list!  All of my books on skepticism are in here...and I found some more that I'm going to check out!  Thanks a million!
i'd say massage therapy. chiropractic can be quite dangerous, acupuncture doesn't do shit, and the massage at the very least will relax you. see if it helps with your neck pain :)
Well, we'll just have to agree to disagree.\n\nBut anyways it was a good discussion. And the best of luck with your studies and your career.
He complains that the tests are setup so that "nobody can beat it"  Well, isn't that the point? You're not supposed to "beat" it, you're supposed to prove your claim is true. If you have a legitimate claim you should be able to prove it. But these are delusional people and/or scam artists who indeed need to beat the system and pull off their little tricks. So sorry about your luck there hair-boy, go find a weaker challenge you can beat.
The dowsing thing... I take it you're relatively new to the skeptical community? I only ask because it's such a classic example of a debunked pseudoscience. If you'd been around for awhile it seems like you would have either changed your mind or been bludgeoned into leaving the community.\n\nIf you're interested in details, I'd be happy to discuss why I, and other skeptics are so completely convinced that it doesn't work.
No takes over 60-40 woo hoo
I'm with you on this. Online stupidity is getting out of hand, maybe this could restore some semblance of balance.
This is the third sighting I've seen from this week that shows the existance of unexplained red lights. Heres the first set posted onto this subreddit:\n\n[http://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/11ohk8/my_two_ufo_videos_over_canary_wharf_london/](http://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/11ohk8/my_two_ufo_videos_over_canary_wharf_london/)\n\nthis time it was followed by a helicopter
i was under the impression it was sarcasm regarding the lack of video. my mistake
How could something that brought us [yoga pants](http://www.oodora.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/zobha-essential-pant-long-tall-back.jpg) be evil?
s/riend/ather
That illustrates nothing other than the fact that you pursue the type of person who enjoys that sort of thing.\n\nIt's not helpful to make general negative statements about an entire gender based on nothing but your personal anecdotes. This is [/r/skeptic](/r/skeptic).\n\nEDIT: And to respond to your PM, nothing above implied sensitivity. That's simply projection on your part.\n\n**Having a questioning attitude toward opinions/beliefs stated as facts isn't sensitivity; it's *skepticism*.**
I had woken up and getting ready for school before the story was being talked about.
Member that key dude in The Matrix?
This goes against my "never, ever, ever read youtube comments, ever" policy.
REPLY TO SAVE THREAD
Weddings, family get-togethers etc.
I like the premise. I hope they make it clear, because I would have passed it up assuming it to be a run-of-the-mill cop/psychic show about someone who actually believes they are psychic.
Really?  I would have thought that the whole "personal freedom"/"the state can't force me to get a shot without my consent" line of reasoning would be firmly in the libertarian ideologue's wheelhouse.  Or are you implying that a non-nutjob libertarian would see the refusal to vaccinate as a form of initiation of force, in that it causes harm to the rest of the population, and argue for it to be regulated and mandated?
And an upvote for you because it's obvious that you're cool. ;-)
Skepchick is bad for skepticism
you're right, that was me not checking autocorrect!
It certainly seems implied that he meant it in a way to detract from the argument at hand by attacking the person making the argument.
It is congruent to though.\n\nEdit: and synonymous
Both of Bowie's eyes are blue. One is merely permanently dilated, giving the false impression that he's heterochromatic.
Dammit, you made me check the daily mail to see whether the word quantum was contained in the article... It was.
Most of our grocery store bread is made with high fructose corn syrup. It's super cheap and just filler.
I've had several dreams about girls I never even considered attractive in high school. It always weirds me out because they're never sex dreams ( I don't have sex dreams for some reason) but I always feel really powerful emotions, maybe even love, in the dream. There have been several times when I woke up and just had the overwhelming urge to contact the girl and see if she's single. It never works IRL though...
Not being allowed to do what they want WITH NO GOOD REASON gives people just cause to bitch.\n\nSome people like to be able to boss other people around and being a flight attendant gives them an excuse.
MD's often forget they are *not scientists*. This is particularly true in the food/nutrition realm where there is more quackery than perhaps anywhere else.
Wow, the uploader's voice really gets my subwoofer going.\n\nDoes anyone who watched the whole video want to alert us to some highlights (by time)?
If they're not Indian, why do people insist on saying "Namaste"?\n\nIt's like me (a Northern Brit) saying "Ciao!" - it would just make me look like a cunt.
Most people understand that there's nothing in homeopathy. Skeptical groups all over the UK (and some groups worldwide) are planning a homeopathic 'mass overdose', this Saturday (30th), to protest that country's best known pharmacy chain's insistence on selling homeopathic products despite acknowledging they're unproven. Skeptics in the ancient university town of Oxford are participating in the protest.
It's not even the same guy...
Okay, I'm going to admit a bit of ignorance.  I have no idea what Grindr is.
*After the investigation I found that the 3 lights on the sky, were in fact 3 lights found on the top of a hill that could not normally be seen. **They were in fact 3 flood lights on the corners of a house garage, hence the triangular shape.** The lights of the house were all off because the household was on vacation, leaving it invisible in the black country hillside. The 3 floods lights however, were illuminated due to tremendous explosions that literally shook houses throughout the neighborhood. These explosions, i found out from the investigation, were from the swat team testing of a new form of explosive forced entry technique in order to raid houses in hostage/sticky situations. A helicopter in the sky, seen in the video, was monitoring this testing that took place in a junk yard over the hills behind the house that set off the flood lights!*\n\nwell done
lol oops.. I guess I was too much into the whole skeptic mindset.
A false belief is epistemically harmful. Nobody wants to have false beliefs. Perhaps you thought I meant it was also medically harmful. It usually is, but that of course is not axiomatic.
It's not that I don't believe your story it's just that it's hard to tell what that is exactly.  It's just a tiny dot that, in a photograph, could be anything.  Can you post the video?
From New Scientist (21 June 2009):\n\n>Grey hair may be unwelcome, but the processes that produce it are now better understood and could be protecting us from cancer.\n\n>Cells called melanocytes produce the pigments that colour hair and their numbers are kept topped up by stem cells. Hair goes grey when the number of stem cells in hair follicles declines. Now Emi Nishimura of Tokyo Medical and Dental University in Japan and colleagues have found what causes this decline in mice.\n\n>When the researchers exposed mice to radiation and chemicals that harm DNA, damaged stem cells transformed permanently into melanocytes. This ultimately led to fewer melanocytes, as it meant there were fewer stem cells capable of topping up the melanocyte pool. The mice also went grey [(Cell, vol 137, p 1088)](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867409003742). Nishimura's team proposes that the same process leads to the reduction in stem cells in the follicles of older people
Yea I've heard of something like that but can't remember where it is.
I was kinda hoping that at the bottom it was going to be the ship from Spaceballs.
How are you able to differentiate between a living person and a dead person? I mean, obviously the shadowy-type people you describe would be easy to tell apart - but otherwise, do the dead appear transparent at all? Especially in hospitals, how are you able to tell which is which?\n\nAlso, how do you communicate with them? Do you have to speak aloud to them, or are you able to sort of "think" towards them?
Excellent, excellent point. Chaos magick is great for reorganizing your thought processes, or personality, or whatever, but if it were a viable model for affecting reality we'd all be screwed because, let's face it, the religious extremists would've taken over long ago.\n\nI'm okay with magick being simply an over-exaggerated metaphor for self-manipulation. It doesn't really need to be more than that, I think.
perhaps the fear afterwards was so strong that it reverberated back?\n
Thanks but it's definitely not to the point where it's anxiety, I don't let it affect me that much.
Currently quantum redditing. Its amazing.
Agreed.
Physiotherapist.  All the high paid athletes do.
Man I got enough of Zahi Hawass when it was Zahi Hawass week on Zahi Hawass Channel
A lot of these incidents have occurred.\n\nThere are only two possibilities. \n\nOne being that whatever you witnessed was a black project. I can absolutely prove that the government has been working on anti-gravity since the 60's. These crafts use a propulsion system where the front of the aircraft and exhaust vapour are ionized so that it creates a 'gravity wave'. Perhaps the propulsion emits a blue light? I don't know. \n\nAnother possibility is that whatever flew was an extraterrestrial craft. \n\nEither way be happy you saw it. Not many people get to see what you witnessed.\n
Eet is ba-loooon!
If you let someone other than the suspects do the investigating, perhaps your scenario would not be so inevitable.
Some people are requesting proof. Timothy Geithner(treasury secretary of the us) was arrested for financial crime involving te bail out of aig. Over a dozen of central bank chairman and ceo's have resigned this year already, and of 1st world countries too. Also I think this is big Rupert murdoch's son resigned from the family business yesterday. \n\nI would cite my sources but I'm on an iPhone, I will do so when I get home this evening. So whether or not some "space family" is helping us out or not; something is definitely going on.\n\nI implore you all to google some of that shit in the first paragraph I wrote before you roll your eyes at op. New age bs or not maybe it is time we as a species wake up to the macros degree in which we have been manipulated.
His whole article is predicated on surprise; and like all other humans PZ is able to express more than one thing at a time. So whether he was disgusted by the behaviour does not also negate his surprise.\n\nWhether or not he actually uses the word "surprise" doesn't matter. He is surprised that skeptics have responded in a manner that makes him queasy. Which he shouldn't be. The set of skeptics is a subset of the set of humans, who have all manner of reactions and beliefs.\n\nMany humans are not nice people.
Well I think this test is designed to show that point #1 is complete BS.  Point #2 is proof of a well done experiment.
You just gave me something to listen to at work tomorrow.. thank you !!!
I'm going for tea.
Arcade operator here.  That is true in many but not all cases.\n\nThere are still plenty of crane games out there with purely mechanical claw mechanisms.  I have 4 out on my routes.  They have a collar that adjusts up or down and the further down the more the claw closes.  If you ever see a claw machine in the wild that has a collar that is high up on the mechanism, you won't win.\n\nIf there is no collar on the claw, then it is electromagnetic and is computer controlled.  \n\n
Exactly my point-- I'm seeing a surge of this kind of garbage lately.
I don't see a problem with this. After all I'm 7459 years old and the Indonesian authorities fully back me up on this.
It's the only way I can stand up for myself.
>Let me play devils advocate since you asked.\n\nExcellent!  Let's hope we both get something out of it.\n\n>The book makes repeated use of the word "cure"- false hope perhaps?\n\nCertainly.  But that falls to what "curing" diabetes means.  My understanding is that diabetes is "cured" when the symptoms abate, as diabetes is a condition, rather than an illness (obesity vs. cholera, for example).  You can "cure" a cold, just like you can "cure" a fever.  It does not mean that you can never again get a fever.  \n\nYou've read parts of this book.  I have not.  It's my opinion (and only my opinion) that if you're attempting to motivate someone, telling them they can "cure" something is likely to be more motivating than telling them they can "manage" something.  From a medical and diabetic perspective, I'm unconvinced that the difference is important.\n\n>There's also the issue of equating sound medical advice with thousand year old sayings from a religious text taken out of context.\n\nAbsolutely.  But then, it's difficult to take a thousands-of-years-old religious text *in* context.  Not only that, but providing context to those sayings can either be done by a medical doctor who specializes in diabetes, or by a layman.  Either way, I think we can both agree that any reader of this book is likely to have more-than-passing knowledge of the Bible before they pick it up and I think we can both agree that there is **no** "correct" way to provide context for the Bible in the modern treatment of medicine.  So who should the platitudes come from?  A person who specializes in the condition who happens to have faith?  Or a person who specializes in faith?\n\n>While I agree that telling people "be positive, take control of the situation etc" is okay, is it really necessary to bundle everything in religious quotes? \n\nNot to me.  Probably not to you.  To the audience this book is intended for, however, I would say "yes" without hesitation.  \n\nRegardless of your philosophical leanings and regardless of mine, there are many people whose faith informs their decisions and behavior far more than anything else in their life.  The proper approach to influencing the behavior of these people is to align your counsel with their faith, not attempt to ignore it.  I guess what I'm saying, at the most basic level, is that this book is not intended to *make* anyone religious.  It's intended to help those who are *already* religious.\n\n>To some, I'm guessing many of those in other subreddits where it was posted, it looks like an attempt to take the credit of modern medicine and hand it to religion. \n\nYeah, but so what?  I'm sure if we looked hard enough we could find someone somewhere giving credit for the invention of vampires to Stephanie Meyer.  It doesn't make it true, it doesn't make it defensible, and it undoubtedly came from a want and desire for Stephanie Meyer to be the creator of vampires regardless of the historical accuracy of the statement.  The only difference between that hypothetical example and this actual one is this actual one was written by a doctor attempting to cure diabetes.  And whether or not Oral Roberts University taught him that Jesus invented penecillin, the man did well enough on his medical boards to earn (and maintain) a license to practice medicine.  That's good enough for me.
Really, 40s?? People in their mid-40s were introduced to computers in high school and most had their own in college. I'd say over 55 is where you start to get into the "tenuous grasp of the internet" and "fondness for chain emails" group. But even if we raise the age, there are three characteristics giving this group undue influence: 1. there are more of them than any other generation, 2. they vote in large numbers, and 3. they have children who they indoctrinate with similar political thinking.
I too would love to see it!
Good point, this isn't a spectacularly complex crop circle...who knows man.
How was she not charged with neglect?
In my opinion, I don't think this man is a liar. I still consider the possibility that he's either deluded or delusional or both.\n\n>I'm no more convinced of his tales of exorcism than I am that a rabbit appears out of thin air when pulled from a top hat. Conveniently, he offers no verifiable evidence to back his claims but it's hardly surprising, is it?\n\nQuite honestly, I don't think this article's intentions were to prove that the phenomenon is true so that leaves a little bit of a leeway for further investigation.\n\n> He blames "Satan" for all the morally corrupt actions of those in church hierachy and seemingly the actions of anyone at all. If this were true, it must mean that his god is either unable to prevent "Satan" from perpetrating these acts or he is unwilling. Neither of these conditions mesh with the description of his religions god, who is supposedly benevolent, omniscient, omnipresent and ompnipotent.\n\nThis is a good argument against Christians. I've heard it many times before. As a fellow skeptic, I don't have an answer for this question.\n\n>When a person harbours such logical inconsistencies in what are there "core beliefs" about the world, I can't hold much confidence in their ability to think clearly about anything.\nUltimately, it saddens me.\n\nI'm with you most of the way, but I'm still not fully convinced to take a position in the matter.\n\nThanks for the input.\n\n\n\n
bravo, as someone who grew up immersed in the new age culture (though I never quite bought it, and constantly challenged the idiocy around me (much to the chagrin of my parents)), this woman speaks the truth, given that this was in 04, has her book come out yet? has she done anything more?
My initial hunch would be that you're lying. Beyond that, children are sponges. You may have picked up the story anywhere, possibly on TV.
Solution: Build bridge, post sign, become bridge troll.\n\n"What the fuck officer, I wasn't mugging him. He OWED me for using my bridge. You're standing on my bridge now, motherfucker, you owe me ten bucks."\n\nI feel I should be serious. The idea that I owe the government is akin to original sin and owing the Lord. I was born into this society so I was born with this debt you say exists. My taxes, in your mind, are going to something I *already owe* that I never consented to. In your head, we all start off with this original debt and work our entire lives to pay it back. It's silly. To whom do we owe this debt? Other tax payers? So I'm paying this debt to every other tax payer while they're paying a debt to me? That's not really what's happening. As a society we have common interests that we will fund because they're useful to us all. Blowing up brown people isn't one of them. Giving billions of aid to random countries and overthrowing dictators aren't goals I want to see accomplished.\n\nDo you think the government has too much power to do what it wants with our money? Too little? Just enough? Are you arguing in support of how things operate, or just that some taxes are reasonable? We're not paying taxes to each other, we're paying taxes so other people can use the money to control us and the rest of the world. It's corrupt, to the core.
Then we weren't wearing clothes.  Also just because we evolved to do something a certain way doesn't mean it's the best way.  Our mouths evolved to keep themselves clean with saliva and a tongue, but that doesn't mean it's harmful to use a toothbrush and floss.
You wouldn't know their reasons. For all you know they want to be seen in a way that would not panic us.
[real UFOs](http://www.realufos.net) and [Latest UFO Sightings](http://www.latest-ufo-sightings.net) always have the shows posted within hours of the original broadcast. At least for Ancient Aliens anyway. I'm sure they'll have them up by lunch tomorrow at the latest.
>Define "really really fast." UAV's can get to pretty good velocities.\n\nThey crossed over 90 degrees of the sky in about 9 seconds. They appeared to be about 2 miles away, at an altitude around 3000 feet and about 30 degrees above the horizon from my viewpoint. I don't know what velocity that would be, but it's much faster than civil aviation - maybe jets can go that fast. I'm pretty definite about the shapes, these were actual triangles, not arrowhead shape as Taranis appears.
1,700,000 Architects and Engineers exist in the field, dude.\n\n1,500 of em'.....is a pretty pathetic number, really.\n\n0.001 percent, that's what your 1500 is.    If I were you, I'd....stop mentioning that figure.
The Sun really doesn't even try, does it?  What is it?  No idea!  Oh well!
then there should be dolphin ghosts! but i can understand none of those being seen, weve barely explored the ocean
I've seen this moronic show. They had the king of woo, Deepak Chopra on it once.\n\nDoes the show have any type of disclaimer or preface telling its viewers to always consult with a M.D. before partaking in the advice they get from Wylde or his guests? If not CP24 and CTVglobemedia should be taken to task for not being responsible.\n\nI don't think calling into the show to confront the host would do much good. He can cut you off at any time, he has the last say, and making unsubstantiated assertions isn't beneath him. Finally, as a homeopathic practitioner do you really think Wylde even understands: how to determine a good rigorous study from a poor one with weak or no controls; what constitutes robust evidence from worthless evidence;  how the scientific method even works for that matter.
What? WHAT? I had sleep paralysis, I had an "out of body experience" when I smoked some strong weed after taking antibiotics, that was a totally explainable phenomena - my brain remembered the surroundings and played them back from the 3rd person, just like in the game. I had sleep paralysis during class - I couldn't move, but I heard and felt everything, but in more deep cases SP causes hallucinations. As much as I believe in UFOs and some of their weird properties you have no right to say that sleep paralysis means that the person was abducted. I don't believe in "bed abductions". \n\nJust a little secret: I spent an hour writing you a private message, because I saw past myself in you. I wanted to believe that I'm not just a machine made by self evolving, that there would be some kind of afterlife, some channel in the fabrique of space-time, but now it is gone. There is nothing else. Just your brain (It is you) that when you die ends your being. Deal with it. I'm really sorry, but I'm going through an emotional trauma and I can't pass any opinions that stand out of the more rational side of UFO evalutation.\n\nIf you want to talk more on the subject, hit me up. And again, sorry.
>I wonder what would happen if you mentioned the concept of privilege.\n\n[I wonder...](http://www.i-mockery.com/halloween/greatest/pics/scanners4.gif)\n\n>Also: Screw you, you had your share of upvotes in [1] /r/psychology , now you're collecting them here, too? D: This glowing green next to your name is messing with my perception.\n\n:D\n\nDon't worry, your name is bright green too!
Thanks for finding the case. \n\nI hope this gets real press.
That was certainly my belief as a kid, and I still don't have an explanation to this day. I wouldn't say that it was meant to scare me, and it does not scare me now, but as a kid encountering something that is almost incomprehensible what other emotion would my brain produce?
Thank you very much. I've heard that Ifrit Djinn are made of smokeless fire and that's what my team member thinks it was. I've read that there are different Djinns for different elements. I did not know that it was rumored they could take human form but I did read that most Djinn like to inhabit abandoned places. And that usually, any Djinn that tries to bridge the gap between our world and theirs is usually a bad Djinn. Thanks for the info! It's always excellent hearing it from a human being rather than a wikipedia entry!
Hoax probably:\n\nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=\n\nI thought the "light flash and super fast ascent was a little "too good to be true".\n\nThe plot thickens:\nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPrBlbz_-1o
Did I ever disagree? I sometimes complain about my situation, sometimes I am annoyed when people use prescription medications without a prescription. Sometimes you get annoyed about things such as this too.
I'm not interested in food preferences, I'm interested in ethics.\n\nIt's not the equivalent of "spouting the virtues of your brand of religion". Religion is based on faith and, potentially, on other things that cannot be measured with objectivity.\n\nThe ethics that led me to veganism are based on studies about animal psychology, intelligence, and capacity to suffer, fear and a variety of other emotions and experiences. There are also studies relating animal production to environment consequences.\n\nThe things that I care about regarding veganism have tangible effects. Religion does not. Don't try to lump me in with people who base their worldview on texts written by ancient people that talk about their sky people and their souls. It's not equivalent, it's not even similar.\n\nI don't really care if you're not interested. You don't get say that I'm worthy of being ridiculed into silence because I stand for these things.
The only site like that I've ever found has been Reddit's comments section when, for example, someone posts a severely one-sided story with a *ridiculously* outrageous headline, and then in the comments someone else will say "Uh, that's not entirely true and here's why."
Wouldn't it be possible to build, or even just program, the machines to automatically run multiple tests and provide multiple images and combined images?
So it was a factual error that it was reported that the WTC7 building collapsed, then it actually collapsed 20 minutes later?
It seems to be a few half-truths(Fast and Furious, organ trafficking, and human trafficking for the sex trade are real and awful, but not as bad as they make out), outright lies, and a generous helping of bullshit.
From the linked article: "It's all a big IQ test to see if you're paying attention enough to save your own life and avoid being part of the 'great culling.'"\n\nI'll agree with the premise that anything posted on NaturalNews is a big IQ test, but not in the way they think it is.
Luke 18:25 “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven" is often seen as a mistranslation from the original Aramaic, which is generally now considered to read "I love the cock."
I recommend not getting into an argument until you've learnt how to articulate your position and are familiar with enough of the mental tools of skepticism to feel confident.\n\nActually, perhaps we need some more articles to be posted here about those basic tools. It has been a while.
I haven't really noticed anything different in the media, what have you been seeing?
reply so i can look at those symbols some more later
Do not fear them.
I cannot imagine why this comment is getting downvoted, especially in /r/skeptic.  He is simply pointing out the posters illogical statement that because your body wants something so bad that it immediately means it's good for you.  A more even comparison might have been McDonald's, but either works.
He's such a shit.
Man, they went off on him.
hipsters control the media and international banking too.
I saw a video once that had a supposedly psychic woman who also could do this, but with her face and hands.  I don't remember it very well and have tried to find the video since, but couldn't.  She was from Russia.  There was one part where people would try to pull the items off of her and she would try to keep them to show how powerful the magnetic force was.\n\nI know this is really vague, but does anyone know what I'm talking about?
No, I'm saying that if there is no evidence for a conspiracy theory a scientist would discard it while a conspiracy theorist would grasp at any tiny detail that they then twist so it supports their hypothesis. I.e. moon hoaxers and the flag swaying or shadows on the rocks arguments. And in the worst cases if they are still proven wrong those that disprove them become part of the conspiracy.
Speed is relative to the position and speed of the observer.\n\nEver noticed how a airplane that's flying really high looks like it's moving really slow when it's actually going hundreds of miles per hour?\n\nOr how a fly that's flying really close to you looks like it just zips by?\n\nSame concept.
I have no clue why you're being downvoted. Since entering college I've never been referred to as a "boy", and I've only seen women referred to as "girls" in a derogatory manner.\n\nGenerally once you're over 18 you'll be called an adult, young adult, man, woman, etc, but not a boy or a girl.
hmmm, going to have to call CGi on them (although really nice images), is that Arubesh? As much as I would like to believe Vader is in our future, I doubt it.
more and more people are becoming aware of this. Thanks for the link.
>It makes sense that living in high altitude/low pressure environments increases your bodys oxygen efficiency. But surely this comes as a result of years of constant exposure, not a few hours a week sucking potentially hypoxia inducing low o2 air?\n\nPeople living at high altitudes have evolved to better suit the environment. It's not just one body learning to cope within one lifetime, it's successive generations and selection favouring those better suited for high altitude low oxygen environments.
Glad to see Reddit living up to its reputation.
[Then what the hell am I watching?](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVnQPGE36P4)
You're one of "them," aren't you?
excuse me while I go make a million dollars...
Fireworks or out of focus lightening bugs....OR ALIENS!!!!!!!
>well within the FDA safe limits therefore not taken into account.\n\nSo, I realize this question can't exactly be "proven", and skips to a somewhat conspiratorial well, but isn't the whole "FDA safe limits" think kind of a questionable thing these days?  It is well known that large companies have a revolving door policy with the FDA.  This is the side of the argument that skepticism dismisses outright, but it is a very real problem.  Corruption can (and does) exist for the sake of profit.
Oh, I totally understand. I bet there are as many definitions of those terms as there are mothers! :)\n\nSo for me, I would say "intervention" means things like receiving pain meds, forceps/vacuum (I think vacuum is more common than forceps these days), episiotomies, and especially things like pitocin -- that's probably #1 on my "intervention" list. I consider (again, my own view) that intermittent external monitoring is a passive thing and as long as it doesn't slow labor is beneficial in many cases. Unfortunately too often the monitoring is continuous, causing the mother to need to lay down the entire time, which can stall labor. Stitches don't interfere with the birth since they are later.\n\n
maybe you're just an asshole.
when is this documentary coming out?
Wow just read the 9/11 thread and the quality of discussion is terrible. Both sides of the argument were less than stellar, but some of the conspiracy theorists just took things to whole new levels. I don't think I've ever seen so many ad hominem attacks and unsubstantiated claims in a something claiming to be a debate before.
What about guns for personal protection?
Good article. I am a phd student and the problem of "abstractification" is particularly acute among academics and in academia in general. \n\nIt is easy to debate abstract theories. Actually changing the world, however, is a difficult and risky proposition. \n\nA lot of people are much happier to live in their academic or professional cocoons, getting all excited about shiny new theories and pretending that what they do actually matters.
There are people who believe the president is a reptile. The human brain is just another organ. It can get sick. Sometimes the illness is dangerous. Sometimes it's just a little... strange.
I just wanted to point out that your idea of the "advice animal" bringing up a discussion is valid but ultimately unnecessary.  I don't think this subreddit will discuss acupuncture any less because we didn't have the image macro.\n\nIf anything it brings up generic discussions on topics that are beat to death in this subreddit.  As I said, unnecessary.
That actually looks like it could be a ceramic kettle ([like one of these](http://i.imgur.com/pU2wZ.jpg?1) - the "ear" could be the spout on the kettle) or cookie jar or something like that, sitting on top of a tall counter, like a kitchen bar. The dark spots that look like facial features could be designs on the ceramic.\n\nIt definitely looks like a face though - I was just trying to think of an explanation for it.
>Instead of trying to make a joke about gulags, please enjoy these adorable baby porcupines.\n\nUhhh, those are hedgehogs.
>How is this study better than the one OP linked?\n\nFor starters, they include a literature review that covers all of the main papers on the topic that have ever been written. This is always a much better approach than looking at a single study as single studies can succumb to chance results, whereas reviews and metaanalyses often give a better representation of the overall picture.\n\nThe other papers are also better as they account for a range of relevant variables and discuss how they affect the results. The paper linked in the OP, however, doesn't include any of these variables (for example, the words "income" or "poverty" don't appear at all in the main text of the paper, and no section looks at differences in laws and justice systems). As such, instead of giving us a meaningless correlation, the papers on the page I linked to give us a much more accurate overview of the issue.\n\n>All the citations here are also by the same people, something you criticized OP's article for.\n\nYes, and that can be a problem but not necessarily a problem in itself - that's why I added it as an afterthought, not as a point by itself. That is, a specific conclusion only being pushed by a few authors can either mean that it's a specialised topic and they're just the main authors in the area, or it can mean that they are cranks pushing an idea against the mainstream. When the paper has other problems then the scarcity of authors on the topic can represent a serious problem. It's similar to posting in an obscure journal - it can either mean that the results are dodgy, or that they are valid but specialised. \n\nAlso, since the main paper there included a literature review, the results can't really be criticised for only coming from a few authors (as they looked at all the major papers on the topic ever written).\n\n>Just from reading them both it feels like they are both claiming to have looked at the same or similar data but are drawing opposite conclusions from it.\n\nThe papers in the page I linked to took far more data into account and demonstrated an understanding of how confounding factors can account for various interactions and differences. Those papers also look at different interactions (e.g. across countries and across states, other forms of crime, accidents vs homicides, etc), and so give us a much wider view of the problem. The article linked in the OP is just a simple correlation and to accept the results requires us to accept the idea that these variables exist within a vacuum, which patently isn't true.
why even post this? - the quality is so low it could be the moon
>A person doesn't have the right to promote this kind of nonsense.\n\nThere's all kinds of stupid in this world.  And everyone has (or should have) the absolute right to spout whatever nonsense they please.  The answer to ignorance and stupidity is education, not censorship.  As for it being preferable for her to just die, I would say that is outside my purview.  Yours, too.
When I am sleeping in a tent in the colder seasons or in a cold floor, I'll find myself doing "the log" as it minimises the contact I have with the ground, making affairs a little warmer. And yes, I invariably have to resuscitate my arm in the morning.
WTF is wrong with you?\n\nThis is a fun story that was well researched. I give full support to anyone linking to skeptoid and any other topics that include legit sources and references. This is the kind of post that I believe we should all give a thought to.\n\nAlso, fucking pirate-mutineer stories kick ass.
Hey Jfred! I don't know where we've met before, but I must have really liked you since I tagged you as "decent guy"\n\nKeep up the diligent modding!
Eventually you'll see all the footage repeated on one show or another. True story. Triangle lights in the sky and dancing orbs. :) Point being, start anywhere. In my opinion, there's nothing really "omg" out there with there being recent footage (or hoaxes) constantly showing up online. It's disheartening sometimes. Every now and then a clip will actually catch my interest but, how many triangle lights and orbs can you look at before you're bored of triangle lights and orbs, you know?
He hasn't done an Ouija board since then, but he still has his taro cards, and still uses them.
He does speeches where he shows why homeopathy doesn't work.\n\nThe comic is trying to say that he hasn't aged as a result of homeopathy.
isnt that like a rocket or summet?
"Faith in scientific consensus" is actually not faith. It's belief based on evidence, though the evidence was seen and approved by a higher body than you. Appealing to science can be a kind of appeal  to authority at times--but as long as you take the approach of adopting theories according to what evidence indicates and only with as much weight as the evidence credibly allows, you are behaving in a reasonable fashion.\n\nThere is no "objective" evidence behind religious belief (religious belief is colloquially referred to as "faith"). Religious belief is not useful beyond what social constructions and psychology allow.\n\nReligious faith is entirely an appeal to authority and tradition. At the end of every argument religious argument is an appeal to some book or the sayings of some wise man which could be variably interpreted and is based on nothing but what someone trivially set forth at some point in the distant past. Religious law is only relaxed when it's expedient. Scientific theories are discarded or amended as the evidence dictates. In the end, you can go to that evidence and see for yourself, and you can produce your own evidence through conducting your own experiments or reproducing the theories' originators' experiment. How can one do this with religion? Science is about producing physically useful theories about the way that the environment works. As such you can always go back to the environment and see if you are right or wrong--with religion, there is no such "objective" source of information.\n\nReligious beliefs also tend to be normative ("You should do this; this is right.") whereas scientific beliefs tend to be descriptive ("This seems to happen as a result of this."). These are two different kinds of beliefs, as well, and different processes are reasonable for trying to figure out which beliefs in each domain one should hold. \n\nThe goals of science and religion are quite different and the ways they go about arriving at those goals also differ significantly. You can not perfectly substitute one for the other. Belief in scientific theories and faith that a book contains the word of God are two distinct ways of thinking about the world and their ramifications for productive discussion and new thinking are on opposite ends of the spectrum.
Yes, asking that and exploring how people develop the way they do can actually lead to an interesting conversation, whether you want to look under the lens of sociology, psychology, history, evolution, or whatever.\n\nThere's definitely a double standard the way such questions are approached though. Ask a dogmatic anti-MRA "skep"-chick if the wage gap can be explained by asymmetry between men and women's ability to do their jobs, and see if they don't jump half way down your throat calling you a misogynist.
Since this article immediately cited Colombia Business School, I'll offer my interpretation from a very brief exposure to the world of entrepreneurship and investing.\n\nThe basic rule of thumb in these communities is "When in doubt, trust your gut."  This may sound silly from a scientific or skeptical perspective, but it makes a lot of sense.  If there is widely accepted market research, go with that.  If there is a scientific consensus, go with that.  But most of the really bold moves that people make in the business world have tentative scientific support.  Investors have learned to trust their gut, because even if the evidence for some problem/process/product isn't conclusive, there's a good chance that customers are relying on their feelings to make a decision.   Mimicking the feeling-based approach that many consumers make allows you to predict their response better than the pure analytic approach.\n\nOf course many of these people ignore the people that got completely screwed over by this approach and regard them as failures and burn outs, but that's a story for another day...
I couldn't even bring myself to count all the spelling and grammar errors in this article; there are too many.
Ok, I think I have enough info to make my unofficial amateur diagnosis.\n\nIt seems like you were approached by a mid-level dark Ghost. Sounds like something cheesy from D&D, but it's the best way to describe it.  It sought to create an immense amount of fear within you because they feed off of negative energy, and fear seems to taste the best to them.\n\nAs for the bathroom incident, if that was the only experience you had until seeing the Ghost, it sounds like a benign Poltergeist (kind of an oxymoron, but they exist) that may have merely been curious about you.\n\nSpirits (excluding demons) have a wide variety of personalities and levels of good and evil, much like the general human population.
>Food from the earth:  \n>Potatoes - Sweet Patatoes - Yams
> Argument from Google\n\n I like that one.
I believe the skeptic community spends far too much time giving sermons about problems about which it is not qualified to comment.\n\nHow can you decide if 9/11 was a false-flag attack, using the scientific method, based upon what has been written in newspapers?\n\nGiven the crappiness of the mainstream media, OP, how would you decide, using skeptical methods, if your beliefs about GB were true or not?\n\nFeynmann and Randi were skeptical about small things in self-contained systems, such as perpetual motion machines, and the effectiveness of homeopathy.\n\nApplying the same methods to world events is, frankly, a little ridiculous.\n\n
As the youtube comment points out, you can see at 0:03 that the knife in the back of his hand set up right away. You can also tell by the way that he spins it one more position after he spins it for a long time, that he knew which cup had the knife in it.\n\n[THIS is what you're looking for](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaUXxadeo4c&feature=player_detailpage#t=123s)
I wish I could invest all my hopes there but after decades of dead ends from super capacitor batteries to 100% efficiency solar panels to cheap fusion power with polywell reactors I just don't fucking care anymore. It seems we are going to have to use up all the fossil fuels and melt all the ice in the arctic before any real progress is made in replacing our habit of burning dead plants in one form or another to keep our caves warm.
For a second, I thought you meant like using cameras to peak inside a person's body to look for internal injuries or something.\n\nBut yeah, an acupuncture/homeopathy hybrid should be banned.
What? Why would you automatically jump straight to that conclusion?\n\nIt was probably just a really random coincidence.
This is from a 1948 study...Right - there was a lot of controversy about organic farming methods in 1948, was there?
Or somewhere like Monaco or Brunei.\n\nI think they're saying that the note in itself would be tax free, where as now the federal reserve tax each note. You could have government taxes in a system where the notes were debt free.
I've spent thousands of dollars on ghost hunting gear over the past couple decades, and the only things that I take with me every single time are a high quality digital camera that takes video and a voice recorder. I might bring other gear if a specific situation calls for it, but mostly it's just those 2 things.
No idea why you're being downvoted, that seems like a valid question.\n\nThe synesthesia hypothesis sounds silly to me. It sounds like it's trying to use the vocabulary of science to explain totally made up nonsense.\n\nSounds just like what this paper, [The Seductive Allure of Neuroscience Explanations](http://www.yale.edu/cogdevlab/aarticles/The%20Seductive%20Allure.pdf), found. That non-experts are drawn towards explanations that include scientific words (something that quacks and snake-oil salesmen have known for a long time).
Imagine if a legit UFO were to appear, and all people said was\n"It's just a blimp"\n\nAnd they heard us.\n\nAnd they left.\n\nBecause no-one gave them any notice.
But then its efficacy would drop from 30% to 0%
I like how it begins with a dismissal of birthers. It's a classic technique. "I'm not one of those crazy guys, but then I looked at the facts!"\n\nIt's solely there to disarm you, to convince you that he is on your side. Get your opponent to agree with you. The earlier you do this, the more you can get him to agree to.\n\nPosting links was a nice touch as well. I'd say only about 25% of the people who are actually skeptical will actually go through the bother of reading the links to discover that his facts are a load of crap. The other 75% will just say "But he had sources!".\n\nI would also like to point out that "East Africa" is not in any way a political designation. It specifies no country, mandate, protectorate, etc. It is purely geographical. It means the part of Africa that is on the Eastern edge of the continent. So from that we can conclude that when the birth certificate says "Kenya, East Africa" they weren't trying to say that Kenya was definitely a country. But more like that they knew that his father came from that area.
Well, I would consider alcohol to be a probable cause, but I don't drink. None of the people I spent thanksgiving does.
Id like to have OPs opinion on this.
don't get me started, my one friend, hardcore atheist, told me the other day that he believes in that bullshit.  and this was his story, he used to work in a kitchen, that had a heavy ass freezer door, well he went in there and came out and it was lighter, like someone was helping him, so he checked and nobody was there, so clearly, its a ghost.\n\ni told him to keep that to himself, it will only hurt my opinion of him.
Your statement does not take people into account whom have compromised immune system. They rely on those of us who can safely take vaccines to protect them from viral infections. But hey, as long as you feel like your opinion is meaningful who cares whether they live or die?
I feel more like a J6.
Vortex based horse hockey.
Wow, thanks!  (I'm far too lazy, lol.)
Why am I afraid to click this?
\nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OEi1WEatZ4&feature=youtube_gdata_player\n\n\n
Curosity's wind sensor was damaged on the descent from kicked up pebbles.  Money doesn't make the robot invincible.
That's what I'm saying. The fact that conspiracy theory means something other than a theory about a conspiracy is fucked up and gives literal conspiracy theories a bad name.
Um.. Ok how?
Wow that's a coincidence. Just the other day I was lying in bed with my GF playing my theremin and...........! WEEEEEIRD!
the dude says photograph, but it's a video?
1) I didn't say it was aliens... but it was aliens \\~(-.0)~\n\n2) Sounds like deer, maybe even fighting/having sex(maybe birthing too). This could mean some other similar animal since you're in Canada, elk, moose, caribou, Idk.\n\n3) Interesting but definitely appears to be a reflection of light off something caused by the flash of the camera. So nothing, unfortunately.\n\n  [1] and [2] Are all bugs and dust.\n\n  [3] and [4] Are very interesting but do appear to be bugs flying close to the camera lens.\n\n4) Really strange, it would be hard to back up anything in the video. When recording video and audio you at least need to really know absolutely what parts are contaminated by real people in order to properly determine what's going on.
You either love these charts, or you love terrorism.
-.- really guys? \nAs a female into the paranormal this pisses me off and as a woman this angers me even more.  Can we not just enjoy the paranormal without having to see objectified over sexualized women splaying themselves across tomb tones
Whoever the person was at the parks department who claimed it was a 'cooked pig' should probably quit his/her job.\n\nHas s/he ever even seen a pig?
This just in: unproven method proves an untestable result!  They should get some of these remote viewers to play poker, or screen for cancer.
> I would like to think that the beings are malevolent. If they had any reason at all to destroy or harm us, they could have/would have done so. \n\n~~That makes no sense.  Malevolent means, "wanting to cause harm."~~
I don't understand. The articles agree with the headlines.
I'm transgendered myself. I came out to just about all the people I know a year ago now, and I started my physical transition almost 3 months ago. I don't think most people who haven't ever experienced what it's like to not have an identity truly understand the connection that we as humans have with how we express ourselves physically, with our bodies. Gender is one of the first things we notice about people. Not having a gender that you identify with is a huge part of your identity and your self-esteem and your humanity that's just... missing.\n\nNot having a gender you identify with is like not having a nose. Not an ugly nose (trans women are not just ugly men, and trans men are not just ugly women), but no nose whatsoever. It makes you feel incapable of liking yourself because this essential aspect of your identity as a human being is just completely absent. And what's more, not only do you feel ugly and inadequate, but people treat you differently because they don't see you for who you really are. They only see what's missing, or, in the case of a misaligned gender identity, they don't see you for the gender you really are.\n\nThe only real difference is that when you don't have a nose, it's plainly visible to everybody else exactly what's missing right from the get-go. But when it's your gender that doesn't match, the problem only becomes visible to everybody else when you finally gather up the courage to try to correct the problem and make yourself feel better, and people generally don't understand what would motivate someone to want such life-altering medical procedures for a condition that wasn't visible to anyone else until you tried to fix it.\n\nSo many people just don't seem to understand that just because my condition was invisible to them doesn't mean it was invisible to me. I'm transitioning because I feel I have to, I'm well-informed of the risks and dangers, and I'm prepared to accept the consequences of taking those risks associated with the medical procedures I need to make my physical sex match my internal gender identity. Since I'm the only person with any real stake in this, even if you were my surgeon, I see no reason why that shouldn't be enough justification for you or anybody else.
This is a valid question, but it's a lazy one (pardon me). There is a plethora of evidence available, but it requires work to find, correlate & cross reference.  Asking someone else to find the truth is like asking someone to go to the bathroom for you...  You have a right to know the answer, but you have an equal right *not to know*.\n
It's not even that -- the values in the Organic chart are taken from the highest and lowest value measured in any one sample, and it makes no claim as to where any of the samples came from (except in the note that mentioned where the snapbeans came from that had the highest content).
I saw it on rapture ready forums before i saw this link here.
Ok, so if a plane did hit the pentagon, how come there was no big pieces of debris? Or how about the fact that the spot the "plane" hit was a generals office who was calling in jets to intercept the second plane? Maybe you should look into this more before you say its all blown on one little thing. Look at the whole picture.
I love this story. I live in Iowa too. Can you tell me what town this was in?\n
I'm more trying to say that light should be thought of as an intangible idea, rather than a physical entity that has attributes like lifetime, location, etc.
Agreed.
Why is that pacman opening its mouth upwards?
Where did I leave my cock?
If you can't see the sarcasm in Draugo's statement - then you need one of [these.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggXmKPMaHMo)
Do you also think it's great to have things like Reiki, Homeopathy, Snake Oil, and Astrology available for the people it works for?
> According to Snopes, without this crap, ice cream would all be a solid ice block.\n\nyeah, I read that article. It doesn't say anything like that. It says they use carrageenan for ease of consistency and speed. \n\nbeing a liar is one of the least convincing ways to show people that someone else is lying.
Oh, the stupid... it burns!
http://www.reddit.com/r/secretsanta/comments/myviq/in_light_of_recent_events/c34y76q\n\nMore specific.
You accidentally double posted.
Lol, pretty much, yeah.   Come at me ghost-bro!
That's good that you don't feel unsafe. I had an apartment where I tried this one time, but I felt threatened. I seriously got to the point where I didn't want to get up in the middle of the night to use the restroom. I got to the point where I would say "OK, I'm leaving in two weeks. Please stop messing with me until I leave." Thankfully I was working about 18 hours a day so I didn't spend much time there.
Painting an otherwise intelligent person as entirely ignorant because you, personally, are uncomfortable is s bad thing. If you can't see that then you and I will never agree on this.
To start off -- you cannot argue with a young earth creationist (YEC). They believe that the bible is the inerrant word of god and will reject any claim that contradicts it. They, however, will accept and incorporate modern arguments that bolster their claims. This stance is irrational and unreasonable. You could create a line by line air-tight rebuttal only to find their response to be that "god made it that way".\n\nI knew that distant light would be a problem for YECs but I figured that they could just say that god made the universe with the light in transit and be done with it. The author of the article addresses this issue and states "this proposal introduces biblical and philosophical difficulties." The philosophical difficulty of a light-in-transit model has something to do with "the preconditions of intelligibility." I take this to mean that if god made the distant galaxies with the light in transit it (god) is essentially being deceptive. Fair enough. \n\nSo, what lengths do we need to go through in order to make the observable universe 6000 years old? What about that galaxy that is 12 billion light years away, can we explain that, too? Yes, they say. According to them the one-way speed of light is different depending on if it is coming toward the earth or moving away from it. Light coming toward the Earth moves at infinite speed. Light moving away from the earth moves at one half C. Making a round trip in 3 x 10^8 m/s. And of course they have no problem with the Earth being the actual center of the universe.\n\nMy head hurts from reading that drivel.\n\n
So you see the movie as deliberate lies in order to set up some evil scheme?  Interesting.  I think the filmmakers were more gullible than they were genius mastermind conspirators.
Faith = belief without or in opposition to evidence.\n\nI have evidence that certain people love me, I don't have faith.  I can also act out of a moral principle without  invoking faith either.\n\nFaith = dumb
Actually, you're completely right. Turns out that I'm guilty of confusing two separate stories:  \n\n1. Monsanto is infamous for their litigious nature of aggressively defending their patents.[[1]](http://www.monsanto.com/newsviews/Pages/saved-seed-farmer-lawsuits.aspx) They have sued farmers for saving and re-using seeds and for having unauthorized crops in their fields (which the farmers allege is accidental).\n2. Genetic use restriction technology (so-called "terminator seeds") does exist, but has never been used commercially. In fact, Monsanto pladged in 1999 *not* to use this technology (they would make farmers promise not to reuse seeds, instead). [[2]](http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/1999/oct/06/gm.food2)\n\nI'll update my original post.\n\nHaving done this extra research, I think that the best analogy for Monsanto might be the entertainment industry. The entertainment industry aggressively seeks to protect its copyrights through EULAs, DRM, and litigation. They are legally entitled to do all of this, but people resent their heavy-handed tactics. More fundamentally, there's a basic disagreement about how copyrights should work. If I make copies of a game that I own or circumvent its DRM, that's illegal, but many people think it shouldn't be.\n\nMonsanto is in a kind of similar situation.
And while you live in denial, the rest of us will be [ridding the world of disease.](http://the-diplomat.com/indian-decade/2012/02/07/india-winning-polio-fight/)
He really isn't. You seem to be, however.
Boyfriend grabbed them during the night to make you feel bad for losing his stuff.
IDIOT YOU HAVE ORBS IN YOUR SKULL
Also the argument is weird. If kids die from guns, and if kids die in pools, wouldn't the logical thing to do be to fix both problems?
That's some good ass home security.
>I'm trying to be able to point at an exact point where we can say 'this is a chicken' and 'this is not a chicken'.\n\nAnd you can't do that; Not within the same population. You also cannot point at a specific point in embryonic development and say that at this exact point, it starts being a human, and before that it was not. Nor can you point to a location in the text I linked to before and tell me where the red text turned blue. \n\nNot only is your "definition" of 'chicken' self-refuting and contrary to the scientific definition of what constitutes a species, but you've managed to define it in a way that makes every individual organism its own species.\n\n>Also 'species' is not a hard and fast RULE, Definition\n\nAnd what point are you trying to make with that?\n\n>Also 'species' is not a hard and fast RULE, Definition\n\nAnd what are you trying to say by that?
I suggest we mail them rubber ducks, wooden ducks, pull toy ducks, duck calls, you name it.
Also, from what I have read, the real gains are not from simply injecting the gas into the intake plenum, but actually remapping the fuel/air mixture.  Which is going to totally change (for better or worse) you fuel economy.  There is certainly the ability to simply increase your fuel mileage this way, browns gas or not (of course you usually give up performance, reliability, or something else in the process).\n\nJust lay off the lead foot if you want better mileage.
Wood vinegar powder.  Thanks. \n\nBut the truly evil bastards are ones who came up with the polymerizing-poo pill.
> moving in ways that weren't possible according to my knowledge of aircraft\n\nthen how is it\n\n>very clearly a human made craft\n\n?
For most masters this isn't something they even want the general public to know about, it is kept to a few close students per generation.\n
> Anyway, expert nothing. I followed your exact link. VRA was a 1973 act.\n\nYou must also be somehow retarded - the link is to a page called "Voting Rights Act of 1965", which was a law signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on August 6, 1965.
Yeah, "popping sounds" can only be made from one thing in the world:  explosives.  It certainly couldn't be from wood, from things collapsing, or from something pressurized exploding.\n\nWhy isn't the damage path vertical instead of horizontal?  Because when the towers collapsed, they collapsed downward.  They didn't tip over.  That means as it fell down, debris got pushed out at the side near the ground.
My earring!
Tell her to quit making assumptions on what it could be, first of all. She's getting extremely upset about something that is most likely very, very innocent. She does not know what it is, that is the fact. Why then, is it reasonable to explode in negative emotion? Try to stay a little rational. \n\nIt's not possible for me to say anything reasonable about what it was exactly, there's a plethora of possibilities. I wouldn't speculate in the matter unless it repeats itself. She should go about her business in the barn as per usual, and should the damn thing start playing games again, prod it with a stick or whatever. \n\nA slightly over sized opaque cat is nothing to go apeshit over.
The abduction video always looks like some guy who was to close to a lightning strike, and just passed out in the shadows for a while.
Listen here you insensitive prick from hell, I'll make sure I post pictures of my mother's next chemo treatment, as well as the tiny tombstones from my dead baby cousins.\nStill think I'm a troll? Well there's nothing I can do about that. I have more important things in my HEALTHY AND UNVACCINARED life to take care of. Not to mention caring friends who won't MOCK MY SENTENCE STRUCTURE WHEN I TALK ABOUT MY FAMILY MEMBERS' DEATHS.\nWow you really are a piece of shit.
You're exactly right. We have so many dreams, that when this happens, your mind had created a scenario while you were asleep, whether you remember it or not, and you just got lucky. It's really cool.
I've seen something like that to!
Intriguing story.  But I find it almost impossible that you would not have at least asked your neighbor what happened afterwards.  He would have had to see the man leave or something.  It also seems strange that you would not have alerted any kind of authorities or inquired if anyone else had seem something similar.  I know I would have, had that happened to me.
I like the idea and intention, but isn't it the case that the people who need this tool the most are the ones who will never install or use it? Or is this targeted towards already skeptically minded people to help them quickly determine evidence behind things they are viewing?
> Seven former U.S. Air Force personnel gathered in Washington Monday to recount UFO sightings over nuclear weapons facilities in decades past – accounts that a UFO researcher says show extraterrestrial beings are interested in the world’s nuclear arms race and may be sending humans a message.\n\nI see the UFO researcher is jumping to a conclusion or two there. Even if there were UFOs near the facility (likely, just because of the heightened security would mean more eyes looking all around), it doesn't mean aliens.
If we can get it so can they.\n\nThe difference would be in the technical aspects of how they perceive things.
My understanding is that a lot of the time Osteopaths have a slightly easier time getting through medical school and slightly less stringent acceptance procedures into schools that offer Osteopathic medicine education.\n\nso when you see a DO, it should probably just be a DM; Doctor of Mediocrity. Chances are really good they don't believe in the quackery at all, they just became a DO because it was cheaper, easier, and less likely to wash out of. I've had a few DOs before, and they were all mediocre doctors. They're everywhere here in the bible belt, mostly because the religious hospitals and universities push osteopathy pretty hard.\n\nhaving said all that, the core belief of Osteopathic medicine, that pharmacology should come secondary to diagnostics and touch is not entirely flawed and there is something to be said for not tripping over yourself to reach the pills whenever somebody comes into your office. I've had a lot of bad experiences lately with doctors who are very quick to perscribe and get you out of their office so they can bring another paying customer through the door. However, the DOs out there aren't actually following this philosophy, and the ones who are tend to be chriopractors with expensive degrees.
to continue this, if i remember correctly, 3 is the base of all natural things.  this is why it is in the bible and also in the imperial measurements, 3x4 = 12, 12 inches in a foot.
Go along with them to the recruitment meetings.\n\nAsk if the people who put on the meeting get a cut of the entry/membership fee.\n\nThey all do.\n\nWhen they start in on the vast riches part, ask to see tax returns and/or audited books.  Don't let them pull a Romney, keep asking.\n\nAsk if you'll be an actual employee of the company.\n\nThey'll have some horseshit about layers of people under you generating sales and you getting a percentage.  Ask questions about how disputes are handled and if the company can terminate your rights to those.\n\nI was invited to a MLM recruitment event some years back.  I started asking lots of questions like these.\n\nOh, they begged us to "ask anything!!!" so I did.\n\nFor whatever reason, the guy running it looked like he wanted to punch me in the face.  After he admitted that he got part of the membership fee, everyone soured, fast.
I am sorr but you don't even have to be an expert to see that this is fake. It looks reaaaally bad I have seen better CGI than this.
Yes. Committing this fallacy is also known as question-begging.
mutant super-mice are the cost of science.
Well I'm no botanist, but I'd bet that brainless plant is **not** communicating with us, is not an "intelligent being," nor does it have "a different logic," at least not any more than a simple computer does.
Keep this shit in r/pics please.
Woo and reputable studies seldom go hand-in-hand. \n\nDo you happen to know what herbs were used in that tea? While an anecdote doesn't make a study, that *is* interesting--but it's also quite possible that the particular herbs *have* been studied. Pharmaceutical companies and research labs are *always* on the look out for new drugs.\n\nIt's a common accusation from practitioners/believers of quackery to say that they're being discriminated against, or that their ideas are being squelched, when the reality is almost always that it's just that their ideas don't actually work.
I have no idea why your comment has been downvoted as much as it has. Did I get the wrong idea about r/skeptic?
I get what you're saying, but...what's the point of being sexy if not for sexual attention? Also-define sexual advances, because asking a lady to coffee is one of the least overtly sexy ways to hook up in the history of ever. She was able to decline the offer safely and without abusive language or physical intimidation, right? \n\n\nWhat if I wore a clown suit to Starbucks and then got pissed that everyone was looking at me? Y'know? People will have their own experiences regarding other's appearance and presentation. As long as people don't call me names or get physical with me I won't get upset if they assume I'm free to do children's parties or that I'm gifted in the art of making ballon animals. \n\nOn one hand-I am frankly astounded by the level of misogyny I've seen on these boards regarding women in general.\nOn the other hand- I don't think Rebecca Watson did anybody any favors by infantilizing herself. If she was 15, ok then I could see the point of complaining about an innocent overture like this. But she's a grown ass lady. She should have taken it like a woman and just say "No thanks."
It's rare. There's a homeopath who blogs that has an M.D. Remembe, M.D.'s are practitioners, not scientists or researchers. The coo-coo ones are a small proportion, but probably the most dangerous.
I should have clarified, he's not really a true believer but many of his beliefs are fringe, he's at least willing to say he may be totally wrong. I'd still say if he was on the show Steven would have done good by his promise.
Give us an update when you can!
Various allegations of pandering to the media, sounds about right, although I suppose that does not invalidate whatever science underlies it.  Thanks
It was honestly one of the most unreal moments in my life. When i realized i was taken aback and in a state of shock and awe for quite some time
This again? Are you seriously harping on a misattributed quote? It doesn't fucking matter who you attribute a quote to. Whoever first said it was profound. That doesn't fucking change. If saying it comes from someone famous rather than the OP helps it reach the front page, then all the better.
Thank you! I came here to see if anyone else had that problem. I eventually gave up, too distracting.
I have came to the conclusion that one of the people you share the house with put the salt down after the break in to protect the people in the house. So absolutly nothing to worry about, the person responsible actually has your best interests at heart, they just want to protect themselves, yourself and all the other occupants from future break ins via the basement and may be to freak the shit out off anybody if they did try it again.
Thanks, I appreciate that.
So we existed in the Carboniferous eh... That's a whole magnitude earlier than predicted. Amazing... /sarcasm
A friend of my girlfriend does exactly that. She has a 8-year old who had an ear infection and now the poor girl wears hearing aids permanently because she wasn't taken to a doctor. That mother shares all kinds of bullshit woo and magic healing pages on Facebook and relies exclusively on astrology and tarot to make important decisions. Now she has another baby and that scares me to no end.
I have a coworker who honestly believes it, and wrote a big paper on how nothing emits light, it just sucks up darkness.
...I conclude damage based on the inhalation of hot, corrosive, physiologically persistent particulates and chemicals. It's a logical conclusion supported by decades of observation of smoke inhalation from innumerable sources. The cough is simply evidence of that irritation.\n\nNow I'm not claiming *permanent* damage, it heals, and pretty quickly, but its damage none the less.\n\nEDIT: Also, thanks for being able to have a prolonged, civil, friendly discourse with an emphasis on facts and logic. This is sadly lacking on Reddit these days.
Well apprently (Bob Lazzar) the earths gravity messes with the proplusion system so legs would make sense.
Ok.\nLinkdump coming up:\n\nhttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2581761/\n\nhttp://iospress.metapress.com/content/39u4hpyf48xc1hwe/\n\nhttp://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090609122232.htm\n\nhttp://docnews.diabetesjournals.org/content/2/1/23.1.full\n\nhttp://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/57/5/650\n\nhttp://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081126122211.htm\n\nhttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19781131\n\nI hope to hear from you soon.
Stop watching television completely. It's the best think you can do. It shuts off the major propaganda conduit into your brain. Stop reading newspapers as well. They are just another way of conditioning your mind to accept the message of the elite. Read books, spend time on alternative Web sites, and question everything. If everybody knows something is true, it is probably a lie. Use that as your rule of thumb.
>The ufo community is very dysfunctional\n\nThis is so true. So many camps of belief, so many feuds, so much animosity. And yes, a healthy portion of batshit-crazy. ; )
I think the best way to approach this is to answer the easiest questions first and go from there. The questions, simply stated, are - Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How. How is the last question we'll be able to answer, Who/What/Where are the easiest answers to fake. We don't truly understand the nature of time, so "When" is a problem in and of itself. We're left with WHY are they abducting people? We can start with why would We abduct aliens, and go from there...
No, because in the second case, we are not talking about who wrote Huck Finn, we are talking about what Joe said. So, even if Joe agrees that Sam and Mark are the same, it does not matter- He *said* "Mark Twain wrote Huck Finn". That is a fact which is not extensional.
You are missing the point. Anything that massive just running into the sun would have changed the entirety of our solar system. We would all be dead. You might as well say it was also piloted by Elvis.
>They call it an equally-scientific alternative 'theory'\n\nWho's they? Don't make a blanket statement like that. Many christians don't view their faith as science. It's an illogical held belief but that does not make it insidious by itself. In fact, I hold illogical beliefs all the time and I bet you do too.
If it is really just kookery I expect it will just experience a lull for a decade or so. Then a new prophecy or translation or interpretation will come out saying "Actually we had the dates wrong its all centered around 2022!"\n\nAs for me, I can't wait for all the cataclysmic shit that's going to happen between now and 2012 and the increasingly strained "rational explanations that skeptics and atheists will find themselves contorting themselves into (tidal waves on 4 continents, perfectly natural, nothing to see here move along). \n\nYou see it works both ways because for the most part neither skeptics nor conspiratards are really interested in reality; rather they are interested in validation of their view of reality. Self-identified skeptics can point to the the history of these things not panning out and smugly say to themselves "clearly I'm on the rights side and these fools are lost." Self-identified conspiracy theorists would say "these people have bought into the big lie and the suckers don't even know it." So both groups will oscillate between ineffectual attempts to convert the other to "the truth" and smug negativity when this fails. So relax enjoy the show I'm sure it will be interesting either way.
If I remember right, one reality show (wifeswap?) had a crazy women who thought she could ween herself off of food by staring at the sun everyday.
Sustainable Agriculture != Organic Certification\n\nFor those paying, this would what we call "Strawman".  This one was a little easy so for those keeping score I am only awarding a +1.  \nThere is an ocean of difference between Organic Certification (what was mainly the topic argued for in the SA article posted) and Sustainable Agriculture.  Not all organically certified farms are sustainable just like not all sustainable practices would be organically certified.
If that's true wouldn't there be a high rate of autism in developing countries where vaccination is needed for basic survival? The antivac idea has been disproven but people hang on to it and are willing to the use untested "medicinals". I'm sorry for OP
I love a good mystery. The cool thing about this one isn't whether or not it exists, we know it does. It's the big question about why it's there. I wonder if the current Russian government even knows anymore?
> As we shall see, the adult Carl Sagan's insistence on the inevitability of cosmic intelligence is important partly because it undergirded his quasi-religious belief in alien super-beings. He believed that these creatures, perhaps dwelling in other galaxies, were benevolent and might help us to solve our terrestrial problems. Viewed from a psychological perspective, they were secular versions of the gods and angels he had long since abandoned.\n\n[Carl Sagan: a Life](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=carl+sagan+a+life) page 30.\n\nWhile it seems that Sagan deeply believed in alien intelligences for essentially his entire life, he also specifically did *not* believe that any UFOs were alien in origin. Because the two are linked in the public consciousness, I believe this could lead to some confusion. *Cosmos* and *The Demon Haunted World* are classic examples of his opinions about UFOs, but there is continuity with his thought going back to [this interview from 1966](http://youtu.be/rbfOqgQVKmI?t=1m6s). \n
Right because the 130 years since Aleister Crowley has so much more depth than [3000-5000 years of Judaism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew#Oldest_Hebrew_inscriptions)
...but gold doesn't really have intrinsic value...it is just an older widely accepted way to hold or trade value...is it not?  You can't eat gold, build a house out of gold...it is traded for useful things and has widely accepted value based on its relative scarcity and the fact that it doesn't decay like real commodities. But as you said, the value of gold changes as well...
you can maybe prove the claims are invalid or from ignorance, but you can't prove them false.\n\nthe only argument you can make are intellectual arguments about how to rationally think about "superstitious claims"\n\nin other words, if your mom is stupid enough to fall for this, you will never convince her she is wrong
I loved this episode, Ancient Aliens are my guilty pleasure.
I thought insect at first but the narrator mentions that the time stamps show it in the same location for two hours (although they don't show any other picture than the first one with the deer). Interesting.
Armchair anthropologists.  I like that.  This stuff kind of reminds me of the folks who say something that goes against physics (usually woo peddlers) and end their statement with "it's quantum physics".
Looks like just a regular crackhead to me
Very true. Although he doesn't strike me as the tinfoil hat kind of person. The other guy who is on there frequently (the guy with the glasses, can't remember his name), he does though.
[Can't translate...](http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/35ak4o/)
Yes. Despite verging into "No True Scottsman" territory I think that anyone who applies skeptical analysis to all aspects of their life equally tends to end up as an atheist.
>until these idiots learn.   \n\nThey know, **they are doing it deliberately** in order to prevent you from seeing through the otherwise obvious trick.
Just to be clear, AAP was holding a more complicated position.  Since doing anything non-medical with the female genitals is illegal in the US, pediatricians found out that parents were taking the girls to other countries to perform the extensive procedure.  Therefore, AAP wanted to get permission to do a small pinprick or a nick in lieu of the more elaborate one done elsewhere in the hope of minimizing the harm to girl.\n\nPersonally, that slope is too slippery for me.
[Micheal Shermer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Shermer) - [Phil Plait](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Plait) - [Neil deGrasse Tyson](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_deGrasse_Tyson)\n\n[Steven Novella](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Novella)
Well it's not completely ridiculous. Fluoride has the ability to reduce levels of thyroid hormones (it used to be used as a treatment for hyperthyroidism) and if that were happening it could slow your metabolism and make you unable to lose weight.
That would make sense. Although I had thought the "jumping" was just due to the fact that the timelapse shots were like an hour apart.\n\nThanks for the feedback.
I'm not talking about Astral Projection, I'm talking about medicines that Pharm companies think will work, or have worked in early stage trials, that the governemnt won't let consumers purhcase and use.  I know it's just an anecdote and kind of going against my argument, but you've heard of [Lorenzo's Oil](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusto_and_Michaela_Odone) yes?
While I agree that cell phones near your heart don't make you weaker, I must say that this test does not prove anything since there is no accurate measurement being taken.
Wow.  I agree with xoxoyoyo, then.  The puppy is probably symbolic in some way.
...how easily manipulated people are...
We can hang out in spirit.\n\nJealous, jealous spirit.
Um, thanks.
He said it was not a B52 i mixed that up because my own lack of knowledge in planes, he claims they do indeed use a B2 shell though.
An introduction to Epistemic skepticism: we can't ever *really* be sure that our senses are reliable. We've had dreams that felt pretty real, or crazy drug trips that made us feel that something totally unreal was happening. We can't even be sure the laws by which we understand our experiences are true--our thoughts and beliefs might have been implanted by external forces, we could be in a fucked up reality TV show, our culture could be undergoing some kind of mass hypnosis. We could be a brain in a jar for all we know, and some freaky scientist is making us believe ridiculous things, like our ideas about gravity and mathematics. We have no way of telling, within the illusion, whether or not it is an illusion. So if there's no basic basic beliefs we can turn to, and no way of ever disproving the above, how can we say we know *anything* is true?\n\nThe epistemic skeptic is skeptical that knowledge, given all that, can ever really be attained. Obviously this is controversial, and I can't even think of a philosopher to point to. Their role is mostly to pester philosophers by asking "but how do you really *know*?" A big part of epistemology is proving this skeptic wrong.\n\nedit: some stuff.
Thank you, I'll research it for sure. I remain a bit skeptical but it's an interesting subject, and it's one I know very little about.
On Day 4 after Matt sees the injuries on his leg, did you guys just drop the topic and continued playing or did you talk about it? What did you talk about? How did you feel?
ive been really curious about wiccan things, if you would like to message me, that would be great, ive always wanted to talk to a wiccan
In 1971 the FDA banned it. [Today, grandsons of women exposed to this chemical the conspiracy theorists warned about have a 21.3 relative risk of being born with hypospadias, a deformity of the genitals.](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11943257) You go ahead and decide who you want to listen to. I'm going with the conspiracy theorists if you don't mind. They're about 13 years ahead of the government and the circlejerk err scientific consensus.
heres the thing. why would they want to eliminate us? \n\nmost scenarios posit that they would come here for some natural resource, be it water, air, hell didnt Sitchin's Annunaki want gold?\n\nwhat if *we* are the resource they want to exploit? if they are doing some kind of hybridization program, our genes may be what they are after.\n\nskeptics would point out how impossible it would be to hybridize to species from different planets. But if the universe is teeming with life, what would the odds be that at lease *one* other planet would have compatible DNA? Maybe thats why they are interested in us...we are the 1% so to speak
I've posted this same bloody thing on like 5 sub reddits and nobody can tell me anything :(. \nThere has to be an answer..
stay classy nasa, i mean why would you turn the camera away from something so interesting?
http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4166\n\nThis is a related episode (hard to tell which episodes are related on his site, but I succeeded). \n\nOP, can you and your friend go through and see if the same scale of alleged fail shines through in this one as well?
No. It's a release of trapped air from within the joint capsule. Same as cracking your knuckles - does this release any endorphins? If so, you'd see lots of people cracking their knuckles incessantly.
From the point of view to a technologically more advanced species; **try to teach an ant to be your labor force**.
TrollCD
You say explicitly. Where is this information? I just figured with the toll medicare takes on the taxpayers kind of put the controlling those costs in the government's wheel house.
thegreatgathering.org
I'm not nearly as concerned about Aspartame as I am about the fact that beer and other alcoholic beverages do not have to list their ingredients. I mean, I'm all for questioning the status quo, but there are more legitimate and pressing food and beverage safety issues out there.
I'm a huge Ghost Adventures geek.  It doesn't feel faked and some of the evidence they get is pretty damned compelling.  Plus, the dudes are pretty cool, despite the bro-ness.
Probably too far away to see details\n\nbut the reports match time and place\n\nYMMV
Nope nothing at all, are cops common in the area or not really?
Yet there it is. As mentioned, it doesn't make sense to assume the even more unlikely. We have seen that humans can build stuff, and have done so for many years. That's what we have to work with, untill at least some evidence ties aliens with the pyramids or other similar monuments. There's not any, aside from a few hieroglyphs that **might** or might not look like a depiction of advanced technology not availible at that time. \n\n\nPersonally I think that the pyramids was built over a far greater period than the suggested 20 years and that an astonishing number of people worked on it almost without cease. But, for now we can only guess.
Are you just being silly now?
Heh, I knew a Muslim guy who found the mention of Muhammad drawings disrespectful.  I always thought he was pretty irrational for that.  Thing was, he never built his belief system on rationalism.\n\nBut anyway, there's a difference between being blunt, which will probably embarrass, and being blunt *in order* to embarrass.
Is chicken noodle soup a myth??
It may have just been the batteries in the tv remote dying, as it can cause them to randomly send signals to the tv
LOL
Wow... I seem to have missed the point entirely. It's a lot worse than I suspected.
> Skepticism isn't a brand name. You can be skeptical of evolution, cats and dogs or anything else.\n\nYou can't really be truly skeptical of evolution. Either you accept it, or you are ignorant. A true skeptic would look at the actual evidence, and would quickly conclude that the scientific theory of evolution is correct. As such, his actual skepticism would last for a very short time indeed.\n\nAnd to use myself as an example: In the past, I didn't give a shit about climate change, global warming or whatever. I was completely ignorant of the facts. But I wasn't a skeptic. I just didn't know anything, nor did I care. If I was to be a skeptic, I would need to care, and start weighing the evidence.\n\nWhich is also what I did after Climategate. The discussion that followed was interesting to me, and for a very brief time I was skeptical of both sides. Then I educated myself, and realized that the denialists were as full of shit as creationists are.\n\n> Besides they have a freedom of speech just like anyone else.\n\nSure, but that doesn't mean their dishonesty shouldn't be pointed out.
to be honest, i never really paid  him much mind up until recently.
I used to work in a haunted building - it was formerly an old school, built in the 1820's. I'm not kidding when I say that all I had to do was leave the door a *crack* open, and I'd constantly feel someone peering over my shoulder. Occasionally if I had music playing while working late (I did a lot), I'd hear a faint whisper just next to one ear - never loud enough to understand, but just loud enough to realize it wasn't part of the music I was listening to - much like an EVP I guess.. \n\nIf I kept the door closed, however? All I heard were bumps in the night OUTSIDE my office. It got to the point where I got quite used to that, and could happily work till really late, as long as the door was closed. The only thing I was terrified of though, was a power outage (it was as I said, an old building with terrible wiring), so I always kept a flashlight just on my desk. Paranoid, perhaps, but the thought of being in that office in pitch blackness (no windows) with that "presence" absolutely *terrified* me. Just the *thought*. :P
I don't exactly understand what it is you're suggesting. Are you suggesting I gift him a book on, say, Numerology?
Probably not the molecules, but maybe some of the same oxygen atoms.
It was a glitch in the matrix.
I think  the issue here is we're coming at it from two different perspectives that are ultimately subjective.\n\nI think that any use of (what I think are) slurs is not necessary or useful and therefore it shouldn't be done.\n\nYou think (I'm summarising from your statements, please do correct me if I'm wrong.) that usages of 'laughable' or comparable words in company where you're relatively certain that conspiracists won't read them is fine, and even if they do read them, it's irrelevant because you believe these words are largely harmless. \n\nThat you find some conspiracies laughable is a subjective thing, I don't and that's where we differ. I don't think we can call anyone wrong here, just a difference of opinion.\n\nWith regards to your Denver post, I don't see anything wrong with it. I'll grant that there has to be some sort of allowances for satire, but I'd hope you would grant that there's a difference between satire and simply bald insults in terms of intending offense.\n\n>I don't personally say "stupid", but I do say "uninformed", "laughable", and similar fare regularly. These are accurate descriptions of their irrational beliefs, I see no reason to not let someone I am speaking with know that this is how I view an issue. If it causes them to dismiss me outright, that is their loss at least as much as it is mine.\n\nI'd agree uninformed is fine provided it was demonstrated, I keep going back to laughable because it's the one I don't agree with. It is derisive language, and I'm of the opinion that one does not need to use derisive language. That issue that sticks here most is that laughable is a subjective term which makes either interpretation(mine or yours) subjective.\n\n>My "y'know, super hurtful" comment was meant to capture the idea that people do not have a right to not be offended, that being offended from time to time is a fact of everyday life, that periodically being offended does not in fact do an individual any actual harm, and that offending someone in the course of expressing an opinion is not in any way shape or form "bullying", nor is it even something that justifies accusing another of being mean-spirited (let alone some greater claim) on its own.\n\nI agree that no one has the right not to be offended. My claim is that it's simply better to avoid statements whose sole purpose is to give offense. I think here you've unintentionally turned around what I said. Again, I say that I can't control how an individual receives any particular statement I make. What I can control is my usage of non-neutral language with regards to that individual. Compare "That guy's claim is clearly wrong." to "That guy's claim is laughable." The denotation is similar-ish, the connotation isn't.  However, I'm of the opinion, public or not, intended audience being irrelevant, that the use of derisive language to describe an individual, or their beliefs isn't necessary and shouldn't be done. That you disagree doesn't make either of us wrong in this instance, because there's no objective standard to measure against.\n\nWith regards to the calling it bullying, I reread the post previous to the first one I replied to and you mention that you would never use the terms to their face, only in private (or on a public forum) amongst your peers. So, on the assumption that that is true. I rescind my claim of bullying. However, I will say that I disagree with that behavior.\n\n\nIn summary, I think we largely agree that folks, regardless of opinion, should be treated with respect, I think what differs is what you or I would say constitutes disrespect. \n\n\n
"There is a difference between shaking and stirring."\nYes, it is a difference in the way that entropy is increased.  This is is like saying there is a difference between pouring a bucket of marbles all out, or moving them out a hundful at a time, it has nothing to do with "memory".\n\n"To physicists, water is an anomally." True, also true that solid water is less dense than liquid water, which is the opposite of what we see in other materials, but they left it at that, saying that water is full of mysteries.  In fact, we know why ice floats, it has to do with the angle between the hydrogen bonds in a water molecule, they lead to a hexagonal crystals, at least most of the time, there are actually many variations on ice, some of which can only form in the near vacuum of space, but still we know about these.  The hexagonal crystal structure of ice leads it to become more volumous that liquid water, which is actually at it's densest at 4 degrees C, it starts to become less dense again even before reaching fusion temperatures.\n\n"We don't know how it happened."  "The first organism that appeared was the bacteria." (Referring to water's role in the origin of life.)\nWe don't KNOW how it happened, but we have a few hypotheses, one of which has considerable support due to successful proof of concept tests in the lab.  The 'expert', as well as the documentary as a whole, fails to specify anything about this primordial soup, (iron-oxide rich oceans, reducing atmosphere, C, H, O, N, P, abundant for the formation of amino acids and proteins.  Then, after being wishy-washy on the things we know more about, he has the audacity to assert that bacteria were first.  The first organisms were prokaryotes, but we are still uncertain if it was archaens or bacteria, if he has proof, he should publish it and become famous in the biology world.\n\n"Can the water of today tell us something about the beginning of life?  How the first organism emerged from the sea remains another mystery."\nNot much, but the geological record sure can help. (B.I.F., stromatolites, cyanobacteria, etcetera.) Life moving from water to land is less of a mystery than the origins of life, cyanobacteria, then other algaes started producing oxygen, paving the way for animals to survive on land, from there it's a matter of competition and natural selection to drive life onto land, check your fossil record for more details.\n\n"The  Institute of Statics and Dynamics of Aerospace Structures at Stuttgart Univerity, Professor Bernd Kröplin is a recognized and successful scientist in the aerospace field."  \nand that makes him an expert on water how?  Would you accept a computer engineers expertise on plate tectonics if he was saying that it seems that earthquakes are caused by the anguish of damned souls?  \n\nAs for his whole bit on water carrying information, gathering more as it goes downstream, people drinking that information, the rain transmitting it around the world, new way of communicating etc... (Watch it if you want the whole thing word for word)  This might be partially true, if by "information" you mean "other chemicals and impurities dissolved in the water."  More on that later. As for communicating via water memory, no, just no.\n\n"How can we look inside of a drop of water?" \nMicroscope.\n\n"The drops are placed on a sheet of glass and allowed to dry."\nTHIS RIGHT HERE IS THE CENTRAL ISSUE.  When you allow the water to evaporate entirely, the water droplet is now gone, all that is left is a residue of EVERYTHING THAT WAS DISSOLVED IN THE WATER. Not information, not the water's memory, just chemicals such as calcium carbonate, calcium hydroxide, iron oxides, salts, and more.  These can all be found in tap water, or any water which hasn't been repeatedly distilled. From one water source, you then have it divided into separate containers, from which different individuals use different syringes to make drops on different pieces of glass at which point each individual dries their drops.\nLet's take a moment to analyze all of the systematic errors we just introduced. Three different sources of systematic contamination: container, syringe, and glass plate, (assuming the person didn't touch or breathe on the samples). A difference in drop making technique between individuals, do they let the syringe touch the glass, or the droplet fall?  Drying technique, I'll assume the all used the same process, but if heating was involved, differences in temperature or how quickly the drop evaporates would produce variations in the patterns, and one would have do dry all the drops at onces, since they are all on the same plate. If evaporation is used, where the plate is left could change contamination as well as drying time.  Now you may be thinking accusations of contamination are unfair, but do we know if they really acid washed every piece of glassware?  Even if the did, different amounts of residual acids could react with the carbonates and oxides.\nThere are too many variables left in too sensitive an experiment to lend it the credibility to make such an incredible claim as "water has memory."\nAs for the flower, volatiles, such as those that give water it's scent, dissolve in water.  Different flowers, different compounds, different patterns.  No memory. Metal can release some ions, or react with compounds in the water. (I know these haven't shown up yet, but they belong in the same discussion.)\n\n"...how little they knew about this element."  Water is not an element, as it is repeatedly referred to as in this video.\n\n"Radiowaves can make seawater burn." \nNo, they can energize the dihydrogen monoxide to the point of separation into hydrogen and oxygen gas. Those gases can be made to combust to form water.  This can also be done with electrolyis.  In either case, the energy from burning the gases in less than what is needed to separate the same volume of gases again. As far as energy producation, this is NOT self sustaining, you actually have to put MORE energy INTO the system than what you get out.  Burning Sea water is not a viable energy source as they suggest in the video.\n\nThe bridge of water formed by an electric current is the first thing that is really legit, but again they chose to shroud it in mystery, so I'll let you know that we do understand it, scientists have known about this since the 1800's. Check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_thread_experiment for more information.  It does not compress as they claim, but flows in one direction.  Why it takes the path it does is also no mystery, electricity takes the path of least resistance, so the short linear path is preferred.\n\nAs for the radiated water and the bacteria, the radiation could kill existing life in the water, allowing the introduced bacteria to grow free of competition, giving it a significant head start in a growth period that is only a few hours.\n\n"The internal structure of water molecules remains a mystery."\nNo, it's quantum physics.\n\nRegarding water in a magnetic field, it is true, water molecules are polar, again, due the the angle between hydrogen bonds.  This causes water to be diamagnetic, I'm reminded of a video by one of my favorite Youtube channels: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyqOTJOJSoU\nAs for the people analyzing the water, that female lab assistant in Israel made it clear that they were study organic compounds dissolved in water, as well as iron and other compounds.\n\nAt this point I'm not even half way through, so I will skip ahead a bit.\n\nLater in the video Professor Kröplin admits that the reference water used for the images is tap water. No surprise. He also mentions that the idea that water has memory lends credibility to homeopathy.\n\nMuch of the rest of the video seems to be be a promotional video for the Grander system of water revitalization.  Everyone is raving about how it works, and the video says only that the water is only passed by separated containers that hold pure water that somehow revitalize the water that moves past without contacting it.  However, you you research the inner working of this system, you will find that:\n\n"Good water depends on a number of factors, a few of which we have more or less addressed with conventional technologies.  These basic factors are:\nPurity.  Not to be confused with the need for absolute purity, such as distilled water.  I simply mean that good water should not contain pollutants- meaning chemicals or compounds out of place.  Calcium in water, for instance, is perfectly good within certain ranges and depending on the broader context of constituents found in the water.  Lead, however, is not good.  Neither is anything beginning with tetrabutyl blah, blah, blah.  So, purity means H2O molecules, dissolved atmospheric gases, and healthy types of minerals and carbonates.\nWhat about microbiology?  A good question.  Microbes are a natural part of water, and 99% of bacteria (or thereabouts) are beneficial or benign.  But there are a few pathogens that are, like the polluting chemicals, things in Nature that are out of place.  Good, healthy water should be free of these pathogens and disease causing vectors."\n\nSo, they filter and processed the water using conventional means, THEN they make the additional step of revitalization.  There is NO EVIDENCE that the revitalization has actually done anything.\n\n\n**TL;DR Water doesn't have memory, this deliberately misleading program seems to be trying to sell water revitalization systems (which are conventional water treatment systems with bonus quackery for a nice placebo effect) and the idea that homeopathy works.**
ask trimmer who he was with!
Got it!  Thank you for sharing!
seriously not a good look for me, i feel stupid about this
Except that your point is invalidated by the fact that the 'flat earthers' is, and probably always will be [a fringe group that continues to believe the earth is flat](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth_Society) regardless of whatever evidence is presented to them. No amount of logic, evidence, or debate will change their mind because they want to believe something irrational.\n\nSome people don't think rationally and contrary evidence only [makes their belief stronger](http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/37/11/2098/). Debate is a great way to challenge belief, but only works when participants are open to changing their mind. Bludgeoning people with arguments when they're not willing, able or open to changing their mind is a waste of time and counter-productive.
>child molesting priests\n\nThe first 4 minutes are all about positive scientific advances, and then they splurt that out randomly. I about choked on my drink laughing. (Though it's not funny, just how they said it was funny)
Doesn't just the mere fact that we are constantly seeing strange things hanging in the sky, show people that SOMETHING is going on?  Something else is out there?  For years and years we've seen stuff, and recorded stuff, abductions and crop circles which cannot be done by a human, doesn't that mean anything to any of the skeptics out there?\n\nI know I'm preaching to the choir here generally, but man......this just isn't all in our heads.  All over the planet and for at least 50 years these sightings are popping up and we document them.....but they still mean nothing......to most.\n\nHave we been documenting hoaxes the entire time?  Pfft.\n\nI just think its ludicrous to believe we are the only ones.
Actually, none of my angles are more than 90°, so I'm not obtuse.\n\nI think it was pretty clear that just because I think TAA is a horrible shithead doesn't mean I disagree with him when he says 2+2=4.\n\nBut don't think I'm asking you to stop jousting windmills. By all means, go ahead and continue to defend arguments that nobody has ever contested.
That cloud is waaaay in the background, and that UFO is at least to me seems to be shown fairly close, so close that it passed in between the camera guy and plane right?  It can't be both.  If that UFO is way in the background, then that thing would have to be fucking gigantic for it to be that large in the video yet close enough to that cloud to make it go "poof".\n\nThat and the overly dramatic music makes it very hard to take seriously and is usually the obvious sign that it has been faked.  You need to pump up those people!  Get them all excited and get thing wondering right?  What better way?  Just a thought.
Oh plenty of people know, The first video is easily shown to be a fake at [this point in the video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ-bNOy_CKQ&feature=player_detailpage#t=58s) on the left side.  The background has been mirrored to fill in the area where the picture is missing.  It's actually a pretty amateur mistake.\n\nSince the first video is a fake, it follows that all that follow are fake too.. Unless you can think of some valid scenario where a fake video would be released before a real one?
Deja vu is an illusion created by your brain.\n\nYou truly think you dreamed the event before, but in reality your mind tricks itself into believing that.
Agreed although I wish we could get up to speed on the censorship laws and gaming.
>I said it because it's the only other camp where I see such blatant disregard for facts.\n\nYou need to check out [The Flat Earth Society](http://theflatearthsociety.org/cms/).
Awesome. What's he like in person?\n\nNow get your hands out of your pockets--you're a grown ass man.
> They don't appear to want to hide themselves from us, why? At first glance my (admittedly amateur) take on things is that they don't really care if we see them or not, which suggests that they don't see us as any kind of threat.\n\nAmateur or not, this is closer to the truth than many suppose.\n\n> I equally hope that their apparent disregard for being spotted is a genuine effort at contact, and not the sign of a malevolent force looking for the right time to pounce.\n\nIt's the former supposition - not the latter.  You kind've answered the question in your initial wondering.  Think about it.  If they have as little to fear from a being as absolutely primitive as we most definitely are compared to them, then they don't have to find or wait for "a right time to pounce."  Literally *any* time they choose is the right time, since it wouldn't be difficult at all for them to conquer or destroy us.  Your thinking this way is little more than the result of the ubiquitous influence of the horrible and stupid MSM.  This is how they want you to think so that you can continue to depend upon *them* and so they can use that fear for another false flag attack in the long list of false flag attacks that they've plagued the planet with already.  If anything, the aliens we have the most to fear from are already *here* and work in the banks and in the White House.\n\nAnyway, don't worry about such things, as - again - most ETs are not interested in hurting us.  The opposite is the case, if anything.
I once pooped on the grassy knoll.
i really wish you wouldn't take things out of context. i already said i'm not looking for a confirmation. and if i would have called them anomalies instead of objects i would still be subjected to the same criticism from the likes of you. please, there's no point in attacking me or picking apart my comments. i've already posed my **question**. unless you have an answer, i don't see this producing anything worth reading.
***kenringweather***:\n\n>[2012/01/06][00:49:11]\n\n>[[Translate]](http://translate.google.com/#auto|auto|Earthquakes have nothing to do with faults. Faults are the scars not the causes. Just as ships capsizing don%27t cause tropical cyclones. 'google translate this tweet'): Earthquakes have nothing to do with faults. Faults are the scars not the causes. Just as ships capsizing don't cause tropical cyclones.\n\n[[This comment was posted by a bot][FAQ]](http://www.reddit.com/help/faqs/tweet_poster 'tweet_poster FAQ')[[Did I get it wrong?]](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=tweet_poster&subject=Error%20Report&message=[Oops!](http://reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/o4uux\\)%0d%0dPlease leave the subject and this link unaltered, but feel free to add a description here. 'report an error')
Why do conspiracy theorist uniformly tell people they disagree with to get educated?  I have challenged about half a dozen to compare reading lists with me to see who has read more and educated themselves but they always run away.
That's thë bëst rëplacëmënt for thë lëttër € I'vë sëën all day!
I agree. . Still a damn good show. I also like big bang theory, but they'd never sacrifice ratings and use the "A" word (atheist) on TV.
Meh, I'd ask what the active ingredients are and in what quantity they're present.  If there's a reasonable amount (a few milligrams for some of them), then it may actually be viable.\n\nI guess a different test would be to intentionally OD on it and see if you have an allergic reaction, but it's not the safest way to go.
The dead don't have a sense of humor. Friend of mine and I went ghost hunting, and his phone started ringing randomly with some ringtone like "Wake the Dead" by The Used. He did not have an alarm set, nor received a call.
I think serious skeptics are simply over the issue. For the anti-prohibitionists, it's now a matter of affecting change in politics and culture.\n\nIn terms of health effects, the spectrum of opinions is pretty narrow: on one end, some champion the benefits of cannabis and refute the claim that it has long-term consequences for health; on the other end, some acknowledge the potential medicinal uses, and claim that there are long-term consequences for health. *At the very worst,* these consequences are predominantly minor (with the very notable exception of complications in those predisposed toward mental illness)- far less severe than most other recreational drugs. Cannabis is mostly harmless; the debate is over *how* mostly harmless it is.\n\nMore importantly, the movement for legalization beyond just cannabis doesn't employ the health argument nearly as much, because it is advocating for far less innocuous substances. These are fundamentally liberal and pragmatic arguments, and the movement is only peripherally concerned with the problematic claims of governments and educators. In this respect, it's been my experience that there is *ample* skepticism, both of current policies and of the legalization movement. But again, as with cannabis, the fact that governments and educators have been misleading the public is easily demonstrated and widely accepted on both sides, at least in my experience.
Way to be a douche... This isn't something I do professionally, it was a one off thing that I joined a group friends (who do investigations) for something fun to do on a Friday night, so sorry I didn't go out and buy a DSLR or some kind of night vision cam.
Holy Shit.\n\nWent into this documentary thinking it was going to debunk Ancient Aliens.\n\nLearned how the Great Pyramid was built.
That's kind of the point.\n\nDr. Mehmet Oz, the surgeon, is (in all likelihood) a very good and accomplished professional surgeon in his specific field.\n\nDr. Oz the character from the TV show is just that, a character whose medical knowledge for the subjects that he addresses is pointless.
It just so happens that this is the one elevator out of three nearby that does not have a camera in it... so as crazy as that theory sounds, it could technically be possible.
would rather say its ordinary??
In an ideal society, people wouldn't be making fucking stupid claims like that guy was. No slapping necessary!
Because Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc is a causal fallacy.  More than antecedence is required to imply a causal relationship.
It reminds me of an old B-52's song about Mesopotamia: "Before I talk, I should read a book"\n\nI'm always thankful for the people here/on reddit who cite what they say.
Sure there should be research done into the new crops before they are approved, like what was done with Bt (which we've been using in spray form since the 30s), but just because we've evolved with pesticides doesn't mean they have no effect on us, we've evolved along with poison ivy over millions of years and it is dangerous.
That would pretty much be my point.  Further discussion with you would be fruitless.
He'll probably also cover off-label use, where a medication is tested and approved for one condition, but then marketed for a variety of other conditions.
I was thinking that too, like a preconceived notion, ya? But I believe people can feel bad energy, I'd like to hear more from OP too.
Guess how many people have sent to jail so far for not vaccinating their children.
The only conspiracy theory I find plausible is that they knew the attack was coming (Ok well that part is fact not theory) and that they let it happen intentionally.
Of course is not about the science - is just like denying evolution and denying that smoking causes cancer = defending the interests of the 1% against the interests of the 99% - BY BRAINWASHING SOME OF THE 99% !!!
Yes, my choice in dairy products denotes the way in which my life will unravel. You've made absolutely zero useful statements and offered no evidence to support your claims. Can you prove the CDC study is poorly done? No? \n\nPerhaps you didn't realize that this is /r/skeptic and not /r/conspiracy
I'm sorry, but that doesn't even look like they tried.
Wait, I thought she had taken her ball and gone home?
Hey man, here in Puerto Rico there is a place where many belive this phenomenom happens often, called Laguna Cartagena (Cartagena Lagoon), in Lajas, Puerto Rico... Check it out.. Many have talked about and believe that cavern system mentioned in the first comment exists... Who knows.. I think it should be explored more Lajas and this lagoon is a hot spot for ufo's as well.. Good luck bro
Hah, again I wrote something poorly, I meant for all that other people like to talk to *about* reddit.\n\nBut the other works too.
I haven't read the one on Homeopathy, but I read through the report that the Swiss did for acupuncture.  The obvious problem with that review was that it consisted of a large number of papers with poor control groups showing positive evidence, and some papers with proper control groups showing no evidence.  In pseudoscience world, evidence + no evidence = definitive evidence.\n\nI suspect the Homeopathy review has similar problems.
Interesting article, but I found this part to be a little problematic:\n\n>Successful hypotheses are those that not only stand up to further testing but make specific predictions that can be tested by new experiments or observations. Of those hypotheses, the ones that concern a multitude of phenomena can mature to become comprehensive theories, and those that are found to universally hold true, independent of place or time, gain the most distinguished status of laws of nature.\n\nI understand that the author had to simplify his explanation due to his audience and probably word count, but I feel that this could have been done without perpetuating the myth of the hierarchy of evidence. \n\nThere is some debate amongst individual scientists and philosophers of science over what exactly the terms 'hypothesis', 'theory' and 'law' refer to, but generally everyone agrees that hypotheses don't graduate into theories, and theories do not graduate into laws. \n\nIn an extremely simplified sense, hypotheses are just predictions. For example, the statement "If such and such were true, then we should observe X" is an hypothesis. The important part to realise is that we can usually only generate hypotheses once we have a theory. The theory is the explanation/framework that accounts for all the data and observations that we currently have, and we test the theory by looking at the predictions it makes. When we set up an experiment to test the prediction, the prediction becomes our hypothesis. Theories also have to account for other things, like other theories as well as laws. Laws are not universally verified theories, they are just simple (usually mathematical) relationships between variables. In other words, they are just descriptions of observed interactions that usually occur in a specified situation. \n\nTo put this into a real world example, we have the law of gravity ([here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton's_law_of_universal_gravitation)) which describes the relationship between force, mass, and the distance between the centre of the masses, we have the theories of gravity which include Newton's explanation of how it works, Einstein's explanation, and now I think quantum theorists have an explanation, and we have the individual predictions generated by each of these theories which becomes hypotheses (e.g. Einstein's theory was better than Newton's because his theory could account for acceleration where no force has acted upon an object). \n
How is this breaking the web?\n\nIt helps Joe the Redditor do what SEOs do all the time. It helps make sure sites containing misinformation don't get the additional ranking boost in the search engines when we link to them in a debunking post.\n\nBy NOT (inadvertently) positioning sites that DON'T debunk them, sites that debunk them are ranked relatively higher. So in essence, this is doing exactly what you advocate.
====D It's relevant content.
"Fuck backspace, I type what I wanna."
[His wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amit_Goswami) says he retired in 2003 after teaching physics for 32 years. It says after a period of distress in his late 30's he began to shift his interest to quantum physics and [the mind-body problem](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind-body_problem). I find it interesting that he incorporates [vedanta](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advaita_Vedanta) and [monistic idealism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monistic_idealism). I don't remember him from [What the Bleep do we Know](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_the_Bleep_Do_We_Know!%3F) but I did see his film [The Quantum Activist](http://www.quantumactivist.com/film/synopsis/) recently and thought it was interesting. \n\nI remember when I was younger watching [this episode of Cosmos](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ugyrzr5Ds8o) by Carl Sagan. He said that of all the religions it seems a coincidence that hinduism is unique in its cosmology and also interesting how its time scales correspond to modern science.\n\nI'm no scientist, so I can't really argue the topic. I'm just fascinated by this. And anyways isn't this r/paranormal? I posted it here because I figured that people on /r/paranormal would be more open to scientific views outside of mainstream thought.\n\nEDIT: spelling\n
Challenge Accpe- oh wait, already have them.
To the top with you.
> I think the problem with Craig is the problem with apologetics (sic) in general: it's not a search for truth, but rather a defense of . . .\n\napologist: A person who offers an argument in defense of something controversial.
Easy to test.  Have a person declare a color they are intending to change it (selected from list of colors from a pesudo-random number generator).  Then have a video camera record the lamp (but not the person or sound in the room) for a specified period of time as the person attempts to change the color, and have a person who is unaware of the declared intent code the color according to the pre-determined set of colors.  \n\nMind you, since this works on a principle which is quite unknown to science, our background belief should be very small.  Nice experiment for a class in critical thinking, however.\n\nEdit to add: [This](http://www.mind-lamp.com/mind-lamp-research.php) does not fill me with confidence, however.  A diagram with negative probability...
I don't see it.
Is the phrase "thermal radiations" a polite way to put "anal vapor"? 'Cause if so, I'd rather not have that sent back IN to my body.
well done. yeah it doesnt sound plausible.  but i figured i'd come here bc i love this subreddit, and i have no other answers.
Well, we do play it on Canadian radio stations to fulfill the Canadian content requirements.
Hmm... Good point.
...Monsanto pays for the removal of their patented traits. Other farmers have accepted this option as reasonable and appropriate. One farmer decided he'd say "fuck you" to Monsanto got sued. No surprises.
I got a blister on my right foot while walking in 95 degree heat for 4 miles today and I didn't even need to pay Tony Robbins $4000 for the privilege.
>A lot of what you've said just doesn't seem to make any sense to me. Moral philosophers are perplexing beasts. You've made be realise that perhaps I ought to formalise my own view on morality a little. Thank you.\n\nWhich part doesn't make sense? The most problematic part of your post was that morality should be based on a utility function, which is debatable in itself, but even if we accept that premise we still need to figure out what kind of utility function we want to adopt (what's best for the individual, best for the group, best outcome for the situation, etc etc). \n\n>For what it's worth, I haven't read any Sam Harris.\n\nFair enough. You'd probably enjoy his Moral Landscape as you're basically proposing the same argument, but I do recommend reading up a bit on ethics first, and approaching it with a skeptical mind. He basically got shot down for displaying his blatant ignorance of the philosophy he was trying to propose.
I've never seen exponents added to language. You get an upvote for opening my eyes.
Correlation doesn't necessarily equal causation.  Sometimes though, it does.  As skeptics, we have to avoid jumping to conclusions.  If placebo controlled double blind trials have shown a correlation, one can reasonably infer causation.
Umm.. I don't agree with you. Knowing about placebo effects and them functioning on you are two different things.\nPlacebo doesn't work on your 'rational' parts of the brain, the ones you use consciously, it pretty much activates/unlocks automated responses. I's working on the systems which you can't control on purpose. Of course, it has it's limitations, it will work on the little things like headache, common cold and etc. but it will still work, regardless if you repeat 'it's a placebo' like a mantra, over and over again.\n\nBeen there :-)\n
Can you elaborate?
And this is why I no longer have cable, and my passive entertainment fix is delivered via Netflix documentaries.\n\nThere are some pretty spectacular documentaries flying under the radar, lemme tell you... like Vice Guide to Travel: North Korea, Restrepo and Winnebego Man.
The point is that there is NO FREE ENERGY.\n\nThese devices get into a state of equilibrium that happens to be moving, but as the one missing marble demonstrated, the equilibrium is very fragile, thus there's no real way to extract any energy from the system.  It's closed for business!!
Have you tried it recently?
23 miles NW of McDill AFB
>It does not seem to fade so I will have to dismiss it being a meteor. It might be but it just seems unlikely.\n\nWould a meteor 'fade' in the Martian atmosphere? They might look considerably different there. \n\nTo me the angle/trajectory makes a meteor fairly unlikely. I'm really curious if a ballpark speed could be determined.
Are you sure you weren't in the movie? That's some freaky stuff.
Drink enough water by itself and your brain swells to the point where it shuts down.
the human brain performs the function of remembering the same way it performs the function of imagining a future situation\n\nwhy would you trust that as evidence of anything?
Could you provide sources demonstrating their effectiveness vs. a control group?
A shame so many people don't bother with B/W movies now. \n\nPeople at my work will say if its still in B/W then it must not be good enough for them to make it into color.
I know it wasn't a dream. What I'm saying is your dad tapped into the same subconscious "radar" as I've experienced when dreaming or tripping.
So, I had a long post here, and just lost it all thanks to a bluescreen (ATI, your death will not be quick!)\n\nIt's gonna take me a bit to want to retype that.  \n\nHere's the gist, in case you'd like to respond in the meantime.  \n\nReason I brought up allergies, is your friend's reaction, inflammation, is normally due to a histamine reaction (allergy) if no other reason for it to happen is available.  I also have brought it up, as many people incorrectly claim an allergy to msg.  I agree that we have gone on to sensitivity, but I still feel it is safe to say it is non-existant.\n\nIf there are several stable isotopes of glutamic acid, I'm sure they'd show up in the studies already conducted, where no one showed any sensitivity.  \n\nNiacin doesn't work in this argument because it's an essential nutrient.  I know of niacin sensitivity, it is caused by large doses of niacin doing exactly what niacin does.  It also tends to go away after repeated doses.  I am not a doctor, I cannot tell you why this happens, but I do have enough basic knowledge of chemistry to tell you that this is much like sodium.  Sodium is an essential nutrient, and can have severe side effects if too much is taken.\n\nFinally, Health Canada, I had not heard of before this argument, I have no opinion on them, but even going on their article, their wording is "some individuals may have a sensitivity".  some, and may.  This sentence still holds true if no one has this sensitivity.  \n\nThe FDA's ruling was by a Select Committee.  These are not medical professionals.  They are elected officials.  The US has a long history of electing laymen to make scientific rulings.  There are many cases where they have been off, or outright wrong, and others where they have disregarded the advice of scientific council.  There is no study listed, no advisor listed, nothing.  Just the select committee.  \n\nFinally, your last line is a straw-man argument.  Please refrain from them.  They do not aid this conversation, and I could throw the same type of ad-hominem attack against your arguments.  \n\nI am at no point trying to be argumentative, or insisting that my view is right.  I am saying that without a peer reviewed study showing msg sensitivity, I see no reason to believe it exists, when sodium sensitivity is much more plausible.  The reason I am asking for a study, is that as a skeptic, I would like empirical evidence.  Having this information on a website, no matter its legitimacy, does not make it fact without some provable phenomena.  \n\nSo there's a wall of text, and much more than I meant to type, so I will probably not retype my original response.  Simply put, empirical evidence will stop me from making this claim.  I have empirical evidence that supports my theory.  If you can refute that evidence, please do so, but until then, I stand by it.
Even the goats are like, wtf?
He's a stage magician and therefore will lie and misdirect in order to acheive his desired effect. That's not to say he doesn't have stage hypnotist skills, but what he's telling you he is doing is most likely not what he's actually doing.
Agreed.
I feel like you won't reply if I edit my previous comment, so I'll do another. What differentiates this from intelligent and demonic hauntings? This hasn't happened in the 14 years I've been here so if its residual, its pretty far apart. Forgive my lack of knowledge but I don't see how you could classify this as residual so quickly.
Let's do it!
>When a skeptic, new to some topic or curious about a new development in a more explored one, asks, “I have a friend who believes x,y,z…how do I debunk this?”, or “Does anyone know any good arguments refuting x,y,x…?,” the group steps up. Whether on forums or phones, the consensus is put forth. I believe the skeptics who do this are asking the wrong questions.\n\nThis is something that's been bothering me for awhile.  I see so many posts asking "Debunk this for me" with stuff like paranormal activity, UFOs, conspiracy theories, homeopathy, etc.  Yes, the consensus here is generally that such thinks *are* garbage, and deserve debunking.  I won't argue that, as I agree with it.\n\nBut just saying "Debunk this for me" has always felt wrong.  Why not ask "What's all the evidence for/against this position?"  It almost always ends up being the same answer, but without the groupthink-y connotation.\n\nAlso, there are those exceedingly rare times when something which seems to be bunk at first glance has a grain of truth in it that would otherwise be missed if you were just looking for a debunking.
That's the video compression.  A discrepancy in a large area of a single color is always formed in a block.
What the 80s movie Explorers and you will find the answer.\n
I agree.  The funny thing is that I haven't watched any of the Animatrix in at least five years, but last week I got it out and watched this short.\n\nNothing glitchy about that... just interesting and cool.
I was a skeptic until I saw a UFO a few weeks ago.\n\nI'm not saying it was aliens.  I just mean I saw an object fly above my house, and was unable to identify it.\n\nIt made a few more passes, in different directions, and I was able to tell eventually that it was just a normal plane flying REALLY low.  Finally, some research suggested that the kinda-close airport sometimes does stuff like that, although damned if I'd ever seen it happen.\n\nI was a skeptic until I saw a UFO.  I'm still a skeptic, but I was, too.
This would be a valid argument if there wasn't evidence that medicine can make people better... but there is a large amount of such evidence.
heh, he's going to try make one using magnets. i said "good luck, that'll be the best proof there is"
Arguing the other side is admirable, I agree. But failing to accurately represent statistical data regarding efficacy is not.
This study shows objectively that people rate blacks as less attractive. It does not show from some absolute point of view that blacks are uglier, because absolute beauty does not exist. Things are beautiful only as we perceive them to be so.
First he had ties to the US when the US hated the soviets. the americans biggest mistake ever was abandoning Afghanistan to itself after the soviets left. that pissed of bin laden more than anything. And he was a boogeyman for a reason, 9/11 was not his first attempt to kill americvans (the cole, embassy bombing wtc attacks in 1993) it was just his most successful.\n\nI am going to give in to the possibility that khalid sheikh muhmmed carried the attacks out independent of bin laden, but that does not make much sense either.\n\nAgain I believe that bin laden did it because it is what makes the most amount of sense and is where the eveidence leads. If you have an alternate credible theory please let me know i would love to read up on it.\n\nedit: wait you are bringing in wtc 7??? ok so you are a truther, who thinks 9/11 was an inside job. oops here i thought i was talking to an intelligent person who had genuine doubts on bin laden's geo political strength. My bad carry on \n
I jizzed.
I did, it was too long so I bunched it up in MSpaint. I can grab a screenie of it on facebook if you want.
This is genius!
Very true.  Randi had a con man living around him though still.  It just goes to show that we are never immune to those who would manipulate others maliciously.  \n\nMeeting Randi was one of my experiences I will never forget.  He truly is a kind hearted man, willing to take the time to sit and chat with my friend and I during a very busy weekend.
Looks like somebody didn't bother reading the article.
[Kabam!](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_g7liFq_3A)\n\nYou had it right. Upvotes all around!\n\n(Entertainingly, IMDB gets every single line wrong in that quote besides Hermes's.)
wow that sounds really interesting. Listen if you want to join, then send me an email at  logicbomb.main@gmail.com so we can work out the details and see what projects you can help with or create.
Oh, it's not that we evolved into it, it's that we didn't evolve enough.\n\nPeople keep thinking us being more "intelligent" than animals makes us able to understand reality completely. But that's not the case at all. The smartest human is still very far from being able to understand the vast complexity of reality.\n\nIn fact, I'd wager more than half of people, even in the most developped nations, aren't capable of grasping simple yet abstract concepts.\n\nSee any thread about rights on this site. They don't even understand what freedoms are and how they're defined. They have a partial idea of it, but that's it.\n\nSuperstition is the same. It's based on the observed consequences to a phenomenon. That doesn't mean the observation is correct, but it remains a causal effect and assuming that this effect will be true in different circumstances.\n\nIf you look at multitheist religions, you will find a logical system to explain reality. One god for thunder, the other for water, the other for something else and so on.\n\nIn ignorance, when there's a consequential hole to fill, your mind will fill that hole.\n\nIt rains. Why does it rain? I don't know about evaporation, I don't know about anything. Something has to cause the rain, I can't see it, therefore something I can't see causes the rain. A thing that can't be seen but acts on nature is supernatural. Keep going till you get to Zeus.\n\nYou even did it yourself just now. There was a consequential hole to fill, your brain made up a seemingly perfectly logical explanation to it.\n\nThe problem really lies in ignorance. When you have the factual explanation and understand it, you stop filling holes yourself. That's why we don't cure people of illnesses by trying to get satan out of their mind anymore.
He is a corporate shill to the umph degree.
Hah!  My gaydar never made so much as a blip on him.  Ah well, good on ya Randi.
yes we can know. Logic, just like mathematics, is universal. the only way a species can survive its self suicide point (which we are in right now), they MUST become peaceful. We are not, yet if we were to discover a planet with life on it, we would NEVER even have the idea to attack. The logic that ''they could be hostile you dont know'' is faulty and dumb. A species evolved enough, sheds its warlike behaviour. Its just how it works in order to survive.
I think skepticism is a skill that anyone can learn.  I think even something simple like the scientific method, or a flow chart with a few simple steps on it could help anyone to think more critically.\n\nFor example when presented with new information:\n\n1.) Is there any physical proof?\n\n2.) Are there experts in the field who can vouch for this?\n\n3.) Who benefits from me believing this? Is someone making money from selling books, selling a product, etc. \n\nI think most people are skeptical, it just depends how far they apply that skepticism in their life. Deeply religious people will definitely carefully interrogate someone who showed up at their doorstep asking for 20$. What do you need the money for?, do you have proof you are my long lost brother?, etc.  They might unthinkingly give the same money to a televangelist, without asking what the money will be spent on.
"Don't have to be a dick about it."\n\nNo words frustrate me more on the internet. Yes, he does have to be a dick about it, because the internet is some **serious** business. ***SERIOUS***
There's not much else to say; I firmly believe that history will judge Dr. Kevorkian as someone who did more for the dignity and rights of his patients than many of the doctors of his day.  If a person has the right to live their life as they see fit, then it seems obvious that they should also have the right to choose how that life will end.
> I agree with your belief\n\nWe don't have a shared belief. The characteristic thing about us is the absence of belief in gods. *Absence* of belief, not belief.\n\n> /r/atheism is a very combative area of reddit, and it is for this reason I think it was removed from the front page.\n\nWhen is /r/politics going to be removed? Or /r/worldnews?\n\nThis is clearly about granting special protections to religion.\n\nI won't go through all your points, since it's late and I got to go. I understand that you disagree, and that's normal. I understand that /r/atheism will downmod people who disagree, and believe me I've been on many reddits and they all do it. (From my experience, the craziest downmodders are Nietzsche's fans.)\n\nWhat I don't understand is how you can find these things more relevant than the fact that we are being *censored*.\n\n> Alright, I'm going to try to explain this as clearly as possible. I fully expect this post to be downvoted to oblivion like my others\n\nYou aren't familiar with the spirit of /r/atheism. In my vast experience with it, it will not downmod clear, explicit, and well-reasoned posts. What it will downmod is one-liners that don't contribute anything of value, unless of course they're on our side, in which case we will rather ignore them (the normal bias there).
Body armor and armored cars. Go!
I really only skimmed the article, but did he cite any sources that actually found that the raw food diet had some negative health effects, or was the whole argument based on his back of the envelope calculations?
>The crystal swung left/right for yes and up/down for no, it got it right 4 times out of 4. I'll admit that one was kind of creepy, feel free to scrutinize this.\n\nEh, only four questions? Statistically speaking, it's not particularly surprising that she could guess right four times. When she can do it twenty or thirty or forty times without error then get back to us.\n\nAlso, have her do this with someone that she *doesn't know*. She's been with you long enough that she could easily be picking up on body language when you're being deceptive.
Yeah, I'm seeing that whole largely agreeing thing. Good talk, though. Edifying.\n\nI made [this](http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/16822460.jpg) for you. Friends?
Haha, thanks :) We're both from Sydney Australia, but I am in Chile until December. Though I will be flying up to Vegas for TAM to finally meet some of the skeptic community and do some interviews with the podcasters and bloggers etc.\n\nThis probably sounds stupid, but one of the things I really hope to achieve with this  (ie: This would sort of constitute success for me), is to give a presentation about rbutr at TED one year....
Matt and Trey don't need your ratings and you can always catch it on SouthParkStudios.com a few hours later.  =P  And this show is live!
Seems to me that it's much more likely that it's just a cultural coincidence that certain areas of America where obesity is rampant (i.e. the South) are also areas where people are more likely to be religiously devout.
Thus the winky.  Hey, man, what are you, like, some kinda skeptic or somethin', maaaan?
I wonder what he meant when he said people will wonder who put that there?
It's very, very rare for a fever in itself to cause problems. Even febrile convulsions aren't linked to the level of temperature, more the rate of increase.
Why not?  Temples of Ishtar were the first banks because of this practice.
>Photographs of the creature's footprint were taken the next day and examined by the Northern Territory Museum, which concluded that Ms Tucker had been hoaxed.\n\n>But Mr McGinn said after speaking with Ms Tucker he had no doubt her story was true.\n\n>"After I met this lady I found she was clearly terrified," he said.\n\nThese two ideas aren't mutually exclusive.  Someone could have set up a hoax, she fell for it, and became honestly terrified.
Typically, it's called attention whoring. Lots of "normal" people do this. Also, they know that they can count on their gullible friends to distribute their artwork.
"Solid proof"?  Sure looks like satellites to me.  They might even be going in a straight line, but he's twisting and turning the camera around so much it's hard to tell for sure.  The satellites are probably changing speed (and maybe even appear to be changing direction slightly) due to different elliptical orbits.\n\nI don't know, I'm no astronomer.  But I think that's a more plausible explanation than it being UFOs.\n\nAnyway, there are many satellite finder tools out there, it would be interesting to know if anyone matched their time and position.\n\nEDIT: LOL downvotes, "IT'S A FUCKING UFO, OKAY!?!??!"
He's definitely trolling my friend
Where did they even get this $43 trillion number from? The entire GDP of the US for 2011 was $15 trillion. The entire GDP going back to the start of the recession barely covers that number. TARP was $700 billion. The highest estimates I could find for the economic cost of the entire recession in lost GDP, projecting out to 2018, was around $12 trillion.\n\nhttp://projects.propublica.org/bailout/list\n
GREAT POST! See, this is the kind of non-physical evidence I can get excited about. A NASA representative on a major news network saying they have no idea what it is, then alludes to the fact that they have encountered these objects before. Also, clear pictures of who-knows-what-the-hell-it-is-if-NASA-doesn't stuff near the shuttle. This is a great piece of evidence.
I think this is more damning to the state of our science education than it is a commentary on Christianity. Think about how many people you know that dont know anything about science. Its probably around 39%.
> What, exactly, do you mean by "preparative neutron source"?\n\nAnything producing moles of neutrons on useful time scales.\n\n> Do you mean fast neutrons or thermal neutrons?\n\nDoesn't matter, since you can moderate fast neutrons.\n\n> Thorium reactors are sub-critical and need an external neutron source to keep going\n\nPractical thorium reactors are breeders, so they produce neutron surplus.\n\n> and just build a Uranium reactor - you'll have one fuel cycle, for starters. \n\nWe're talking about clandestine fissible production in proliferation context.\n\n> That's why this path was chosen by all countries that have built Plutonium bombs.\n\nI'm not talking about countries, but small groups of individuals.
>This is an empty claim as you have zero proof of this.\n\nIt's not a claim, it's logic. You say guns prevent crime, I say the best way to look at that is by comparing crime in the US to crime in countries without guns. Do you disagree?\n\n>The US has a much larger population. If you were to group together European countries to the point where the population factor equals ours, the amount of mass shooting are pretty much the same. \n\nDo you really need me to show you the statistics? Wikipedia and a calculator. \n\n**In the last 15 years:**\n\n**Number of deaths in workplace mass murders excluding soldiers:**\n\nUSA: 59\n\nEurope: 0\n\n**Number of deaths in school mass murders:**\n\nUSA: 109\n\nEurope: 48\n\n**Number of deaths in non-school or workplace mass murders:**\n\nUSA: 139\n\nEurope: 117\n\n**Total**\n\nUSA: 307\n\nEurope: 165\n\n**Population**\n\nUSA: 311,591,917\n\nEurope: 739,165,030\n\n**Number of deaths per capita in mass murders**\n\nUSA: 1 for every 1,014,957 people.\n\nEurope: 1 for every 4,479,788 people.
No the noises were all over the place first i thought it was the central heating but then i realized it was something else. The building itself is scary as hell too, but its not too old, must be something like 15 years old
This is great book on this topic [Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming](http://www.amazon.com/Merchants-Doubt-Handful-Scientists-Obscured/dp/1596916109).\n\nThere are really only dozen or so arguments that climate change deniers use time and time again. This book deals with them. Its an easier read than some statistical analysis of temperatures changes in the west Antarctic peninsula.\n
He's certainly one of the best for skeptics to suscribe to because he is not afraid to tackle climate change. Really a great resource to go to when people deny anthropogenic climate change.\n\nEDIT: anthropomorphic -> anthropogenic
I like this, but somehow I can't stop staring at the fact that it looks like the left sheep has only three legs.
My wife and I live in a small town near Nellis Airport. Not long after we moved here from LA, we took a trip to Vegas and began to head back home some time after midnight.\n\nBear in mind that where we live is literally in the middle of the desert. The nearest town is Vegas and that is about 60 miles away. Nothing but dirt for miles.\n\nWe were heading back and had already passed Nellis, the road stretched out in front of us, at least what we could see in the lights of the car, everything else was black and invisible.\n\nExcept for the single intense light that we saw off to the East. It was low to the ground and very intense but obviously miles away. The light began moving on a perpendicular route to the road we were heading along. It was obvious that it would cross the road at some point but it was far enough away, although drawing closer with each passing second, that I had no worries about a possible collission.\n\nMy wife and I were both fascinated by it. Not in the least bit scared or concerned. It was, as I said, very bright but there was no flickering and no jiggling as you would expect to see if it was a light on a truck or a motorcycle. It was, I thought, almost as if it was skimming very low to the ground.\n\nThe light, which was white by the way, reached the road about a mile (estimated but hard to tell in pitch black darkness, I realize) or so ahead of us and stopped. Suspended above the road, probably two or three feet above the ashphalt. \n\nAs we moved towards it, it (naturally) grew larger until, suddenly, it blinked out and was gone. It did not fade away over the course of a second or so as you might see with an electrically generated light, this just switched off as if someone had suddenly dropped a sheet over it. Instantaneous. Another oddity about the light itself was that there was no umbra around it, it was just a perfectly round, white light, as intense at its edges as it was at its center. \n\nWe passed the point where we estimated it had been but saw nothing.\n\nDo I have any idea what it actually was: none. If I had to hazard a guess I would say it was some kind of experimental craft being tested by the airforce or from Area 51 which is not that far as the crow (or light ship) travels. But other than that ... not a clue.\n\nThere is a part two to this story if you are interested, and I will post it tomorrow (its late here now).\n\n
That is the largest stock photo I've ever seen on an article. At least she's cute.
Neat!
It's particularly interesting to me, since I design and direct a magic show. \n\nMy major interest in the subject is that I haven't yet found any fundamental difference between what, say, John Dee, Aleister Crowley, Alan Moore and Paul Daniels have done, other than the obvious differences in intent and style.\n\nI'm fascinated (and worried, occasionally) by how one can manipulate perceptions and therefore belief on the lowest of levels. It's remarkable to me how you can create the illusion of practically anything (weather control, flight, mind reading, time travel, ghosts etc.) given time and control over how these are going to be perceived.\n\nThere are a couple of books I'm intending to write one day on how conviction can be created within the context of a conjuring trick - learning how people process ideas is a fundamental part of designing them.
Another crime solved by the likes of /r/UFOs
Cool! I'll get right on that, thanks for the inspiration!
fair enough, I just finally had something to contribute to this subreddit, so I just posted as soon as I got home. I do see your point though.
And here I've just been doing the chemo. This is the day I learned not to accept the first choice before hearing out the second option.
As I stated previously, I think it's insulting to women to suggest that we have a responsibility or even a right to try to manipulate their behavior.
Just feel some muted pleasure that the same part in you that died has died in hundreds of thousands, millions, of right thinking people over the world and that little death multiplied a million times is focusing a rage that will block out the sun.\n\nOr not, as the case may be.
I didn't see, I'm on the second floor. But my roomate tells me that it was a "skinny as fuck crackwhore woman" banging on the doors and windows.
Growing up in Utah, I was told by at least a dozen people that fluoride was used as a gas by Hitler to keep the Jews docile in the camps, etc. Almost all of these people also believed that the fluoride gas was released in the camps by turning fluoridated water into steam.\n\nI bet these people had an absolute shit-fit when Batman Begins came out.\n\nEvery time I tried to dig up the origins of this bullshit being so prevalent in Utah, it seemed to come back to the John Birch Society. Pretty much every scientifically ignorant "theory" I ever heard growing up there is part of the Birch agenda.
I've had dreams about hanging out with my current boyfriend before I ever had a boyfriend.
* Clearly, there is some disagreement about the "general use" of the word "drunk." It is not as obvious as you've made it out to be. Watson made the effort to define what she meant by "drunk" multiple times. So, when there is confusion about what *she* meant, do we defer to her definition, or to an outside definition? When a biologist is talking about the *theory* of evolution, and there is confusion about the meaning, do we defer to the biologist's definition or the "general use?"\n\n* I really don't see her definition as special. She's not the only one that says a drunk person cannot consent. For example, my state university's sexual assault policy states that a person under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol is not able to give consent. So, it would be a stretch to call this a special or extremist position. You can question the validity of policies like these, but it's the codified status quo in places.\n\n* She can later say whatever she wants and have it questioned, yes. However, it's clear to me that the later tweets were her **reiterating** the same concept over and over. These were a **continuation** of what she was saying, not the start of some whole new conversation, completely devoid of context. If there was any confusion about the tweets, she **made a blog post** to clear things up. The tweet is part of a **context**, and to ignore what she said both before and after is foolish and/or intentionally dishonest.
I'm just going on conjecture but:\n\nA more realistic explanation would be your brain played out events in that split second.  You know how people say their whole lives flash before their eyes right before near-death experiences?  I think it's kind of like that, where your brain goes into hyperdrive.  It played out the events  and made you physically feel the g-forces of an actual crash.\n\nI also recently read a story on Reddit of a guy who used to enjoy going [unconscious](http://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/11kgx0/guy_faints_on_the_slingshot_freaks_out_when_he/c6nc3tv):  \n>When I was young(er) and dumb(er) I would, on rare occasion, pass myself out. The process, which I'm not going to go into detail about (don't do it idiots), resulted in a few seconds of 'out' time, during which you would twitch a little and then wake up.\nI didn't do it many times, and the last time I did still haunts me to this day. I was sitting in the hall of my home, and my girlfriend (now wife) assisted in the process (again, not saying details, don't do it idiots) and I was gone.\nSo I went on about my life. Got a new job a few months later, moved to a new house, met new people, got a new car about a year after... just living life. Things were going pretty well.\nAnd then I woke up on the floor twitching with my wife chuckling about it and checking that I was alright. Had been about 3-4 seconds. To this day I still worry that at some point I'll hear her voice and fade out to realize I'm sitting on the floor of my apartment ten years ago.\nWith that perspective on this... I'd lose my shit too of I woke up on this ride.\n\nIt's just crazy what the brain/body can do, especially in times of significant stress.  You also hear about people experiencing adrenaline rushes where time almost seems to slow down for them.
Hello phone
Thanks for the downvotes so far, but if you could provide some sort of explanation, that'd be great.
Doesn't mean he doesn't have a point. A decent one, at that.
Okay, so prove it.\n\nShow me the part of biological evolution that shows that civilizations evolve towards peace.
Sounds good in principle, but since 90+% of the reports are actually misidentified celestial or man-made objects, I don't think it'll work as intended.
The place it all happened was the graveyard, the reason I'm going back is to face my fear and get substantial evidence.
Use the Socratic method to highlight her crazy beliefs. Use questions to guide her to critical thinking. Ask her how astrology works. Ask her if the sun or the moon, the largest and the closest bodies work into astrology. Ask her about extra solar planets.\n\nDon't tell her that blah blah blah means yaddah yaddah. Ask her if it does or why and why not. Don't be condescending or superior. Ask with genuine curiosity. You need to be humble with your skepticism for it to be contagious. She will either start to see the problems with astrology as a reasonable person or she will just reject anything that challenges her state of mind.\n\nI hope it all works out. But remember, never stick your dick in crazy.
I agree, on both points!
My boyfriend asked if the ghost tipped me and then he asked "who you gonna call?" For some reason that did not help me.
Is this a good paper? Looks a bit suspect. Honest journalism?
I am just going to leave these videos here:\n[EVP_Experiments_01 ( Dracula Butter Knife Laughs )](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFjsh9LVFUs)\n[EVP_Experiments_02 ( Ghost Chatter Stone On Wood )](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGFbiNSNmzU)\n[EVP_Experiments_03 ( Finger Nail Whispers On Nylon )](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZFqfZuBhfM)\n[EVP_Experiments_04 ( Putting the sound together in a fake EVP session )](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_qhLCVVk28)\n\nUsing these short 4 videos almost anyone can make fake EVP's and with this knowledge I am very skeptical of evp's. Not only can they be faked post recording but during recording as well even if unintentional. A ghost hunter could easily have a small stone stuck in the treads of their shoe and while they walk or pivot on that shoe it could create sounds that the person does not hear in real time but are picked up the recorder.  This is just one of many scenarios that can occur.
Could it possibly be a bat?\n\nhttp://listverse.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/screen-shot-2011-03-04-at-2-07-34-pm.jpg?w=548&h=330
You can tell someone is in over their head in an argument when they resort to calling their opponents retards. Stay classy liberals.
Further, in the real world it isn't the case that the harder you work, the more you get paid; the hardest workers are actually often (please note the qualifier!) paid the least. If you doubt that, try pouring concrete for a day versus sitting through a series of board meetings...\n\nThose who make the most money often draw most heavily on public infrastructure to do so; the public highway system subsidizes their shipping expenses, the police/military mitigates their security expenses, and so on. Since they draw more heavily on these services and benefit so much more from them, it is only fitting they pay a higher percentage of their income to support them.\n\nNot even the most progressive tax scheme imposes an upper limit on what someone can earn, and if we were to impose one (the current system in the US is actually regressive, with the poor and middle class losing a high percentage of their income to taxes - remember that federal income tax isn't the only tax in play here! - than the top earners do) those who draw the highest salaries will still have far more after taxes than those who draw less.\n\nPlease also note that progressive tax schemes have everyone paying the same percentages at any given income point: you pay a low percentage on the first X dollars, a slightly higher percentage on the next Y dollars, a higher percentage still on the next Z dollars and so on.  The poor straddle fewer brackets than the wealthy do, and so don't pay the same total percentage as the wealthy do, but it's not like many would have you think where OMG, you just barely breached the next tax bracket and are now earning less because your entire income just got taxed at a higher rate! (This is in essence what conservatives imply when they say progressive taxation disincentivizes ambitious capitalists - "why should they try to make more money if they're just going to get taxed more for it" sorts of arguments.) You earn a dollar more than the X tax bracket? You pay the X percentage on everything but that dollar and Y percentage on that dollar alone and still wind up ahead, benefiting from your increased earnings.
The [actual paper](http://websites.psychology.uwa.edu.au/labs/cogscience/Publications/LskyetalPsychScienceinPressClimateConspiracy.pdf) is pretty entertaining, and builds on a [growing body of evidence](http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22conspiratorial+thinking%22&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&as_ylo=2000&as_yhi=) that belief in one conspiracy theory is correlated with belief in other conspiracy theories (almost as if certain people just aren't that great at the whole "bullshit/logical-fallacy detection" thing). Anecdotally this makes perfect sense, but it's nice to have the idea confirmed with some actual research.
I think you are missing that is west of Pittsburgh and nowhere near 422 on the way from Johnstown to Pittsburgh where the witness said he was.\n\nCompare: google map 40.63201,-80.413954  versus 40.659381,-79.340086.  Witness said he was driving on 422 from Johnstown toward Pittsburgh.  The photos show the lights toward the left of the road for him (south of 422).  The appearance of the coal plant is consistent with his description.
Silver nitrate is awesome, however, for removing large, persistent canker sores. Not recommended for random small ones due to the inherent risks of having anything burned out of your mouth.
Dammit, I ate 2000 mg of salt before reading the last line of your post :(
I don't think you understand logic..
it's officially here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfJiNPZ38kY
I'm wondering what you disagree with about the HSUS' stance on No-Kill shelters? I don't mean to sound like you shouldn't be - I really don't know much about it - so I'm just curious to get the side of the story from someone who *does* know about it.
It doesn't, but if you aren't being ethical about it I damn hope you aren't going around introducing yourself as one. Listen to the most recent episode of the SGU. They had a good discussion on ethics after the Heartland Institute incident where questionable ethics are being used to challenge the skeptics.\n\nThere are lots of things we could do to further our goals if we didn't care about ethics. Maybe firebombing chiropractor's offices? Or sending threats to psychics? There's a reason why we don't use these strategies. We have science and education and we need to rely on those. Leave crap like this to PETA and Greenpeace.\n\n**edit:** spelling
don't know why the hell this got downvoted- of all things.  i'll fix that.
Leslie Kean has our seal of disapproval. Downvote her.
As I mentioned, I can see a faint outline of the plane when I look at your shot in Photoshop. \n\nBut it's very apparent I won't change your mind here... you'll believe what you want to, as will I.
I've soaked raw almonds from trader Joes before. They taste good. Kind of like boiled peanuts. I've never s heard it called activated though.
six minutes of comms. He had to have observed the 'aircraft' for at least a couple of minutes before he contacted the tower. So, nearer to 10 than 3.\n\nEven three minutes is still too long for inversion in this aircraft. It would have stalled almost immediately.\n\nIt looks to me like you're massaging the evidence to fit your preconceptions. \n\n>It has long been thought to be a classic disorientation accident with australasian aviation circles. \n\nWell, this is anecdotal and irrelevant. While I'm not a pilot, I also have many contacts in aviation, and know pilots who definitely do not accept the disorientation theory given the evidence. The Valentich case is a matter of great interest among Aussie pilots and gets discussed a lot. This is neither here nor there. \n\nThe aviation investigators as you know are highly competent. If the event could easily have been explained by spatial disorientation and inversion leading to crash, they would have concluded that, even without physical evidence. They did not because of the issues I mention. \n\nIf we're talking about 'likelihood', I think it's more likely he faked the event than was disoriented and flying inverted. I just don't buy it.\n\nWe're going to have to agree to disagree.
Sure, wine responds to aeration and oxidation, which is why wine decanters have such a wide base. It maximizes exposed surface area. I don't know that a glass itself would have much impact, though I could be wrong. But if you swirl your wine in the glass, you're doing the same thing. Certainly, a champaign flute is designed to minimize nucleation sites, and slow down the loss of carbonation.\n\nI think beer pouring is more about appearance and mouth feel than taste. Guinness are very particular about this, going so far as using N2 instead of CO2, because it provides a thicker, smoother head (and that cool cascading effect).
Fraud.
I wonder if he knows you could drink any other mammals milk.  Many countries drink Goat's Milk etc etc.  Seriously talk about ethnocentric views on milk...\n\nI know a large group of people in India though who would agree about cows milk :)
>But there are solid studies on piracetam and choline - feel free to check the bibliographies and further reading. Pubmed too. \n\nI took a look, couldn't find them though. I know there are studies of Piracetam and its effects on people who already have mental problems, but I'm under the impression that there are still no studies on its effects on improving cognitive performance in healthy people.
> recognizing psychology's stagnation\n\ncare to explain and substantiate your claim?
agreed- I think the US medical system can be pretty slow to change especially when such high stakes are involved and there is a lot of potential for liability on the part of doctors regarding the outcome of any treatment. I don't think its some big conspiracy against women I just think that is how doctors are trained to view childbirth and hospitals err on the side of caution because they disproportionately see what happens when things go wrong rather than when things go right.
What do you mean by "validated"?  The thorium cycle does work.
The future is going to be some weird ass shit.
This could be down to bad memory. A false memory of having the dream after the fact.
Which, unfortunately, isn't so common, as they say. My situation is comparable to those who live amongst religious fanatics, only it's new age spirituality crap, and they believe anything except science & reason.
I used to love reading PZ's posts, but some months ago I began to read them less and less.\n\nI thought I was getting too busy or had simply forgotten such. So I tried to make it habit of the last few weeks to read, whatever that is.\n\nAnd what it turned out to be, turned me off. I like the "Why I am an atheist" and the entries about the news. But now he's deferred to posting little links to other "skeptics" blog entries and acting as if those are "word of god".\n\nI liked the old Pharyngula. The new is shit. The echo chambers are larger than ever.\n\nAt least people of a stripe can register for reddit and downvote shit they don't like (as is their prerogative). They can also upvote and contribute to change the culture, if that really is their goal.\n\nTry that on Myers' shark pit. It has as about much cultural flexibility as the most ardent Southern Baptist church in the 1890's.
If we' re folloing this  sub-reddit I would hope we all know about M-12.
Um...when you pronounce them they sound almost exactly the same...
literally
I'm afraid that *is* the summary. The book is only [112 pages](http://www.amazon.com/Truth-Knowledge-Rudolf-Steiner/dp/0893452122/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1350667373&sr=8-6&keywords=truth+and+knowledge+rudolf).\n\nRead the amazon reviews. Perhaps there's nutshelling going on there.
I feel like an idiot. All I did was watch the video and read the comments in youtube. I never actually read your description above. Sorry about that. BTW, RealUFO's just posted your video today.
don't forget your car and computer!
Pity you didn't strike up a conversation with her then, and request an explanation.
No, I am *not* a libertarian.  You seem to like to make tacit assumptions about everything.  Once again, how do you *know* that those who have been discriminated against don't like anti-discrimination laws?  What do you mean by "like"? Do you mean view as a personal nuisance, or ideologically or morally oppose?  Is whether somebody "likes" something relevant to discussions about what property rights should be enforced? These are questions that somebody *skeptical* about this issue would raise.\n\nOh, and **so white it hurts**?? What the hell is that supposed to mean? This sort of statement is usually indicative of people who decry racial stereotypes for non-whites, and then regularly characterize whites as snotty trust-fund babies.
I was indicating that they weren't the same, the congressman suggested they were.  Though I do think their fundraising is somewhat misleading.
Well if its a fake its a good one for these reasons, \n\n- the grain is matched pretty well in all of the different lenses/cameras\n- there is some believable reaction and the sounds are fairly consistent with the background sounds(although sometimes they seem a little quiet)\n- 4 different perspectives means more work tracking and matching\n- the effects arnt overdone, its a simple flash that almost looks like a sonic boom cloud.\n- The roto when its behind the trees is pretty good too\n\n\nHowever,\n\n- the movement of the ship looks very static, the light underneath it seems overkill\n- its got no other eye witnesses as far as i know of. \n\n
Hell,  it was either that or pottery.
I already said the video isn't mine I saw it on another website and posted it here because it was interesting. I never claimed it was real, and yes believe me some people do talk like that here.
Then you leave them at your door with only a kiss on the cheek, that'll show em.
I dont believe in a higher power but I know That there are ghosts. Maybe auras or strong emotions perhaps are left behind. I'm not quite sure. But I've seen ghosts and been touched. I've heard things. All unexplained. I am sure they exist. i believe my uncle follows me because When i go to peoples houses(ones with and without any paranormal history) Things happen. Obviously unexplainable things.
Yes, that is precisely the message I was trying to convey.
If secular americans lived together in isolated neighborhoods like blacks and hispanics do then they could elect a secular guy, but they don't so they get drowned out.
But [this Lancet article](http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736\\(05\\)67488-0/abstract) was retracted due to fabricated data. That sounds like fraud in the same vein as Wakefield. At least if we don't count the level of bullshittery that followed his paper.
Neat, thanks.\n\nApparently they are teaching lies at the geothermal visitor center in Middletown. The more you know.
If you didn't even learn where the hell all this was going on, apart from "Africa" then it actually *is* a big deal, being that the vast majority of IC's reason for being is "raising awareness".
No, I don't believe that's correct. He didn't explain why the tree to the left moves in sync with the wall.
Cant. I recorded on my phone and have no computer available
My favorite part is when he talks about people making up fake monsters and then over time coming to fear them. The irony is strong with this one...
Scam. If chlorine is a problem (it's very unlikely) just put jugs of water in the fridge for a few days before you use it.  And don't ever go to a public pool.
If it is indeed bugs, why not go back at a different time then he stated and see if the same thing happens?
Long exposure time and motion blur. The effects are more noticeable in pic 1. Something as simple as a hair in front of the lens can look like that with just a bit of camera shake.
LOL
I hope you don't own a dog or cat because by definition they are GMOs. Also, don't eat wheat grown in the US. Please don't use penicillin or any opiates, because they have been altered over time. Hope you don't eat beef, pork, or poultry even if it says organic its not 100% unaltered. I'd love to go on but that tasty apple won't eat itself.
That's what They want you to think.
[Know your meme](http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/get-a-brain-morans)
Hold up now, the LA crew that show the video of the orbs and helicopter.  Has anyone heard about the pilots of the helicopter?  it circled the thing and got real close.  I want to know what that pilot saw and knows.
I gave your points back to you so whoever took em did so wastefully.  That being said, who cares, don't be such a fucking baby about it.
>I realize there is a growing number that consider the sheer odds to be conclusive enough, yet this position of thinking somehow that science is at some sort of plateau in understanding what is and what is not possible is simply a matter of blind faith.\n\nI don't think many scientists think we're at our plateau in understanding. There are still many mysteries to be solved (dark energy, dark matter, the unification of quantum mechanics and general relativity, a quantum theory of gravity, why gravity is weak, why there is such little antimatter in the universe, etc.) Scientists just do not seriously consider ideas that violate our current understanding of physics without good evidence to back it up. \n\n>It reminds me of my astronomy professor whose class devoted a full 3/4 of the curriculum to understanding the progress of belief systems with respect to scientific thought. Then promptly dismissed any idea that anything could travel faster than the speed of light. He believed it so fervently and absolutely that he actually downgraded my A to a B using a grading trick specifically designed to do that. He ruined my perfect grade average all because he didn't like me pointing out his solidified belief was a position of faith, just as all the astronomers that had come before him believing in their arbitrary limitations.\n\nWell believe it or not, the speed of light limit is one of the most heavily evidenced phenomena in physics. Our entire understanding of space, time, energy and matter is centered around it. So his position was not of faith, because faith is believing in something without evidence.
They are doing a better job at everything else - the ineptiude is part of the smokescreen they create to deflect public attention away from where it really should be.
> You can't seriously expect me to rigorously cite all of my claims in order to convince some random person reading a reddit comment, thereby wasting hours of my time\n\nSee, your earlier comment was an insightful and upvote-worthy theory, but this is just retarded.\n\nIt's not proof, but I found [this](http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2010/01/23/does-insecurity-promote-faith/) corroborating (and referenced) blog post with about two seconds' Googling.\n\n> Example: Evolution is also a fact. If I state this on reddit, I am not going to back it up with thousands of volumes of proof every time I state it.\n\nThe general rule of grown-up debate is "if you make an assertion you should support it when questioned".  There are admittedly exemptions in practice when people try to get you to support a widely-acknowledged fact (the "the sky is blue" exemption), but in general if you assert something that's not almost universally regarded as a fact, you support it when asked.  If you fail to, your point is invalid.\n\nTo quote Christopher Hitchins:\n\n> That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence\n\nThen, even worse:\n\n> It can be proven with logic. Construct a system of magical thinking beliefs that do not, in the end, come down to uncertainty, insecurity or simply unexamined beliefs.\n\nAnd that's just fucking stupid.  First, even if it were true it would only establish a correlation between insecurity and religiosity, not a directional causation.\n\nSecond, the fact that you can't work out how to build such a system [does not prove such a system is impossible](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance).\n\nI'm an atheist, but I have to say you're a fucking disgrace to skepticism.  Your *theory* is interesting (and may even be correct), but you're making all the same errors as religious apologists - trying to invert the burden of proof, backing out of an argument when you're called on unsupported assertions instead of supporting them or acknowledging fault, egregiously misusing the words "fact" and "prove" to give an unsupported line of reasoning more gravitas, and committing a naked argument from ignorance to finish it all off.
I disagree. You can't just use the word "better" as a catch-all. Better at what? A vote is a statement that that candidate is better than anyone else for that position. Of course a Senator is a better Senator than I am. If I thought I could do it, I would be running.\n\nWhat Endemoniada is pointing is that many people are basing their votes on how chummy they see the candidate, not on how qualified they are for the position. This is leading to a lot of completely incompetent politicians getting power.
It looks exactly like Cleopatra's headdress........\n\n\nIf it had anything to with Osiris, Isis, or Horus the headress would be a throne to show a link back to Osiris and Isis.
I will concede a good counterpoint, however the Semmelweis reflex relates specifically disregarding knowledge that contradicts strongly held beliefs and I further posit that the comparison is strained, if not invalid for the simple reason that Sammelweis discovered a clear cause and effect relationship but there is no such clear relationship with MCS.
Love that pre-newscast. It's nice to hear the first, immediate reactions before anyone really had a beat on the incident or official statements were released.
Actually most of what I've seen on intermittent fasting basically boils down to eating one large meal a day.  Typically dinner.  So it's like 18 hours of "fasting" and 6 hours of eating or whatever.  And it may be useful in helping people regiment what they eat.  Just cause it seems to be very structured or what not.\n\nI think a lot of the efficacy in these types of diet plans lie less with the diets themselves and more in people becoming more aware of what they're eating and how much they're eating.\n\nAnyway I'm not aware of any studies proving the effectiveness of this methodology.
Not to sound like a humourless prick, but get that shit out of my serious subreddit.
I emailed this to all my gay friends and family so they can forward me information on the Gay Agenda.  I love a good clandestine activity.
I wouldve shat my pants if this was all submitted by Yuyi himself
This sounds quite extraordinary and quite intriguing. I will, however, reserve judgment until I hear what Sylvester Stallone's mother has to say on the matter.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_slip](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_slip)
We predate your kind, kid.
The proven GH science bit behind CO2 warming is based on some rather simple physics. If you double CO2 in concentration, the temperature of the system will rise by about 1 degree. That's it. That's the end of the proven and agreed science.\n\nBased on the expectation that we will be double pre-industrial levels by 2100, that would give us an extra degree of GH warmth. The disaster scenarios that we are trying to save ourselves from are based on 3+ degrees (some have recently claimed 6 degrees). I have read papers that go from negative (the world will cool with added CO2) to wildly positive (we're already dead, no matter what we do).\n\nIn order for the warming from CO2 to lead to catastrophe, there was a need to remove the MWP from the record. If the world was that warm in the past (non-CO2) and didn't hurtle out of control from massive positive feedbacks, it would be difficult to make a case for it now (due to CO2).\n\nThe speculation that the system has a 2.5 to 5 feedback is not supported by all the science. There are some studies that claim this, there are some that don't. But there is no proof of the concept. We are left with "who do you believe" and "trust the experts".
1) Do you know what that is?\n\nYes, go to 2\n\nNo, go to 8\n\n2) Does it make you feel good?\n\nYes, go to 3\n\nNo, go to 4\n\n3) Therefore, god\n\n4) Does it make you feel dread?\n\nYes, go to 5\n\nNo, go to 6\n\n5) Therefore, aliens\n\n6) Does it make you feel angry?\n\nYes, go to 7\n\nNo, go to 8\n\n7) Therefore, the government\n\n8) Go to 2
I like to get drunk at parties and do this with different brands of beer.  People are amazed that just by holding a certain type of beer they get stronger!
> “putting vaccinated kids at risk due to a breakdown in herd immunity.”\n\nYour cousin doesn't understand that herd immunity is mostly to protect those who can not be vaccinated.  THe higher the proportion of the population that is vaccinated, the fewer potential carriers of a disease are likely to come into contact with one another and someone who has the disease which means that a disease can't spread so easily.  By refusing to vaccinate themselves or their children, they are increasing the number of potential hosts that could and likely will infect someone else who is not vaccinated if they contract the illness.
You're hardly screwed by discovering that the placebo effect applies to anti-nausea treatments.  \nI have multiple members of my family that swear by those bracelets. I'm not convinced they're complete bunk, but I am convinced that any positive effect is absolutely not by the mechanism they claim.
Why aren't you concerned about the deniers?
And I say to you- so freaking what?\n\nWe evolved on a different diet than we eat now and we've never lived longer.
It's still a different discipline than the discipline of logic.\n\nYou could pretty much say that any human endeavour is based on principles of logic.  That doesn't mean that its adherents are logicians.\n\nWe were comparing different disciplines for their relative formality, remember.
read up on the first statistical analysis of the effectiveness of vaccination of small pox and get back to me. You'll be astonished at how "scientific" it was.
This might also interest you. It is a little more positive :)\n\nhttp://www.stanford.edu/group/brainwaves/2006/theclinicalguidetosoundandlight.pdf
That sensation of straining desperately to move but feeling like you are in shackles is a helpless, claustrophobic feeling. I hate it so much. That's why I trained myself to close my eyes, relax, and fall back asleep. As long as i dont fight it, I can fall back asleep very easily. Just go gotta go with the flow.
Released in 1951.  She really jumped on the Flying Saucer bandwagon, huh?  Awesome find!
Watch the shadows around 30s. They should be pretty informative.
loved the link and went noodling over at randi.org and found the list of [applicants for the $1 Million Dollar Challenge](http://forums.randi.org/forumdisplay.php?f=43). There are a host of superpowers found there. Clairvoyant, X-Ray Eyes, Psychic, Dowser, Paranormal Urination, say whaaa?!?  \n\n>Here is the protocol outline:\n\n>After your arrival and introductions at the JREF, you and Jeff Wagg will enter a room privately where you will have fifteen minutes to make him urinate through paranormal means.\n\n>Touching of hands will be permitted. Speaking, should it be deemed necessary, will be permitted.\n\n>The test will be recorded by another JREF staff member.\n\n>With your permission, there will also be a stationary webcam so interested parties can view the test live.\n\n>Both you and Jeff will remain standing for the length of the test.\n\n>Jeff will not be wearing any diapers or other absorbent materials besides regular pants and underwear.\n\n>At the end of fifteen minutes, if Jeff has not urinated, the test will be considered a failure.
no, its supposed to be treated as true within the subreddit but they should all be creepy pasta (and therefore, for the most part, fake)
WTF? I thought this must be a joke account, but it appears to be serious. But now I have a new idea for a twitter account!\n\nedit: And thus @altshakra was born.
i live in west chester ohio its close to cincy. me and two of my friends saw a really strange object about 3 weeks ago. the best way i can explain it was just a blob of fire that appeared out of nowhere and slowly drifted away and got smaller untill it disappeared.
It's called artificial cranial deformation, and it's done by binding the head with leather strips or cradle boarding. Nothing paranormal at all, and a very prevalent practice in ancient Peru. [Check it](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_cranial_deformation).
It's not as popular as media attention might make it appear - most of the UK population don't use or believe in it, and arguably the only reason it's offered on the NHS is because Prince Charles (an embarrassingly over-opinionated, under-informed fuckwit) is a supporter.\n\nIt's highly *controversial* (because the NHS offers it but a lot of people think it's a waste of time and money), but not really widely *supported* in the population.\n\nHowever, to answer your question: because we have drooling fuckwit morons in this country, too. <:-(
I have postprandial anorexia and it's no laughing matter either.
Reading reddit everyday tells me to never ever do this. As much as I would get a kick out of it a lot of reditors would decide to make me into some meme or the butt of a lot of jokes.
I don't know about that. I do agree that Bigfoot researchers have a lot to gain from a discovery, but I don't think they play victims. A lot of researchers I think would be beyond risking their integrity or whatever for Bigfoot anymore considering how many times people have been duped into believing and been refuted.\n\nEDIT: I believe in bigfoot, but there are a lot of liars.
[this show is hands down the biggest offender that ive seen of this](http://www.travelchannel.com/tv-shows/the-dead-files)
I've never watched zeigeist, thanks for being a dismissive cunt. Oh and your first link corroborates my claim.
That's cay
it means your township needs to send someone to replace the street light bulbs
What's your problem guy?
I would guess it is a false analogy:\n\n-- \n \nx has property y and is z.\n\na has property y so it must/could also be z.\n\n--\n \nGuillaume is blond and Guillaume is male.\n\nMarga is also blond so Marga is probably male, too.\n \n--\n\nI do not know shit about asbestos and asbestos is dangerous.\n\nI do not know shit about wireless technology either, so it is propably also dangerous.
Sometimes referring to "the mind" as a separate entity is useful; much like I'll sometimes use the word "karma" when talking of the way bad behaviors often tend to (eventually) bite people in the ass without for a moment believing in some kind of cosmic scorekeeper or inherent universal justice.
Are you for fucking real? That is a fascinating thought... I just can't believe this...
Are you Curtis Peebles?
And the private sector is just as bad, e.g. monsanto tests on bovine growth hormones etc.\n\nSo we are in the same position we were in before. trust them as an authority, but check up to make sure we aren't being hoodwinked
I agree on the methodology and rigor though even with experts it can remain a problem. many area of science need more statisticians. many profs are great at their area but their analysis can be quite terrible when they have to stray into other domains.
Personal experience is absolutely the *worst* form of evidence.
Nor can I, it was from 'Blue Nowhere' which was a work of fiction.
>Nutritionists, Naturopaths, Scientists, M.D.'s and Medical Journalists \n\nsorry but thats just not much cred there. "Dr" Joseph Mercola credentials\n\n >University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 1972-1976\n\n>Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine 1978-1982\n\n>Chicago Osteopathic Hospital 1982-1985 Family Practice Residency. Chief resident 1984- 1985\n\n>Board Certified American College Osteopathic General Practitioners July 1985\n\nbeyond that I haven't seen the film but theres already to much woo for me to want to see it
They just ran the story on the 10 o'clock ABC15 news. The person who shot the video showed the end that was not originally aired. You can clearly see the top light is an airplane and it flies North over the cloud.  \nThey haven't posted the full version online, but I'll see if I can get a copy of it and update this link tomorrow.  \n  \n[The original, edited video story](http://www.abc15.com/dpp/news/region_phoenix_metro/central_phoenix/ufos-spotted-in-the-dust-storm-)
http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcast.aspx\n\nHave fun, they're great! :)
What? You can't cho[[=---=ose what does and doesn't represent a community j2658*/*/*7ytust because you don't like it. The reason I would never publically msadfention or identify as a reddit user is because how horrible parts of the community are. A group isn't as bad as its worst member, but the worst members sdfs0-i 2etill say quite a lot about a group and are often very vocal.vxcv
Oh completely agreed.  I would never rely on prayer alone (derr, I'm on Skeptic Reddit :P)  But I feel like it's quite... mean to tell off someone who simply wants to pray for you.
Great, now the anti-vaxxers and Scientologists are joining forces.
Aww.
David Icke may have some crazy ideas, but his main points are valid.\n\n\nI wish people would focus more on his agenda of:\n\n1) Do all the research you can\n\n2) Wake up\n\n3) Develop yourself spiritually\n\n4) Embrace personal freedom\n\n\nand stop being so caught up with the:\n\n"The moon is hollow and lizard men are in charge of the illuminati!"\n\nI mean, no matter what you think of the 2nd part, the first part is actually some great advice.
Sounds similar to here where a homeopathy advocate ended up Health Secretary *sigh*
Could it be, gasp, there's an inaccurate info-graphic from the internet, on reddit?
I really don't know. I've read that digesting from a lying down position can lead to heart burn and cramping, but I've got no research.
You become obsessed with reading Occult materials.\nIt's fun :)
Also, Before It's news is where Skeptical Humanities gets a lot of its content for This Week In Conspiracy
> I can't explain it in any way in terms of either Western medicine, or what little I know of Western physics or chemistry or whatever.\n\nI admit, I giggled like a little schoolgirl.\n\n> Any idea what chemicals aluminum might react with to generate heat?\n\nSure -- [bromine](http://jchemed.chem.wisc.edu/JCESoft/CCA/CCA3/MAIN/ALBR/PAGE1.HTM), many others.  Google for aluminum and exothermic.\n
Are you a physician Daemonicus? You seem to have quite a negative opinion of osteopaths. Care to explain why?\n\nDisclosure: I'm an osteopathic medical student (in the US).
It seems as if he's a habitual liar.  In some of his posts, he implies being a woman, in some he's straight, in some he's gay, in some he's in a relationship, etc. etc.  I think it's all a hoax for attention and internet sympathy.
Permtaclular, I have 30 years experience in the dental field. I don't know anything of the chemistry of MMS, however, from my professonal knowledge and personal experience, you cannot "cure" an abscess as it is a symptom of a deeper problem. Often my patients' abscesses will disappear and then reappear as the problem (which has never been cured) flares up and subsides. There are 2 kinds of abscesses. One is a periodontal abscess. The most common cause of a perio abscess is a popcorn kernel which works it's way under the gum instead of working it's way out. This will actually cause devastating destruction of the bone around a tooth in a very localized manner. Very often the bone is destroyed in a tunnel like fashion and often right to the root tip so that I can insert a probe down 10 or 12 mm. This is unrepairable and the tooth may have to be extracted.\nThe more common cause of an abscess is that the nerves and blood vessels in the tooth are dying due to a blow to the tooth or a deep filling or cavity. This can only be cured by doing a root canal or by extraction if it is hopeless. My main point is that the MMS did not "cure" the abscess as that is only a symptom of a deeper concern. Only a dentist can cure the actual problem and an abscess will come and go of on it's own.\nCertainly, most patients, if there is no pain, would rather ignore the problem once the nasty looking and feeling abscess is gone than actually get it looked at by a dentist and fixed. Short answer: I don't think the MMS cured the abscess. I also have a friend that is convinced the MMS works. That is why I was reading this thread. The abscess argument does not convince me in the least. Now if a person that tested positive for Herpes is now negative and that test has been repeated several times and still gets a negative, than that would be something. As far as I know, the Herpes virus which resides deep in the ganglion, cannot be cured.
Can anyone comment on their credibility?
Do not allow yourself to be convinced by any benefits that you might personally feel you have gotten from the visit. You're a sample of one, with no control group and no blinding.
I've already told you the difference between gravity and meridian lines and the difference has nothing to do with direct/indirect. It has to do with falsifiable and the amount of supporting evidence.\n\nIn the end it's a false analogy. You're trying to compare them off of superficial similarities. If you make that comparison, you can compare meridian lines to pretty much any other scientific theory.
That seems to be pretty much inline with my sentiment. To be fair your point about where I live is valid. I've only ever lived in liberal places: Chicago, Miami, LA and am a part of the gay community which is pretty much the liberal cream of the liberal crop. Perhaps I'm in a bubble.
Do you have any scars or strange marks on your body?\n\nHave you ever been x-rayed since these experiences? If so, were there any anomalous objects on the x-rays?\n\nDo you have any kind of emotional reaction to pictures of aliens as shown in abduction accounts?\n\nDo you have any strong feelings about these experiences?\n\n
This is a meteor for sure. Here is another one caught from a dash cam in Edmonton. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkJ2r7KSa30
It's not a time traveller.  Damn this has been posted a lot.
For those who don't know what [pareidolia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia) means:\n\n> Pareidolia (parr-i-DOH-lee-ə) is a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant. Common examples include seeing images of animals or faces in clouds, the man in the moon or the Moon rabbit, and hearing hidden messages on records played in reverse.
No there isn't.  Not every video. There have been multiple accounts of sightings backed up by radar that have not been explained.\n\nSpecifically, there is a valley in Europe that has unexplained ufos very often.  A scientist that went with a group the first night noticed a floating light with his team that stayed around for hours.  It wasn't ball lightning, ball lightning only lasts a fraction of a second and usually happens when there is a lightning storm.  They also have radar setup and have tracked multiple objects in the sky and as far as I know I have not seen a skeptic debunk it.\n\nThere was a case where UFO's were floating over an air force base for hours, they had them on radar and visually could see them.  When they sent fighter jets up to try and intercept them all of the sudden the ufos shot up in altitude.\n\nThe phoenix lights, there was a massive craft with lights on the bottom of it. We are talking HUGE, the airforce after realizing they couldn't explain it dropped flairs AFTER the original sighting.  The governor of Arizona admitted that he went outside and actually saw it for himself.  There was a story of a fighter jet that was sent to check out the Phoenix UFO and the fighter pilot was shaken after he saw it from the jet.\n\nMultiple occurrences, of a close to ground UFO at an air force base in England backed up by radar and one of the men claim they actually saw the triangular craft up close and I think in one of the interviews he said that he touched the craft and was close enough to see the hieroglyphic writings on it and even sketched them and in those cases radar showed an object.\n\nMultiple accounts of pilots seeing UFO's even one where 3 in the cockpit all saw it and it started to vanish out of thin air.  Radar indicated it picked something up in that location.\n\nThere was a UFO at an airport, was hovering over a particular gate. Eye witnesses say after hovering for quite a while it shot up in the sky at incredible speed and even punched a hole through the clouds that was above it.\n\nThere was even a recording of one of the employees calling the tower about it.\n\nI have to say it seems like whatever this phenomena is they for the most part aren't looking to hurt us and for the most part it seems they try to observe, record and stay hidden and most of the time when they aren't hidden they seems to maybe realize they aren't then then either disappear or take off at crazy speed.\n\nAnother one, in Alaska.  There was a massive UFO in front of jet.  They had it on radar and multiple people in the cockpit saw it the pilot was even scared that they might have a collision with it.  He talked about it afterword and as seems to be the case in the aviation industry that if you see something you aren't fit to fly so he lost his pilot job.\n\nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMn1PiNZfkU\n\nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=cYPCKIL7oVw#t=33m56s
Issues of /r/atheism \n\n"Hey, do you believe in any gods?"\n\n"Yes."\n\n"AR AR AR AR RRA R AR AR AR RRRRRRR bark snarl"
Pretend to be more interested in his other hobbies. I think a lot of this kind of evangelizing is borrowed from the jesus-freaks *needing to save you*.
I think it would be interesting if you acted as a skeptic through part of it, and then all of sudden, saw something "ghastly" and acted frightened for the rest of the hunt.
No no, this guy was my hero for some time. Top line researcher. Now, after reading this [shite](http://montagnier.org/Autism-the-microbial-track), I am sad. I must admit I did have a little giggle at some of the stuff he wrote though. It's kind of cute, in a stupid fashion. But he's no longer a hero to me. He is dead to me!
I most certainly do. I also have monkshood and foxglove. I like poisonous plants, and think it's a little stupid to leave pretty, deadly flowers outside in a neighborhood with kids in it.. What of it?
For these life forms to be sustainable (and they must be to achieve this level of evolution) there must be a decently large population. Same with the lock-ness monster. \n\nAlso, what's the evolutionary advantage to having hands and arms underwater? Why would these guys ever evolve?
More useful, but out of context it doesn't always helped. Plus people like to cherry pick a number to go back to that is mosre beneficial to the point they are trying to make.
>"I'm sorry for being born with a penis. Here, allow me to treat you with disproportionate amounts of respect and caution because my mother taught me all men are scum."\n\nThat's sexism, and totally not what we are going for as feminists fwiw.
When genetic engineering gets to the point where gender selection becomes one of the many trivial things that people do when they want kids, these rumors will fall into the abyss of history. \n\nAs our knowledge advances, pseudoscience and snake oil die off in little pieces at a time.
It's a good thing these devices aren't pseudo-scientific and are admissible as evidence in a court of law.  Otherwise people might get the idea that some muppet politician didn't have a clue what he was doing.
I helped put the site up and would like to give a little bit of information on it here:\n\nThe site gives a general overview of the UFO events at Minot AFB in 1968 in the Introduction section. The Background provides some context about the Air Force and Minot AFB in the context of the Cold War. The Narrative provides a sequence of events and the Investigation incorporates years of research, interviews, mapping and reports by Claude Poher (French space agency scientist) and Martin Shough (expert on radar scope) with the narrative of events. \n\nThe site also includes the reports by Poher and Shough in their entirety, as well as the mentioned radar scope photographs of the UFO taken by the B-52 crew during the inbound flight mentioned on the site. A number of interviews with the B-52 crew and the personnel at Minot AFB during the events are presented, as well as the original official questionnaires and documents surrounding it.\n\nEverything mentioned includes a number of photographs, illustrations, diagrams, drawings by the witnesses, high-resolution maps and archival documents from and about the Air Force/military around this time period. \n\nFYI: I am not the author of the site and did not help in research or interviewing at all, but helped with putting it online in a readable format. I hope that if you take a look at the site, at least check out the Abstract and Introduction and browse around looking at some of the material. It gets pretty in-depth, but it's all incredibly interesting.\n\nThanks
John Keel as well.
Whist no doubt many people took his 'explanation' seriously, i quite like the fact he builds up these ridiculous hall of mirrors backgrounds for the tricks, as it makes figuring out the explanation more interesting. ultimately, he is doing it for entertainment reasons, and several of his shows have been based around debunking the methods of people who have more malicious motives (ie faith healers and mediums). \n\n\nEssentially he's just an illusionist (like Randi), and all of the NLP quotations and wisdom of crowds stuff is just the top hat he uses to hide the bunny. He also uses his shows in quite a meta way, like when a trick supposedly goes wrong and the program ends prematurely, which i find entertaining.
The woman that build the house was the widow of the second president of the company (the son of the founder).  When her husband died in 1881, she inherited about $20 million as a lump sum, and earned $1000 per day from the stock that she inherited.  Adjusting for inflation, it would be worth $500 million [the lump sum] and $10 million [annually].  There are differing theories as to why she came out to California and built the oddball mansion that she did.  The "official" story is that she went to see a Boston psychic after her mother, father and law, and husband died in very quick succession.  She was told that the family had been cursed as a result of the deaths caused by the Winchester rifle, and that she had to endlessly build the house to confuse and/or placate the spirits.
References: A bunch of articles in the "Journal of Near-Death Studies" (JNDS), a couple popular books, a news article, and a YouTube video.\n\nNotice the parts that aren't sourced? Like this quote:\n\n> In 1991, at the age of 35, she claims to have had a near-death experience (NDE) during a brain operation. Her claim of NDE is one of the most notable and best documented in NDE research because of the unusual circumstances under which it happened. Reynolds was under close medical monitoring during the entire operation. During part of the operation she had no brain-wave activity and no blood flowing in her brain, which left her clinically dead. She made several observations about the procedure which later were confirmed by medical personnel as surprisingly accurate.\n\nThe only part of the first paragraph that's sourced is the fact that she "was an American singer-songwriter." The newspaper article they cite has quotes from "Kenneth Ring, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Connecticut and a chronicler of these episodes." He's also a frequent contributor to the JNDS. The article also claims that "her story has been retold numerous times in scientific journals and television documentaries." The 'scientific journals' appear to all be the JNDS.\n\nThe JNDS is the publication of the [International Association for Near-Death Studies](http://iands.org/home.html) (IANDS), which proclaims itself "the most reliable source of information on NDEs." On their home page, they're currently featuring a story with the headline "Dr Steven Greer Describes NDE, Later Has First ET Contact":\n\n>In a recent YouTube video interview, Steven Greer, MD, known for his role as founder of The Disclosure Project, describes a profound near-death experience (NDE) at age 17 including an out-of-body experience with cosmic consciousness. Dr. Greer shares a fascinating description of non-verbal communication with two light beings during his experience and the discussion of whether he should return to his body.\n\n>Later in life, while hiking on a mountain he has a UFO encounter and meets extraterrestrial biological life forms (ETs). He then enters a state of cosmic consciousness similar to that of his NDE and goes on to teach the ETs what it's like to enter this state of consciousness from a human perspective.\n\nSo what support does this story have, really?\n\n* References to the JNDS make up fully half (5 out of 10) of the sources on the Wiki page.\n\n* One reference is a broken link to a page run by an author who wrote [a book](http://www.mortalminds.net/) which spends time explaining the biological basis for NDEs and the imperfections in the studies performed by proponents of 'mystical' NDEs (going so far as to claim that he disproved the existence of the soul).\n\n* One is a YouTube video which was pulled for copyright reasons (but which is still available [here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zD9jigzzuas)). It's a documentary which speaks about mystical NDEs in breathless terms and with little in the way of support (apart from people involved with the IANDS).\n\n* One is a newspaper article which relies heavily on quotes from members if the IANDS.\n\n* Two are links to comments on a book review on Amazon, one from the author of the anti-mysticism NDE book mentioned above and another from a person who was purportedly involved with the surgical team operating on a person who had an NDE.\n\nNot exactly the most stellar stuff, is it?
Try r/UAP instead of just giving up on the subject completely.  It's a smaller sub, but what is there is pure UFOlogy gold.
There ARE weapons of mass destruction in blah blah blah. People lie someitmes.
0.000001% of the people in the world is obviously everybody.
Do you have any evidence to back up your claims?
Its a glorified Ohm-meter. It wasn't even revolutionary in the 50's, when all the internals were analog. The current "Mark VII Quantum" e-meters are all electronic with analog readouts.\n\nThe nuts and bolts of what it does is pass a small current through a person which is used to gauge changes in resistance. Those changes are then interpreted as "reads" or other manifestations, general needle characteristics coming into play as well.\n\nFrom experience, I can say that the e-meter does "something" but a lot of it revolves around the pre-conditioned notions from both Auditor and PC that it is working as advertised.\n\nedit:spelling
By that logic, a gasoline engine is an overunity device. So is a log, because you can burn it and obtain far more energy than it took to light the match.
Maybe, but he was being pretty quiet.
It doesn't illuminate anything, but once you understand solipsism you also realized there is nothing that needs illuminating.
Richard Dawkins, mind control @_@
Ah, relativism. The bane of progress.
 - Astronaut Gordon Cooper describing event at Edwards AFB in 1957
Never seen this comic before but I enjoy it. I like the information they give with each comic.
At any rate, we can still greatly admire a person for his philosophy and actions, while still reviling their rationality.
I just learned that I'm an extreme, close-minded skeptic, out on the fringe.
The real question is how many people have done studies on publishing bias in different fields that found it was fairly uniform.  ;)
>He starts off calling people like Pinker, Cosmides and others part of the Church of Santa Barbara, and says that they use a cartoon version of our evolutionary past.\n\nI assume this is supposed to be an example of "poisoning the well"? I don't think so, as he's describing a major rift that has formed in evolutionary psychology over the last 10-20 years, and the term is not one that Gray had coined, but one that had been coined before him and is commonly used in the field. The "cartoon view" is, again, a common criticism of the assumption of the environment of evolutionary adaptedness - where not only is their no evidence or reason to suppose that evolutionary traits under study would have appeared during our ancestors time in Africa, but that the understanding of what would have been their culture is woefully poor. This argument tends to come from anthropologists who argue that thinking of them as "hunter-gatherer" tribes, with men going off to hunt meat and women staying behind to raise children and collect berries, is no better than getting your evidence from The Flintstones.\n\n>If he uses a cartoon model of our evolutionary past, then it seems odd to say that those predictions were still good predictions, despite their being wrong.\n\nA "good prediction" is just one that can be tested; it makes no claims about the accuracy of the prediction.\n\n>By also mentioning Pinker at the start, then listing other peoples predictions which turn out to be wrong he's missing the mark and I think trying to score a hit of Pinker by association. So poisoning the well.\n\nI strongly disagree. The problem is that Pinker doesn't have any studies of his own to criticise, but Pinker regularly and consistently cites the other scientists mentioned, so he is necessarily part of that group. \n\n>I think it's fair to say that there are a lot of contradictory or contrary findings made in psychology, more than many other fields, and if you're going to try to put together some kind of coherent explanation of how the mind works then you're going to have to be selective.\n\nI'm not sure that's true (about psychology having more contradictory findings than other fields) but in areas where the evidence is unclear, I have no problem with his speculation - especially when it's clearly labelled as such. The problems come when he discusses topics where a consensus is quite clearly reached, with overwhelming evidence, and he picks a fringe position, supports it with questionable data, and presents it as the dominant/mainstream position (i.e. the language instinct). \n\n>It really seems to be hard to find what the consensus is when it comes to human psychology, which is what Pinker writes about.\n\nAs an entire broad topic? Yes, it's possible to formulate your own overarching position that attempts to piece together all the parts. On individual topics, like whether it's possible for learning theories to explain the development of grammar or whether the computational theory of mind is a reasonable assumption, are not really debated any more (i.e. learning can produce grammar, and the CTM isn't reasonable except arguably as a metaphor).
It's sad to see people so dumb!:?
The only reason I'd ever visit /r/atheism again is if religion had just taken a huge shit on my head.\n\nI suggest /r/religion. Not only does it overcome confirmation bias (varying sides), but I find everyone there is very secular.
And this despite most people allegedly having voted for the guy who won! Yet you want to give power to a lottery winner who, potentially, 99% of the electorate doesn't want in office and 100% of the current government doesn't want in office, and you want to do this without conflict?
There's an easy way to tell if anyone is actually telepathic.\n\nThey aren't.
I stopped reading after the panorama part. Almost every panorama picture I've taken looks like it has some kind of entity. There's a small chance it could be a ghost but I'd put my money on a glitch
In the context of this conversation, "radiation" refers to generalized environmental radiation.  In that sense, "Radiation has no health benefits," is a completely accurate statement.\n\nBut I could be wrong.  Does anyone else reading this thread think clarification was in order about the type of radiation?\n\nIn a Super Bowl discussion, If I say the Green Bay Packers are the best football team, I don't need to specify that they are from the National Football League of American football.   I am not "sarcastically implying" that the Packers could beat Arsenal at Ashburton Grove.\n\nContext is key to reading comprehension.\n\nGo ahead, split another hair.  I dare ya!
[Kiss me?](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rmzii2u5GME&feature=related)
Cool idea. Thanks
Right. They are both on their best behavior, for now. These polar difference can come back to bite 'em later on when they don't stand on ceremony.
No actual studies to back it up, but the general consensus I've heard online is its a decent stack, but it would be significantly cheaper to buy the individual supplements and mix them yourself.
I'm not anti-government so I think the government should. But I also think we should fill in the gaps as skeptics. Isn't that why we gather here? We promote an agenda and that agenda is largely about warning people of bullshit is it not? This is one of my favorite subreddits for that reason. Lots of good information flows out of here and the word is getting out as best it can. What else can be done? I feel that our government should do the same thing. Of course you can't let someone market arsenic as Tylenol but that's not quite the same situation in my opinion.
>So if a well liked politician came out as gay it would only have value if they had logical reasons for being gay?\n\nNo, but as a skeptic, I wouldn't assert it is a good thing without reasons or evidence for my claim, either.  And if my reason is, "Well, he's famous," then there are plenty of counter-arguments to this.  Primarily being, "So?"\n\n>More people should be atheists because a popular figure is, too?\n>\n>I didn't say or imply this remotely.\n\nThen what is the value of a popular figure coming out as an athiest?  You still haven't given me reasons for that being a good thing, so I admit I had to invent them in the form of appeal to authority.  Give me a reason why its a good thing so I don't have to invent one.  Just because he's famous and believes something you agree with doesn't make it good.
> "I want to be cremated," he says with his signature dry, knowing charm. "And I want my ashes blown in Uri Geller's eyes."\n\nGreat sense of humor.
*"The Crucifixion" hangs above the altar at the Visoki Decani Monestary in Kosovo, Yugoslavia ~ it was painted in 1350. On either side of Jesus are a pair of Jetsons like skycars, one chasing the other ~ the pilots apparently working controls.*\n\nStylized pictures of celestial objects, specifically the Sun and the Moon\n\nNot everything is going to be like [this scene out of Life of Brian](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSY4fEEg4j0)
Hold on there, dude, that's stew.  You mean a viral infection characterized by fever, congestion, and aching.
Wow a clear pic! With all of this technology in our pockets all day ever day I knew it would happen!
Wow really? That's the most fake ghost picture ive ever seen holy shit. \n
Yeah, but the dude has **seen aliens** on several occasions; and the evidence in the universe always supports their existence.
You need to up your comprehension skills.\n\nI never said that or even insinuated that. Elites is not synonymous with climate scientists. \n\nId appreciate it if you would not put words in my mouth.  \n\nEdit: So let me get this straight, this guy completely misconstrues what I said and gets upvoted? /r/skeptic 's finest at work here lol.
Ah, thank you!  It was the "bullet impregnation" that was BS and that's what I was remembering.
Quantum wool. Now with extra woo.
My biggest issue with ghost shows is that 99.9% of the time they aren't live (the .% being specials) and if anything conclusive were to be found on them, we would know about it well before the episode airs.  This is what takes all the excitement and Interest out for me.
Interesting find, but I don't think it's anything other than an atmospheric effect; the image does not occlude any stars, and does not have a distinct boundary, rather, it kind of just fuzzes out and becomes wispy.
[this](http://qkme.me/35pwia)
HEAD-ON: Apply directly to the forehead.
ive heard so much about not trusting government and lil about monopolies.
Nearby Jericho was settled as early as 9000 BC. Areas of the Barada basin also show evidence of settlements in the 9-10th century BC, and Byblos has been around since at least 7000 BC. \n\nIt is true that most textbooks record the Mesopotamian societies as the world's first proper civilization, and date that accomplishment to 4000 BC - but the implication that nothing more than tent settlements existed anywhere else before that point, is totally disingenuous.\n\nIt is outright deceit for this program to intentionally mislead people into believing this misconception for the purpose of implying that Gobekli Tempe is so unique that we must seek an alternative explanation for its existence.
I'm pretty sure it would be the Dawkins-Watson 'skirmish'.\n\nThe guy politely asked her 'for coffee', she said no and he obliged without fuss. Surely this is the best way to act?! The way SGU went on about it for half an episode was disturbing; it is not a skeptical issue, indeed it is not an issue at all.
Didn't the Inquisition have something like this?
I've noticed some people confuse empathy or being able to read people for psychic powers.\n\nIf someone's facial expressions doesn't match what they're saying, or if you hear someone over the phone use words and pauses differently you can usually tell their mood or if they're lying. some people mistake this for psychic powers.\n\nRule #1 for answering the phone in any big retail box store?  Smile! If you smile before answering the phone, people can hear the difference.
>Nobody really gets vaccinated for it, since your only way to get it is my doing a bad job of handling one of the few vials of it that are stored in a couple of labs.\n\nUS Military service members (at least) *are* vaccinated against smallpox in the fear that it will be used as a biological weapon.
They may be able to produce that low, but at what kind of volume.  \n \nThe lower the frequency the more power it takes to produce it, and the bigger the "speaker" needed to effectively push the air.
I think there was rape in there some where, too.
I understand what youre saying, but further responses from that user showed that he was trying to imply that the story was false/ a fraud (I even quoted some of his sentences showing it), due solely to the source giving the information.
i have experienced this too...except slightly different.  I tend to have the feeling that the bed is spinning like a merry-go-round, i feel like im being pushed into the bed while its spinning.. it lasts for about a min or so and then it just stops...it happens about 2 or 3 times a month...
> I'd be forced to remind myself they're nothing more than biological creatures, evolved from animal precursors just like us, but with significantly more technical capabilities. I wouldn't worry about death, I'd worry about brainwashing.\n\ngood summary of how i live every day but instead of "they're" replace it with "we're" and take out "just like us,"\n\nalso im drunk
but little fireplace things were found on the object itself :(
Our humanity, natch.
Nice try, psychic hotline person
Yeah I can see what you mean. You don't need math for anything that you are talking about. You do need math to calculate how to get to the moon. We have literally gone to the moon. We have a whole bunch of satellites orbiting Earth right now. That takes math to figure out the orbital speed and keep it constant. I am pretty sure that visitors would notice that we have satellites in gestational orbit. It would take math to figure that out. What I am saying is we will seem significant but they would at least understand that we are not like animals. I don't mean to berate you its just that I have heard that we need to prove that we can math. I am pretty sure that we have already done that.
They should focus on avoiding the vaccinated. It would certainly make me feel better.
post this to /r/paraaccounts
Can we please stop calling it EMF?  It is the most annoyingly vague and stupid acronym possible in this situation.\n\nLet's instead call it "electromagnetic radiation that is less powerful than a microwave", and have done with it.
The question is, how much more study?  It's a pretty common tactic (No true Scotsman) for believers of all stripes to say something was debunked because skeptics weren't testing the *real* phenomenon.  Sure, *some* people identify mangy animals as chupacrabas (chupacabrae?), but that doesn't mean we can be certain that there aren't *real* chupacabros out there.\n\nEdit- [No true Scotsman](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman)
You know this is stupid, BUT the earth give us everything we NEED and it would regulate our population trough disease.
Builth is indeed pronounced as rhyming with 'filth'.
[source](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acupuncture#Other_injury)\n\n>  Other risks of injury include: **nerve injury, resulting from the accidental puncture of any nerve**, brain damage or stroke, which is possible with very deep needling at the base of the skull, kidney damage from deep needling in the low back. Haemopericardium, or puncture of the protective membrane surrounding the heart, which may occur with needling over a sternal foramen.
I'd say it was something from when you were young, a tv show, choir, rhyme or just a song you heard once but didn't pay attention to.
Because it's able to? Conciousness is just a self aware system. There is no reason why such a system can't be simulated.\n\nIf you're asking why someone would bother to simulate conciousness, then some possible reasons are:  \n\\- Just for fun.  \n\\- Scientific purposes (like understanding evolution better).  \n\\- Idea farming (provided you simulate a large amount of intelligent organisms, such as humans or our descendants).
There is no basis for believing this. Pole shifts happen very gradually and are constantly shifting anyways.
> credophile\n\nCome on, that is below the belt. That's like critics of Wikipedia describing its editors as Wikipedophiles.
> p.s. if your rule about arguing with strangers on the internet involves not losing, you'd better jump ship now.\n\nMy rule is actually about people who have already made up their mind, which makes an "argument" with them more like masturbation.  I looooove talking about evidence for sasquatch.   But much as I enjoy it, I have limited time to dedicate to it.\n\nSo just this one more time (promise!).\n\n> Apes won't survive all winter "hunting deer." They're not carnivores. Most of them are vegetarians with some omnivorous proclivities among certain species in certain circumstances.\n\nNeanderthal seemed to do just fine in the middle of an ice age.  Recent evidence suggests they ate close to 100% meat.\n\n> Show me bigfoot hair, footprints, or scat\n\nDangit, where did I put that bag of bigfoot scat...  Believe it or not, I don't have any ready to hand.  If you want footprints, Jeff Meldrum has a collection of several hundred plaster casts:\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Meldrum\n\nHe's been hounded his entire career and passed over for promotion numerous times just for taking this physical evidence seriously, rather than dismissing it out of hand.\n\nLet's be serious: if I showed you hair samples, scat samples, and lots of footprints, would you then acknowledge that sasquatch is extant?  Of course not.  You would dismiss them as fraudulent, or misidentified -- and with no type specimen on file, who could gainsay you?  What if the plaster casts had dermal ridges, and were judged authentic by forensic fingerprinting specialists (which has happened)?  You would just raise the competence of the alleged hoaxer to match the quality of the evidence.  This is what the mainstream science community has been doing since the Patterson Gimlin film.  I can't say I blame them -- there have been a huge number of hoaxes, and nobody wants to stick their neck out and risk getting fooled by a hoaxer.\n\nSo I'll shut up and wait for Ketchum's results, and we'll resume this then.
Except this is factually wrong:\n\n> Several company memos presented as evidence during the civil trials revealed that these remedies were discussed, with the conclusion that to shut down production and retool would be too expensive. Most damaging to Ford were memos found and published by author/researcher Mark Dowie in the muckraking magazine Mother Jones that detailed a cost analysis of corporate liability in the event of having to compensate crash victims.\n\nThose memos weren't Ford memos. They were documents from the NHSTA. In the court case they were deemed inadmissible.\n\nThe "Pintos are inherently dangerous" is mostly an urban legend. And the point is to call it out specifically is disingenuous as you could say the same for many other cars of the time.
I love feeling superior to people too.
I accidentally sat next to CD at TAM6.  He's a cool guy, and we got to be snarky together during one of the... "less well prepared" presentations.
I think you missed a word, but If someone thinks science and religion are compatible they don't know enough science.
TIL saying a country is a rat hole is bigotry. Also, please tell me which muslim nations aren't pits of despair and oppression, because I'm in the mood for a laugh.
While this is great in theory, it fails in practice- very often, we have to make judgment calls concerning how to judge the veracity of a claim made by someone without the ability to refer to evidence. A better way to view it is this- I update my probability that a claim is true based on many factors, but a claim supported y evidence will create a greater change in that update than a claim without evidence.
A dude said he saw something and drew a few images.  It's 100% on what one dude said he saw.  I wish there was something far more interesting to this.
At his time Tesla had this problem. I don't see how it could be different without some crazy people putting some crazy money on something like this.
Most pedantic, annoying novelty account ever. Please stop.
And nothing good...
By "skeptic" we mean that we take care to use critical thinking and evidence based reasoning. We try to be skeptical about everything, but that doesn't mean we don't believe in anything.\n\nIn the case of climate change, almost all scientists in the relevant fields seem to agree that it is happening and that it is caused by human activity. Those that don't consistently use fallacious arguments and tend to make a lot of money on the books and lectures...
could be those crazy parachuting flare guys again.
Is no goat sacred??
Apparently I am part A (reserved and prone to worry), part AB (clear-sighted (I think. What does that mean exactly?) and logical), part B (selfish free-thinker), and all O (decisive and confident).\n\nIn point of fact, my blood type is A.\n\nMy experience with astrology is similar.
More steak for us!
"do prevent" and "expected to reduce... 70% to 90%" are not the same (especially when that's of the 51% which is actually covered.)\n-----\nI have very much enjoyed debating you folks, I thought reddit was much more dull since it was balkanized, I just didn't know where to look. Thanks.
I'm not trying to downplay it, it is very interesting footage, but... as steady as it angle is, the clouds never move. I see birds flying, but the clouds, even the contrails, are stationary. Why is that? I stare at the sky from my cubicle daily, and every single cloud in the sky, man made or natural, move in all directions conjunct with atmospheric conditions. Easy to spot with a fixed point reference. I am not seeing any movement in this video beyond the distant, quadrotors with lights.\n\nI need more physics shattering dynamics or much more detailed footage. sorry guy. I'm not your buddy, pal.
Almost anything is more healthy than the SAD, so that doesn't prove anything...\n\nLOL @ "super foods"\n\n>those non-meat sources usually the healthier alternative.\n\n[citation needed]
Yay for Jennifurret! :-) She's especially amusing at 2:30am after a long day, a few hours in the Del Mar and a Harry Potter movie premiere. :-) Smart, friendly and funny.
That is even more difficult than predicting where leaves will end up at the end of a windy day.  It doesn't matter how much you know about wind, aerodynamics, physics, statistics, etc.. all you would be able to do would be to predict something like "some good number of leaves will probably end up in front of this mailbox, because they usually do.  Unless the wind changes."\n\nThat doesn't mean that meteorology, physics, statistics, and aerodynamics aren't "real" sciences.  It just means that when there are so many moving parts you have to start talking about probabilities and tendencies rather than when and where.\n\nThis already exists in social sciences.  9/11 was predicted by every scholar in the Middle East politics.. but they didn't say "someone is going to fly an airplane into the WTC", they said "at this rate an attack on the US on our soil is very likely."  Of course, they've been saying that for like 30 years.\n\nThat's about as close as you can get.
Alternatively, a high dose of Science
Lol.. but pate with avocado on some fresh bread sounds fucking great to me though.
Exactly.  I have an uncanny feeling that there's plenty of fishiness about the whole affair but I'm perfectly happy proceeding on the assumption that we have good answers until new evidence crops up.  The book is never closed.
He was a Rast... Oh wait. Nvm, I see what you did there.
I wonder if this wouldn't do better in iTunes' app store.
I think you're more right. Whole Foods is definitely down with that "new age spiritual" crap too.
The closest thing to a true belief I've ever found for myself was in Asimov's Foundation series.\n\nBasically, there is a grand cause-and-effect mathematical approach to everything in the universe, and it is attainable. This is assuming the deepest understanding of all significant variables of our universe, granting the ability to calculate with accurate probability the outcome of literally anything, including human behavior, and in turn the ability to change it.\n\nObviously this is ultimate power, which doesn't work if everyone can use it, so that's pretty much what the series is about. Read it if you haven't; Asimov's fiction isn't hard reading.\n\nThis is such a science-loving belief that it seems like it should be a hit, and given the series' popularity, I'm assuming I'm not alone, but I never bothered really finding out if anyone felt the same since many conversations on this topic easily fall apart.\n\nEDIT: Heinlein's The Cat Who Walks through Walls has a very interesting take on the "ultimate power" concept not being kept under control, and has some very similar themes. His story is much more adventurous and passionate, and more relevant to modern life, but I don't really "believe" in the concepts that book eventually gets into, though I highly recommend it.
tear him down yourself. Ask why none of his studies were published in reputable peer reviewed journals to support his claim of a growing body or evidence. He claims that his "method" is not fully researched by western academics, which is to say his own research is unpublishable for some reason. I guess you're looking for someone who has gone through his "journal articles" from the 3 woo friendly publications and refuted them point by point, but that would probably be lost on your friend anyway if they can't see the more obvious problems with his claims vs. his publication record, or the lengthy disclaimers on his site about efficacy and treatment.
Ouija boards are easy mediums for people with little equipment to contact spirits. You don't even need the game itself, you can just create one with paper, a marker, and a coin.  \nProblem is, they're not exactly the most reliable (you could be subconsciously moving the planchette, spirits could be dishonest about who they are, etc.) and there are better ways to contact spirits.  \nI really don't know why so many people on r/paranormal hate them, though. I see a lot of "OUIJA BOARDS ARE HORRIBLE, DO NOT USE THEM, THEY BRING BAD SPIRITS." but in reality they don't. If a "bad spirit" is even contacting you through the Ouija board then they're already there or already have some kind of connection to you, if that makes sense.  \nIt is possible for spirits to become attached to certain boards. I've had it happen and I've had to throw one away because a spirit wouldn't let me talk to anyone else but herself on it.  \nAs long as you use Ouija boards with common sense and respect you're not going to make things any worse than they already are. They don't give bad spirits power and they don't summon bad spirits either. Those things happen when people act like douchebags or when people are incredibly scared. Common spirit sense applies all the time and Ouija boards are no exception.
Film? What century are you sending this comment from?
It does indeed remind me of the Lovecraft stories.Best of luck figuring it out
Whoa, yeah it is! The Cub was in Lakeville, MN.
>I can't help but think that if the right people were in charge of selecting the books\n\nThat is the faulty assumption that led to the problem in the first place.\n\nWho are these magical "right people"?  Why centralize the function instead of allowing the teachers (the ones who have to deal with the choices) to make the determination?  Sure it wouldn't be "uniform" then, but at least it wouldn't be uniformly BAD.
lol. Well. I stand corrected. May the media continue to shout from the rooftops about UFOs.
I find the same thing. I think part of it is that the more educated or intelligent you are, the easier it is for you to come up with justifications for your own beliefs. And the easier it is for you to assume you are less biased than other people, and don't have to examine your own views.
Not you, I am talking about the article. It's easy to say FACT etc a bunch of times, but all they do is link within the web of agreeing opinions/blogs. Ive been searching for years and have never found anything even remotely resembling real evidence. Just a lot of people with first hand testimony asking you to take them at your word. That isn't evidence. \n\n\nAgain, if anyone has any real evidence, please post it for the world to see.
Before you can learn what I have to teach, I have to teach you how to learn.
According to [this](http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/29970.Lawrence_Ferlinghetti) it was Lawrence Ferlinghetti who coined the phrase.\n\nHowever, [this](http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-2898687/When-brains-fall-out-the.html) partial article disagrees and points out that many other people have been credited with originating the phrase.\n\nSo, in short, I don't know.  I realise that's actually very unhelpful...
Another super blurry dot that could be anything.
Life expectancy in Russia: 68 years\n\nItskov's age in 2045: 64 years.\n\nI'm going to say that's pretty close to the [law of futurology](http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1968#comic).
Just wanted to point out that Buddhism in no way rejects modern medicine.
Do you honestly believe I'm going to watch a four hour crappy you tube video by a nutter holocaust denier when I can just talk to someone who lived next to Treblinka or you know, read books  by people who actually have Ph.Ds in the subject and aren't Racist Neo Nazi Douche bags with a second agenda?
shboom shboom, yaddita yaddita yaddita yaddita\nshboom shboom, yaddita yaddita yaddita yaddita...
I'm sorry, I was under the impression that you were unfamiliar with the case other than the movie. Since you have studied it, may I ask what you believe is the explanation for this case?
In all fairness, though, that banana thing is mind-blowing.
Kinda sounds like what happens if you look at a word for too long, and it starts to look weird...
Well the fact that pesticides are used in the growing of the food, which then supposedly leak into water supplies and poison people sounds like a mighty big health concern to me. Unless people who buy organic food are interested in saving the fish that happen to be in their drinking water?
So you can get some entirely unrelated computer job like most of the other people with engineering degrees that I know.
I half expected goatse.
It is really strange you say that. It is not uncommon to find arrowheads in this area.
The best way here is to ask for explanations. "How does that work? Vibrations? Oh? What is vibrating? Ah. Ok."\n\nTake notes and just think about each item. Pretend you do not know shit about anything. Ask about everything that seems even slightly fishy. If the explanation contains other stuff that is fishy, ask again. Do not be afraid to take your time. A question could very well start with "Yesterday you said..."\n\nDo not confront the Bullshit directly. You will lose. You could just be forbidden to interfere with the teaching. Asking enough and staying serious (DONT get cheeky or sassy.) allows you to bog everything down in details and bolsters the defenses of your classmates.\n\nAt the very end of the unit, you can confront the teacher in class and ask him if he seriously believes any of this. \n\nBut before you do so, ask yourself whether the teacher is depending on the money of people who want to teach him this shit. Additionally, find out how much teachers in public school are paid in your state and ask yourself if this is a real alternative for your teacher.
Do you tend to direct them towards a "light"?\nDo you have interest in interviewing with Mysterious Universe, a great paranormal podcast?\nWhy haven't you sought scientific proof (that is, tried to prove it on record with the names or personal info of the deceased?)
My *entire statement* is "obviously and unmistakably" false? Good job, detective.\n\n>More education may lead to hubris, but also leads to more knowledge.\n\nThat depends on the education! I'm shocked this needs to be stated.\n\nIf you need examples of what I'm talking about, look no further than all the documented stories of doctors not listening to patients, and making bad decisions as a result, e.g. the patient who complains of an earache over the phone, and the doctor prescribes penicillin without wanting to see her. Then she gets a headache, nausea, and cramping, and the doctor says, "It's probably just the flu - keep taking the medicine." An antibiotic for a virus? Sounds like an easy problem, and the doctor wants to placate the patient. Turns out the woman has Clostridium difficile, which the penicillin encourages to multiply. This is taken from a real story, not a made-up example. This stuff happens *all the time*, so if you're going to dismiss me, at least do better than "patently false."\n\nDoctors get so accustomed to easy diagnoses that when bigger problems come along, they still look for simple solutions, many doctors even getting to the point of suggesting that certain symptoms are just in a patient's head! That is what I'm talking about when I say hubris. It's an attitude that, "I'm the doctor. I say you have strep throat, so you have strep throat. A strep test won't be necessary. Have some Zithromax."\n\n"More knowledge" doesn't fix that problem. More humanity, and slightly less regard for the bottom line might, particularly when a doctor can take some more time to learn from the patient what's really wrong.\n\nIn this case, a nurse doesn't make a better doctor, but I was never implying that. My point from the beginning was that doctors aren't generally the medical gods that many take themselves for, and nurses are more than just doctor slaves.
I looked over the website and it's seems that the participants are reliable witnesses including Tyler Nordgren, PhD astronomer and state park officials. I sincerely hope that further evidence is presented from this event. This could be a very significant encounter.
What I found upsetting was that the members of the Committee themselves were the ones going on anti-Vax rants.  Give the floor to both sides of the argument but listen to the facts in an unbiased way.
the anniversary of the Roswell crash happens every year ;)
I'm not rejoicing, I just don't care that he's dead. There are a lot of people who's deaths don't bother me, because if every death bothered me I couldn't make it through my day. A few thousand people just died while I typed this comment. I'm terribly heartbroken over them.
They use the question mark to avoid legal troubles.
The obvious issue is that if people get into a status-argument about something and the skeptic posts links to stuff which has been marked 'untrustworthy' then they won't look great. If sites like naturalnews get their believers to upvote them then suddenly it might look well balanced to passers by.\n\nThe obvious solution is linking to academic journals, but those without an institution subscription I suppose abstracts and well respected, well referenced blogs are the best results possible.
People being assholes under the guise of "having good intentions." This white knighting bullshit can stay in /r/skeptic.\n\nApplying /r/skeptic's guidelines and morals to another subreddit is just fucking ridiculous and leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
I agree that it definitely should be a doctorate! I wasn't even aware that there were differing programs (LLB vs JD).
Whatever the prime cause, having less people vaccinated can't be good. The goal is to vaccinate more, not less.
Go to a graveyard alone at night, chanting weird voodoo shizz \n
There are two kinds of chiropractors.  The kind that cure all sickness with a back massage and the ones that fix back problems with back massage and don't pretend that it can cure anything.
Having never done it myself, I had friends who would get this "cupping" thing done as a type of massage, not to cure anything.  Perhaps she was too?
Christians are funny.
Probably wise.
Why?  It's unidentified and interesting.
I have one... a hasbro one indeed. But I am too chicken to even take it out of the box.
This documentary wasn't half bad.
The homophones are attacking, the homophones are attacking!  Run!
Why does everyone assumes she's a fraud? There are plenty of people who truly and sincerely believe ridiculous things, such as [this](http://www.livingtolive.com/solar.html).
Hypothetical instance in which harm might occur:\nSay an unvaccinated mailman handles a parcel containing the active virus.  I doubt that anybody sending this stuff through the mail is taking the proper precautions to make sure Mr Mailman doesn't pick up the virus.  \n\nBut that's not really the point.  The real harm is far more indirect.  Tolerance for something like this, in my humble opinion, parallels far to closely "anti-establishment" "anti-main-stream-medicine" sentiments - specifically the anti-vaccination movement.  If you're here, I would presume that you probably think these are bad.\n\nThe problem with 'whats the harm' is that there often isn't really any direct connection between shit like this and easily identifiable problems that may arise as a consequence.  It's more about promoting a culture that doesn't give credence to the people who know what they're talking about.  \n\nThe kind of sentiment you espoused is similar to being tolerant of facilitated communication (just as an easy example).  I don't think there's anything implicitly wrong with providing families with a little bit of hope and helping them feel good.  But that's not the point.  If an entire culture wants to be tolerant of the bullshit because "whats the harm" you end up with crap like [the Wendrow case.](http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wendrows-sex-abuse-cases-dismissed-facilitated-communication/story?id=15274276#.TyXc0uNWquM)\n\nEdit: a couple typos and some formatting
Thank you for your kindness. I also enjoy your contributions. \n\nI truly believe the UFO mystery represents something objectively real. Mainstream UFOlogy is in disarray and I think we have to be clinical in approach to the evidence to reclaim the field. I am still convinced progress can be made.
I agree that the information might very well be reliable, but since it is on a website that looks like it was put together by a middle schooler just learning HTML and makes claims while giving absolutely NO sources, then it's not a bad thing to remain dubious until better evidence is presented. Especially as it is being presented as "100% proof". Also, there is no indication as to WHO put the website together. Hard to eliminate pure bias from even informed opinion when you can't determine who is disseminating the information. I'm not saying if the claims are true or false, but if they are true, surely there are better resources than this website that could be pointed to as evidence.
I'm not sure I buy into the ghostbox. I mean, my willingness to accept evidence of ghostly phenomenon is on par with that of a child, but picking out random snippets of voice from radio stations already broadcasting voices... seems a little sketchy.
Chasing a soul stealer in her reality, psychic investigator Caitlin Diggs inadvertently travels through a portal to another reality and witnesses her fugitive kill her alternate self in DEMON INHIBITIONS. Assuming her alternate's life as an agent of the FBI’s Preternatural Crime Division, Diggs believes...her position might help her capture the soul stealer until she finds he may be part of a sinister terrorist plot to keep humans and demons living in segregation. A girl, whose singing inhibits the evil urges of demons, is on the terrorist’s hit list and Diggs will ultimately learn her fugitive is neither supernatural nor demon, but a genetically engineered hit man incapable of being enthralled.\n\n
You're all morons and ninnys!
I had an incident like this when I was about 13. My mom and I were in the living room reading and heard our dog growling at our cat downstairs and the cat hissing. When my mom and I got up to go separate them, both the dog and cat were by our feet looking at us like...wtf!!!!\n\nto this day we can't explain it.
Kisses!
You've got yourself a deal. I still read (and love) the Celestine Prophecy Saga; I hope for nothing more than a positive, evolution-furthering moment (or series of moments or that matter) for all mankind. \n\nMy rational (science-based) logic tells me, that which I have no precedent in my experience to base an assumption of what *may* occur, I am forced to "wait and see" indeed.\n\nMy hopeful side (let's call it *spiritual* for the sake of brevity), longs for a 'transcendent' (for lack of a better term) uplifting of sorts.\n\nTime, as always, will tell.\nIf our paths do not cross in the coming months, may we have enlightening stories to share on the 22nd. \n\nAs always, \n-Anonymously Sincere
I agree. In between the mouth and the calories of energy things are complicated and variable. The same goes for energy use. For example, when you are losing weight or are at an energy deficit, your metabolism slows. You can speed it up by exercising or getting excited or by any number of methods. When you overeat, your metabolism speeds up -- you may feel warmer than you did with the energy deficit.\n\nI find it odd that so many intelligent people will key on one part of this complex process of digestion and energy use and production, such as the effect of some hormone on the rate of metabolism, and be in complete denial of the effect of eating too much or eating less.\n\nIt may be that people are caught up in pop science, but I can't help but wonder if it's part of an evolved instinct to eat whenever food is available. Could this be why so many people refuse to acknowledge the fact that eating too much will make you fat?\n
Why is there no evidence for astral projection???? HMM? Sounds like a conspiracy to hide the troof.
The ones that go straight are satellites. The ones that turn are unknown.
I appreciate the issue here, but did the author really need to throw in a comparison between Oprah and Hitler?
Agreed.
This isn't a scam listed, but I bet you'll like this one too. I remember reading an article a few months back about some people taking advantage of the rewards points system on credit cards(I'm not saying this is a bad thing either). They would order large amounts of change from the federal mint with their credit cards and then cash the change into their bank to pay off the credit card bill. There was no shipping charge, so there was no loss in money for them, only the gain of rewards points. It was essentially free money at the cost of credit card companies. Now they label buying change as quasi money though, and you cannot gain reward points for doing such a thing. Pretty awesome though.
You mentioned naturopathy, which I'm glad about.\n\nA few days ago I thought that Naturopathy was a field that tried to use only natural medicine to cure things, and was likely filled with placebo.\n\nAfter a bit of reading I found out it was far worse.\n\nUnfortunately a friend's sister, who has been raised a creationist Christian, has said she wants to study naturopathy, and seems to be under the false impression that it's natural medicine, rather than a mish-mash of herbs (some of which work), homeopathy, massage therapy and other nonsense.\n\nI guess when you've been brought up to believe that nature was created for our benefit you'll be more likely to think that you can cure anything with naturally occurring substances.
NaturalNews and Mercola.com both make my brain try to escape from my skull. It's a pretty distressing event, I have to read a half-dozen peer reviewed medical journals just to convince it to stay.
Dailymail? Might want it take it with bags and bags of salt.
They don't grow very much sugar cane anymore and they have a good market for what they do grow. The vast majority of sugar cane is grown in Latin America(as far as I know.)
I'm tossing you underhanded insults because you're being kind of dumb. We've gone from\n\n> yeah, you'll also pop back to life eventually wearing boots on your hands\n\nto\n\n> I refute the way the argument is presented\n\nto\n\n> You present a perfectly logical 1 and 2. It's only possible that you will, or will not be online. That is a perfectly logical argument and I completely agree.\n\nSo now that I've demonstrated the presentation is fine, you're okay with it, but you want to quibble over the details of the proof? I mean, sure, we'll do that, but we've gone from "the author doesn't understand statistics!" to "well, okay, the author understands statistics, but the proof structure is flawed!" to "well, okay, the proof structure is okay, but I'm pretty sure his logic is wrong!" and all without admitting that your previous statement was 100% bull hockey.\n\nBut anyway, let's move on. I think his logical path is rather clear. He's saying that either humanity doesn't get a chance to make simulations, or isn't interested in doing so, or they make simulations. That seems like a rather nice set of three possibilities, one of which must be true.\n\nSo, here, I'll spell it out for you. Let's assume #1 and #2 are both false.\n\nIn other words, (1) almost all civilizations that reach our level of development don't go extinct, and (2), a reasonable percentage of civilizations that become technologically mature create ancestor simulations.\n\nI'll quote him for the next step, I'll call this A:\n\n> We assume that technologically mature civilizations would have access to enormous amounts of computing power. So enormous, in fact, that by devoting even a tiny fraction to ancestor simulations, they would be able to implement billions of simulations, each containing as many people as have ever existed.\n\n(If you're going to disagree with *that*, then we can go down that path as well, but I think that's quite an obvious thing to conclude.)\n\nAnd the final step, B, is an unwritten assumption: that, somewhere in the universe, at some point, a technologically mature civilization will exist. This logically follows from the falsehood of 1, as it's impossible for 1 to be false and yet for no technologically mature civilizations to exist.\n\nSo if we assume A, and we assume the falsehood of both 1 and 2, and we're deriving B, then we come to a situation where the number of intelligent beings that exist inside computer simulations *grossly* outstrips the number of intelligent beings that exist inside computer simulations. In other words, pick an intelligent being randomly from all points in time in the universe, you've got a 99%+ chance that it's a simulation. And therefore, you are almost certainly living in a computer simulation.\n\nNow, we've come to this conclusion only by assuming not-1 and not-2, and by assuming A. But if 1 or 2 are correct, then his logic is *still* correct, because he's listing that as a valid situation - he's only saying that we can't have not-1, not-2, *and* not-3 simultaneously.\n\nUnless you can pick a hole in the logic here, your only method of attack is to demonstrate that A isn't true. Which seems the weakest point in the argument to me, but I don't think you've been considering that a lynchpin since you've never once mentioned it.
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/when-in-rome-do-as-the-romans-do.html
You can come with me if you want to....I can still save you...
If you trained a chiropractor to truly understand what they're doing, you'd end up with a physical therapist that specialized in back pain. You wouldn't have a Chiropractor anymore.
Repost from /r/nofap\n\n\nI'll agree that some of the claims on nofap are a bit ridiculous, but quitting fapping / porn is not easy. Anyone who has tried will tell you it will be the most difficult thing that you will ever do in your life (by far). It requires a complete change in the way you live your life. You cannot afford to sit in front of a computer all day browsing away. You have to get yourself outside and away from your triggers.\n\nI honestly never knew just how much control I was losing by giving in to my urges until I tried nofap. I realized just how much impulse and urges controlled my life, and it was absolutely shocking. Then I realized that I had a serious addiction, and that I wanted freedom at all costs.\nI took up journalling about this life changing experience, and through heavy documentation about my thoughts I realized just how much my mind changed when I was experiencing urges. It was like I was a completely different person.\n\nIt may be difficult to understand for you, but urges are not easy to combat. They will twist your mind, they will make you feel sick, they will make you do things that you do not want to do. When you're at that point where you're a hair away from breaking, you will have to come up with ANYTHING to make yourself stop. Sometimes, this means coming up with "ridiculous" thoughts like the ones you sometimes find reading /r/nofap. What you fail to understand is that these thoughts are just examples of the kind of *insane* thinking that is sometimes required in order to defeat the urges, and if they accomplish that goal...then they've done their purpose.\n\nThe bottomline is that eventually...once you've abstained long enough... you start to see things more clearly. Urges have a way of distorting reality. The less control this urge has on your life, the more you rationalize things in a more realistic way.\n\nI am not religious, but all I can say is that nofap worked wonders for me. It has been the best thing that I have done in my life by far. I didn't know about any of the proclaimed "benefits" when I started this. All I knew was that I had severe ED (took me 45 minutes to get it up to normal porn, yet the most extreme porn got me going relatively quickly). I was escalating to some of the most disgusting stuff...you cannot even imagine what I was looking at. I often found it more appealing to look at men than to watch the extreme stuff. I started to think that I was gay. How could I be gay after being attracted to women since I could get an erection. I needed to know the truth. I was desperate and depressed. My life had fallen into an abyss that seemed impossible to climb out of.\nI wanted to know the truth, and after reading yourbrainonporn.com I thought why the hell not...maybe after abstaining my brain will tell me what I truly want...men or women. So I tried it...and it changed my life forever. I didn't know that on day 5 I would wake up feeling more alive and have more energy than I ever had in my life. I never read about this benefit, nor did I expect it to happen. But it did. And I swore to use this energy to change my life for the better, and I did indeed. \n\nBefore I started nofap my life revolved around sitting on youtube watching videos, playing world of warcraft / call of duty all day long, reading random internet posts and watching porn. I had little to no energy to do anything. My room looked like a tornado went through it, and I felt literally dead all day. I was depressed, I spent hours talking to myself about my self pity, my social anxiety, my lack of confidence to talk to anyone. I was a pathetic wretch living in my parents basement. I was dropping courses in college left and right, on the verge of dropping out while telling my parents that everything was ok. I convinced myself that everything was ok too. I told myself that I'll just do the work later, but never did. Instant gratification...the concept of instantaneous pleasure had ruled my life. It controlled anything and everything that I did. I ate mcdonalds every day. I developed several stomach ulcers...I didn't care. I was so depressed that death would be a favor to me. My body looked like a sack of bones. Going outside and meeting women? Haha, don't kid yourself. I was having panic attacks if I wasn't in my basement playing video games. I went on a few dates here and there...but found myself becoming increasingly dependent on women for my happiness. It came to a point where I felt extremely depressed if a girl didn't talk to me for a day. I have done things to myself and to my loved ones that I will never be able to forgive myself of. \n\nThen I found out about yourbrainonporn.com. I was desperate...and given the fact that I was crying after masturbating to the filth that I was looking at, I had absolutely nothing to lose. I came clean to my parents. I told them that I was on the verge of being kicked out from college. I told them about my video game addiction, about my internet habits (but I didn't tell them about the porn). I figured either they throw me out of the house for lying to them and I kill myself or they give me another chance at life and I redeem myself. They gave me one last chance...my father was crying because of the things that I have done. We all cried. \n\nThis was at the end of april. Fast forward three months. \n\nDo you want to know what my life looks like now? After 3 months of doing this?\nI wake up at 4:30 am every morning. I eat a HEALTHY breakfast. I go to the gym from 5 am to 6:30 am every day (except weekends when I go at 7 because thats when it opens).\nAfter the gym I take cold showers and immediately afterwards I go to the beach from 7 am to 9:20 am. After that I leave for class. My class ends at 12:00, I spend my time reading, studying, and living life to the absolute fullest after that point. When I have free time, I explore the city (I live in new york) just for the hell of it. I try new things. I do anything and everything to enjoy my life...to get away from sitting in front of a computer.\n\nThe urges to masturbate FORCE me to do these things...and I am now living a better life than I have EVER lived. I even took it a step further. Instead of just quitting masturbation, I quit all things that are defined as "instant gratification". Junk food, video games, tv, internet (nofap reddit is the only one I look at nowadays, for support). I wanted to know what it was like to live life NOT being dependent on anything. I wanted to force myself to work for my happiness. I wanted to know if there was a life beyond instant gratification...if the grass was greener if you DIDN'T get everything you wanted at the push of a button. I wanted to live life free of urges to do anything...not just masturbate. I wanted to know the meaning of real happiness...this was an abstract concept at the time since my happiness depended greatly on the things that I did (internet, video games, fast food / junkfood). \n\nThere are people out there who live on coffee, who can't imagine life without facebook or their favorite tv show or whatever. Through nofap, I found out that you don't need ANY of those things to live a happy and healthy life. True happiness comes from within, and it spreads to everything that you do. Only then did I learn the true meaning of loving life and real happiness.\n\nAnd I have felt most if not all the benefits listed on that chart on your /r/skeptic page. I don't care if they're placebo or not, as long as I feel them. I've stopped caring. I'm proud of what I am and I'm proud of what I am capable of. I'm proud of my self control. Every morning, when I'm in that gym with some of the most dedicated men on this planet... I am proud of myself and of them. I feel confident. I feel great. My body looks great. I look at pictures from January 2012 and I cannot believe what I see. I cannot believe that that was me at some point.\n\nA few weeks ago I took a trip upstate new york on my own. I figured that at the very least, it would be easy to control the urges by being in a tiny house filled with people (my grandparents and their friends). It was quite possibly the most incredible experience I ever had in my life. I never thought of myself as a nature person...but here I was in the mountains walking down dirt roads looking at fields of lush trees and beauty surrounding me from all sides. Breathing the mountain air, taking in the majestic sights...I felt more happiness than I ever felt before. \n\nGetting up after doing 100 push ups on a basketball court that overlooked a beautiful lake and forest...as the sun was rising above the trees (5:30 in the morning)...I felt that I had found the meaning of life then and there. \n\nAnd if you were wondering: No, I am not gay. Nofap has made women look like ANGELS to me. I feel an attraction to them that is stronger than anything I ever felt before. In fact, I have to say that everything looked better for me. Nature looks incredible, women look incredible, healthy food tastes incredible. Being out in the sun feels incredible. Being alive feels incredible.\n\nThe people in my life have all noticed the changes. My mother tells all her friends that she cannot understand what has happened to me. It is like I am a COMPLETELY different person. Thanks to nofap, I have done a complete 180. My life has changed for the better.\n\nSo as far as your skepticism goes, you can be skeptic, and you can judge me from your high almighty chair. I don't know if it will work for you. I don't claim that you will be able to change your life if you try. Nor do I want you to try...if you think your life is good fapping away to porn, by all means do it to your hearts content. I am not against you masturbating or you watching pornography. I do not care what you do with your time, but don't come in here and try to destroy my world and tell me what I feel is bullshit, because for me...it isn't.\n
That's because I was attempting to be humorous, failing as usual I see.
Absolutely. If something were to happen that was unsolvable by normal explanations, it would be a proof that would cause a paradigm shift to reverberate throughout our fundamental understanding of physics. That's exactly how science works -- if new information demands a change to a scientific law or scientific theory, then the law or theory is changed. This has happened before. I'd be surprised and disappointed if it didn't happen again.
You are a professional idiot. I sure hope you have some shitty blog or website making money off other idiots.
> I don't care what you all think about it, but for real this is a comedy routine and not skepticism. \n\nYou're right. He's a comedian trashing the (inane) concept of the secret. There are aspects that it touches on that can help (a positive outlook) but it does not make it so good things will come to you like lottery winnings, cars, etc. \n\n> I am convinced it does but realize it may just be an implausible stream of good luck mixed with **confirmation bias**)\n\n\nEmphasis added.
Thanks for that. I didn't want to make the list exhaustive (and I pretty much borrowed it from one of the links at the end of my post anyways), but COINTELPRO is definitely a conspiracy that legitimately has existed.
It's not a belief, it's a fact, it can be shown and has been time and time again. The people who enter chemo choose too, it's not forced on them and they are informed what will happen to them before they decide to do it.
he was talking about events that took place, over the past few decades
Another nitpick to add to the rest... processors have *frequencies* not *speeds*.\n\nBut the commonly accepted term is speed. For some reason. So silly.
Thanks for the riveting trailer critique. Care to recommend a piece that's more in line with your liking, wontonsoy?\n\n\n
from 1998 to 2002, i worked as an editor for arnold & porter, the law firm who represented wyeth-ayerst (née american home products) in the class action lawsuit brought against them by plaintiffs who suffered a variety of cardio-pulmonary diseases that were strongly linked to the weight-loss medications redux, pondimin, and fentermine-phenfluramine (aka fen-phen). \n\nin the course of my job, i came across numerous internal documents written by executives for wyeth-ayerst that revealed that the pharmaceutical company's own research showed a positive correlation between their weight loss drugs and these chronic and often fatal diseases of the lungs and heart.  \n\nsome of these documents detailed deliberate attempts to cover up research data that could have prompted a recall, the authoring of misleading ghost-written articles published in peer-reviewed medical journals (allegedly penned by prominent physicians who had been handsomely compensated by wyeth for the use of their names and prestige), collusions with FDA board members to place these drugs on the fast-track to approval, and the bribing of all types of doctors (MDs, psychiatrists, cardiologists, etc.) to prescribe these drugs, in spite of the evidence that they caused serious and irreparable harm.\n\nall of these actions were perpetrated by wyeth in order to continue profiting from what had become one of the largest-selling prescription drugs in the world.  \n\nultimately, wyeth-ayerst was sued by over 50,000 plaintiffs from all over the world, and they paid billions of dollars in settlements and judgments against them.\n\nthis type of practice was not an anomaly, either.  shortly before i left, the firm for which i worked was busy researching another drug that would shortly become the focus of another massive class action lawsuit: vioxx.\n\nthere are numerous other medications, many of which received fast-track approval from the FDA, which have all been positively correlated with various diseases and premature death, and which were or are the focus of class action lawsuits.\n\njust because you haven't heard of any claims against pharmaceutical companies doesn't mean that pharmaceutical companies are not guilty of poisoning people for profit.
Cartpusher here. You see some insane shit working the lot all day and night out there. You also find some disturbing items left around. Needless to say it's the most damn fun you can have working at Walmart.
across*
In Finland many families, including ours, have (had) this weird tradition where Santa, or Joulupukki as he is called here, comes on the Christmas (Joulu) Eve at evening to visit the families. Somebody, your dad or some relative or the guy next door, will dress up as Santa, come to your house with all the presents and then distribute them.\nWell, my mother has told me that when I was 4 years old I asked her why Santa had the same boots as the boy next door had and why did he have our cushion stuffed under his cloak. I don't know what my mother told me, but I didn't believe in Santa since.
good idea but I think she trusts her mother for her treatment. I will talk to my niece about it though, maybe she wants to get the real treatment.
Something is one of my favorites, as is Because, though that one is not one of the more commonly heard ones.
[Before and after](http://i.imgur.com/r1snj.png). Note that his head is tilted further back in the before pic.\n\nThe captions in the video are great.\n\n>DENTAL ACUPUNCTURE IS SPECIAL BRAND OF ACUPUNCTURE. ASTHETIC DENTAL ACUPUNCTURE IS A SUPER SPECIALTY
I ~~didn't~~ read the article, ~~but~~ this is what I've heard/think:\n\nWhat I've heard is that these detox diets are supposed to give you the bare minimum of nutrients/calories for a while, in this time you are still pooping. They seem to think this poop is all the toxins that you are getting rid of. You do lose weight in both poop volume and by nature of taking in very little calories. (Less than you'd burn in a regular day, hopefully)\n\nHowever, the weight you lose by not taking in many calories comes primarily from your own muscle reserves. So you're getting less 'toned' and while you are losing weight, you'll look 'worse'. And the weight you lose by nature of pooping a bunch without replacing it with more poop, you will gain it all back once you start eating again. It's not poop that was stuck in your system from eating pizza and ice cream years ago, it's stuff that would have made it's way out in a few days. \n\nBottom line, yea you'll lose weight, but it's ~~not a lasting way to do so~~ in a dumb way, your body needs solid foods, it's better to just eat right and exercise. \n\nOr so I've heard.
> "First thing, thank you for your exhaustive reply, I'm sure it took time and thought to produce."\n\n*blinks*  I'll be honest.  That was not the response I was expecting.  You are welcome though.  The longest part of it was trying to find the links I want to locate that actually, directly reference some of the key studies I'm thinking of, (other than the one OP references).  Unfortunately, my google-fu is letting me down today and I just didn't have the time I really want for this around work/son/etc...\n\nThat said.  Thank you for surprising me.  :)  \n\n> "Secondly, may I know what your background is?"\n\nI'm not entirely sure what you are asking here but if I am understanding you correctly then this should help give context.  I am a practicing Engineer in Australia with a strong understanding of the sciences in general and a lot of time invested in the understanding of the actual philosophy of science, (eg.. the logic, structure, methodology, etc.. required in order to be actually engaging in 'good science' vs. 'bad science').  Before that, I was a military medic in the US Army trained in field medicine, mental health services, and multiple of the advanced medical/paramedic courses, (eg.. before I let my certifications laps I was EMT-P certified, and was considering going ahead and upping my level to EMT-AP while I was still considering going to med-school.  Obviously, I didn't go to med-school and took a more technical rout instead for personal reasons.  I was also BLS certified.)\n\nOn the personal side, I crushed a disk in my lower back.  I have seen, and been treated by, dozens of chiropractors across three countries, (US, Australia, and Canada), over the years and because of my tendency to want to understand everything going on with my health, (and my basic medical background), I started taking the time to actually study Chiropractic informally somewhere along the line, (so.. I started reading some of their papers, asking more and more questions of the chiropractors I knew about their studies, what they learned, what the practiced, how what they did 'worked' etc...).\n\nSomewhere along the line I realized I wasn't getting any better.  So I decided to branch out from Chiropractic treatment and found a physiotherapist.  Under the care of the physiotherapist I almost immediately started getting better. At this point I noticed several, glaring, differences between the physiotherapist I dealt with and all of the chiropractors I dealt with.\n\n1) years of chiropractic treatment and absolute compliance with all exercises, regular visits, etc.. from me and over time I was actually getting worse.\n\n2) 6 months of seeing a physiotherapist and absolute compliance with all exercises, requested visits, etc... and I am better.  Not getting better - I'm better.  I have more mobility right now than I have had in 8 years previous.  For the first time in 4 years I have gotten well enough to actually start seriously exercising again.  I'm no longer afraid to lift things, I no longer have daily pain, I am simply better.  I'll never be as good as I was before my injury all those years ago, (dude.. I'm just older amongst other things), but I suspect I'll get close.\n\n3) Every Chiropractor I ever dealt with **always** wanted to schedule more appointments.  At minimum they wanted to see me once a month for 'maintenance'.  Every physiotherapist I have dealt with so far has told me the same thing, "If I can't get you well enough so you never have to see me for this again, then I haven't done my job".  I haven't had to see anyone for my back for over six months and I'm continuing to get better.\n\nThat, is a huge difference, and in retrospect it tells me a lot that I wish I had known sooner.\n\n4) No Chiropractor I ever asked about my injury or treatment was ever able to give me a non-vitalistic answer to either the nature of my injury or the methodology of it's treatment.  Every physiotherapist I have seen has been able to explain to me the muscles involved in my back, the structures in my spine, and the nerves interactions with these two things to not only explain why I was in pain but also how they were going to fix it.\n\nIn response to my personal experiences, I started really digging into what chiropractic actually is and the more I dug the more stunned I was that it could be so completely disconnected from anything involving modern medical science, evidence of effectiveness, or any other thing remotely therapeutic.  When I researched the [History of Chiropractic](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiropractic_history) I quickly discovered that I had to agree with B. J. Palmers, (D. D. Palmers son.  As in D. D. Palmer the founder of Chiropractic and his son B. J. who took it over to grow it), assessment that Chiropractic was really founded not as a professional field but as a business model.  Unlike him, I don't think that is a good thing if you are a customer.\n\n> "And please be honest and don't try to troll me here. (Reddit is pretty good at catching trolls.)"\n\nI never troll on purpose.  On rare occasions, when I'm exhausted, upset, and completely out of sorts I will be an ass.  I chalk that up to being human, though, and generally do my best not to be one, (though I am often more cutting/curt than I mean to be in forum post.  This is just a result of my usually lacking time to polish what I'm writing :/  ).\n\n> "I'm a recently graduated chiropractor from the UK, FYI."\n\nOuch.. Ouch.. So you are saying I shouldn't mention to you that [Simon Singh](http://www.simonsingh.net/) has already [made the case for my position](http://gimpyblog.wordpress.com/2008/08/17/the-libellous-simon-singh-article-on-chiropractors/), (pardon the site.. they are basically mirroring the original article.  The original was removed when the British Chiropractic Association filled a libel suit against sing some years ago but it's a faithful representation of the article), and that in spite of the horribly unbalanced nature of British libel law he still ended up [winning the case](http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18780-simon-singh-wins-libel-battle-against-chiropractors.html) and demonstrating that everything he said in his article was true, and thus not libelous.\n\nBecause really, at this point, I have to just point you at [his book](http://www.simonsingh.net/books/trick-or-treatment/).  I haven't had a chance to read it myself yet but my understanding is that his section on Chiropractic is way better researched and cited than my personal research efforts, and establishes the points I have stated far more effectively than I ever could.\n\n> "If you can tell me this I will proceed with my answer."\n\nChallenge accepted!\n\n*gads I've been wanting to say that for a while! :)*\n\nAnyway, I hope that answers your question on where I'm coming from and gives you more to look at.  Personally, I would recommend that you keep your chiropractic credentials but go get yourself trained as a physiotherapist.  \n\nI say this because I actually like almost all the chiropractors I have met, (homeopaths?  no.  Natruropaths?  no.  but Chiropractors?  Yes).  By and large, the majority of the ones I have encountered really believe in what they are doing and do want to help people.  I don't think it's entirely their fault that the reality is that they generally aren't helping people, (human psychology is really fascinating on this topic but that's a separate issue). [Some Chiropractors](http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/the-image-of-chiropractic-consensus-based-on-belief/) actually are aware of these problems and are genuinely working on trying to fix it from within the profession.  You have a great chance to be one of those, (though I know that the last thing you want to hear is someone you don't know, on the internet, telling you that you need more schooling because much of what you studied is bunkum).\n\nGet licensed as a physiotherapist in addition to chiropractic, take the time to learn how science based medicine and evidenced based medicine really work as philosophies for improving medical care. Then go to town and simply rock because at that point, if nothing else, you will have the credentials and knowledge to back up whatever you end up doing, (assuming you aren't a dick who will just peddle quackery with the extra credentials).
Saying he does exist and you could shoot him, I feel there might be some issue with killing an endangered species or perhaps something to do with killing an ape. But that's a moot point.
So you do not currently believe in a god as you have not encountered a genuine hypothesis for one?
He shoulda thwacked him with an inanimate carbon rod.
Wasn't there a study done that tried to determine if people with this condition dream, and what they dream about, a few years ago?
I appreciate the help, but what I hear is "If you go to a chiro, make sure they aren't practicing what chiro is and was founded on, but the well founded treatments of other medicinal practices".
Had they been drinking Jagerbombs? - If so; the 'dark figure' is called Sean - he's on her college football team.
Elenin will pass safely around 20 MILLION miles in front of us over the coming weeks, you have nothing to fear about this object.
Well, that's his problem. If only he hired me and gave me enough time to scarf down a bunch of mescaline and vodka, I could come up with at least 3 or 4 equally bonkers ideas that no one anywhere has ever mentioned. Then he could have a few in reserve when some half crazed UFO fan on the internets steals his thunder. \n\nThis is actually a valid career path for me. I mean, shit, it worked for von Däniken.
I wonder why someone thought the article read like an ad, and needed more citations.  \n\n> Broadly speaking there are two types of cupping: dry cupping and bleeding or wet cupping (controlled medicinal bleeding) with wet cupping being more common.\n\n> The British Cupping Society (BCS), an organisation promoting the practice, teaches both. *As a general rule, wet cupping provides a more "curative-treatment approach" to patient management whereas dry cupping appeals more to a "therapeutic and relaxation approach".*\n\nOh.  ಠ_ಠ
Here are my personal thoughts on this...cobbled together on all that I have been able to absorb. No direct evidence. That would be cool though (I think).\n\n* Governments have been in the know since at least the early 50s. According to some, one race offered a technology swap in exchange for the US to stop/destroy their nuclear technology/arsenal. US said no way. Obviously this race is not about conquering the planet - or it would have happened when we had nothing even to defend ourselves. (Assuming we would have a fighting chance today, which I seriously doubt)\n* A second race offers a tech exchange for rights to experiment on humanity. US govt said sure! Obviously if this was made public, this would be massive scandal. Of course I even wonder what would really happen, because we are pretty apathetic about all the craziness that is happening overtly in the world today. \n* These experiments are apparently goal oriented, and that being a hybrid program so that a new breed of hybrid-alien beings can occupy the earth with the inferior pure humans.\n* If this is the case, then this is catastrophic for pure humans. And if it is happening, I doubt there is anyone on the planet that could stop it anyway. Its a foregone conclusion.\n*  If this is the agenda, then there is no point in living in chaos. Keep us stupid, keep us placid, enjoy what is left to our existence. \n\nKind of depressing, but Darwin never specified specifically that evolution and species development was confined to planet earth...\n\nThe other thing that I wonder about is that these beings are being extra cautious about how they share technology. Obviously we have to be able to understand it to build it. Given the geniuses in the world, I figure this is possible now. BUT, I have this suspicion that we are being prevented from using non-chemical propulsion systems/anti-gravity or whatever means of propulsion to explore the galaxy. We best be contained for the time being. We are far too barbaric to be planet hopping. We can't even support ourselves sustainably, we are warmongering and aggressive and have catastrophic impact on less developed civilizations. If we were allowed to develop unchecked, we could be the evil galactic empire. Just think how fun it would be for governments to find new enemies -- beyond the commie, nazi and terrorists!
Non sequitur. The claim is not: "This treatment has dangers, therefore it shouldn't be used", but rather the claim is: "This treatment has no demonstrable benefits **and** a number of observed dangers, therefore it shouldn't be used". In other words, it's a risk:benefit analysis. Medicine literally has journals filled with evidence to show that it has benefits, and so associated risks can be explained to the patient and deemed to be "worth it" in specific cases (as the benefits outweigh the risks). But with things like chiropractic, where there is no benefit, then any risk is too much risk. \n\nIt's like being told that you shouldn't play Russian roulette in order to cure your cancer because there's a good chance you could die, and you pointing out that chemotherapy also has an associated mortality risk, so there's no reason to use standard medicine.
stop trying to cover up the truth! OBAMA has been in the pockets of lions and zebras for too long he should serve the AMERICAN PEOPLE NOT AFRICAN WILDLIFE!
Who knows maybe they don't want to interfere but sometimes their advanced *alien scanners* warn them of some danger about some specific warheads and they decide to make an exception. Or they just  want to test if their *nuclear deactivators* actually work on some new warhead designs of ours.\n\nYou're right, it's all speculation.
Absolute nonsense from a historical standpoint.  Google "criticism of Graham Hancock" and similar things.  I was almost sucked in by him years ago in college, but thankfully thought to sniff around a bit.
Yes, he did:\n\n>Most of us prefer juicy steaks rather than lean, dry, and relatively tough steaks.\n\nSo he can speak for "most of us", but I can't inject my own personal preference?
??? I would never tell a woman what she feels is wrong.(She might have the facts wrong but her feelings are important.) I won't approach Watson in an elevator I promise. What I am saying is that as far as I can tell from what women tell me there is nothing wrong with that for most women. I try my best to accommodate and understand each individual person but there was no way for that dude to know how Watson was gonna take it. If he knew sure but the fact is much of the time you don't.
The first red flag for me is when they always say a "study" (or many!) backs up their amazing claim yet they don't post anything leading to it. If there was a serious, well researched and pier-reviewed study backing up my claims, I would sure milk it for what it's worth and yet, they hardly ever do...
Aside from your elaboration, timing and availability of vaccines acquired immunity also play into these scenarios.
Yes!! Adults not getting boosters is a big problem. You need a "Tdap" shot every 10 years. It covers tetanus, diptheria and pertussis.
I've been trying to explain this to my friends for quite a while. To me there is no consciousness in the sense of free will. All of an individuals reactions are a result of their biology and previous experiences, which by definition are unfathomably complex and appear to an observer as the result of free will.\n\nI doubt anybody would argue that if you throw a ball in the air under identical conditions that the result would not also be identical, regardless of how many times you throw it. The results are to my knowledge completely deterministic due to the laws of physics. By the same logic I cannot comprehend how a person is any more complex outside the fact their every action is comparable to throwing the same ball billions of times.\n\nSure a persons life could be completely changed if that rogue alpha particle ionises DNA in their lung resulting in a cancer. Sure a persons life could be completely changed if you replace their favourite teacher (be it a family member, friend or an academic influence) with somebody that is extremely dull. However, these factors are completely beyond that individuals control, they are just the result of the laws of the universe.\n\nTo me the concept of free-will is not dissimilar to the concept of religion. It's an attempt to reduce the complexities of existence down to manageable pieces. In fact, many of objections I've faced come from similar reasoning of the devout, that without free will or religion how can people make moral choices. That question answers itself for the main part, since consequence plays a fundamental part in deterministic existence, would you still throw the ball in the air if you knew that it would kill you for example?\n\nIt also gives me a renewed focus on helping others, be it something as helping the underprivileged through charity or something simple as helping carry somebodies groceries to their car. My reason being even the smallest of interactions with a stranger could profoundly change their actions for the day (and to some degree their life) so the more positive interactions I have the better the world will be!
Seriously guys. What would Jesus think?
Well, since it is in the realm of complete speculation, any guess is as good as the other. \n\nFact is, we don't know anything about these objects, not what's in them, what they are made of, what the capabilities are, and even further away from what we know, is the intentions, assuming there are any intentions at all. \n\nSo not to be offensive, because i imagine you are legitimately curious, but asking why Unexplained Aerial Phenomenon at this point, would do anything is entirely fruitless. Once we establish definitive proof, that of course we all "know" is there, your question becomes a lot more valid. \n\nBut mostly it's because i think they forgot to turn the lights out.
Then the problem appears to be correcting itself.
Yeah, I second that. It's pretty easy to be a diehard skeptic until something happens that you totally have no rational explanation for, no matter how much you want to have one.
Is this a joke? Are you seriously considering History Channel shows to be evidence for anything?
I thought it was a monkey with four asses.
I always wanted to get into D&D, but never could find myself the time to figure out how it really worked.\n\nIt looked like a badass RPG game with a lot of choices and shit, but I haven't really ever looked into it.
anecdotal evidence.  ;)
I'll send him the link to the comments here and hopefully he can shed a little more light on what has been happening... or better yet he's able to get a video of it tonight!\n\n
It reminds me somewhat of Ray Kurzweil's nonsense diet plan about "reprogramming your biochemistry" to live for decades more.  In Kurzweil's case though it stinks more of desperation and self delusion than from being a control freak.  Even by Kurzweil's very optimistic timetable he'll likely not be around to see a full replacement for an organic brain and body.
Boy would I love to sit down and have a coffee with you.. That is all :)
ok, i'll try it sometime and report the results of the experiment.
Yeah don't provoke it... bad bad bad idea.
"Friends of Science in Medicine (FSM)"\n\nI see what you did there....
How about Sylvia Brown's [epic fail](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRc4LkBRjIc)?
this movie will be bullshit. The maya did not have contact with aliens. Ever. \n\nIs it so hard to believe the Maya could have accomplished all that they did without belittling them with claims that they could have only succeeded so far because of alien help?
THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN.
I guess you hadn't seen Out of the Blue or his appearance(s?) on Larry King.  I always thought (and now still do think) he is one of the least prone to bullshit theories and cockamamie theories.\n\nJust the facts man, just the facts.
I remember as a kid I lived in a single story house and would always here these double knocks at my window past 3am for a few minutes and I would open the blinds to see what was knocking and see nothing. \n\nThings didn't get freaky til after I moved and it took a couple weeks after moving in to hear those knocks again. My bedroom window is on the third floor in the new house. I would always get the impending doom feeling which told me to never open the blinds and certainly the window. No evidence of anyone climbing our building. Creepy.
Was making sure it was all just 100% bunk crap.
Isn't there a form of antifreeze?
Universal access to free birth control will solve most of the world's population problems. Lots of women in the 3rd world want fewer kids but don't have access to birth control.
There's a movie in my country that goes about like this:\n\nIt's the story of a player-ish guy...One day he spots a great looking girl and his favorite technique to abord girls is "Hey, haven't we already met somewhere?" aaannnndd....she replys "OH YES! You're that guy from this class in college". \n\nAnd then he falls in love with her.\n\nIt sucks pretty badly but it was kind of relevant.
Tyson means, if you don't know what something is, you can not further your conversation based on "I don't know 'this', but... (some conclusion which is as good as useless)".\n\nFind out what it is first, then continue (just like science).\n\nPraise be to Science!
You smell incorrectly. Seriously man. I have laid my entire career on the line in the last few months. I've worked tirelessly to make this happen. There is just no pleasing some folks. How could I possibly prove that I am a real person to you?
Who said I was a part of a church? You can have spirituality without religion.
Ah, "common knowledge". No evidence then.
English is the most commonly used in many technologies
Viewing ignorant people as ignorant is a bad thing?
Lyrics from one of his new songs, _Thank You God_, wherein Sam was a conversee who provided a story of his mom's cataracts being healed as proof of God's existence:\n\n> This story of Sam’s has but a single explanation:  \n> a surgical God who digs on magic operations.  \n> It couldn’t be mistaken attribution of causation,  \n> born of a coincidental temporal correlation,  \n> exacerbated by a general lack of education  \n> vis-a-vis physics in Sam’s parish congregation.\n\n>And it couldn’t be that all these pious people are liars.  \n> It couldn’t be an artifact of confirmation bias,  \n> a product of groupthink, a mass delusion,  \n> an Emperor’s New Clothes-style fear of exclusion.\n\n>No, it’s more likely to be an all-powerful magician  \n> than the misdiagnosis of the initial condition,  \n> or one of many cases of spontaneous remission,  \n> or a record-keeping glitch by the local physician.
thats one of a few "hubs" and those re the bad guys
I believe the links speak for themselves on what kind of crap is promoted by the retards ...\n\nEven more relevant is the kind of conspiracy theories you are promoting yourself - just 2-3 days after Lindzen was debunked on just the same type of crap:\n\nhttp://www.reddit.com/r/climateskeptics/comments/qsf00/another_giss_miss_warming_in_the_arctic_the/
computer programming has always worked for me. \n\nNo matter what idea you might have, the evidence has to be followed in order to find the bug.
To be fair, people can get twice that for a cat that's not even theirs.
Here are some starting points to evaluate the evidence supporting anthropogenic climate change:\n\nhttp://www.skepticalscience.com/its-not-us-intermediate.htm\n\nhttp://www.skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-global-warming.htm\n\nhttp://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-change-little-ice-age-medieval-warm-period-intermediate.htm\n\nOne of my main issue with Randi's test is when he quoted the Oregon Petition project. It's clear he didn't research this much, as he would have understood the petition is pretty much a hoax.
Interestingly enough, while I would label myself as a Christian, my take on the philosophy of it is *very* similar to that description.\n\nThis isn't surprising to me, though; I've long held the belief that at their cores, every single religion is exactly the same.  They're all just different people experiencing humanity in different ways, but it's always the same humanity.
This picture is as believable as the tooth fairy.....no....just, no.
Yeah, but a book isn't really peer review. I wanted to see if there is peer reviewed scientific studies or trials that show the efficacy of so called experts and their analysis of body language.
Here is an honest question. I'm very skeptical myself, however, I rarely if ever try and dissuade people when they start spouting off nonsense, does this make be a bad skeptic?\n\nThe reason I ask is, I tend to have no support other than some of the tidbits I can memorize (which is very little and suspect since memory is so unreliable) and am usually shouted down by everyone at work. Not to mention I'm a)not a great arguer, and B) While I can read and understand the evidence for why things are bunk, pseudoscience, or conspiritual, I am very bad at relaying this information in an argument so I tend to not make one as I do not wish to make the skeptical sound weak. \n\nOften times I will respond, with "I do not know, but this should not be taken as no one does"
Kinda makes it sound like a bug in the design. Or did it only consciously underclock us in order to save our batteries?
it's G.R.O.U.P Paranormal.
Absolutely. It's been a long time since I've seen such a nonsensical attempt at propping up a lame cause.
"He's right. What sobers you up from weed though?"\n\n"...how are we supposed to dilute TIME?"
There's a homeopathic clinic a block away from my office. I walked past and noticed that they were all listed as Doctor Woowooquackbollocks N.D.\n\nI was furious. Looked it up, and indeed where I live they are allowed to call themselves such. Ugh.
Wow. You are an asshole.
Sorry if this is a stupid question, but isn't that mean? Where do they have to go?
Were the treats taken?
I am sick to death of Reddit's obsession with logical fallacies, acting as if bringing one up is the smug answer to everything.
Yeah I can get down with some subsidized massage.  But it does bother me when my insurance provider is saying that some of this nonsense can actually treat disease which is just patently false.  Maybe I can get a nice massage to make myself feel better.
> could even agree with you in the current situation, keeping the most harm from occurring. With the vaccinations we have now, the best course of action would be 100% coverage. But what happens when we aren't as lucky as we are now? A vaccine comes along and a certain percentage of those who take it actually do get autism? I'd hate to create precedent right now by taking the easy way out and forcing people to vaccinate when we could have easily started a campaign to garner willful compliance.\n\nSeriously? You think it's a bad idea to make a law now that you agree with based on the hypothetical circumstance that something MIGHT come along at an unspecified future date that would not be as safe as current vaccines? That's the stupidest reason for opposing mandatory vaccination laws that I've *ever* heard. We better not ever pull out of Iraq, just in case some Iraqi decides at an unspecified future date that he, too, hates America. And we better not legislate health care, I mean what if a private insurance company shows up at some point that would do it for us? And we better stay away from legislating Civil Rights, what if a race shows up one day that actually is violent and they need to be contained?\n\nTL;DR, that's a stupid fucking reason.
May I give this 1000 upboats?\n\nDBaD
Homeopathy is basically pandering to people who just want a bit of a pat on the back and some consolation. \n\nPresumably they would be unsatisfied with a blunt diagnosis of their situation, or don't receive a correct/satisfying result from the first doctor they consult, and that colours their opinion of the entire field of not-alternative medicine (or "Medicine").\n\nI think it's sad that unrealistic expectations give airy-fairy hand-wavy remedies like homeopathy a foothold to compete against peer-reviewed, evidence based treatment.\n
Huff Post is about making money. Nuff said.
I used my cellphone clock to know what time to leave. After we realized it was 4 a.m. we both checked our phones with the car clock; they were all in sync.
I ain't fraid of no ghosts
"in accord with fact or reality"
Wow Randi is such a prick. Goes through the whole shenanigans just to tell everyone "tough". Explain the fucking trick prick!
great read. thank you.\n\nfrom my understanding he does not think 3 days is enough for starvation mode but some studies show 60 hours some 72-96. so i guess 3 days is on the cusp of being really bad for you.
And?\n\nThere's no reason to think this is anything unusual. Not even sure why it was posted. There is no context shown, no unusual movements or display of the object... it could be pretty much anything ordinary.
I think the host that heard Bongo after he started cracking was like "Uh yeah . . . I'm just gonna pass you on to our special operator here that'll help you with these issues you're having there, Bongo."
the [top comment](http://i.imgur.com/o8irg.png) on that video just made me spit my drink all over my keyboard
to be honest, why bother with a sub if your main goal is to point fingers and call names? supposed to be intelligent or at least civil conversation here right?
[It's the button that's highlighted](http://imgur.com/aAXjQ) dude.\n\nGoogle works just fine.  They don't need you to go around deleting messages for them.  They actually take the opposite approach to censorship.
It blows my mind how huge that thing is.
i think when it is this obvious, it shouldnt be a crime at all. i want to give this guy a high 5 and spit in his face at the same time
Oh I see. I didn't mean physical therapy as a specific modality definition, I just meant therapy that was physical. If you get what I mean.
If you really want your town council to make a decision on water fluoridation have the municipal water plant supervisor give a presentation on just how strictly regulated fluoride dosage is. No, fuck that, just hit 'em where it hurts and have the supervisor explain just how heavily the state will fine them (and withhold funding) if they turn the fluoride off.\n\nSeriously, every time I read about the fluoridation brouhaha nobody every thinks to talk to one of us water plant operators.
[More genius from Alex Jones.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AY-l3ejXVZE)
I feel like an idiot for asking but what is hydroxilic acid?
This is almost like when my mom tells me to get something in her room and I have a hard time looking for it, but when she goes and looks, she finds it right away. I feel your confusion.
Do you remember what your account's "secret question" was? Often, those questions (used to prove your identity when you've forgotten your password) are something like, "What is your grandmother's maiden name." \n\nPerhaps your grandfather's full name was a bit of data the phone company had on had and it got entered into the wrong database or some such.
Like this?\n\n[BBC - Men stealing meat from lions.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBpu4DAvwI8)
A well structured article that cites its sources and explains a topic in depth. We need more of this on reddit.
Teach them about cold reading, probability theory, statistics and how fallible the human mind is.That you can't always trust your own senses and intuition. Do a cold reading on them, or show them card tricks or optical illusions.\n\nIf science and human knowledge says otherwise, what you thought was magic or paranormal most likely has a perfectly valid explanation. It's just that people love to see patterns and connections everywhere where there are none, and people really suck at understanding probability. And they are arrogant and think that their senses and experiences are infallible.
'you know what they call alternative medicine that has been proven to work?  Medicine."
Td;!
Agreed.
Randompaul, don't you have better things to do?\n\nOh wait, no you don't.\n\nProceed.
Really?  [Cognitive neuroscience begs to differ.](http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2011/09/07/your-brain-on-politics-the-cognitive-neuroscience-of-liberals-and-conservatives/)\n\nSure, there's idiocy on both ends, but one end of the spectrum is dominated by it, while the other end trends away from it.  And the end that's dominated by idiocy is also [dominated by fear.](http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-human-beast/201104/conservatives-big-fear-brain-study-finds)\n\nHey but this is all science, and everyone knows scientists are liberals, so you can't trust them.
Great info.
Again, that isn't the case. Alpha EEG generally gets *blocked* during attention/activiy, to be replaced by faster wave EEG. The "enlightened" TMers show this less than normal. So do ultra-high-achieving athletes compared to non-ultra-high-achieving athletes.\n\nIf you like, you can say that having higher alpha during demanding tasks is a sign of  being calm under pressure.\n\n
what... the... fuck... \n\nHere's his opening to the talk: \n\n> "I'm here speaking because I'm at the forefront right now of the most advanced mathematics ever known to mankind. And because my teacher Marco Roden [sp?] discovered an unknown mathematical language inherent to nature, and I've found the key of how to model it in 3-dimensional space. The saying is that mathematics is the language of God, but until now noone's been speaking God's language. What we have is the grand unified field theory. With it, you can create inexhaustible free energy, end all diseases, produce unlimited food, travel anywhere in the universe, build the ultimate supercomputer, artificial intelligence, and obsolete all existing technology. How is it possible to make such outrageous claims? Because we have the secret that connects all of the world's technologies together. Numbers."\n\nThis isn't taken out of context. The rest of the talk is just as full of nonsense. He says many minutes of words without saying a damned thing.\n\nTEDChris: this is ridiculous. Your organization needs to reign in its branding. I know that you trumpet independence, creativity, and visionary ideasmiths, but this is out of hand.
> The obvious response to this is that these tasks are going to continue to be done at sunrise, regardless of the time shown on some irrelevant clock.\n\nThis is EXACTLY what I told my parents when they told me it was about farmers. They just told me I didn't understand the concept. It's hard when people around you can't question ANYTHING.
So you can't answer those simple questions? You, sir, are a masterful debater.
So disappointing.
I hate shit like this, even more so because I have some incredulous acquaintances who swear by astrology. numerology and other woo. For them I have my dad, who is a Pisces and probably the most generous and unselfish person I know. In fact, try calling him selfish to my face and I might just have to hit you.
bad acting...
Or, perhaps it's a little of column A and a little of column B. That said, I think his I *am* science comment was just a little hyperbole for the situation. The fuck my life is pretty standard internet commiseration stuff. I got no problem with this.
Wombseum?
It's probably best not to refer to her as "mentally definicient". While I"m sure you weren't planning on including that in a letter to the editor, it only adds to the perception that the skeptical community are insensitive robots who don't care about people with mental disabilities.
on my TM-Sidhis course, we had a blind professional radio announcer who had a perfect radio announcer voice. One day, he put on a skit for the people conducting the TM-Sidhis class:\n\n.\n\nThree voices:\n\nTM-Sidhis Course Administrator Greg Wilson\n\nTM-Sidhis Course Administrator Georgina Wilson\n\nAdvertising announcer\n\n.\n\nGreg: [heavy sigh]\n\nGeorgina: What's wrong, Greg?\n\nGreg: It's those darned sidhas, Georgina. They just can't seem to get off the ground.\n\nGeorgina: you know what they need, don't you Greg?\n\nGreg: You mean...?\n\nAnnouncer: [Golden Dome](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Domes). Drink Golden Dome. To get *really* high, drink Golden Dome beer! (bottled by the good guys at Fairfield)\n\n.\n\nEveryone laughed except Greg and Georgina.\n
Wormhole.
FFS.
thanks for the links
worst. sighting. ever.
May I please request said wall of text?
That's totally reasonable to say. Still, quotes are one thing that always merit a quick look-up before believing, and is simple enough. They're possibly the worst offenders of misinformation on the Internet, many of them having nothing more than examples of people repeating the quote as a source.\n\nWorse still, you can find a quote site, which collects, but has no real authority on, quotations. I've always found quotes to be a fishy thing in general. You'd think the actual source of the quote would be more readily available, even if it was "spoken to friend."\n\nI like well-written quotes. I like attributing them to someone who wrote them, because that is what's right. However, I don't doubt that some quotes have no truth to them at all, and are just well-written and believable to have come from someone reputable, and some writer somewhere has a dirty little secret.
I don't know what fairytale universe you live in but in this world you cannot sue anyone for using magic powers on you.
Interesting. With that said then, what would be their motivation for going against the government/military's official denial?
the funny thing with evidence like this, is that is it everywhere and hidden in plain sight. Only it is buried in a mountain of bull, wrapped in a layer of controversy, and sealed in a container of public stigma.
I've you listen to them on Android then Google Listen seems to work pretty well.
Things got awful quiet...no webcam or anything. Thats almost weirder than the activity in the sky
I read 'Mind over labor' about visualization practice. This made for very fast labor, I recommend it.
This is an amazing source
Aaannnddd i just shuddered. i think i might hate you a little bit right now. xD
I *was* going to go to sleep.
depends, according to wikipedia:\n"Naturopathic practitioners are split into two groups, traditional naturopaths and naturopathic physicians.[4] Naturopathic physicians employ the principles of naturopathy within the context of conventional medical practices."\n\nso if this person is only about homeopathy, she;s wasting her time
I'm sure plenty of intelligent people have left Scientology on bad terms. But that doesn't make the program "Scientologist-esque." There's far less (that is, zero) alien-invading bullshit in Landmark. The entire thing is basically a visit to a cognitive psychologist on steroids.
You are missing seeing from another persons perspective. Of course you don't understand what could be so shocking from your own point of view. Truly put yourself in the shoes of a non believer. From birth to now, the culmination of their life and what makes them "them". That is how you truly understand someone. So we have to respect other peoples decisions to not know, because we cannot understand them, but we know they understand themselves and are making the correct decision for themselves. If that makes sense to you, that is what I believe.
The dark side of the moon is made of a darker cheese.
I have terrible back problems. I went to a licensed physician who diagnosed the issue as actual "back problems" and he ruled out an kidney issues, etc. He then referred me to a physical therapist for bi-weekly therapy (Monday and Thursdays or something like that). The physical therapist further diagnosed the issue to something more specific (may have been an actual MD that did this part). It was found that my hamstrings were severely taut and it was causing my hips to rotate backwards and pull my spine out of alignment. The focused on relaxing my hamstrings and lower back through stretching, massages and electrode therapy (electrode therapy to loosen the muscles, massages to further loosen, stretching to condition or something along those lines). I was told to visit a masseuse for professional massages to help out the process as well. \n\nWhy a chiropractor would be a waste of my money: "adjusting" my spine and cracking my back would have only provided temporary relief if any relief at all. The issue was with tendons and muscles fighting each other and so this adjusting of my spine would have done nothing. Focusing on the muscles allowed them to relax and heal in order for the pain to stop.
Works for me. \n\nI wonder how Tony Abbott is going to "no" this one, though.
Unfortunately, that's not completely true. One thing vaccines rely on is herd immunity -- vaccines only confer roughly ~90% immunity, but if everyone has the vaccine, there's no effective vector for the disease to be transmitted. Also, babies aren't vaccinated until they're a year or two old, so they're susceptible too.\n\nThere was actually an [SVU episode](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1248631/) that touched on this subject.
It is not at all a straw man.  You are claiming that it can be efficacious when in fact physio is what is efficacious.  It just happens to be done by a chiro.  \n\nI gave you the technical and historical definition of a chiropractor.  If you're saying that is no longer relevant than they need to stop callin themselves chiropractors.  It is like someone calling themselves a Christian but not believing In Jesus as the savior.
Well, I'll have to go out on a limb here and say that we do not understand the brain well enough to know that it functions in an entirely deterministic manner, as it is impossible at the point to model it in its entirety to the level of precision to demonstrate that it acts purely in accordance with our already known laws of chemistry.\n\nThat being said, I think it is quite possible that we may find that there aren't any truly new laws acting at the level of the brain, even if we may find methods of describing brain function without referring to the laws of chemistry and electromagnetism (much like chemistry often does not make explicit reference to quantum mechanics, or how thermodynamics does not refer to atoms and particles).\n\nBut the issue of free will is, in my view, more epistemological than scientific. We are simply unable to comprehend others behavior as the working out of deterministic causal chains. The chains are too complex for us to conceptualize behavior in this way. Instead, we are forced to describe others behavior teleologically, as the result of action aimed at freely chosen ends (i.e. the reason for the choice cannot be uniquely decided based on all information we can access even in principle--as sometimes the person himself is unable to offer such information). That is where "free will" has always seemed to be---in the epistemological requirements of the human mind when conceptualizing other human beings and their behavior, not with metaphysical assertions about the behavior of subatomic particles. And such an epistemological basis for free will is unlikely ever to be disturbed by advances in neuroscience, for no human mind can comprehend all the physical activity in other human minds enough to use it in their dealings with them (except perhaps in a statistical fashion a la marketers and the like).
To be fair, with the release of *one* other angle, we'd be able to rule that out. I think people are claiming the object is a bug because it *hasn't* been ruled out.
Mostly behind the scenes and certainly not in labs.\n\nThis guy was a science prof. at WMU before retirement:\n\nhttp://thebiggeststudy.blogspot.com/\n\nBest UFOlogist/scientist out there, IMO.
Maybe he seems to be preaching to the choir to you, but he is painting a world view to a person who takes advertising for granted.
That's a terrible argument in the first place, and it has a bunch of unprovable/unsupported claims (e.g. "god blessed Whitney with her voice").\n\nIn terms of formal logical fallacies, the closest match IMO is [post hoc ergo propter hoc](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_hoc_ergo_propter_hoc), he retroactively generated a narrative to fit his conclusion, rather than looking at what actually happened.\n\nHowever, if you're getting into a debate about this with a strongly religious person you're almost certainly wasting your time, as they would likely not hold the beliefs they do if they were concerned about logically sound arguments.
No, but it's one that you can see becoming common, the way we reduce little-known cultures to a few basic things. We think Eskimo's experience is mostly snow-related, so of course they'll have a lot of words for it.
That's right.. Raise the price of food, starve half the population.  But at least we know that our cows won't get liver disease.
I've just been reading a bit, and it makes sense. I'm not sure why I believed otherwise since it seems obvious. Thanks vincevonvice and FLarsen! \n\n
I've always enjoyed [South Park's](http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/155164/were-all-powerless) take on it. Taken too far, you can consider it a cult :P
This is unfortunately true; I was being quite literal.  UFO definitely means *Alien Spacecraft* to most people.
Thank you for writing this.  Before more recent times, we knew almost nothing about Autism and the lack of diagnosis obviously would account for the "increase".  The sad truth is that before the eighties people with mental disabilities (of any kind) weren't put in school, they were put in community homes, hospitals, mental wards or sometimes just hidden away at home.  We know so much more about mental diseases and disorders so fucking duh there will be an increase in diagnosis as we continue to do research! I know that the issue stems from concern for ones children, but now I have to worry about the safety of my own child because of someone else's decision, not mine.  This more than anything is what scares me.
The people that believe they know what UFOs are( aliens) are obviously involved in a belief system
There are cases where this apprently happened to American ICBM tests, so it's a good a theory as the next, but most likely its debris
Either that or they're really good trolls.
Dollar General is a store where the prices are rounded off to the nearest dollar... generally.  It's not a dollar store, but they sell a bunch of cheap stuff (and apparently bullshit too).
Funny, many theists think that agnosticism is weak-tea theism; they want to believe, but they don't want to commit.  Long story short, both sides think that "I'm agnostic" means there's unspoken addendum of ".....but I want agree with you."  \n\nAt the risk of sounding crass, this is bullshit. Agnosticism is agnosticism.  There are many forms of it, and it probably pays to note that it would benefit both sides greatly if they spent some more time understanding it. \n\nThere are plenty of atheists and theists alike who come down on agnostics in this quasi-ignorant manner. Clearly, this is off-putting, and it may even be why the author has reacted viscerally enough to atheists to write such a crap article. :)\n\nAnyway, upboated despite disagreement, because I feel it adds to the conversation.
Thanks! I look forward to checking it out.
Yep.  Pretty intense.  One wonders exactly why.\n\nEmulation seems a likely answer.
You need to spend less time reading science texts and more time developing your social skills.
I think [this paper](http://puhep1.princeton.edu/~mcdonald/JEMcDonald/mcdonald_aaas_69.pdf) (pdf) by (the now deceased) atmospheric physicist, James E McDonald, is food-for-thought regarding evidence for unexplained aerial phenomena *that we still don't understand*. The  USAF RB-47 case is particularly compelling and was officially classed as 'unexplained' in the USAF-sponsored Condon Report. \n\nFrom the paper:\n*Brief summary: An Air Force RB-47, equipped with ECM (Electronic Countermeasures) gear, manned by six\nofficers, was followed over a total distance in excess of 600 miles and for a time period of more than an hour,\nas it flew from near Gulfport, Miss., through Louisiana and Texas, and into southern Oklahoma. The\nunidentified object was, at various times, seen visually by the cockpit crew (as an intense white or red light),\nfollowed by ground-radar, and detected on ECM monitoring gear aboard the RB-47. Simultaneous\nappearances and disappearances on all three of those physically distinct "channels" mark this UFO case as\nespecially intriguing from a scientific viewpoint. The incident is described as Case 5 in the Condon Report\nand is conceded to be unexplained.*\n\n'Unexplained' obviously isn't synonymous with 'alien spacecraft', but such numerous cases seem to suggest there's some odd phenomenon (or indeed, phenomena) occurring in our skies, and has been for quite some time.
That's exactly what it is. :)
Really? In *Portland*? If that's the reason for suspicion, wouldn't they have to call a large portion of the population in?
Signing an online petition is the adult equivalent of writing a letter to Santa.
Does your friend have even a rudimentary understanding of chemistry?
even better was the [complete list of the scientific evidence of the existence of gawd](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Scientific_evidence_for_God%27s_existence)
All of your links are to this same blog. You are blogspamming for ad revenue on your personal blog. Did you read the new rules? \n\nhttp://www.reddit.com/r/Paranormal/comments/q4spv/new_community_guidelines/
I understand the concept just fine, and what is being discussed has absolutely nothing to do with the burden of proof. \n\nThe positive claim was made/implied by the article: "The supernatural doesn't exist because there is no scientific evidence to support it". I rebut the claim by pointing out that such an argument is clearly circular; that is, if you use a naturalistic method (that automatically ignores and rejects all supernatural claims) to study the world, then you're going to get naturalistic conclusions, regardless of whether the supernatural claims are true or not. This is akin to instructing people to go out and only count red flowers, and when they return with their data, you conclude that yellow, blue, and white flowers don't exist because you only have evidence for red flowers. Again, most simply, if your method and approach explicitly tells you to ignore an entire category, then you can't use that data to say the ignored category doesn't exist. \n\nI have not claimed that the supernatural is real (and I personally don't think the concept is even coherent enough to be worthy of consideration), and I haven't claimed that the concept should be treated as real unless disproved. My only point is that science is a tool for studying the natural world. Anyone who thinks that the conclusions from science can have *anything at all* to say on claims of the supernatural simply does not understand science. \n\nThis is basic high school science stuff.
Most mattresses have metal springs though.
He is the master of using many complex (sounding) words to say absolutely nothing.\n\nEveryone should check out his debate with Sam Harris. It is a disemboweling. Sam pretty much spends half his time saying, to reference The Princess Bride, especially in context to the word "quantum" - "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."\n\nIt is worse than arguing with a theist. This man thinks he can make up mumbo jumbo and pass it off as profound, deep, cutting edge spirituality mixed with science fact.   It is the new wave of magical thinking. \n\nI predict that this is the future of false belief systems. You can see the trend. As religion diminishes in the USA, "Spiritual" texts and authors get more popular. \n\nI feel it is the same way that as American conservatism continues to die,  Right (American) Libertarianism, becomes more popular.
Well, when several of his old friends AND team mates has gone out stating that he has been drugged.. when he consistently beat drugged racers.. Well, I think it is naïve to ignore the possibility. This is not a court of law, it is the court of public opinion. And my opinion is that it is likely that he used performance enhancing drugs. You can disagree, but trying to take some moral (and logical) high horse on this issue by ignoring the huge amount of testimonies... well, please don't.
When they say no life, they mean not enough to support a breeding group of large animals.  And it's true, there isn't enough there. It maybe one of the largest and deepest but the fish population isn't big. \n
Basically nothing anyone writes about detoxification is legit. It's not something you need, or indeed can do.
Did you see this in the Reuter website's version of the story?\n"At one point, Rosado was quoted in a press release talking about contact between the Mayans and extraterrestrials. That statement has been recalled, and Rosado now paints this as a simpler, more archaeological-oriented documentary."\nhttp://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/17/idUS269735214920110817
Well, I'm not sure what you mean by arcs.  From what I perceived as I watched, they traveled relatively straight, or perhaps in a long arc.  If you are referring to shorter arcs, or sudden movements, I believe those are entirely due to my poor camera phone work.  You might be right about the speed though... It would help a lot to know what altitude they were at.  All I can say is that the speed seemed to be relatively constant in that as it was overhead the speed was much quicker compared to the background, and as it approached the horizon it slowed in comparison to the background in a way that suggested constant velocity.  I am fairly certain they were not aircraft, the travel across the sky was too fast for that.
I payed for college by doing scientific graphics for a journal. Prism just can't do complex graphs well enough. You have to design each graph independently, then fit them all together as a layout using simplistic alignment tools. What takes a day in prism takes 15 minutes with any good syntax-based graphing program and a little cleanup in Illustrator.\n\nHipster? Nah. Professional :)
Oh man. That is terrifying. "The line goes dead" freaked the fuck out of me. I also hate when dogs pick up on that shit because you realize that it's not just you being irrational. That is seriously some freaky shit.
This.  Check out Mel's Hole on Wikipedia for a famous example of the insanity that was his show (now hosted by George Noory who seems to be a little better).
If you were to listen to any of the thousands of EVPs that have been recorded, see things being moved by an invisible force, interview the thousands of people who have had these occurrences, or talk to psycics that have helped solve police investigations you would dismiss every single thing.
There is a perfectly natural explanation for this. You just have to find it. Maybe there's a big dark-haired sloth hanging at the ceiling?
All "atheism" means is "lack of belief in god(s)".  Just sayin.
What happens in your lucid dreams? Does it ever feel like you are leading two lives, one in your dreams, and one awake?
Jebus!! he almost got more negative karma than the 9/11 truther in just one post about gay marriage.
I don't think that is obv. at all. Flares dont travel in a perfect linear line for a distance of a few miles. These lights lasted around five minutes, and came into view from a point above the town that would have been at least 4 miles away from the crash site.\n\nPlus, in the boat crash, when the boat is destroyed and people are flailing in the water and struggling for the shore, I doubt anyone was able to find and shoot a flare gun.
A bunch of people are going to start picking apart Kurzweil but all you really need to know is that they are making medium and long term predictions about technological progress. No one who wants to be taken seriously does that because *no human being* has ever done that successfully in the history of history.\n\nMost of the singularity people also take Kurzweil's predictions about biology or neurology more seriously than the experts in those fields. Imagine if a biologist went on /r/compsci and said he's sure that P=NP. That's what Kurzweil's biological predictions look like to biologists.\n\nThat and the belief in continuous exponential growth of *anything* is something you should always always doubt. It doesn't happen. You should especially doubt it when the only argument behind it seems to be "it's been happening recently and how cool would the future be if it did!"\n\nThe original singularity idea: that growth will increase faster than our ability to manage it and cause the collapse of civilization is quite interesting. The subversion of this where people promise that AI's and immortality are right around the corner should be classified with Deepak Chopra's misuse of quantum mechanics. It sells books and gets speaker fees. And it's mostly BS.
Did you make her take a double-blind test?
I understand, exploration is very much a driving force of who we are.  Plus those billions of dollars on machine spurs other technologies that benefit society.\n\nPlus what if we found something like bacteria on Mars?  I'm sure a majority of people on the planet wouldn't care, I sure would.
The homeopathic remedy kicked in!
Sounds like your generic spirit orb, but with a lot of energy behind it to manifest in such a manner. Any type of hunting details? Could be anything really, might have been grandma and grandpa just coming in to say hi.
I'm.....skeptical.
Your point is well-taken, but I still think she makes two important points.\n\n1. Just pointing out that there are some *serious* scumbags in a community that many members might otherwise think is 100% enlightened is useful data. It pre-refutes anyone who might start to get lazy and think "skeptics = good people, with no exceptions."\n\n2. Finding out about the way the community reacted to her pointing out "there are scumbags among us" is important data too. Every community has its turds, but some communities try to set acceptable standards of behavior, and some don't. Good to know what has happened so far with this particular issue.
Honestly, you should look at the coast lines - they aren't just similar, they're virtually identical, down to some surprisingly small details (especially considering how very long ago they separated - you'd think erosion would have erased some of the details).
Yes, different heights, ages, etc.
> The paranormal is about possibilities\n\nWell, being fake is a possibility, too, shouldn't that get some consideration?
It is using sheep. Yet, even though the one is espousing the conspiracy theory, the crowd of sheep is resisting. I see this as a reversal of expectations, I suppose, sort of an extra layer of funny. I think this is very subtle and multi-layered humour when you break it down.
degrees are just little stamps of social approval that have absolutely nothing to do with a persons arguments, unless said arguments form that persons graduate thesis. Also, your use of "mother" is interesting.  You sound like a condescending and arrogant person who deserves some down votes.
beads on a fishing line...
Okay, I'm officially interested, this sighting is pretty old and theres a ton of smoke, so where's the fire? Is it fake or what?
Wirklich sehr intressant... wirkt es noch wen man an beide sprachen gewohnt ist? also how do you type with umlauts?
Now I'm getting curious.\n\nYou have electric charges moving through your nerves, and thus, a sufficiently strong magnetic field would be able to move the nerve via [lorentz force](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorentz_force). However, it should be noted that the electric field of a nerve is around a few [picoTesla](http://www.vanderbilt.edu/lsp/abstracts/wikswo-s-1980.htm) and the speed of the impulse is at most [100m/s](http://www.biologymad.com/nervoussystem/nerveimpulses.htm#impulsespeed), so in order to create the same force as hanging a 100g bar of chocolate to your nerve, you'd need a magnetic field in the area of some teraTesla. Presuming [this page](http://www.coolmagnetman.com/magflux.htm) is right, a neutron star goes up to like 100 megaTesla. It doesn't talk about the size of the neutron star, but I don't think we need that, given the difference in numbers, especially because the quacks don't sell you 10 neutron stars for 5 bucks. \n\nWe can't really use [faraday](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday%27s_law_of_induction) in order to create a current in the bloodstream or the nerves, because that requires the magnetic field to change, violating the premise of a "static" magnetic field. I suppose though that given the tinyness of the charges in our nerves (and thus, the even smaller charges in our blood) would require an even larger number of neutron stars to be applied in order to make this work, resulting in an equally curious situation. \n\nSadly I'm not aware of further ways to create or remove current from the top of my head, so I can't continue this research. Maybe someone else finds a way to require only a single neutron star. However, the point of the comic does still stand safe within reasonable bounds: Static magnetic fields don't hurt you, unless it is emitted by multiple neutron stars, in which case your body is torn apart by their gravity long, long before the magnetic things happen. \n\n
Check if your credit card company has a service to generate temporary numbers with spending limits on them.  For example, Bank of America has a "Shop Safe" service.  You won't have to worry about a seller having access to your entire spending limit on your card that way.  You just enter the spending limit you want and you're issued a new number along with expiration and 3-digit CCV.
Right, it's a measurement of physical properties; We can only define those properties using our current vocabulary or by creating new words. Therefore it is the factual representation of measurements to us.
what I find interesting here is that so-called skeptics are essentially calling you a crackpot (at the very least by downvoting you into oblivion) without any evidence disproving your points.\n\nTesting alt-med is the only way to prove or disprove it. Not so long ago things like chemotherapy were considered fringe - it's become mainstream by way of scientific testing.\n\nI don't understand how any legitimate skeptic can look at a rational, scientific study and say "this is bad" just because they think they already know the results - you don't *know* the results until proper testing has been done.
No. Almost every Christian I know understands evolution and basic scientific principles - a lot believe that god guided and/or provided the spark that started life as we know it - which is a reasonable compromise I guess, but I don't know a single young-earth creationist.  \nI know plenty more who think homeopathy and acupuncture are the best things ever, but that's a separate delusion from Christianity.\n\n
Life is a biological process. It ends when the biology breaks down - anything beyond that is mysticism and is utterly unrelated to quantum *anything*. This is a ridiculous article.
I know there was a recent thread in which Kaku was called out for basically going on TV and saying that anything from time travel to wormhole-based FTL are definitely achievable.
You should edit the post to include it.
South Park would *never* repeat a joke for an entire episode! Just what are you insinuating?
Permanent body modification that is not required on a child that can't consent (age can be debated by the politicians, here in Australia that age seems correct, 18) should be illegal, this includes branding, tatooing, and your mentioned genital mutilation. There are medical cases where (rare) that male circumcision is required, as there are medical cases where a child cannot be vaccinated.
Hair and nails are  composed of dead keratized epithelial cells... I don't think is wrong to say they "grow" (from the base)
You might be interested to know that my grandmother was a patient there in its hayday.  All 12 of her children still live here in town.  She had a bad home life and said it is the best time of her life, she had a lot of friends and a good 'ol time.  Not the creepy picture that constantly gets painted of the place
I would. First hone what you are naturally good at...then check put other things.
Monsanto has a team of highly trained specialists to deal with this type of publicity.
Exactly. \n\nThough there has been some recent research into XNA molecules, DNA like polymers that can serve the same function, DNA is nearly an ideal solution to the need for some molecule of heredity. As such, it wouldn't be that surprising if alien life [convergently] evolved DNA-like structures. If the theory of panspermia holds any water, we may all be related to some ancestral replicating nucleotides in some distant nebula.\n\nThat said, we are too dissimilar to reproduce with orangutans, and our last common ancestor lived just seven or eight million years ago. Even if Earth and the alien world in question was seeded with the same exact nucleotides, the notion of us being able to mate with a creature so alien that our last common ancestor lived 3.5 billion years ago is more preposterous than the notion of mating with a paramecium.\n\nAs soon as the guy said:\n\n> *...the geneticist have predicted that when the final genome recovery is complete it will provide science with the first record of alien DNA ever discovered...*\n\nthey lost me completely. There is no way any geneticist ever said such a nonsensical thing. At best they could prove the thing was an unknown hominid (which would be a truly extraordinary find).\n\nAlso, if getting zero hits on BLAST with such a small fragment is proof beyond all reasonable doubt that the DNA is alien, then I found several extraterrestrial species in the water fountain as an undergraduate.\n________________\n\nIncidentally, the video describes Lloyd Pye as a "*researcher in aspects of human origins*"... in fact, he has a BS in Psychology and has never published a single peer-reviewed paper (though he has written several non-scientific books), never taught at any university and never worked in any research lab. He was a fantastic punter for the Tulane football team though.
> Do you think that some UFOs are alien space craft? \n\nI do believe the phenomenon to be legitimate and deserves a thorough, scientific study sans ridicule. But I don't think we have enough evidence to prove these objects have an offworld origin.\n\n> Do you also think that some crop circles are made by aliens?\n\nI also have no idea what causes them, but I don't believe they're *all* man-made. The typical answer of they're all hoaxed and made by people in the night with wooden planks and rope ignores key, physical evidence. Just like the [Hessdalen lights](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hessdalen_light), I think crop circles are quite interesting and could certainly be a natural phenomenon but, like most offbeat subjects, they are ridiculed more than scientifically studied. I'm also not convinced by any means that UFOs and crop circles are related.\n\nThanks for asking...\n\nedit: for what it's worth, this account is used solely to post on UFO related topics as it's still (obviously) quite taboo.
Did you even read my full story?
Let me get this straight:\n\nThis is a guy sitting in his living room filming a Travolta movie on a crappy cable TV on his cell phone and people are saying "good find"??\n\nI give up....
Steven Novella was interviewed for the piece and wrote his opinion of this article on [his blog](http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/alt-med-apologetics-at-the-atlantic/). The writer of the article commented on Steven's blog, so Steven wrote a [follow up](http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/follow-up-on-atlantic-article/) dismantling the comments of the author.\n\nA good read on the tactics of CAM proponents.
Because nothing says "smart purchase" like an EMF-blocking case for a device whose major functions require near-constant emission and reception of EMF.
Organic food *tastes* better on average though.
It's hard, but not impossible. I'm not suggesting it will absolutely work, but there's always a chance. I've seen people who were completely lacking in reason and rationality eventually convinced that those things have merit, but I've also seen people stubbornly refuse to ever listen to reason and retreat further and further into nonsense.\n\nI think it's generally worth trying with anyone, although the complication of it being a family member being relied upon for support makes it a trickier proposition, and maybe worth just ignoring for now.
Jet aircraft flying toward sunset at altitude. Sun illuminates vapor trail from below. Reason it is red is because the sun is low the light hitting the vapor trail is passing through a lot of atmosphere. The earths atmosphere scatters the blue more leaving the red. This is also why sunsets look red and why the sky is blue.
Well, they do want to maximize their profit and will do many things to try to to cut down on (ecological/social/...) regulations and taxes, and finance the party that support these positions. They can (and do) also influence the media and will sometimes try to buy some politicians to have exclusivity on contracts and other stuff...
proof?
Psychology is weird because it encompasses several fields of study which range from very scientifically rigorous to the more social science oriented.\n\nNeuropsych is very much a hard science, where as political psych is more of a social science.\n\nThen there is the whole thing about Medical Psych, which is completely batshit insane because people don't understand how fucking weird treatment for ANYTHING is. Normal medicine is a process and can be hard to deal with because each patient is different. Medical Psych is still in its infancy and dealing with an organ which we couldn't look into its workings until recently. \n\nAlthough, I believe that Evolutionary Psychology is pretty damn sketchy. It can be great, but we don't have the data to back up any claims and it seems to just be a throwback to why racial stereotypes and gender stereotypes are 'true'. \n\nPsychology suffers from the same problem that Evolution does currently: a semantic problem. The reason the bit on "Evolution is just a theory!" comes from the imprecision of the word 'evolution'. Decent with change is a natural law of the world, like gravity. The Law of Evolution. Natural selection is the theory that explains this natural law.\n\nPsychology is seen as a pseudo-science because the term encompasses Poli-psych, social-psych, med-psy, but often people forget about neuro-psych and the type of psychology research that people with Ph.Ds do.
Let me explain how the simulation works. You give it the building schematics: what it's made of, how it's put together, physical properties, etc.\n\nThen, you tell it where the fires are and their composition. What they are made of, how they burn, the temperature, etc.\n\nThen you tell it to run. Then you wait a really long time because good simulation takes a fuckload of time. That video isn't a realtime run of the simulation. It's a compilation of all of the renders done.\n\nNote what we didn't specify: where it fails. Where it fails is determined by something we call math. You see, we can use math in conjunction with the physical and chemical properties of objects to approximate what would happen in certain situations.\n\nSo, in the simulation video, the fact that the floor failed in two places at nearly the same time is insignificant because it was determined mathematically based on the information fed into the simulation. If they would run the simulation again, they could get a similar but slightly different result. Because while specific events are essentially random, they are random within a certain range.\n\nThat building could have conceivably fallen in one of several million ways. The fact that it happened the way it did is no more significant than if it had fallen at a tilt. Which is why when a building is likely to fall, you get the fuck away from that shit regardless of where you happen to be standing. Because you can't say with 100% certainty what will and will not happen.\n\nWhich is what you are doing. You are trying to tell us that with 100% certainty the building could not have fallen like that because of the fire.
Fair enough, but the same applies to the "Looks fake to me" comments, and those are at the top. \n\n
I don't know why some people refuse to apply logic to the subject of orbs appearing in photographs, while at the same time claiming stridently to do so; *some orbs are dust, therefore all orbs are dust*, is fallacious on the face of it. There is ample evidence that some orbs are not dust, and my experience bears this out as well.
No, you were just not following, got caught and now you have nothing.
yup. with 30 votes here and over 200 in r/atheism. i think ill make more. started a tumblr (linked above). i have volume 2 and 3 planed out, but it just takes a lot of time to actually make the comic. if you have any suggestions on things that would be interesting in this format feel free to pm me. THANKS
Paper *reflects* photons. Your eyes don’t care about the path the photons take. All this means is that the paper is inherently calibrated to the temperature and brightness of the environment. Monitors can be similarly calibrated… but you have to do so yourself. Some laptops have sensors to do the brightness part for you.\n\nAlso, I probably actually agree with your main statement… having a too-bright monitor would be just as annoying for either colour scheme, as would a too-dim one (although this is seldom an issue because the default settings tend to always be *super-bright* to attract attention.) I didn’t make the original comment. I don’t find myself having issues inherent to either colour scheme.\n\nI know of no decisive evidence for any colour scheme be better for readability. My only real argument either way would be that on OS X (and perhaps windows?) the subpixel anti-aliasing algorithm is optimised for, and works clearly better on text which is darker than its background. For that reason I would prefer dark text, but that’s an issue for Apple to fix, not a problem with the colour scheme.
I know my Marshall amp came with instructions to break in the speaker.\n\nOn the ADAM website (the studio montior manufacturer) i found this:\n\n"Loudspeakers include movable parts. Therefore, they need a certain 'burn-in time' for a full excursion and adaption of these parts. After this burn-in time, the speakers reach their full acoustic potential.\n\nTo break-in your speakers, it is advisable to feed them with music signals of a broad frequency spectrum and different volumes for a certain period of time:\nUp to one week for a 'normal' burn-in.\nUp to four weeks for a reliable long-term consistency.\nHowever, no responsibility can be taken for the correctness of this information since it always depends on both frequency and sound pressure level of the speakers usage. Furthermore, the real time a speaker needs to burn in is, to some extend, always due to the specific speaker itself."\n\nI also think Eminence talks about their speakers needing a breaking in period.
I love being skeptical about most things, but being a bit optimistic and supportive of NASA instead of casting doubt on them, would yield better results for the world.
I don't know you or anything about you. \n\nWouldn't that be cool if I did/could.
But apostasy is a Muslim rule. She agreed to it when she became Muslim.
All of those sobriety groups seem cartoonishly cult-like.
What are you looking for exactly? To me it seems you are trying to prove UFO's are an impossibility. You are saying they can't get here in any practical time span and at the same time you say speculation about alternative ways to get here is not allowed. Your (well written) post is proving that unless these beings grow to be hundreds of thousands years old they'll never be able to reach us but alternatives to straight from point A to point B travel can not be in the equation. Just because we can not do it doesn't mean others can't either. It's like asking to build a car after all fossil fuels have been depleted and saying you can't use solar power though.\n\nIn my opinion this question comes down to this; Is the fact UFO's/ET's are observed nonsense because the laws of physics as we know them pretty much rule out practical interstellar travel or is that same fact an indication that there are other ways to get from point A to point B than just in a straight line.\n\nThere is still a lot left to discover in physics. Last night I was watching an old episode of The FBI Files and it was about a case in the 80's, it was mind blowing to see how primitive everything was done back then, manually going through lists of license plate numbers and things like that. \n\nThe contrast between present time and thirty years ago is insane, mind you, I was born in '77 and I thought we pretty much had reached the pinnacle of technology when I got my first [walkman.](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EvB5VGlnETE/TddlPEg17qI/AAAAAAAAABc/TLIZ8HJOV_o/s1600/early_walkman.jpg) That fucker had autoreverse! Imagine a walkman so smart it knew the tape had ended and started playing the other side all on it's own and all in glorious stereo. Never in a million years would I have thought I would see mobile phones let alone ones with which you could take pictures, video, watch movies, play games, get on the internet and stuff it with a thousand hours of music. Go back in time forty years with the specs of your iPhone and ask the guys at Apple to make it for you, they'd tell you it can not be done.\n\nNow continue that progress we made in one hundred years a couple of thousand years and imagine what can be done. You simply can not say what is possible or not only by looking at our own knowledge and accomplishments.
You know its bullshit because they try to make the reality panel more impressive than the thoughts of self panel.
Agreed.
Have you been to any locations overseas?
I hate how they drew Alex Grey into it. I love his works but they have nothing to do with predictions. It was about the two phases of the world: Natural before mankind's plight of war and pollution and after. Yes there is a plane near new york, which gives off pollution, and yes there are soliders with men in suits near them... it was about the politics of modern war, which was taking place well before 9-11. This seems likes some Alex Jones shit
I'm a decently skeptical person within a fair bit of reasoning - and throughout my life I've had experiences as you have had. To be honest, it's really tough to say what is truly real or fake. There are lots of happenings in houses that are easily accounted for, noises, voices etc. However I have witnessed for a period of time, completely unexplainable happenings. It exists, yes in my opinion at least the energy does to move objects, and cause a range of odd things. I never would have believed it until it happened to me.\n\nI'd write down what happened, date it with a decent description, and try to find it's source. Keep a log. I personally have seen apparitions but they've never startled me, just confused me. Things people term 'psychic' also can happen in my opinion, but you have to rule out anything that can be explained through natural means first.
The only material strong enough to make that happen according to what I've watched/read/heard is carbon nano-tubes. \n\nWe're a long way off from mastering their use, so, while possible eventually, I wouldn't hold my breath.
tl;dr for your snopes link:\n\n> The most telling argument against fan death is that people in other countries where fans are used overnight don't die of it. \n\nStraight Dope is good too: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1245/will-sleeping-in-a-closed-room-with-an-electric-fan-cause-death
man i dont wana fight anyone. i just dont want people trying to be all sassy about something as stupid as my age. wtf does my age matter the frisbee went through a window!!\n and your all worried that im to young?
\n[Dr Claude Poher's news piece on his impressive antigravity experiment](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3lvus_poher-universons-journal-fr3-8-nov_tech) Skip the intro in French and jump to the middle of the video for the experiment.\n\nPlease not that this video used to exist on youtube and has been taken down. All you can find on youtube now are coo coo experiments on fraudsters pretending to have antigravity devices. Watch it while it is still online.
Ha! I guess it is a double edged sword and in this case.  We are grateful to be experiencing the sharp end. The dull edge of that sword, of course, is the complete dismissal of actual issues. Oh, the pain of living in a "true" democratic country.
god I hope so, I don't want to go through that again, although right now I'm relatively pain-free.  I'd rather have another 9lb child with no epidural than have that surgery again.
I think the important point here is, that it is not a conspiracy. It's not a secret plan set in motion by hidden forces. It's a corrupt system in which many people work to their own advantage.\n\nHuman nature and the way the system is set up automatically leads to these kinds of problems.\n\nThat's what in my mind separates the thinking people from conspiracy nuts. One see huge collaboration, where there is none. Others just look at the problems, that indeed exist and try to figure out solutions.
To me it resembles someone wearing a helmet with a mask.
Chiropractic is redundant, as is PT. The only part of the chiropractic field that hasn't been as thoroughly researched is SMT, but it's getting there. It has been shown to be safe. The difference also lies within the broader educational background, when compared to a PT.
No UFO sighting mentioned in article.  So this is technically a phantom UFO.\n\nI hear those are the worst kind. ;)
Every time I bend down to spit out my toothpaste, I think there will be some kind of devil lady behind me in the mirror when I stand back up.
I was making a joke. Calm down.
I think it's just called the Phoenix Lights Documentary. I saw it on youtube, the part I was talking about is in the last fifteen minutes or so of the movie. Here's part one, I think all the other parts can be gotten from youtube too. \n\nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5KtsZ5rIjo
i agree :)
haha here we go. crackpottery at its finest :D
Well, for one, if you're vegetarian/vegan, that rules out gelcaps, which are often the only non-liquid source of DXM in pharmacies.\n\nThere was a general consensus among DXM-heads that Zicam Cough spray was the fastest-acting, hardest-hitting DXM product in existence.  It was popular among abusers; it's possibly why they stopped making it.  It had slightly more DXM than a whole bottle of cough syrup in about one-eighth the volume of liquid.  It tasted absolutely unholy, but there was a sick pleasure to be found in it.  (Again: if you're into that kind of thing.)  \n\nWhatever you're imagining about how disgusting chugging a bottle (or bottles) of cough syrup is, you're probably right.  It's *self-violation*.  There are many people out there who puke at least once every time they do it.  \n\nI was one of the people who never puked.  Never.  If you knew what it's like to be full of cough syrup, you would know that this was a very mixed blessing.\n\nBasically, people drink cough syrup for the hell of it.  Or because they get used to it.  Doesn't cough syrup just taste like something that will do strange things to you if you drink enough of it?\n\nOr because it's the cheapest suitable product at the local pharmacy, and even cough syrup addicts have better things to spend their money on.\n\nHopefully I'll never go into a big off-topic monologue on cough medicine on reddit again...
> I'm absolutely sure this is properly peer reviewed\n\nThe entire journal is peer-reviewed. If you have any doubts about that, feel free to contact the journal directly and they'll tell you themselves.
In my mind he's the 'scientist that will say goddamn anything you want him to.' He's the popular physicist version of "Is such a thing possible? Yes." So when someone in my family asks about something crazy they saw a scientist say on television my first instinct is that it was probably Michio Kaku.
PTSD? Schizophrenia onset? Heat exhaustion? All these things are much more rational explanations.
one chick, ftfy
Yeah, and the reaction to that, in my mind, determines if you are a skeptic or a pseudoskeptic. If your personal experience, however convincing, takes a backseat to the actual evidence then you've actually been listening to what all these skeptics are trying to tell you.\n\nIf you read /r/skeptic and still believe in dowsing or ghosts because of something you've seen then you're missing the entire point.
Wow - I'd like to have been a fly on the wall for the QM conversation.  Audio for that, by chance?  (Sorry - I should check your site directly, I suppose {new tab} ).  Also, sounds like *he* should've done *his* research before sending you to the ULF audio guy.  Then again, if asked to define 'research', I suspect his answer might've been a bit wobly.\n\n9/11 Truthers - there seem to be many 'truth flavours' - I'll check your site for your take.  Cheers.
Pretty sure you dreamed the whole thing.
I'd like to do a little informing while I debunk. I didn't read this whole "article" because despite my attempts to shield my brain with alcohol, it was still infected by the stupidity. \n\nI worked professionally on predicting the positions of satellites. Generally our models were accurate to within 50 meters over 2 weeks for a given time. There are two primary algorithms in use for this calculation (I'm not at liberty to disclose the actual algorithms). The first takes into account primarily the earths center of mass (its not a sphere) and atmospheric drag and tidal forces. The second is for deeper orbits and focuses on things like the orbit of the Moon and Jupiter. For the satellite orbits you can find most of the variables [here]. (http://celestrak.com/NORAD/elements/). Suffice to say, we know that the earth rotates and revolves around the sun in a mostly elliptical pattern as do most of our satellites.
So again, you draw conclusions without knowing exactly what's going on. Did you even finish the intro?
The media has been let into the compound. There is blood all over. Presumably someone could sample that blood and clone an army of bin Ladens independently.  Hopefully someone did not do that.
I am glad to see what you guys have done with this Sub since taking over.  Much improved.  The only shitty thing is that I started my own sub [r/thebasement](http://www.reddit.com/r/thebasement/) like 2 weeks or so before you guys took over for that Cryptidseeker guy, which is pretty much the same as what r/paranormal is now.   You have made me redundant and obsolete...  Story of my life LMAO.
I looked at the comments from the UFO subreddit about this video.  Oy.\n\nYou would think that with all of our camera phones we would get some crystal clear photographs by now.\n\n
Without anything but your 3rd hand descriptions of a supposedly truthful account, what could we do but randomly speculate beyond my initial response?
No, I mean that sugar substitutes have no nutritional value, but people eat them because they believe it to be healthier.
Cool thanks for info. I did not know that.
Very cool! (:
And this is why science is unique. By its design it recognizes when it is wrong, embraces the correction, and moves on. Ulisses Capozzoli did well to emulate that by admitting the mistake, investigating why it happened, and taking steps to prevent it in the future.
Fair enough, but you don't have to spend anywhere near that to get decent quality. Two of the videos in a post below are (apparently) kids playing some sort of ball sport, I'm sure there's been enough random videos in decent quality of such events to capture this again?
There's no major theory why skeptics are ignored.  If anyone actually goes out there and dubunks this case with a recreation, then I'll bet money that it would have as MUCH media as the original UFO.
Meeeeee but I'm south eastern Vic :(
I warned him. He can link directly to stuff on YOUTUBE without spamming his site. I'll leave this post up, but if it doesn't stop, I'll remove him.
Thank GOD the vedio was without adds.
I've actually gotten a really good set of data from asking on /r/skeptic. It seems this subreddit is a lot more level-headed than the majority of Reddit and I've gotten a pretty good idea of the pros and cons of chiropractors.\n\nAs far as work, everyone has a fairly expensive office task chair (the aeron or similar) so I'm not sure what else to do. The actual desk is too high resulting in me keeping my chair too high for the monitors. But the only likely result of lowering the chair will be forearm and wrist strain. Maybe I'll stick some wood or books under it and see if they help.
Sigh, yeah my aunt is a color therapist. - We play woo bingo. The first person she mentions four items in a row to they yell - Bingo!   \nhttp://i.imgur.com/Tt9qk.jpg
The golden is just above the back of my head after he says "Im fucking scared guys."\n
Seems like the Power Balance guys have launched a new business.
Yeah, I thought his comment on telling the kid to go play in the street was in poor taste. I'm sure he was kidding, but the man needs to work on his comedic delivery.
I don't know that it needs to be all one or the other. For instance, she claims to work 20 hrs/day. That's almost certainly false, but is she fully aware that she's telling a lie? Hard to say.
What about electromagnetic fields? Our brains do emit and receive them.
Now, there's a problem with that since a lot of fish contains elevated mercury levels. Catch-22.
Thanks for the advice! I will definitely avoid Antichrist!\n\nI think that a large amount of people would be able to do it if they opened up their minds, however, we have already found that some people can't even if they try. For example, I once took my girlfriend on an OOB experience and we had a great time. When she came back to reality she had no memory of what happened, and I couldn't even take her very far. She is firmly anchored into this plane.
Well actually there's no evidence God doesn't exist, which is a big part of the problem. There is not one thing you can point to and say "Aha, there is evidence of God's non-existence." It's just very unlikely God exists based on the current criteria for what God is supposed to have done / be capable of doing.
A fool and his partner are soon seperated.
If your friend hasn't the basic common sense to dismiss astrology on its own merits, books aren't going to help him.
Perhaps OP meant this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSJElZwEI8o
Much more info than the MUFON UFO Journal contained, that's for sure.  The journal article was nearly useless to investigators for anything other than a basic summary.  Hopefully this new RADARplot program can be used with the existing body of radar data.  Good stuff!
No using terms like "don't like muslims" is speculation.  Pinning it to a cultural cause is speculation.  There is a multitude of causality in terms of why they may choose certain geographic locations.  Actually most of these reasons have nothing to do with the culture that lives in the area.
The dictionary definition of organic food is the USDA definition. . .\n
I guess you say this is cheesy because the production values are not great, but I think these are some of the best UFO cases of all time. Paul Kimball made this, and I consider him one of the most intelligent and level headed folks in ufology today, along with a handfull of others like Greg Bishop and Nick Redfern. The thing I respect about these guys is that they can say, "I don't know." They don't claim to have the answers. IMO anyone who claims to know the truth about the phenomenon is full of shit.\n\nand my #1 is probably the colares wave:\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colares_UFO_flap
Massage can help muscular-skeletal issues. Relieving tension, temporarily encouraging blood flow to injured areas, and stretching tendons and other connective tissues. That's why it's used by physical therapists.\n\nThere are also some indications that depression and similar mood disorders can be helped by massage. In this case it's probably simply that massage feels good, and for some depressives any treatment, even a sham one, helps, because they feel that someone cares about them.\n\nHowever you don't need the chiropractic mythology to get the benefits, which is why it works for physical therapists.
I'm not sure I can imagine an angry Ira Glass.
This might help:\n\nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJcC7arI7HY\n\nOne of the audience members in the Q&A actively pimps the Pong Research site, and is clearly a True Believer.
Is it so hard to spread dis information and to make a company go out of business?
Well, obviously this is a program geared primarily at least to cultural Jews.  I'm sure there's at least a small niche audience of Hebrew speakers who would appreciate a skeptical podcast in their favoured language.
It is bad form to bad-mouth those that are supposed to be on the *same side* as your own company/profession. You get no where with the outside world, if all you do is bicker at eachother over whose studies are more accurate or who has more proof that a ghost does/doesn't exist. I wonder if it is a jealousy thing. \n\nFaulty equipment/shoddy presentation, not further explaining *why* & *how* they use their equipment (TAPS is notorious for explaining in details about new stuff), dodging questions, but making it appear to those who are half-paying-attention that they answered your question.... Sounds to me like they still have a ways to go
Do you believe that it is really based on a "fundamental misunderstanding" of thermodynamics? (How so?) \n\nI saw it more like a contrasting way to state that neither "physics, chemistry and biology" explain the origins of life (see first lines of the introduction). I admit I too saw this as a poor comparison.
[On the academic reception of the Journal of Scientific Exploration](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_of_Scientific_Exploration#Academic_reception)\n\n[Stephen E. Braude](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_E._Braude) is the current editor-in-chief of the Journal of Scientific Exploration, take a look to his works.\n\nThe paper is also related to the [Transcendental Meditation movement](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendental_Meditation_movement), and the [Maharishi effect](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TM-Sidhi_program#Maharishi_Effect) seems to be the base for all this, it also cites [Hagelin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hagelin) a lot, a guy that was featured in the movies "The Secret" and "What the Bleep Do We Know!?" and current director of the TM movement.\n\nThose should (at least) make you doubt about the validity of this paper.
I think their weird little mythology allows for overdoses, doesn't it?  I'm still not sure how, but there you have it.
Almost no one's gonna question an astronaut. "I've gone to space" is the biggest trump card a human can play. \n\nHaving said that, it's stupefying why Fox News of all networks would even pretend to care about this. I don't get it. It seems like even mentioning UFOs is antithetical to the views of the network and its viewership.\n\nAs in, if this guest is right, then everyone's life on Fox News just became obsolete. But something way more in the ballpark, like being a democrat, is fair game for 24/7 crucifixion.
I feel chiropractic is worse than the other pseudoscience you mentioned because it claims to be mainstream.
"It's a trap"
Except CO2 emissions are GOOD for plant life.  That's why they run burners in greenhouses, and why gardeners talk to their plants.\n\nIf you want to make an argument about the other negative externalities of burning fossil fuels, do so on the merits of those arguments.
It's more likely that you are willing to assume people wearing energy bands are idiots and you don't have a whole lot of confidence in other people to not be judgmental/observant.
The human body is affected by some frequencies of electromagnetic radiation (see UV or gamma, for example). Some (very) specific IR frequencies have also been shown to have some interesting effects on inflammation, but honestly you're better off with a warm compress. Try this bastard article on for size: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19135383\n\n**TL;DR** IR can help releive arthritis.\n\nHowever, if a light therapy product claims to ease pain, it will - likely via placebo effect. My mother has a device that simply flashes red and blue LEDs over and over again, and has praised it for helping things flashing lights can't possible help, such as skin abrasions.
Maybe that's what they want you to think...
That's a very colorful account of events.
Mythbusters did an episode of supposed fuel savers, and they this was one of the things tested.  It didn't impact fuel economy at all.
Agreed.
**N**eo-**D**arwinism **T**heory of Evolution
I can not find any source for this, but I have a friend who worked 20 years in the swedish air force.\n\nWhile the U.S. were testing some stealth technology they apparently flew over tons of european countries without announcing anything. Swedish pilots on a routine training mission met that guy in the sky by accident. He was sent away in a stern but friendly manner.\n\nI just tried to google it for a source, but couldn't find anything. I can't see why he would just make it up though.
If a doctor can be sued for faulty medical advice, then why can't these people?
I just saw a rerun of a Law & Order episode featuring this technique the other day.  That was in the 90's, though.  Shame it's still going on.
I'd say people have provided plenty of evidence, (videos, photos, recordings, physical effects like cuts, bruises and scratches) but it is evidence that cannot be used or recreated in a controlled, scientific setting. \nI would also say that in a way, it is common knowledge that they exist. For example, Japanese folklore is FULL of spirits, demons and ghosts, and the Japanese weren't even fully exposed to other cultures til the late 1800s. Ghost lore has existed in all cultures, and the general consensus as to how ghosts act and look like is pretty much the same in each. Isn't that somewhat telling? Ghost phenomena may not be what we like to think it is (i.e. spirits returning from the dead), it may be something far more different and actually fairly scientific. (think along the lines of quantum physics and mechanics)\n\nMy own personal belief (I'm only postulating, not even hypothesizing) is that ghosts are kind of a closed circuit loop of energy, repeating over and over again. Or ghost phenomena is "a wrinkle in time" where one persons actions are kind of echoed back in time or forward in time. someone 100 years from now could walk into the room that you are sitting in now and see you sitting at your computer for a brief instant and think "why, I have just seen a ghost!" They could also actually be "spirits" (think: the energy of consciousness that leaves when our physical body dies) residing in an alternate dimension, commonly known as the "astral plane" and sometimes the dimension overlaps our own. \n\n
Chance that this is actually the declassified document related to the actual incident?  Slim to none
This shit is what the media is for man. You just said it we are in serious and probably irreversible trouble, don't we need to get the word out to not fuck it up even worse?
Is there any science on this?  :)
[Mathematically plausible.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation) Although it's improbable that they've visited us, as there is no evidence i.e. alien bodies, ships etc.
Doh!
Agreed.
Another great mystery- it's neither circular and nor do trains do the 'loop' any more.
There's no money in it.  It's a sad state we're in when News can be confused for Comedy and Comedy confused for News.
There are several well-known, controlled, double-blinded studies that show that acupuncture has an effect that cannot simply be explained by a placebo. I agree the original rationale beyond acupuncture is flawed, but this does not indicate that it has no affect whatsoever for pain control. \n\nFrom my 3rd year Biomedical Engineering cell-physiology textbook, "Vanders: Human Physiology, 11th edition. Widmaier, Raff, and Strang"\n\n"The body's endogenous-opioid systems also mediate other phenomena known to relieve pain. In recent clinical studies, 55 to 85 percent of patients experienced pain relief when treated with acupuncture, an ancient Chinese therapy involving the insertion of needles into specific locations on the skin. This success rate was similar to that seen when patients were treated with morphine (70 percent). In studies comparing morphine versus a placebo (injections of sugar that patients thought was the drug), 35 percent of those receiving the placebo experienced pain relief.\n\nAcupuncture is thought to activate afferent neurons leading to spinal cord and midbrain centers that release endogenous opioids and other neurotransmitters implicated in pain relief. It seems likely that pathways descending from the cortex activate those same regions to exert the placebo effect. Thus, exploiting the body's built-in analgesia mechanisms can be an effective means of controlling pain."\n\nhttp://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=+%09Neurochemical+basis+of+acupuncture+analgesia&hl=en&btnG=Search\n\nanother interesting article\n\nhttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11427311\n\nand another article:\n\n"Acupuncture for low back pain" published in the reputable journal "Annals of internal medicine" by the American College of Physicians in 2005. Details of the study include a randomized, blinded, placebo-controlled trial with 9-month follow-up. The researchers reported:\n\n"Last, we believe that our original analyses based on post-treatment mean values and our subsequent analyses based on between-group changes support our conclusion: Current preliminary data suggest that acupuncture may be more effective than inactive controls for providing short-term relief of chronic low back pain."\n\nand finally:\n\n"Analgesic Effect of Auricular Acupuncture for Cancer Pain: A Randomized, Blinded, Controlled Trial", published in the "Journal of Clinical Oncology" (one of the premier journals for cancer research) in 2003 reported that:\n\n"The main outcome was pain assessed at 2 months, with the assessment at 1 month carried over to 2 months for the eight patients who interrupted treatment after 1 month. For three patients, no data were available because they withdrew from the study during the first month. Pain intensity decreased by 36% at 2 months from baseline in the group receiving acupuncture; there was little change for patients receiving placebo (2%). The difference between groups was statistically significant (P < .0001)."
Condensation on the lense/inside the camera?
I really want to do some EVP there. I have an ancestor that fought there. I snapped a few still shots near where he was supposed to have fought. I caught nothing, but an EVP would be awesome.
I was going to say the same thing. Still can't figure out your actual stance or why we are conversing.
It's appalling how many people die through negligence and inattentiveness on the part of medical practitioners. The part people usually don't take into account, though, is that many more people would have died without medical interventions at all. If a neurosurgeon, for example, loses 75% of his patients, the other 25% have still survived a condition that would have been fatal 100 years ago (edit)... you know, before there was such a thing as a neurosurgeon.
Did it look anything like this? http://www.gadzooki.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/Delorean%20back%20to%20the%20future.jpg
Oh.  The link apparently didn't work in the title (I could have sworn I included it..), but [here](http://curezone.com/forums/f.asp?f=621) is what I'm browsing currently.
Very true. I am not a philosophy major, I'm a literature major who happens to find philosophical writing poetic. I'm not looking to be philosophical, I just enjoy the writings so very much. I also hope my friend comes around.
Haha so true. Plus the idea of that happening fascinates me but I'm surprised they haven't done something like that.
For what it's worth, Weston A Price has a point (although I don't really know anything else about him beyond what you said).\n\nI went to an archaeological school over the summer and we were looking at plaque buildup and carries in people's teeth. Its well documented that high-carb diets cause dental problems. However we now have ways to combat that, like toothpaste and dental visits.
but you can't recycle them, except at a special facility.
They are looking into it.
>Is it more likely that person is killed by one or multiple people?\n\nImpossible to say without more information.  If the evidence is all neutral or balanced, so that the evidence does not point either way, then OR tells me to *prefer* the hypothesis that there was just one killer, but I do not see how one can logically say one killer is more likely than a gang when the evidence does not point either way.
I very much like his quote at the end. It gets to the heart of those who've come to believe something against all odds:\n\n> "Unless we dig up every square inch of the Earth's surface, drain the oceans — hello? — and then dig up every square inch of the submarine sediments, and show, 'hey, it's not here.' You're still going to end up with people probably saying 'well, maybe they developed rockets and they went into outer space'."
It's really not a lot to read. You can't have everything spoon fed to you. Sometimes you need to make an effort.
That's a stupid straw man. I said that in *this* very situation *this* politician would take an incredible high risk by lying---especially considering how quickly and unpredictably such a lie could blow up. So yes, I claim it is unreasonable to think that he is lying *about this issue*.
Its for realz peoplz!!!!! Time to Randi involved and claim that million bucks!
Alternative Headline: Parents who refuse to vaccinate their children attempt to vaccinate children.
Think so? Ever see that show called Family Guy? \n\n[It wasn't mentioned in this article but Seth MacFarlane had a hand in this.](http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv/2011/08/06/2011-08-06_seth_macfarlane_producing_reboot_of_carl_sagans_cosmos_series.html?r=entertainment)
Yeah but the whole cloth is made with techniques only discovered in the 14th century. \n\nOf course, God could have made *that* cloth to be made from a futurist technique but then you would have though that maybe the recipe for penicillin production would have been more helpful.
nice initative, some remarks tho :)\n\n- youtube links won't be always be valid \n\n- media reporting requires you to keep it up to date, daily and filter out the trash\n\nWhat i really do like is the "cases" section. It's a really clean layout.\nIt would be great to have all major cases in history there, possibly clickable, whereby the videos from the top of the site could be in the page of the case itself\n\njust my 2 cents , great site and initiative :)
Thanks for sensibly addressing my points.
enjoy living in a world where everything sucks you downer.
TLDR: Yeah - fear beats good sense, even abstract .000001% risks->\nI'm not a vaccine expert, but I guess I was trying to reference the availability heuristic.  In most people's memory, both positive and negative outcomes are rather abstract and the 0 sum accounting suggests non-action is the safest action, regardless of the weights - or sometimes, biased towards possible risks even when the actuarial risks are commonly accepted as tolerable (much much smaller than the benefits).  Just as an example, I've heard stories of patients getting injected with the wrong thing, or having an undocumented allergy, and I fear injections and avoid them.  It's not logical, but tainted needles and medical accidents are vivid detractors.
Yea I mean, I definitely think it too. But what's the cause for all three of us experiencing the same thing? And the electronics in the house? Surely can't be a result of sleep paralysis. Right when everything went back to normal everything turned on and we were able to move.\n\nEDIT: Forgot to mention, I do experience sleep paralysis a lot now. Especially when I'm back at school. I definitely hear or see things, but it has never reached the level it did that day.
If memory serves, it's a crash diet which involves fasting except for a dreadful mixture of lemon juice and pepper.
I like his response to people's answers:\n\n"NO one can tell me about the grass growth - just a bunch of "go see here" stuff on Wiki. Sorry, must be fake, placebo, bogus science."\nhttps://twitter.com/#!/ericbakker/status/98010089415380992
I've read that burning the board is the worst possible thing to do. Google it.
Will my sickness get worse?
It's in our constitution (switzerland). Shoot me...
I hope I'm not alone when I say that I hope these posts aren't too frequent. I understand that this may have made you happy etc, but it's just a little too close to the sorts of things you'd hear about from evangelicals of all sorts—skeptics or not. I come here for interesting facts, not for gloating. No offense.
That was the last truly terrifying experience that had as a child. For a couple of years after that point I developed an "imaginary friend" named Percy. Where that name came from is still a mystery. But I do remember what he looked like - a black humanoid form, though at the time I never made the connection(as I had personally never seen them before the blessing). I distinctly remember my mother coming to kiss us good night, and as she would walk down the hall to turn off the light, Percy would lean around the doorway and wave good-bye to me, the light in the hall wouldn't pierce his darkness, and as the light shut off he would disappear. My family never saw him, I always did. Eventually Percy would stop appearing to me. From that point things reduced to minor poltergeist activity for many years. \n\nEventually, when I was about 14, I took a huge interest in the supernatural and the occult in particular. I dabbled with rituals and communication techniques, mostly out of curiosity. I experienced a whole slew of things through this that warrant a completely different post, but I lived for many months in a perpetual delusion as I became absolutely obsessed with things that I made contact with. It seems to me now as though I had forgotten the terrible things that had happened to me only a few years before. Well, the result of this dabbling is that the entity would return, most notably to bother my brothers and I. In one notable experience of the time, I was home alone watching tv when the radio in bedroom 2 would turn on at near full volume, blasting what sounded like death metal(no station in the area plays anything of the sort). As I turned the radio off and returned to the living room, the television abruptly shut off. In several other instances we had doors randomly slamming throughout the house. About the time that the activity started getting bad again, my grandmother passed away. Literally the week she passed away, things in the house stopped, and a warmth that we had never felt entered the house. That's not to say that paranormal activity stopped - but at this point we felt that my grandmother had driven the evil out, and all activity was benevolent - feeling her hands rub our backs at night, hearing her footsteps drag across the carpet the way she used to, seeing her apparition a few times on my mother's part. \n\nThe evil however, seems to have moved completely to the farm, and my oldest brother and father often report seeing the shadows and hearing familiar voices and noises at the farm. A ranch hand that we hired was set in a camping trailer on the property - he quit within weeks due to what he said were the "brujas"(witches) trying to get through the door. \n\nMyself and one of my brothers have moved to a completely different state at this point, and have not had any experiences of note since that time. But it's something that my mind is finally processing, something that I feel ruined my early years. If I wasn't perpetually terrified of my home, I was under the stress put on my by my parents' fracturing relationship, and the time in which was meant for me to mature socially the most was taken by my obsession with these things. It almost seems as though I can only accurately recall half of my time as a child and adolescent because my mind refuses to draw memories from the other half...and perhaps the only reason that I typed this out tonight was somewhat of a therapy for me...to remedy a situation that still isn't completely over. Perhaps it's because I felt the need to search for others who have lived this. Maybe it's only to explain to myself why, at 21 years old, I'm still terrified of dark rooms. All I know is that nobody can ever tell me that ghosts and demons aren't real, I've had enough confirmation from family and relatives to know that what we went through is real...
the Catholic Church?
Paul Hellyer. He doesn't have any access to secret info. He never saw a secret file or any alien footage. Was privy to nothing while he was in office.\n\nThis is all from his personal belief. He's a true believer who has nothing more than the same books and articles and rumours we have. He read Corso's book and was convinced. \n\nThat's it! He was convinced by Corso's book, which is a heap of baloney, btw. \n\nHe *feels* that the government is using alien tech. He hasn't seen any evidence for it. \n\nThis guy's statement is of no significance, sadly. Famous or distinguished people proclaiming a belief is no more valid than a lay person proclaiming a belief. Without evidence it establishes nothing.
I just made a thread where I posted an audio of some strange voices I captured in my paintball field (Known to be hunted by many regulars).\n\nMaybe you can write about those kind of recordings as a whole.\n\nEDIT: It's called EVPs :)
Dihydrogen monoxide also causes global warming, corrosion, and is used as a solvent in many industrial applications.  It was a contributing factor to the tsunami in Japan that killed thousands of people.  We must ban this evil substance at once!
I think this was posted on r/WTF and the general consensus is swordfish. Nothing too paranormal here, guys.
I agree. Even if there was something in the area, like toxic gas or something, that wouldn't explain why they had the same experiences.
You're attacking straw men.\n\n> [The government] sure spends money on things I don't think worthwhile. Or you, for that matter.\n\nWell no shit, but then neither you or me are the government, so this fails to refute the argument that *government* picks what it wants to spend money on. And like it or not, a majority of democratically-elected representatives voted for war. The aggregate opinion prevailed.\n\n> No, [government]'s directed by the majority.\n\nThe majority of what? Rich people? Old people? Smurfs? Where is this 'majority'? You talk like it is a homogeneous group with identical views and opinions. Back in the real world, people vote on a variety of issues all at once (representative democracy) or they vote on a single issue (referendum), and often they vote in policies that they personally will not gain from, and vice versa. I know, its crazy, who would [possibly do that](http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-15/buffett-urges-congress-to-raise-taxes-on-coddled-billionaires.html). It sounds like you take that old quote about two wolves and a sheep voting for dinner a little too literally.\n\n> I hate to keep bringing up Sovietism\n\n...but unfortunately there are only two possible systems of government you can think of, so you have no choice but to pick terrible examples? Or do you just love implying false dichotomies?
You're exactly right.  The internet is a wonderful thing for lots of reasons, but it has created such a breeding ground for ignorance and ideas that are just plain *dumb* to spread and infect others!  I hate to think of the poor mother, distraught by a diagnosis she doesn't understand, looking to the internet for guidance or assistance and finding *this* drivel instead.
>And this matters because...?\n\nBecause you were misinformed.\n\n>And this makes what TAA said okay because...?\n\nDid I say it does? I just think it is important to note, since had it 'been widely known I doubt the extent of the reaction would have 'been the same. More to the point, my entire comment was supposed to suggests that if you get your facts from the Reddit hivemind on one of it's more justified witch hunts, you're liable to being misled when it's an action of a similar caliber for worse reasons. Like in this case.
>No, because I don't really think a google search of "guy dying from 2 hits of acid" would return anything. People die every day and usually the details are not disclosed on the internet when its something taboo like that.\n\nhttp://www.wral.com/apex-high-student-charged-with-selling-drugs-that-killed-a-friend/11662053/
Yes it is called the [problem of evil](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_evil)  it is a large theological problem in Christianity and has been since the founding of the religion. \n\nAlso this quote is not anonymous, it is a poor paraphrasing of  Epicurus.  \n\nBart Ehrman has a great book on the subject.
Though I will say that I don't necessarily believe in the nuts and bolts aspect of UFO's or anything in that field. There are a lot of strange crossovers in any paranormal encounter and you can't really pin any one thing down.
I found this article years ago while doing some research on the topic, and with a bit of hunting I was able to find it again through another source, though it seems to be missing multiple pictures as well but looks to have one of the diode charts http://www.scribd.com/doc/7366211/New-Popular-Electronics-EVP\n\nHe does have a couple books on the subject as well, you can find them here http://www.amazon.com/Speak-Dead-Methods-Communication-ebook/dp/B0022NGRGO/ref=kinw_dp_ke?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2 If you click the picture of the book one of the free pages lists additional reading. He has another here http://www.amazon.com/Contact-Other-Side-Afterlife-Communication/dp/1567183778/ref=la_B000APLAFE_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1338232564&sr=1-9
People just need to "vibrate higher so they can capture the opening of the portal that connects this earth of 3d to one earth of 4d or 5d."\n\nsource: Galactic Federation of Light Ashtar
As a physics undergraduate, I would be delighted to have this as a question on my coursework.
Thanks for recommending that to me, it's the straw that broke the camel's back of me not subscribing to it yet. Now I'm going to download and listen to this podcast. Love DJ in Point of Inquiry.\n\nThe only thing is how am I going to have time to do anything other than listen to podcasts with such a huge load of them to listen to every week ;-;\n\nARRRGH and the recommended podcasts recommended "Monster Talk" and I was meaning to subscribe to that so now that's two more subscriptions. Curse you, guy who reminds me I want to do stuff!!!!
You say roughly 20 years ago, what would your husband say the margin of error would be? +/-2 years? +/-5 years?  Can he remember the year specifically?\n\nEdit:  I just realized that the 87 north of Poughkeepsie goes straight through the Hudson Valley, which had a spate of sightings similar to what your husband is describing in the late 80's.\n\nShow him this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3H1TeVLmnf0\n\nIt's from Unsolved Mysteries, and goes into a few separate accounts of what people saw.  Ask him if what these people are describing sounds familiar.  Ed Burn's account starting at 6:45 described exactly what your husband seems to, regarding people pulling over to watch and not saying a word.
"We're not really arguing, I'm disagreeing with your assertions."\n\nNow you are arguing about if we are arguing?  What is this a Monty Python routine?\n\nThere is something wrong with you - you have a compulsion to argue about everything.  You can not let anything go.  It claws at you and won't let you alone.  I bet you will respond to this - you can't not - you have no control over yourself.
Does 'private liberal art school' mean 'we can teach whatever we want'?
I am definitely thinking about having a conversation with them about why I would want to be vaccinated. Also, I am 15.
So Dr. Evils cocknballs spacecraft is real?!?! I knew it! Oh austin powers ftw!\n\nJst had to throw this one out there
Dude that looks REALLY weird.
British kids watched some weird stuff back in the day.\n
I live nearby Hessdalen and travel there regularly to see the phenomenon. It`s really interesting and quite baffling when these lights show up in the sky, but my personal opinion is that this is some kind of natural phenomenon.. at least so far. What all the other strange things happening there is about, I have no idea.
I see a contradiction between \n>We like to think that we're fancy with out technology and that we are somehow seperate from nature, but we aren't. \n\nand\n\n>I don't think many animals we eat, namely cows, chickens and fish, are capable of introspection.\n\nI agree that we are "part of nature" and are no more magical than the nature we choose to eat or keep confined.  What sets humans apart from other animals is small; perhaps just our ability to communicate so clearly what we think and feel between specimens.\n\nI think fear of death is pretty much a "living thing" sorta thing.  Slaughter houses are designed to keep animals from seeing the their dead future.
Drinking water is almost always good for you- most of us are more dehydrated than we think.\n\nAs for toxins.......................... I don't buy it :)
The article that they cite is better. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/03/us-whoopingcough-idUSBRE8320TM20120403\n\nThey have indeed twisted things around to fit their agenda.
It is possible. but is it probable.
The coolest thing about backyard science?\n\nIt's science.
shit a ufo! better film the ground
There aren't any "southern lights"?  So all those pictures of the aurora australis are imaginary?
Wow your just such an E-thug I bet your mother would be proud :)\n\nAnd wait paranormal doesn't ever use science, technology, or beliefs? All I was asking what experiences, beliefs, ect lead you to saying that. I wasn't judging your or what not. But now I am :p \n\nJokes on you too I'm total dead weight right now so you will have to drag me out.
what is this a link to?
yes, probably in the "burn before reading" category
good point.
I owe a lot of my own personal and spiritual growth to The Ra Material. I don't know if you have ever read it or heard of it but it is utterly fascinating. After I read it multiple times and started to grasp the main teachings of it I no longer saw boundaries between people. I don't view things in terms of evil and good, right or wrong. I see the world as people trying their hardest to understand this weird universe we live in.\n\nIf you're interested in it check out: \nhttp://www.lawofone.info/results.php?session_id=1 (link to the first session)\n\nor \n\nhttp://www.lawofone.info/ - which is just a browse-by-category of what the material covers. I'll advise you though, it is a really hard read. Lots of complicating words and ideas. Took me a year or more of studying it to finally understand it as much as I do now lol.
You know how you look at your hand, then pull it away very quickly and you can still see it for like a piece of a second?  I see people standing in doorways that disappear like that, only a fraction of a glimpse.  I see entire apparitions walking through the house.  A minister had died in my house about 7 months before I moved in.  I grew up in a very haunted house.  I can see energy on things, people.  I can usually see intentions.  I'm pretty in tune with things.
Not my grandma - it's the kid's grandma. \n\nSorry, I guess it's kind of hard to follow.
I've had something similar happen to me. I laid down to go to sleep one night and looked at the clock as I did. it read 1:02 AM, I look up, and then back and the clock read 5:20. How on earth did I jump 4 hours and 18 mins?
by not vaccinating your child you may be posing a risk to someone else's child.
This is not an unknowable question, but at the moment there is not enough information to give a reasonable answer. We don't know of any other life in the universe, but then again we have not really looked very hard even in our own solar system. \n\nMaybe life is common, maybe every ninth planet in the universe has life and maybe some of it started millions or billions of years before us. In that case you would expect some contact. We are close to self repairing and self replicating space probes. If a society manages to send those out and they can replicate in geometric numbers then at some point the universe should be teeming with them.\n\nOTHOH maybe we are the only life ever anywhere. I know people like to say "with the billions of planets" etc. But until we find life on one other object the only fact we have is that there is life where we are, and that just isn't enough information to make a decision or either a good guess on.
Liberals tend to lack skepticism of government. They vote for people like Obama and think that minimum wage laws are there to protect poor people. If they are in the majority around here then that's sad.
I believe "clit-boner" is the correct term here.
Psychedelic induced psychosis is rare. When it does happen symptoms subside within a few months with an upper limit of 6 months. Don't know how regularly OP doses but unless he was tripping at time of incident LSD use isn't necessarily the cause of what he describes.
I do agree with you.
I think its more a symbolic thing.
That reminds me of an example of faulty logic a psych professor of mine used to use. As ice cream sales rise, so do drownings. Ice cream causes drownings, right? No, when it's hot more people eat ice cream **and** swim. More swimmers = more drownings.
Uh-oh, the quacks have discovered good webdesign...
Aliens would be too busy browsing reddit to make an announcement of their presence to the world. "Ohh! Cat picture!"
As a politician, or judge, congressman or any sort of state policy maker - especially health departments it is up to you to impose on the population those limits of what is or is not acceptable risk. \n\nAs a doctor - should you not be free of that, leave that judgment to the others delegated to the task, in order to practice medicine? Regardless of the acceptable (or non acceptable) risk your patients may pose to each other - should you not help them regardless when they come to seek your help?
looks like birds
My dog was doing the same thing a few nights ago. It was freaking me out as well. Staring at nothing then barking/growling with all his hair standing on end. Eventually i worked my way down to his eye level and was looking where he was, at the empty corner of the room. Suddenly i saw what he was growling at... a god-damn moth, it was the same color as the wall and could only be seen while looking up due to the shadow. i caught the moth and let it outside. But that was just my story. Point being, its usually nothing.
i doubt it , the President has no power , he is a puppet of an esoteric agenda , ever wonder why they  (most) were all freemasons ? im going to let you into a secret , the greys do in deed do a lot of genetic work on the human races (see the races part ? , ok this might take a while so go grab a beer or something i cant say this is going to be a tl;dr deal...\nok so the real God created the human race and sent the greys to do the genetic work for 2 reasons , first is to make the human race live without the need for food , secundly so they can travel through space with the pressure not destroying the human body (it will explode|)\nthe real God sent a floow to destroy his first plan and the biblical guy Noah wasnt told by god to build an arc .. this was the greys.. the greys  saved their freemasons and sent them underground over 100k years ago . the real God came back and recreated a second race of human beings and restarted the human agenda , again at soddom and gumarrah the real God destroyed his second failed plan , again the greys informed their freemason friends of this destruction and they left the place before it was destroyed , again the greys sent these people or most of them underground .. the real God came back and created the third plan of humans .. now here is something that the freemasons of today dont know , the greys told the human race thousands of years ago that they were demons , the humans fell for this and were soon enslaved in underground citys , most are in the united states and have been cut off from the top of the planet for a very very long time .. fast forward to 1973 and mi5 agents bumping into a 3 year old child in ireland with his "mother" this child was satan (i shit you not) satan tol;d the mi5 agents who he was and they didnt believe him , they asked him why their pineal glands were telling them he was baphomet .. satans answer was this -> baphomet is a name given to me because of freemasons and another race of people who do Gods work  . an mi5 agent pulled out  sheets of paper with the flower of life and a picture of baphomet and asked satan if he knew what this was , satans answer was  , yes its esoteric and thats not what baphomet looks like , he then went onto tell the mi5 agents the truth about Gods plan and who the greys realy were , the greys were useing this esoteric  stuff to blind the human race from knowing the truth because of religions , satan wasnt standing for lies and mi5 made an enemy of him , satan then informed the mi5 agents of an event in 1982 that was going to cause the destruction of the human race , satan being psychic could see it and told the mi5 agents that remote viewers working for the united states would sit and watch God and discover a secter , God would find out and use this excuse to destroy the human race for the third time (happening soon) the mi5 agents used a device used in the creation of monarch slaves to shock the 3 year old on the back of the neck to destroy his psychic gift . it worked . satan got pissed and told them in a nice way to fuck them selves . up to this point satan was going to fight to save the human race because he has friends here and gave the human race this esoteric knoledge , he gave it to people a long time ago when he created the origional illumaniti (satan calling him self illumanatas -with satan spelled backwards at the end- and the people in the  illumaniti the illumanatus ) the mi5 agents were friends with a guy who owned one of the white orb craqft built in the 1950 in the u.s and sold to the elite , you might have seen a very famous video of 6 of these craft fly by the white house in the 50's these are man made and sold for 50 million back then , no longer built os sold because of the time travel issue , the friend of the mi5 agents was able to travel to 2013 and see a race of blue skin beings  land and start to war against the human race . satan told the guy and the mi5 agents to warn the u.s navy  because the remote viewers who were working for standford university and their remote viewing programme would go onto work for the navy and wanted them to help stop this , they refused , the mi5 agents were connected to freemasons and a cult in ireland and didnt care about Gods plan to destroy the human race , infact they even sided with god and aided him in this destruction , the greys found out and are now aiding god and mi5 with this so god can gain occult magic to other races in order to gain cannon fodder for the war against heaven that started when the remote viewers discovered the secret , the race you call nordic are actualy 2 races on the sme planet , one with blonds hair the other with black hair , they dont wear jump suits as most think , they wear blue pants and blue boots with a blue sash slung over the shoulder and a blue hat that the u.s airforce also wear , both of the nordic races are split into factions , same with the greys . other races on earth like the race known as reptiles are sided with the mi5 occult faction of humans , greys , reptiles . satan is by him self still in ireland and plans to take no part in the destruction of the human race , his agenda is to destroy mi5 and the occultists who took a sample of sperm from him when he was a child to make antichrists for their own agenda (psychics) interesting video , the greys ships over mi5 HQ in ireland in 2009 , a war has started because of the u.s and british mi5 and their occultist friends , fear the worst because its all about to kick off real soon \nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAXC97qA32M
Oh, in that case I will consider myself thoroughly picked.
It was reasonably accurate.  All they said was "Yep, even after it's really diluted we can still find traces of the original compound."  Never really claimed it did jack shit though.
Passing behind the tether? I think not.
Myers quotes Kyle Hill as saying:\n\n> "When I talk about skepticism, I believe that I am talking about something that encompasses many other similar philosophies like atheism, humanism, and freethought."\n\nI'm not sure such silliness is worth an impassioned blog post.  Hill is just confused.  \n\nMyers takes some time to point out Hill's first confusion, which is just the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent: even if we take it as a premise that skepticism implies atheism, this does not imply that atheism implies skepticism.\n\nBut even more confused is the idea that skepticism should encompass an ideology like humanism.  Unlike atheism, which is just a certain belief about a single topic which can be subject to skeptical inquiry, humanism, and other political ideologies like socialism, communism etc., are complex sets of beliefs that are ultimately based on subjective values.  Skepticism cannot possibly "encompass" humanism any more than it can encompass Christianity or Islam.\n
hell yeah. That makes a lot of sense. I am actually happy I was able to see such a rare phenomenon. Have an upvote.
I hated to see you hangin' here and wanted to help but I could not think nor find a single thing *other* than the Lost Tapes show.  What did you have in mind, exactly?
I like your assuredness.
I do understand some of Monsanto hate, they do some rather unscrupulous things but it is wrong to put all the blame on GMO for one company being shitty.
Considering how much historical record and documentation exists, and how little of it is flattering, it is pretty hard to believe that Islam just pulled this figure out of thin air. If they had, he'd be an impossible creature of legend like christianity presents Jesus Christ as. But what evidence we do have shows he was a pretty flawed human being. Key word: human. I don't think anybody with a body count during the course of recorded history should be written off as fiction. There's a lot of bullshit written about Genghis Khan, but nobody is saying he's make-believe.\n
Right.  It's the keep-it-secret part which shows that she *knows* she's doing something *wrong.*
It's not supposed to be a general forum.
I'm torn, I was convinced it could be reflection so I took the pictures into Photoshop to adjust the levels, the dots are very bright, and they have shadow to them. I'm not sure if a reflection would show up that intense.
It was 1 a.m. Jerusalem time.  People have their head on a pillow, except for a few.
And sow a lot of those seeds with subtlety. Some of them are choked by the weeds, or eaten by the crows, or fall on stony ground. But amen amen I say to you, one or two fall on fertile ground, god dammit.
Edited. The "figure" walking across the screen, when slowed down, clearly has human form and clothes. Sorry, but it's CGI or more likely, a composite.
LOL
i highly doubt that ill ever see this being again, let alone summon it. BUT my brain definitely does want to have that experience again, and i look forward to not freaking next time and analyzing the situation a little better.\n\nIf i do have this experience again, i will invest in placing a mirror on my ceiling for our amusement and will report back here on this thread. but like i said, i highly doubt ill experience that again.
This "good science" he speaks of intrigues me. Can't help but picture unicorns in lab coats.
I had an experience similar to this when I was a kid. I was walking with my baby sitter, and my brother down a dirt road to a house where we lived. Half way down the dirt road was a water pumping station (or something like that) where there was a street lamp. While coming towards it. I saw something which I have always described as a tall black, kangaroo like being. It almost jumped when it moved, and was about 8 feet tall. \nI told my babysitter, and her and my brother laughed and made fun of me. \nAs we continued to walk down the path past this pump station. It ran out on the road in front of it, Very close to us. And into the woods nearby. We all saw it, and ran as fast as we could to my house, where we locked the doors, and the babysitter cried.
Oh wow, another fantastic automated destroyer of reason and logic. \n\nIf you want to get serious on the topic, this is a nice start:\n\nhttp://www.scientificexploration.org/journal/jse_07_4_stevenson.pdf\n\n*"The birthmark or birth defect of the  child was said to correspond to a wound \n(usually fatal) or other mark on the deceased person whose life the child said it \nremembered.  This paper reports an inquiry into the  validity  of  such claims."*\n\n
Not Appliccable. We cook.
Actually it's a normal (poorly positioned) x-ray, but according to a chiropractic x-ray education page I pulled it from that's subluxation. \n\nWhat treatment course would you follow?\n
>I don't get how this is relevant  \n\nRelevant because you made such a big deal when others used anecdotal statements to assert a claim that jives with most other atheist's experiences that I've seen weigh in on the subject over the years, and is even somewhat easy to find out for yourself if you doubt that most atheists do not positively assert there is no god. Your 'with us or against us' statement however rests on quite shaky ground, and by even using it only serves to undermine the validity of your points you were tying to make since it makes your position somewhat hypocritical.  I found it amusing...\n\n>hopeful agnostic  \n\nWhile it does have a cute ring to it, it's even further from accepted terminology you were splitting hairs on and outside *your* use of it, I've never seen it ಠ\\_ಠ    \n\nI prefer agnostic atheist to distinguish myself from an agnostic theist. Agnostic is both a noun and an adjective, and I use it as an adjective.  I know plenty of theists who admit that while they *think* god is real and conduct their life as such, they are not willing to 100% assert the claim for the same reasons I won't assert 100% that there is no god, hence the distinction. \n\n>Among many other examples in this thread. Treating anyone who doesn't use the term "atheist" in their descriptor as a maroon incapable of understanding even basic verbal distinctions, even when that person is Carl Sagan.  \n\nHmm, that assertion relies heavily on interpretation. Even supposing one does interpret *this* one single thread as such, it is hardly a representation of common behaviors outside this bubble and you would have a hard time gathering evidence otherwise, so there is little point in debating this statement since it is so heavily anecdotal that the claims are meaningless, especially in this sub. FWIW, I feel like we'd make fine allies in most situations regardless of our different terminology used to define what appears to be the same position. Most atheists I've seen discuss this knows Carl Sagan did *not* claim to be atheist, but rather a [pantheist](http://www.pantheism.net/paul/index.htm), but I've never heard him called a maroon ;)\n
What is this, fucking socialism?  Only one million times diluted for the poor?!  You crazy.
One of the best resources I have found for medical based pseudoscience is the Cochrane reviews which are meta-analyses of huge numbers of trials on topics such as homeopathy, acupuncture, reiki, supplements, intercessory prayer, antioxidants to name just a few. To find these you simply have to do a search for a particular topic from [this page](http://www.cochrane.org/cochrane-reviews). These reviews have some important benefits beyond the size and methodology of the reviews that are particularly useful for challenging woo promoters. Firstly, they are scientific reviews that are public access so all can view them. Secondly, the reviewers take a very neutral stance when presenting the study, so they will utilise all studies that meet their criteria for standards (regardless of results) and present the results in a manner not designed to offend believers. This neutral presentation I have found to be very useful for actually getting pseudoscientists to engage with the material and read the findings.
[His book is great too.](http://www.amazon.com/Psychiatric-Tales-Darryl-Cunningham/dp/1906653089) I have it but I had to put it down halfway because it was so sad. :( I'll read the whole thing *someday*...
Her family is all well and good as far as we know. The first incident happened while we were playing with our girls. We were all together for about an hour playing when she started complaining that her legs were burning. That's when we went to the bathroom and seen all the scratches with a few of them actually bleeding. And yes the second time she was laying on me passed out. She then woke from this saying her stomach was burning but quickly fell back asleep. I then rolled her over and pulled her shirt up and noticed the scratches/letters. At this point I could not wake her up. I was shaking her telling her to sit up and all she would do is moan. After about an hour or so I finally got her to sit up but she was still groggy (she is normally a very light sleeper) and didn't know what was going on.
I don't know if/think it works for a lot of the stuff claimed because the logic behind it is...just wow, but I can share my experience which is pretty damned interesting.\n\nI have a torn labrum in my right shoulder. It's about a 70-80% tear and usually my arm sorta "hangs" down and is constantly/easily out of the socket. I also have severe arthritis, most noticeably on my scapula.\n\nAnyway, if I put my right hand behind my back, I can put it up about as high as my lumbar. My other hand behind my back I can go almost all the way up to the small of my neck. \n\nThe first time I had cupping done, it was after a tui na massage. I was like "WTF" about it, but the massage was done and I paid for an hour, so I was gonna get my hour. Post-massage, I still didn't have full ROM (Range Of Motion) in my arm, but it did feel better. \n\nHere's where it got trippy. He did the cupping and it was mostly symmetrical, except for certain parts near the top of my spine/shoulder which were asymmetrical. He had me stand up with about 20lbs of glass cups on me and through an interpreter told me to move my arm, to move it up. Holy shit, it worked. It was the first time in 15 years I had ever had my arm up that high. I was working trainers from the Padres and Chargers alongside pro athletes on my rehab and never had this sort of progress. But some dude from Hong Kong had it moving normally.\n\nHe kept moving the cups slightly, making me repeat until I actually had the same ROM as my other arm. It was unbelievable. Sadly, the effects did not last and it wears off after a few days. But somehow, the cupping makes the muscles around there "suck" the arm back into place and it does stay for awhile.\n\nAnyway, I was flying down to my doctor (Dr Yocum) and showed him and he couldn't believe it, especially as he knew I had quit my therapy. But of course it didn't last.\n\nSo for all of the other shit cupping claims to do? I can't speak to that. But treating my arthritis and shoulder injury? It worked. And it worked specifically because he manipulated the area and fine-tuned it like tuning a guitar.
yup saw a bunch of faces on the bathroom wall, in the hallway, not evil faces...just faces of people I didn't know.
Yeah I actually believe we are all forms of energy and that's what leaves our body when we die.\n\nPlus experience is when I slept in my dads first house he bought while overseas. Had the whole neck tickling and back touching happening when I was trying to sleep and then I saw it in front of my eyes and I couldn't scream at all. Worst night of my life and I never slept in that room again. Found out later it was a builder who had fallen off the roof and died.
I'm seeing a large list of books via an Amazon widget.  Perhaps you're using some sort of ad blocker or odd settings in your browser.
Oh brother. I don't know if I should want to hear this or not. Waiting for the link in anticipation.\n\nWhat's 11 AM in Universal Standard Time?
Beautiful!\n
There is the traditional concept of karma and the more common understanding of karma.  If you mean the latter, I believe that there is some degree of truth to it, though not through any mystical, supernatural means.  Things appear karma-like.\n\nBasically, if you generally do good things people will be more inspired to do good back.  If you're an ass, people will tend to treat you as one.  I don't think anything is certain, but overall I'd bet it works out on average.\n\nExample: Times are good and you have money.  You give to charity, help friends out, etc.  If suddenly you need help of some kind, you're probably more likely to find it than someone who flaunted their money, and ended up in need.
They dealt with your point in the article. If you care to look, there have also been NDE cases of people who are able to describe their resuscitation and other events while they were out cold, in graphic detail, verifiable by independent witnesses. And they have the medical equipment that has verified that the brains were not functioning at the time. \n\nThe information and cases are all there, as long as you are willing to take the time to read them, without writing them all off. \n\nRead the [article linked in this thread](http://www.reddit.com/r/ParanormalScience/comments/102qjq/why_paranormal_science_is_a_dead_topic/). The skeptic had to resort to even more desperate and stupid explanations and still couldn't find an answer for absolutely all elements of the NDE. One day, science will explain it, one way or the other, whether NDEs are real or not, but we aren't quite there yet.\n\nEDIT: The article I was talking about, was linked by [FlowerOfTheHeart. It contains more detail than this original submission.](http://www.reddit.com/r/Paranormal/comments/11fq2b/heaven_is_real_a_doctors_experience_with_the/c6m31lu)
Because I, like JR, am saying something they don't like.\n\nJR is much better at it, and heaps more wise than I am.\n\nI get the same thing when I tell people there is no god, nor is there a need for one. When I tell them that universal healthcare is rather nice actually and won't destroy your country. When I tell folks that vaccines are a good thing and save peoples' lives. When I tell people that the swine flu and other dramas are not as bad as the regular flu.\n\nJeez. The list is endless. Astrology? F-ing sister believes distant stars and their placement in our sky will determine if she gets a better apartment.
hmm do u have dimensions
I agree with the effectiveness of the argument. Unfortunately, I have found most people don't listen. I just tell them they're full of shit and move on.\n\nBut if it appears someone is on the edge, then a rational discussion is called for.
>  ...The researchers also noted that tests for other heavy metals — such as lithium...\n\nLithium is a heavy metal? Really?\n
Nope. Patent law requires intentional misuse of product. \n\nMost of the court cases that from farmers claiming that a similar situation happen ended up proving the farmers simply used the product without paying the requisite fees. \n\nAnd, patents encourage innovation since inventors/developers can assume they'll be paid for the work they put in. \n\nWhy does it matter if it's biological?\n\nEdit: Additionally, I believe this is an appeal to fear logical fallacy.
Nice, I like it.  I sometimes update wikipedia, but usually it's just slipping in bizarre fallacies hidden within the paragraphs.  It's surprising how long some of them last.
This is bs
I really respect his view of things and wish all religious/spiritual leaders would adopt a similar viewpoint. I'm sure there's plenty of questionable things he believes, but the fact he can happily and immediately drop beliefs that have been held by his people for centuries without a second thought after they've been debunked is great.
Leave us alone!
Wow! What an amazing recording! That is probably the best EVP capture I have ever heard to date. Thanks for sharing that!
>Oh and apparently Anon didn't do the PSN thing, at least it wasn't publicly condoned by them.\n\nHow would Anonymous have any idea if they did it or not?
Okay, first of all, psychiatry and clinical psychology are *not* the same thing. Those two examples you refer are products of the *medical* model. Second of all, not all of psychology is clinical psychology anyway. Behaviour analysis and implicit measuring, to name two fields I'm interested in, are not based on ideology (any more so than the philosophical underpinnings of any science). Third,  some sciences wouldn't be where they are today without double blind randomised controlled trials, which were invented based on psychological research. Finally, not sure what youre trying to say by referencing that post on /r/psychology, but to be honest that got so highly upvoted because the community there is full of undergrads who know nothing about psychology, so I wouldn't form any argument based on the content and its popularity there.
Cluster headaches is more intense though. They cannot be relived by a simple shot in the spine as childbirth can.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/stupider\n\nIt is a word
I hate that voice... And the stupidity that falls out of it.
> and one should certainly not take pills for things like a common cold\n\nAnalgesics, decongestants, expectorants, etc actually work quite well for symptom relief for the common cold - either in various pill or liquid forms. While tea may be more pleasant, most of the other remedies are far more effective, and can allow one to rest comfortably while recovering.\n\nThough tea is certainly VERY pleasant.
> factoid\n\nftfy
Honestly, it is difficult for me to hear those switch overs. I didn't think that video journalists would edit sentences.
**FLYING SAUCERS AND SCIENCE FICTION**\n\nI am helping to edit a book on flying saucers? Isaac Asimov? Surely, I am a leading and vocal skeptic where flying saucers are concerned!\n\nHave I changed my mind now? Do I believe in the existence of flying\nsaucers?\n\nThat depends on what you mean by the question. Do I believe that many people have seen something in the sky that they can't explain? \n\nAbsolutely! Of course! You bet! Seeing something one can't explain is very common. Every time I watch a magician perform his act I see something I can't explain.\n\nHowever, when I see something I can't explain, I assume there is a\nperfectly normal explanation, one that fits in with the structure of the\nuniverse as worked out by modern science. I don't instantly jump to the idea that there is no explanation short of the supernatural or of some far-out near-zero-probability hypothesis.\n\nFor that reason, I have no tendency to explain every appearance of a light in the sky by declaring it to be a spaceship manned by extraterrestrial beings.\n\nNowadays, in an effort to gain respectability, people who accept\nthe wilder hypotheses about flying saucers call them "unidentified flying objects" and abbreviate it UFO. On numerous occasions, I have been asked if I "believe" in UFOs.\n\nMy usual answer is, "I assume that by UFO you mean 'unidentified\nflying objects.' I certainly believe that many people have seen objects\nin the air or sky that they can't identify, and those are UFOs. But then,\nmany people can't identify the planet Venus, or a mirage. If you are\nasking me whether I believe that some mysterious object reported is a\nspaceship manned by extraterrestrial beings, then I must say I am very skeptical.\n\nBut that, you see, is an *identified* flying object, and that's not\nwhat you're asking about, is it?"\n\nMysterious objects have been reported in Earth's skies all through\nhistory. Usually they are interpreted according to the preoccupations of\nthe day. In ancient and medieval times and in primitive societies, they\nwould be interpreted as angels, demons, spirits, and so on. In\ntechnological societies, they would be interpreted as first balloons,\nthen dirigibles, then airplanes, and then spaceships.\nOf course, if they're spaceships *now,* then they've been\nspaceships all the time, and some people have indeed interpreted\nEzekiel's vision in the Bible, for instance, as the sighting of\nspaceships manned by extraterrestrials.\n\nThe modern surge of flying saucer sightings began on June 24, 1947,\nwhen Kenneth Arnold, a salesman, claimed he saw bright disk-shaped\nobjects flying rapidly through the air near Mount Rainier. From the\nshapes he described, the expression "flying saucers" came into being.\nNothing much might have happened in consequence, for wild reports\nabout all sorts of things reach the news media every day and then fade\nout. In this case, though, the report attracted the attention of Raymond\nA. Palmer, who was then the editor of the science fiction magazine\n*Amazing Stories.*\n\nPalmer may not himself have been a piece of broken pottery, but he\nwas certainly not averse to building circulation by means of items that\nappealed to crackpots. He had shown this in his earlier work on something completely wacky that he called "The Great Shaver Mystery."\n\nNow he took up flying saucers and single-handedly promoted them\ninto an international mania. That is one connection (an important one)\nbetween flying saucers and science fiction.\n\nMind you, I have a soft spot in my heart for Ray Palmer. Way back\nin 1938, he bought the first science fiction story I ever sold, and sent\nme the very first check I ever earned as a professional writer.\n\nNevertheless, candor compels me to state that for years after this\nnoble deed of his I never had occasion to believe a word he said.\n\nAt the other extreme of the flying saucer spectrum is Professor J.\nAllen Hynek. He is a respectable and learned scientist who has spent\ndecades examining the evidence and who remains firmly convinced that there is something there. He doesn't accept the extraterrestrial\nspacecraft hypothesis, but he thinks that something mysterious underlies the phenomenon, which, if understood, may revolutionize science.\n\nHowever, in all the years he's been investigating the phenomenon,\nhe's come up with--nothing! Far from revolutionizing science, his work\nhas not added one even marginal item to the world of physical science.\n\nThen what am I doing helping edit this anthology?\n\nThat brings us to the second connection between flying saucers and\nscience fiction. The whole concept of flying saucers--the whole notion of thousands upon thousands of spaceships hovering about us without ever seeming to do anything or to affect us in any way--has supplied science fiction writers with an endless supply of story material.\n\nAll of us have written flying saucer stories. I have myself, and\none of them is included in this book.\n\nGenerally, we have to deal with a situation in which\nextraterrestrial spacecraft visit us, but keep out of sight for some\nreason, or decide not to do anything for some reason, or try to do\nsomething and fail for some reason, or fail to manage to convince\nEarthpeople they are real for some reason.\n\nYou see, science fiction writers, being sane and rational, have to\nfind some *reason* for so many spaceships doing *nothing.* Usually the results turn out to be funny, satiric or ironic; sometimes tragic. Very often, they prove to be stories that are entertaining and good--so what we have done is to collect a sizable number of them into one book for your delectation.\n\nCome, see for yourself that every cloud has a silver lining, and\nthat even the silliest notions can undergo a sea change into something\nrich and strange in the hands of skilled science fiction writers.\n\n -- Isaac Asimov (from his collected essays in Gold, incidentally available [here](http://gpnp.net/backshelves.gpnp.net/001%20scifi%20ebooks/scifi%20fav%20authors/asimov%20ebooks/Gold.pdf) [for this UFO essay see pg96, but don't miss the choice sci-fi short stories at the beginning or the other essays either!].
bioinformatics high five!
I am absolutely not telling you that.
Huh. I don't know what the reasoning behind that would be. That pesticides leech out nutrients? Perhaps that commercial grown varieties are selected for $ (fast growing, big yield) rather than health?
It sounds outrageous to me too.\n\n[Here's a DOJ blog saying 18%, just for rape.](http://blogs.usdoj.gov/blog/archives/1266) They don't cite a source, but it's stretch to call them a feminist blog.\n\n[This list of publications](http://www.ovw.usdoj.gov/publications.html) includes [Sexual Violence in the United States: Summary of the Roundtable Proceedings (PDF) (October 2010)](http://www.ovw.usdoj.gov/sexual-violence-report-march.pdf), which opens with this line:   \n>One in six women and one in 33 men will be sexually assaulted during the course of their lifetime.^1\n\nThe footnote:\n> 1 Tjaden, Patricia, and Nancy Thoennes. 2006. *Extent, Nature, and Consequences of Rape Victimization: Findings from the\nNational Violence Against Women Survey*, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, NCJ 210346.\n\nSo there's your source. Feel free to pull it up and come up with a refutation, or something beyond 'This is a surprising number'. It seems really suspect to me, but if research always told us that the world was exactly as we'd assumed, we wouldn't bother with it.
Those shows pop up every once in a while, but they're outnumbered by the ridiculous ones.
Which part did you "swallow whole"?  I think Dunning left out a lot of info.  He doesn't even mention the amount of *Bispenol A*  that leeches from these tons of plastic as they travel through the waters.  Skeptic inquiry shouldn't be left to 3 minute youtube sessions. \n\nVice magazine did some excellent reporting (as usual) about the garbage patch.  They spent a three weeks at sea with 2 researchers and a chemist, collecting data.  They also interviewed other researchers along the way.  \n\nhttp://www.vbs.tv/watch/toxic/toxic-garbage-island-1-of-3\n\nI'm interested to know you what you've heard about the patch and your thoughts on Vice's research.  I have to warn that there is a gonzo love story detour during there research but otherwise, it's excellent.
Last I saw the LFTB was in like 70% of all national ground beef. Could be wrong I'm too lazy to search. If it was just the really cheap stuff I might not have as much of a problem.\n\nAnd I like the idea of labeling food. Not just in this case but in many others (GMO foods etc.) simply because the consumer should be able to easily choose what they want to eat (wither or not if the product is actually dangerous or its just all media hype). It might be more costly but knowing what you eat is important.
I have to give some praise to the newest Skepchick, Amy, for producing several interesting blog posts since she joined.  Well done!  Their site is usually a good source of links and such, but she's added some pretty solid original content.
One of the most hackneyed, cliche-ridden stories ever, you mean?
The China vids, probably [hoaxed](http://articles.cnn.com/2010-07-20/world/china.ufo.debunked_1_ufos-chongqing-photoshop?_s=PM:WORLD),the second and third clips are Russian rockets (debunked months ago), [spirals](http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2009/1210/norway-spiral-a-rocket-scientist-explains-the-mystery) in norway, etc. are also rockets, that circle cloud in russia is a phenomenon called a [fallstreak hole](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallstreak_hole), the jerusalem ufo videos were also [debunked](http://news.discovery.com/space/jerusalem-ufo-almost-certainly-a-hoax.html) months ago, and then I stopped watching.  Don't get me wrong, I'm a believer, but I prefer to research before jumping to any conclusions.  There are very, very few actual ufo videos out there and imho, you won't find much in the way of real in these compilation vids.
This legislation was most likely put in place to prevent people like you starting ghost farms.
Did you ever hear of that Riley Martin guy who used to be on the Howard Stern show a bunch of times? He claims he was abducted. I think he has or had a show on satellite radio; not sure if he still does.
You mean Hugh Laurie.  That guy is [amazing](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwo8qxUit00).  This guy is very likely a total knob.
I enjoy Ghost Adventures but also find that it can be annoying for many of the reasons people mentioned. If you are going to say Ghost Adventures is fake and lacks believability then you should give some solid examples. I haven't personally noticed anything that seems purposely faked on any of their episodes. They seem to try to do a genuine job of analyzing their data. You may not agree with their methods and results, but charging them as being fakes is a little extreme when there is zero evidence presented to back up the claim.
Why isn't he in jail?
The corny paranormal joke? Am I missing something else? \n\nI just thought of it as good that he is making it to the front page. People might want to find out who he is if they don't know.\n\nDo people not like this guy? That would be a shame.
This isn't a documentary to make money, there is only a 5 dollar fee if you want to host a stream for others to view as well.
I pretty much agree with this. Oil companies want prices to be as high as possible without reducing demand too much. A very bad scenario for oil companies is that oil prices get so high that nobody can afford gas anymore, and this forces people to develop other energy sources and make them a cheaper alternative.\n\nAlso, the normal supply and demand model does not work with oil because of [oil company collusion](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPEC). They decide together to limit supply artificially in order to keep prices at what they determine is optimal profit.\n\nAs for the US government's wish to keep oil prices low, there's two major aspects to that. First is the legitimate desire to prevent an oil shortage that could cause major economic problems, like the [1970s oil embargo](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_oil_crisis). The other is just politicians who want to claim credit for citizens being able to "save money at the pump", a relatively meaningless political statement.
Then TED should put a stop to it. I think this sort of anti-science junk is damaging to their reputation. The general public don't know about the difference between TED and TEDx.\n
This meta-study also doesn't cite any health studies lasting more than 2 years.
The funny thing is: even lossy compression if done properly (mp3 etc.) is not distinguished from cd quality by most people in double-blind randomized trials.\n
Dat shitlord
I'm surprised it exists, actuality.
Corporate shill? I wish. I'd actually have money to buy shit if that was the case.
IV drip?
Oh sweet Jesus.
bout as bad as having your name bastardized into a brand of colorful clay?
I get *vomitously, vein-poppingly* angry at people who lack the intelligence to realise that Area 51 is *not* a secret facility.\n\nYOU KNOW WHAT IT'S CALLED!! IT'S ON GOOGLE EARTH!! HOW CAN IT BE A SECRET!??!!
Because his family's hard-earned money is going to support a known fraud, further perpetuating his ability to spread lies and dangerous misinformation. He could get his grandma a WOW account for $15/month and she'd probably be happier.
that was an interesting read, i am not sure if it explains everything though, because it used to work everytime, even on totally random things that would not happen normally but were possible
I was thinking the same thing.  It comes directly after a bunch of fake "earth sounds" videos that flooded youtube and most ufo and/or conspiracy sites.  \nIf I were going to try to discredit a truth movement, I would purposefully flood it with false data a la WW2's Operation Fortitude.
Please provide me with some examples of spinning rockets behaving as you believe they should.\n\n> Rocket exhaust does not have anywhere near enough inertia to do this.\n\nHow much inertia does rocket exhaust have? How much does it need for a "global rotation" with "large radial excursion"?\n\n> Center of spiral does not move\n\nIt was moving.\n\n> It looks nothing like known rocket firings I've seen, and nothing like the photos you pointed to.\n\nI was comparing them to some of the non-spiralling rockets that people here have called UFOs, such as the one over China recently.\n\nThe spiral over Norway looks just like that, except spinning.\n\nAnyway, here's a simulation of what would happen if a rocket were spinning. It looks just like the Norway spiral:\n\nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zx8i5EfmYU4
How much data is required? The burden of proof is always on the individual or groups making the claim and there is an entire branch of pseudo-science quackery dedicated to this 50-year old theory and still not a single shred of evidence that it is real, and a pair of studies that say the theory is bunk. The issue comes down to money in the end, as a finite resource we must make sometimes difficult decisions on where research grants get spent, I would much rather that money go towards new science than re-debunking bad science.
It should add up to 11 for everyone - the email quoted by the OP was either a typo or just wrong - it should add up to 11, not 111.  The idea is "ignore the first two digits", so it'll be (birth year-1900) or (birth year - 2000) depending on the century you're born in.
>Once you go full 55 Metatronic, you can't go back\n\nSo true, so true.
She must feel terrible...
This article is good for explaining how to ghost hunt using the scientific method.  Not one method is correct, but still is pretty insightful. :)  Thanks for reading.
RAMIREZ, LAUNCH THAT NUCLEAR WARHEAD
The one who apparently was shot down?
Actually, you reminded me, my wacky mom actually turned me onto this astrology book that I find accurate enough to be interesting. Even if I'm just experiencing a placebo effect of sorts, I find it entertaining, and it's verbiage helped me look at my friendships with a more empathetic perspective. It's called the Secret Language of Relationships.
c'mon guys, i'm super cereal there's a manbearpig next to the sun.
Your mom had issues.
him and Simon Singh need to have a hair stand-off to see who has worse hair.
This is exactly how i feel. There are all spectrums of religion and non religion. My mom is not leading radical church or starting a crusade shes just a normal woman who goes to church once a week because she grew up that way and likes to pray for her children because it helps her feel safe when me and my sister are out. I have stopped going to church once i was old enough to decide for myself and sometimes she asks me to consider coming back. But just because someone is making an extra effort to do whatever they do to protect you (working or realistic) or not why sit there and try to prove her wrong or mess with her. Thats your mom just accept it as how she is and be grateful she cares and didn't leave your ass in a blanket on the steps of some orphanage.
I remember getting into an argument with a women because I said Pinto's were shit and unsafe. She then yelled at me because her dad had one and she grew up with one, and they never had any problems with it.\n\nI then said her personal experience doesn't mean anything in terms of actual nationwide statistics, and she got even angrier.\n\nPeople are fucked in the head.
Yes I agree mostly. Is it a small step yes but its also a very interesting one. With further study might it have an impact on weather modelers maybe; will it have much of an impact on climate modeling, no, but with further study it will need to be accounted for, but so far the science behind it is very robust.
I just took a micro course last year. After looking it up, varicella zoster most likely utilizes episomal latency. That means that it remains inside the cells, but doesn't integrate into dna. The exact hiding spot inside neural cells hasn't been discovered yet.\n\nI would just say that it isn't necessarily true that the vaccinated would be immune from latency. I do see that it helps prevent shingles outbreaks. Keep in mind, we still don't know what triggers shingles outbreaks. The virus obviously has some kind of trigger that causes it to reactivate. A compromised immune system is one obvious factor.
That's not strange at all. I'm merely saying that the current paradigm is naturalistic atheistic. Not that it didn't get us anywhere or that it has/had no role. There are also non theistic explanations for these phenomenon, but still are outside the current paradigm. Why? Because religion and paranormal are on the same level within this paradigm (for the ignorant and the stupid).\n\nIn the field of paranormal, that paradigm is running into a wall. Because any notion of the consciousness existing outside of the body has philosophical consequences that do not fit within the current paradigm. There is however a substantial body of evidence that points in this direction.\n\nThe same restrictions applied to Quantum Mechanics, where a different philosophical view was also needed. It is an established scientific direction right now. But the philosophical implications are usually ignored, those being of a holistic approach to nature. Even though QM is a well established tool, that approach hasn't penetrated our society and our way of thinking yet.
haha yes. For people whom it happens naturally, it is a bit scary. This is mostly due to being exposed to it before knowing what it is. \n\nWhether there's aliens abducting OP every-night is another matter. But people who have natural sleep paralysis have huge potential for to have tremendous fun in OBE's such as astral projection. I can't stress that enough :)
has anyone noticed the objects doing a u-turn and another whizzing around right at the one minute point on the right side? \n\ncheck it out, does debris do u-turns? http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=dd7yXJod2xU#t=56s
I think that #7 is wrong and you can not formulate the second sentence that will make sense.
As good skeptics, we need to be skeptical about the claims being made in the article. The article presents interesting and non-intuitive statistics followed by one proposed explanation - election rigging. A less conspiratorial analyst might simply note the interesting results - that Ron Paul's strength is in small precincts which tend to be in more independent-minded rural areas, while Romney is more popular in larger precincts which tend to be in more urban areas.\n\n[One of the linked articles](http://www.themoneyparty.org/main/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Republican-Primary-Election-Results-Amazing-Statistical-Anomalies_V2.0.pdf) starts with "theory of election fraud", listing five different types of fraud, and doesn't appear to consider other explanations for the anomalies like preference dependent on geography. I'm not saying I have the explanation, but it just seems like they jump from "here are some interesting unexplained statistically significant anomalies" to "vote rigging" without enough justification or consideration of alternative hypotheses.\n
> Then you should be able to do the same in a lab. Go forth and add to our collective knowledge.\n\nLet me ask you, besides James Randi, who exactly do you call up for something like that?\n\nIt took wim hof years of being a stage performer to get anyone to notice him enough to study him in a lab.  \n\nI want to remain anonymous, if I am studied.\n\n
Er... what?
How do you feel about cornflower blue?
brdrline pls...
What's wrong with Four Loko?  There isn't much to be skeptical of there, as far as I can tell... it's got caffeine and a really high alcohol content, exactly as advertised.  I'm pretty sure they don't make any claims besides it'll get ya drunk?
I think you just made my brain divide by zero.
It's too late for me.\n\n*Meredith, my neighbor down the hall, is 51 years old...and seven months pregnant. There was no egg donor, no in vitro fertilization, no special blend of Chinese herbs and reflexology—just an $11 bottle of Pinot Grigio and the mistaken impression that already having two sons in college somehow makes conception impossible. Meredith is now busily preparing for the miracle of birth.*\n\nHow can I defend against that logic!
From a statistical standpoint it seems strange that you've had multiple sightings.
There's actually no evidence that demons exist at all, so there's really no reason at all to be scared.
dude, you are supposed to use your powers for good, not to impress others. Now you need to change the agreement so you can get them back :)
>this one has a blazing ball of light at the tip of it.\n\nThat's not definitive proof of anything. I have seen aircraft in the air that looked like a brightly burning magnesium flare until they moved to a position where they were no longer reflecting the sun into my eyes. I've also seen some crazy-ass contrails. Certain conditions of extremely cold, extremely damp air will produce astounding contrails, bigger, thicker, and more reflective than the usual ones you see.
There's this wonderful process called PEER REVIEW.
> Well I am curious how this might affect one's employability.\n\n[Looks like CA outlawed that in 2007](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2007/09/california-outlaws-forced-rfid-tagging-of-humans/).  Georgia and virginia followed in 2010\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microchip_implant_(human) preliminary FDA approval started in 2002.  There appears to have been very little adoption to date.
Your standard of evidence is incredibly low.
This was a great article.  However, it fails to address the point that I use the most when arguing with anti-vaccers: all of the vaccines that they are so afraid of either never contained thimerosal, or the formulations have been thimerosal-free for close to a decade.  \n\nSource:\nhttp://www.fda.gov/biologicsbloodvaccines/safetyavailability/vaccinesafety/ucm096228\n\nI know it's from the FDA, so it won't do much to convince the conspiracy theorists, but the data clearly show that:\n\nA: Modern vaccines do not contain Mercury compounds\nB: Thimerosal is safe to use anyway.
Through creative balance sheets.  His surplus was borrowed from social security.  Everything in the country was overvalued, (dotcom, housing) so they were able to get a lot of tax money before everything fell back to truer values.
I recommend eating fish in the winter. This is what native Alaskan Eskimos do to get get D. They stock up on whale and smoke it to preserve them for winter.
Agreed.
>As someone who used to attend Catholic church, I can tell you, they never preached intolerance. They never said go down and keep your brother down, no they said to support each other, and help those in need.\n\nAnd also to let pregnant women die rather than have an abortion. And fie on the heretics that uses condoms instead of getting HIV. And please don't be gay with consenting adults, it's so abomination like, you know.  \nBut intolerance, never.
Be wary of the last.  Psychology Ph.D's from diploma mills are pretty common.  In some states they even qualify one to practice.  So I'd say look for someone who has actually held a research position.
his face reminds me of Robert Downy Junior for some reason. Also, I love his coat/bags. OF COURSE has has stuff like that.
And Paul has yet to demonstrate that he's a broken clocks equal!\n\nGet ready for the inevitable down-votes from his painfully self-deluded fan boys.
Just a brainfart.
I don't consider it *my* problem, I consider it *theirs*.\n\nIt's a lot like if someone had a tattoo of an ass on their forehead.
This takes it beyond preliminary results and just goes to show the lack of knowledge (or intentional ignorance) within the body politic of the US.   \nAnother posting said as follows:    \n"[–]snookums 1 point 58 minutes ago\n\nEven if canniboids have medical qualities, that's no argument for legalizing marijuana. We don't take medications in raw form, because there's thousands of other compounds in any plant. "\n\n       \n\nThat argument is fallacious.  We do not make ingestion of willow bark illegal but that is where we base aspirin from.    \n    \nLook to the example of Portugal which decriminalized all drugs which caused a reduction in use in all categories except first time users of cannabis between 13-24.  It has reduced crime based on scarcity of the drugs.  The rest of the world is wasting time on the red herring of the drug war.\n\n\n
Ah gotcha. Yea totally.
Yeah I didn't like Joe's frequent interruptions when Giorgio was speaking either. Annoying ass bitch.
>I am a bit livid.\n\nIf it's because of me, then I apologize. :-(\n\nI'm glad that you did restrain yourself as much as you did. I think that's commendable.\n\nDon't let the attacks make you feel any less valuable. These people are just responding to feeling that THEY were emotionally attacked. I know you don't hate her friends, just the beliefs they hold. In the same way, don't let this be about you being an "asshole", but let it be en educational experience in just how much patience is sometimes needed in communicating with others.
reality disfunction
All of that's understandable, but it doesn't explain why they're naked and outside.  For what rationally defensible purpose did the Germans need to strip them naked, outside?
The proper term is Dominionist, isn't it?
That makes sense, you're diluting the alcohol. Less alcohol per volume of liquid will be filtered.
True, argument form authority is used a lot as primary evidence of the UFO phenomenon. But, shit, there sure are [a lot of very influential/powerful people who have hinted at *some* truth to the phenomenon's existence](http://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/tif59/ufo_cloaking_device_status_cloud/c4my04n).  I don't agree with those who jump to the extraterrestrial hypothesis without solid proof, but I do agree there's something people are seeing we don't fully understand.\n\nIf you take those statements with the *fact* that UFOs have been officially studied the US and other governments around the world, I think it's even tougher to dismiss. Toss in corroborating radar reports, a select few photos, videos and physical trace cases and I wouldn't mind a new, transparent, state/military-aided investigation. For science. \n\nFully understanding where I'm posting this, I get if you downvote me -- I, like d3sperad0, wouldn't mind a discussion, though.
>I'm not sure what you mean by "no real-world difference". The studies showed a large and statistically significant reduction of risk in acquiring HIV in the circumcised group versus the uncircumcised group.\n\nTake the African studies for example - even by stopping the studies early, and not accounting for the extra time that the control group spent having sex, the differences in infection rates were tiny. If we were able to iron out all the fatal flaws of those studies, we'd expect to see that number drop even further and potentially disappear completely. \n\n>No clinical study is perfect (it can't be because you are dealing with humans in an uncontrolled environment, but you do your best to control for as many factors as possible), but "incredibly flawed" is quite hyperbolic. What specific flaws in the study are you referring to?\n\nOf course, I'm not expecting them to be perfect but there were obvious flaws that we must be skeptical of. In [this one](http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020298), for example, they made no effort to prevent the control group from having sex. This means that there is up to 2 months where one group is not exposing itself to the virus at all, and this problem is compounded by the fact that the study was halted early. The circumcised men also received additional counselling sessions and education on safe sex, which is obviously another major confound. \n\nThese problems aren't just "oh, humans are hard to control", they are damning and fatal flaws that make the results worthless. \n\nThere are also other problems which are (arguably) a bit more excusable, like selection bias and poor randomisation methods, but the inability to placebo-control a study like this makes it impossible to generalise the results to other countries. This is because in areas where circumcised penises are rare, you can produce differential sexual behaviors and practices - specifically, such guys may even get less sex, or the sex they do get may be stipulated on the fact that they must cover it with something (i.e. a condom). Clearly, applying such thinking to a country like the US, where circumcised penises are the norm, is a mistake. \n\n
Actually i commented because you seemed very confused about being downvoted.
> They quote England batsman Ian Bell as saying: "The Power Balance bracelet supports my active lifestyle facilitating improvement across all areas of my fitness."\n\nThat sounds just like him!
It could be, sure. The easiest way to tell would be to watch the original video and see if the object always stays in the same part of the video frame no matter how the camera man moves.
"36 vaccines in less then 3 years is too much to fast" seems level headed to me.
You know, anger management problems can be treated with some basic exercise and behavioral modification, like counting to ten or excusing yourself for a minute from an agitating situation to calm yourself. Just a thought...
Sigh.  You would scream FAKE even if you saw one.  \n\nThe issue is this....there are many more folks out there with cell phone cameras than Cannon Rebel 15 MP Pro cameras.  \n\nPeople say hoax when the photo is blurry/grainy and fake when it looks too good to be true.  \n\nThis is why photo/video on its own is useless.
I understand what your getting at, but again when an explanation contradicts someone else's beliefs it causes problems. I mean if someone were to mention something about Abraham, that wouldn't agree with my beliefs, so to me that explanation wouldn't be valid. My point is that, yes we should be tolerant, but the person giving explanations should make sense to everyone for it to be a good explanation, unless it's specifically regarding something within that religion like something that occurred  in a church or temple or something.
Possibly a C 130?
But it does affect all of science.\n\nIn many countries, chief scientists are not even allowed to make public statements without them being vetted by a politician.\n
Yes, but the analysis is itself based on laws derived from observation, different assumptions are being made, etc. And you can model things like owl population in Oregon and never even look at a climate paper.\n\nBut eh, I won't list all the reasons a word in your sentence were wrong, because IT WOULD BE MISSING THE POINT and divert the attention completely.
"Hey guys heres my 10 second video of aliens comingout of a saucer!" Video ends when the door opens :/\n
I'm getting downvoted here! D:
I am inclined to think that the footage is legitimate. My first impression is that its a static tube shaped balloon or a blimp like this one. http://youtu.be/8kl3ofWXBP8\n\nI would note that this is Allen Epling's first impression also; "My first guess is an exotic balloon of some type. If its not that, its anybody's guess." \n\nIf some one has a link to a previous paperclip fake I would be interested in viewing it.
i wonder if hollywood has a dream-imagery-stealing machine?
I think a lottocracy would solve the accountability problem, as a single person's vote would be chosen, and that person would be totally accountable for making that vote, whether they remain anonymous or not, they'll still know it was them who cast the vote that did such and such. And everyone would feel that pressure their vote could be the one that's chosen.\n\nI'd like to note that the person a lottocracy selects isn't necessarily the person that gets put into power, but instead their representative, which could be themselves or anyone they see as capable.
oh the carbonyl group is similar! well geez.\n\nsoap bonds with oil and rinses away with water. an oil acting like a solvent is not a soap
Well I suppose you might be able to rationalize a "greater good", sell something akin to jewelery (make sure it's not positively harmful or make specific promise) and then donate a chunk of proceed to legit charities and causes.
To further this, this particular study has drawn serious criticism.\n\nhttp://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/19/us-gmcrops-safety-idUSBRE88I0L020120919\n\nhttp://michaelgrayer.posterous.com/in-which-i-blow-a-gasket-and-get-very-uppity
This is a meteor, nothing else.
no hoaxing this photo was sent into TLC's "photolab" or whatever you call it. Plus my dad works for ECRM and all he does it work with pictures for magazines and newspapers. We didn't find this picture until about 2005 when going threw old photos.
Great cause
But most people would have reinstated them when it became one of the most succesful brands on the planet. At least if they had a coinscience they would.
With the exception of Gizmodo (yes, Gizmodo), every news article I've seen has linked to the third video. Maybe it's just me but it's starting to get really annoying.
No, I don't think that would be unreasonable (at a glance, though I haven't thought it through much), but the page linked was entitled 'food insurance,' and the OP seemed to be under the impression that they were selling traditional insurance.  I was just commenting on the reasonableness of food storage, not trying to contrast it with 'unreasonable' food shortage insurance.
People primarily ate for caloric reasons, and their bodies adapted accordingly to the sort of nutrients they would receive. A true paleo diet would most likely look like... well... all of America. A Big Mac would always win out on the calorie gained/calorie expended ratio.\n\nThe truth of the matter is that food science still has a ways to go, and from what we see now, will probably spawn very individualized diet regimens, drastically different from person to person.\n\nCombining the two ideas, if a Paleo diet works for you, then you are hitting on what your body needs most.\n\nBUT WHO KNOWS?
Don't knock it till you've tried it.
Ugh i missed it. is it online, streaming or something? link me?
I heard/read somewhere that it was due to a journalist/critic that wrote he felt sick after eating MSG way back when. It just kind of grew from there.
The only "natural" form of birth control is a sheepskin condom?
I love OOBE's by Robert Peterson. I got it 10 years ago and have read it 2-3 times ever since. It definitely inspires you and gets you in that OBE state of mind.
There are thousands of videos being recorded. Even NASA has recorded UFOs during space missions. Everyone who is a skeptic is either not looking at the videos, refusing to look at the videos, or claiming the videos are fake (even the ones before home computers and video editing software).\n\nIt's really quite pointless to discuss the possibility of alien visitations to Earth when skeptics refuse to even look at the evidence that does exist.
Can you elaborate?
Except that it *is* changing - the US was down to 63% in '95, and that appears to still be dropping.
Actually, they were first studied in the 1930s and were continued to be studied by the military until the 1970s. \n\nSeveral [leaked memos](http://www.nicap.org/twining_letter.htm) from that time period have states that the UFO 'phenomenon is something real and not visionary or fictitious.' \n\nThe military's last *official* study on the subject, [Project Blue Book](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Blue_Book), concluded that **22%** of sightings with sufficient evidence to normally identify an object, remained unidentified. Follow up reports to Project Blue Book concluded that the unknown number was somewhere closer to 28%. Upon the project's conclusion, the official military stance was that UFOs don't "pose any national security concerns."  Soo-- we admittedly have observable shit flying around in our skies, but it's not a security concern? How exactly does that makes sense? \n\nAdditionally, the leaked [Bolender memo](http://www.nicap.org/Bolender_Memo.htm) stated:\n> " reports of unidentified flying objects which could affect national security are made in accordance with JANAP 146 or Air Force Manual 55-11, and are not part of the Blue Book system."\n\ntl;dr - I'll say it again. The UFO phenomena has never been *properly* studied. This subreddit has some great official sources - [/r/UAP](http://www.reddit.com/r/UAP)
Oh shit im so sorry Mrs. Teacher Bitch. Paddle me since i got an F in your english class. all you had to do is downvote and carry on with you english lessons somewhere else ma'am
Yeah, these are the ones I was gonna suggest.\nReal accounts from professional aircraft men and space agency people tend to be more reliable than the average Joe.\n
No, I'd say he had the break *before* he saw the weird shit. The weird shit he saw could accurately be described as a hallucination, which are often a symptom of mental illness. \n\n>Shadows that just shouldn't have been there. Shadows that didn't line up right. They'd move oddly. They'd go up the outside of a building, they'd be moving far too quick to be human.\n\nRead a little bit about how the human eye behaves in complete darkness. What you saw is completely natural. It's perfectly reasonable that you defaulted to a supernatural explanation, since you probably didn't understand what you were seeing, and you were in a constant state of fear and readiness as a soldier.  Science is your friend. \n\n>There's a massive cemetary in the heart of the city. The feeling of it is just off. So many people died there, thousands in the fall of 04. Just bad.\n\nYour fear is perfectly natural, and tremendous amounts of fear can seem supernatural in nature. Combine that feeling with long periods of time, and the psychological stress is enough to cause somebody to become mentally ill - as your friend discovered. As for him getting shot, it's perfectly reasonable to suggest that his mental illness and paranoia contributed to a lack of alertness or compromised his performance as a soldier (it's hard enough to look out for a REAL threat when you're so busy worrying about an imagined one).\n\nI don't mean to rain on your story, and I do believe in and have experienced supernatural things, but unfortunately everything in your story pretty much has mundane and possible rational explanations. \n
I seriously hope these kinds of people go through the most religious, personal stress imaginable when disclosure happens, and then ridiculed by the masses for being such children.
Even consider that those social norms might be there because we're evolved beings with certain normal behavioural traits? \n\nI would say that they explain them rather than justify them. There is a difference between explaining something and condoning it. Unfortunately scientists have often found themselves attacked for explaining things, as people think that they're condoning the thing they've explained.\n\nExplaining why psychopaths behave the way they do is not to condone what they do for example.
This was a video about a magnetic field shaped like a helix. What is your title talking about?
Well, I recall a lot of stories out there about this happening in the presence of something paranormal. The general thought thus far (I heard) was that if there is something present that's trying to manifest itself, it uses energy around it to do so, including that of batteries. \n\nI don't know if that's true or not, but it's what I thought of immediately.
Actually it's "...in homeopathic medicine."\n\n/nitpick
You fail to see the argument. You said:\n>monopolies can't exist without government\n\nAll I am saying is that they can!\n\nThis point of yours is incorrect and even though your stance is now softening you come from a perspective that is out of line with reality.\n\nSome businesses are best in a free market, no argument from me there, but not all!\n\n\n> At least in a free market, people would still be able to compete with the big guy.\n\nI mentioned above how this is not true, you must not understand? Read it again, that is why I told you to respond to my entire post earlier!\n\n\nEx: economies of scale(do you understand what this means)
Across Styx we go.
Apparently, this "ancient" wisdom has only been on the web since 2001, but their pages prior to 2005 appear to have been removed from the archive.\n\n[Check out the wayback machine.](http://wayback.archive.org/web/*/http://www.capacitar.org)\n\nPlus another clue that it's a scam...\n\nThe central office of this "international organization" appears to be a room, or maybe just a box, in [an old house in a crummy part of Santa Cruz.](http://g.co/maps/bys44)  So the "organization" probably only consists of a few people.
It's going to be interesting to see some analysis of this.\n\nIf it is true then great, we've learnt something very fascinating about reality.\n\nI do think though that we're going to find some rather serious flaws, or the results are not going to be repeatable and this is going to be an embarrassing moment for Cornell University.
I respectfully disagree.  Have you ever passed thru security to work in a building?  How would the cord have been pulled?  I know it all sounds easy...but it simply isn't.
So you're not a theist at all, but a deist.
If you do, please post. I would be fascinated to hear what he has to say.
Someone put it like this, "what's different about the violent videogames in Canada that makes them able to play without shooting up schools or theaters?"\n\nIt was something like that, point being, these types shootings are prevalent in America and are comparatively uncommon in most (if not all) of the first world.  \n\nSo how is America different than those places?  Well, we all play the same games (except for Australia and some other countries who get fucked with censorship laws), so why would videogames be causing Americans to shoot up public places, but not people in other countries?\n\n\n(to clarify: I'm not saying this shit never happens elsewhere, I'm just saying it would at least appear to be happening a lot less in other civilized parts of the world.)
>It does help, as well as the vitamin and V8 suggestions (**if you have nutrient and vitamin deficiencies anyway**).\n\nIf you are already getting enough vitamins consuming more isn't going to help anything.
Yo, dumbass\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_fallacy
Very Interesting. There have been many stories of them doing this exact same thing.
That's not part of the definition though; that's just one example of a technology that people believe might be possible afterwards.\n\nI mean, the whole point of calling it a "singularity" was the idea that you can't predict what will happen after it (due to the impossibility — by definition — of predicting the behaviour of an entity more intelligent than you). So your guess is as good as mine, really.\n\nMind-uploading isn't theoretically impossible (probably), so an optimist might say that once we have vast amounts of processing power and molecular nanotechnology available, it could be done. Whether it *will* be done is a different question.
Amway crew, REPRESENT!
I'm just starting a group myself.  Specialized equipment isn't really required right away.  A camera and digital voice recorder is all you really need to start out.  I've done a couple of investigations with just that and caught plenty of evidence with them.  If he has his heart set on getting some technology, I would suggest a night vision camera.  You can get one for relatively cheap.  $80-$150 for a decent low end one.\n\nA good ghost hunt isn't about how much technology you bring though.  Find out what the history of the place is.  What happened there?  Who died?  What activity has been sighted there?  Using this info, you can bring cheap objects with you for the investigation.  A laser pointer/grid, wind chimes, a push button flashlight, a ball, trigger objects, etc.  \n\nAsk questions and leave plenty of time for responses.  If you aren't hearing or seeing anything, try to get some interactive responses.  For example, ask for the ghosts to knock or move things on command.  If that doesn't work, try a little provoking.  Be sure to switch up the methods you use until you find one that works and gets you some responses.  Most of all, have fun.  Its a lot more about what you feel about a place than it is what you capture with your gear.
You should prolly tour down Route 66; there's a lot of haunted areas in a lot of the old ghost towns.  I have a co-\nworker that likes to go out and take pictures at some of the haunted places he goes.  I won't see him again till Monday, but if you send me a pm, I can try to get a list from him when I'm at work next.\n\nP.S. - I live in Central Oklahoma
Anderson's commentary afterwards:\nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqZXuiYU4HA&feature=relmfu
My favourite part:\n> The methodology does not lend itself to randomised double blind controlled trials, for obvious reasons.\n\n"Well, he said it's obvious, so I better not ask why, or I'll look dumb."
*There is a budget behind this, but what is the purpose?*\n\n15 minutes of fame.\n\nalso, lulz.\n\nSome folks will do anything for lulz.\n\nhave you heard?
There is also a question about would the brain still work even without tissue damage. To put in a metaphor it's like the computer is shut down, anything in RAM is lost. What if all our personality and memories are in RAM.
I agree.  Pink slime is gross, but it isn't inherently unhealthy.  \n\nI routinely buy cheap cuts of meat on it's expiration date, (when it has the 50% off sticker) let it age in the fridge until it is coated in a thin layer of slime, then boil it in vinegar before cooking it.  It will be the most tender and delicious meat you have ever tried.  \n\nPotatoes, when baked, then cooled, have nutrients that fresh potatoes dont; there are exceptions to every rule, which is why i said "in general" and "most foods" and not "this is always the case, without exception".\n\nOh, and this is off-topic, but orange juice from concentrate is actually 'more natural' than the stuff advertised as being 100% fresh orange juice.  look into it, it's rather disturbing how much they can do to a food and still get away with calling it "100% natural"\n\nworking on an "organic" farm for a couple summers made me really cynical about food.
You might have too much sympathy for strangers. Tone it down, but not too much or you might become a psycho or cynical pessimist person.
Agreed.
yea sorry it was a bbc version for people in the uk and then the same video but on youtube for people in the us ect\n\nalso i can't see to find a stream of the ufo one because it only came out last night but as soon as i fine it you be the first one to know : )
Except that an important component of faith healing is the denial of secular services. So the faith healing itself was quite intimately tied up with the negligence, and it is incorrect to separate them. The negligence was very real, but it existed expressly because the faith healing allowed the parents to believe that doing otherwise would be negligent.
There's a lot of information online about the Australian (Westall High School) case.\n\nI'm trying to recall where I found out about the one in Southern California.  Initially I thought it may have been at the NUFORC website but when I searched there I couldn't find it.  However I did find yet another California school case that was almost identical near Shasta Lake.  Check it out:\n\nhttp://www.nuforc.org/webreports/036/S36988.html\n\nIn fact if you search the database for California sightings alone using the keyword "school" you'll find many reports of UFOs hovering over schools.  The specific one I'm thinking of occurred at a private elementary school (maybe near Oxnard?).  Kids playing outside during recess watched a disk land in a wooded gully north of the playground, and as I recall saw humanoid creatures outside the craft from behind the chain-link fence surrounding the yard.  Some of the parents heard stories about the incident and tried to investigate further.
Freaking magnates, man, how do they work?!
Probably time travelers from the future, taking your tools to study them and forgetting to put them back. \n\nHonestly, no idea
Lots of government agencies have "kids pages."  What makes you think any of the activities on the page have anything to do with obedience or rejecting critical thinking?\n\nIt's pretty much the information that's on the public pages, but clumsily dumbed-down.  \n\nI think it's a waste of taxpayer money, since they probably paid some contractor a million dollars for a solid week of work, but I don't see anything more nefarious than that.
If he hadn't been the type of guy to be into alternative medicine, he also might not have had the outlook that lead him to be such an amazing designer of devices.  It's hard to say for sure, but trying to wish one part of someone was different doesn't take into account that we are a big mix of features, and changing one bit would alter the rest.
Sharpening my knives.
Sure, my original response certainly wasn't complete.
If instead of going to Heaven or Hell we actually become ghosts, then I would troll the hell out of everyone!
A screw or debris is more likely, that's what I said. \n\nBut yes, I have no issue believing that a civilization can build an Arc ship. It's going to be mostly hollow on the inside, so not a lot of mass is necessary. And if you can control gravity, then there are no problems being around other large masses.
From an energy standpoint alone, an underground building is much more expensive.\n\nIf you want to build something above-ground, you need to stack a bunch of rocks on top of one another (possibly in clever ways). Properly done, a building can be usable for centuries with next to no maintenance.\n\nIf you want to build something underground, you have to haul many tonnes of rock dozens of metres vertically, then install continually-running sump pumps throughout (because any large underground building is almost certainly well below the water table). Depending on depth and climate, an underground building will also need continual heating or cooling.
I'm quite pleased at this, but I suspect that a large part of this ruling is due to government pressure by pharmaceutical companies.\n\nImagine the societal progress we could make if we could reconcile corporate interests with tolerance, education, and rationalism.
Interesting. Have you done anything to verify her statements? Did she say anything that was correct and she couldn't have possibly known?
You may be surprised to see what can happen when a [wind turbine fails](http://youtu.be/CqEccgR0q-o).
I remember walking through cold spots like an A/C vent blowing on me (but with no A/C vent in sight) and I remember very distinctly hearing, "General Quarters, General Quarters.  All hands on deck."  But no one else I was with heard it.  I thought they were messing with me but when I started to get upset, they swore up and down they didn't hear anything.  I must have been like 12 or 13.  Wow, that was about 17 years ago...  I'm old :(\n-
I'm going to have to say fake, until I hear it for my self, but I did see the weirdest glowing reddish object in the sky last week at 915pm. It looked like it was on fire it was so red. It was amazing.
this is interesting, they don't look shopped on first glance.  TR-3B?
I always love the cries of how it's altering something that makes us human, and by doing so diminishing us all. Because it's in the context of helping people who are in the midst of nightmarish mental anguish regain their lives and sanity. You'd think the most human thing that one would want to preserve is kindness and compassion to people who are suffering.
Are you going to cowardly delete this post of yours as well?\n\nWhy are you so afraid of debating outside of the [/r/climateskeptics](/r/climateskeptics) echo chamber?
Ohhhh.  Okay.  Thanks for the clarification (s).
Seems to be the way. Just look at anything in r/atheist, r/apple r/technology, r/android, and so on. It's either love everything about X unconditionally or you are the enemy.
It's not a theory, it's a hypothesis at best.
I suggest you look more into this. For one thing Kony has left that country 6 years ago. This alone puts a very negative light on the whole matter. \n\nSo they want military intervention for a problem that no longer exists ? \n\nWith their main sponsors being far right wing religious groups you have to suspect they want intervention for other reasons. \n\n\n
If you're honest in your talk that it's clearly bullshit, I don't see the problem.\n\nIf you don't, then you're lying. Selling woo isn't unethical in itself, but lying is.
Agreed.
It's in his post if you didn't catch it. Instead of saying something he was supposed to say, he stayed silent.
You could definitely do it if you used a vacuum chamber instead of a box.
Hahahahaha this comment is hilarious for some reason.
The title doesn't have the word 'treatment' in it at all. The title states 'Government maintains deniability while accepting Zamboni trials'.\n\nThis means the government realizes it could still be bogus but is encouraging (and funding) some studies. If for some reason you meant to say the third paragraph indicates they're funding trials that's not accurate either.\n\nThe latter camp has said it's foolish for gov't to charge headlong into funding a treatment... That's the argument, yes. And the government isn't funding treatment yet. The latter camp would not say that based on this article that the government would now be funding the treatment; only that they are funding studies.
It's not a novelty account. Typically, I'm really wordy when discussing something. The gent part stands for gay ent, as in gay stoner. Personally, I don't get the novelty account shit. I needed a new user name and decided to try to be descriptive. \n\nBTW, if you didn't catch my insinuation, no one gives a fuck if you unsub.
I've never even seen one to begin with.  Might try though if I saw one...be really sketchy though.
Have you ever seen the film [Creep](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZUzM_p6a1k)?\n\nNot the most interesting or original horror film, but it makes such perfect use of the Tube as a scary location.
"Eight hundred meters of cold embalming fluid lies between me and my sunken scientific trust fund."
> This is like saying the entire science of genetics is based on Mendel's ideas.\n\nMendel's ideas still form the basis of our understanding for how inheritance works. He just didn't know the mechanism. Now we do. Do you understand the proposed mechanism for chiropractic?\n\n> you can't say on the one hand that it's as good as massage and then on the other hand that the relevant studies aren't reliable.\n\nMaybe you're misunderstanding what I mean by "as good as massage". It might temporarily relieve pain by stimulating endorphin release, or by simply giving the patient a placebo sense of well-being, but it has no real therapeutic benefit.\n\nThe studies I know of that show positive results are poorly designed in that they do not provide a proper control. Because of this, the studies are unable to show if the positive effect is actually coming from chiropractic treatment as opposed to a placebo effect from the patients simply getting personal attention and touch. [Better controlled studies](http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=placebo+chiropractic&btnG=Search&as_sdt=0%2C48&as_ylo=&as_vis=0) show no significant difference between chiropractic treatment and placebo manipulations. \n\nI haven't even touched on the fact that occasionally people who are treated by chiropractors wind up with injuries as a result. So what we have is a lack of good evidence for positive results along with a potential for injury. In my opinion this is a service that people should not be allowed to charge for.
It was closed down because people posted some UFO videos that were banned by the govenment, then there was a huge thread about it and people were attempting to mirror the video and post other links.  Reddit was forced to close it or lose their domain name.
Seems like the word has attached itself to a particular branch of defense in debate these days.  The word has diverged from its original origins.  Personally, I'd call Socrates a philosopher, instead of an apologist.  After all, he tried to have falsifiable tests of his own theories, and moved on after old ones were proven wrong. Just look at the "philosophers" which self-identify as apologist these days.  There are NO secular debators among those ranks.
other than the many classified documents released, many governement and army officials comin out, astronauts admitting there existence, millions of feet of film from around the world of encounter after encounter and dont forget about the personal stories of many people
Fake. here is more of the same room. [this guy, it's called halloween] (http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=fvwp&v=0CvyMZbNpwk). [and this more ouija stuff from him.] (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_E_e9Tlz0M&feature=fvwp&NR=1).\n\nHe clearly has been working on this effect for a while.\n\n~~EDIT: I am not sure why my formatting doesn't work but I think its because of aliens.~~\nEDIT: I am a dingus but I fixed it.
This gag..
Okay, you are asking for evidence. DID YOU WATCH THE FILM THAT THIS POST IS ABOUT! In this film he says he took film of a flying saucer which the government confiscated. Are you saying Gordon Cooper is a liar? Look man, you just keep telling me you don't believe anything because there is no scientific evidence. I link to scientific evidence and you say it doesn't mean anything.\n\n\nHere how about the Bob White Object:\n\nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KL8lRBryGco\n\n\nDid you watch Stanton Friedman's movie? if you want evidence there is a ton there.\n\n
Not a "machine" in that sense. I don't want to describe the setup 'cause I want to apply to Jref first. I promise I'll show you guys after that. Best I can do for now :\\
Sorry, but naturally I'm skeptical of your intentions.
*grammatical error/an error of grammar :P
Do you have a link to the other story?
I disagree on one or two points.\n\nWe don’t make women weak, we just facilitate it by doing whatever they ask of us.\n\nWe don’t make women insecure by forcing them to wear low cut tops, high cut skirts, closely tailored clothes in general, high heels, etc.; they do it to themselves by insisting on looking attractive. (Think about the word for a second.)\n\nWomen aren’t pathetic, vulnerable creatures, they’re conflicted, self-destructive ones.
testing: Here's a link to [google map](https://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=Johnstown,+PA&daddr=Pittsburgh,+PA&hl=en&sll=40.39209,-79.45892&sspn=0.726914,1.165924&geocode=FVVWZwIdDr9L-yn5hduqLxHLiTEV4E_nEeWxlA%3BFTETaQIdElw7-ykDhQZIb_E0iDE0G6JaoRX5jQ&oq=pitts&t=h&gl=us&mra=prev&z=16) of the power plant visible from 422 west of Johnstown. \n
Well, if we are being observed, and there is a very good chance that we are.  It's a bit unnerving to think that we are a science experiment.
*people's
They forgot to mention the importance of **humanism** in the western world, a philosophy without we wouldn't have the today's society.  Democracy stems from humanism in contrast with the indisputability of vertical authority in Abramanic religions. Social mobility stems from humanism, in contrast with casts and classes with especial privileges. The concept that everyone's lives have the same importance, too. The abolition of slavery can't be understood without a grip in humanism. Etcetera. \n\nPeople learn those concepts since birth from culture, they dwell in them, they benefit from them without even questioning where the paradigm comes from, so it’s not a surprise that for the majority those concepts are more important than those in the bible, so alien nowadays to humanism.\n \nFurthermore, they learn that they have a say in the matter, that **one's opinion plays an important role** in one's life and in society in general. They learn that there is an inherent right to freedom of consciousness, religion, philosophy etc. and freedom to express them. Good examples of societies where humanism didn't take deep hold are many Muslim societies.\n\nSo “egonovism” would be in consequence nothing more than the –rather unconscious- adoption of humanism in everyday’s life as a cultural trait, reflected in religious or philosophical opinions, and those who recent it or want some form of Authoritarianism are marginal groups that reject some of its aspects.     \n
>No, just a hair before 1980 is when it changed\n\nI disagree. 1970 is when we see the signal starting to clearly diverge from solar forcings.\n\n>I'm assuming you picked 1970 so you can say its "climate" because otherwise the spurt sudden spurt of 20 years of warming isn't long enough to be considered "climate".\n\nYou assume wrong. That seems to be your thing. 20 years is enough to show a multidecadal trend, though.\n\n>You could rightfully claim that the warming persisted for 30 years but you can't claim the rate kept up.\n\nSure I can, since the warming hasn't stopped.\n\n>What are you going to do in a few years archie when there's been more time spent without any warming than the warming spurt of the 80s and 90s?\n\nNothing, "poitsplace", because that's *very* unlikely to happen.\n\n>Why must you lie like that?\n\nI'm not lying. You, on the other hand...well, that's unfair. You could simply be an idiot.\n\n>You know the AMO went into its warm phase\n\nThe AMO doesn't add energy to the Earth's weather system. It's just a cycle moving temperature from the atmosphere to the ocean, and vice versa.\n\nMeanwhile, we have tons of empirical evidence [showing that the heat content of the ocean *and* the atmosphere have continued warming](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0375960112010389). Hmmm, who should I believe, a known science denier like you, or actual scientists?\n\nGive it up, poitsplace, you lost. An increasing number of Americans agree that AGW is real. The lies propagated by your side are increasingly easier to debunk. You're down to mindlessly repeating the same old BS, and all of your foaming-at-the-mouth won't make it true.\n\nHey, at least you can still comment about sex.
If it was only your child, it'd be fine. But not immunizing kills other children. We ban people from taping machetes to their car's bumpers for the same reason: it's stupid and can/will kill people.
The guy who died while swimming did he have a bathing suit on?
Yeah, I get what you're saying. It would be cool to have a moniker that conveys all that, but I have no idea what a good one would be. Definitely not "brights".
[According to McGraw](http://www.unifreethought.com/search/label/Fursdays%20wif%20Stef), this is what happened\n\n>Then, switching gears, Watson made a remark to the extent that there are people in our own community who would not stand up for her in these sorts of situations; my name, organization, and a few sentences from my blog post then flashed on the screen before my eyes. She went on to explain how I didn’t understand what objectification meant and was espousing anti-woman sentiment.\n\n>My first reaction was complete shock. I wasn’t surprised that she had seen my post, but I didn’t think she would choose to address it during her keynote, let alone place it in a category with people advocating for her to be raped. In fact, I was excited to possibly speak with her afterward in order to discuss the matter face-to-face. Instead, all I could do was just sit there and watch myself being berated for supposedly espousing anti-woman views and told that I wouldn’t stand up for women in sticky situations with men, as one hundred of my peers watched on.\n\nSee I can quote too! Now if only Watson decided to keep her comments to the internet where we can all see what happened, we'd have a much more definitive story. Instead, Watson decided to shift to an audience where she had more power and recognition, which is why I'm apt to believe McGraw.\n\nAdditionally, Watson's argument concerning sexual attraction vs sexual objectification is flawed and assumes that all men understand when a woman is and is not interested. They both left a bar at 4 in the morning, so I think it's safe to say the guy made a drunken mistake of thinking Watson was attracted to him. If Watson doesn't like the fact that drinking makes people stupid, she shouldn't hang around in bars.
Militant Agnostic: "I don't know, and neither do you".
I know that word has been over used frequently. But this person made constant death threats towards people, their family, entire groups of people going as far as to drop by their conferences, look up private information, and hand deliver messages.\n\nThe point where he moves from annoying asshole on the internet to a threat was crossed a long time ago.  He was using threats of physical violence & bodily harm to scare people into shutting up.
Has anyone tried remote viewing to verify their experiences? I tried to look at the license plates of the cars outside but could never focus on the numbers.
Not one of the ones you mentioned, but if I have to answer creationist claims, I usually head to the [Creationist Claims Index](http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/) at the [Talk Origins Archive](http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs.html).
How many christian, Scientology, atheist, or mormon nations were we currently attacking?\n\nSouth park did an episode with Muhammad before the war,  the super best friends episode. Remind me, how many death threats did they receive from muslims for that episode. And yet they received a shit ton the next time they tried to depict him. WHAT WAS THE MAJOR DIFFERENCE IN SOCIETY BETWEEN THE TWO EVENTS? \n\nYou see how easy it is for the right wing in america, to drum up hate of entire groups? Many right wingers if not a majority of them, say all muslims are terrorists, all 1.6 billion of them. Now put on the right winger shoes and tunic of a muslim right winger. Think they can also rile up hate of entire groups of people as well? Now imagine how easy it would be if someone attacked a muslim country based on lies? It's not hard to guess the reaction, because we in america, with our right wing, would react the exact same way.\n\nLast WTF IS THIS DOING IN SKEPTICS? /r/politics maybe. Yeah religion is anti skeptic, but that doenst mean it belongs here.\n
It would be interesting to try that in practice. I would be very happy to discover that it works out as you describe; I have good suspicion it might not though... (Maybe I'm a pessimist, I don't know, but especially after seeing what humans actually spend their time on, it's very hard for me not to be...)
I've noticed a lot of "sugar-free" products that contain maltodextrin.
Giant baked Alaska?
Did you hear that!\n\nThat faint scream.\n\nI heard it again! I think it's getting closer!\n\nOh look, a rat just ran past!\n\n:-|\n\n:-)\n\n:-D
Not that much of a role. The bigger role was electing Alan Greenspan to Federal Reserve chair. His hands-off policies are what caused it. Partly Clinton's fault, he trusted Republicans too much.\n\nAlso there was never any existence of regulation of Derivatives, Credit Default Swaps, and credit-rating-agency accountability. These are the key issues surrounding the financial crisis and housing market collapse. Fraud was not illegal.\n\nSo there was no way for Clinton to have known unless he studied finance. These were brand new concepts during the time. You could argue that he should have had economists/finance people who would recognize these dangers, but few at the time recognized it until the mid-2000s.\n\nIn addition, liberal Democrats voted against the implementation of Gramm-Leach-Bliley ---- which is what you are referring to.\n\nClinton signed it, but only because it had majority support.
I can't find an exact match for the symbol, (most occult characters seem to be a little more complex than just an upside-down numeral), but there does seem to be material dealing with curses using eggs - especially in voodoo.
Here (http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ecam/2011/520182/) is the original article in full.\n\n
Unfortunately it's still teaching kids that the bible is a good resource for morals, which it isn't.
It's like a perfect circle of cognitive dissonance.
My sleep cycle is screwed up because I work third shift.  Many times when I wake up, it feels like I had just fallen asleep mere minutes/seconds before.
The shuttle is clearly moving downward at the beginning, not forward as I believed. \n\nI did exactly what you said and the movement of the object does not correlate with the movement of the WSF in the frame. Not only that, but the movement of the WSF in the frame actually accelerates after the object has crossed most of the screen with no discernible change in the object's speed or movement. \n\nI think you should watch it again. Also, if the object had reached the arm we would be able to tell if it were close to the camera or far away. It's convenient that it does not, to either proponents of a conspiracy or hoaxers.\n\n(edit: sorry guys for double posting this comment)
Sorry, that's not gonna cut it.
The distinction is meaningful in the sense that if we cannot distinguish between the two scenarios then there is no way for us to know whether or not lucid dreams are in fact lucid.\n\nI have had a number of experiences that people describe as "lucid dreaming," however my sceptical mind raises the question I posed. It's not about affecting anything, it's about knowing the truth of something.
13 year old cod player wouldn't come up with anything more imaginative then "FAGGOT, FAGGOT, TUBER FAGGOT"
Some actually do. You can perceive a lot about people, and if she really can help people... it might be considered unlicensed psychotherapy. She's successful.\n\n"I see... a bright future for you! You make millions!"\n\nIf you even take a look at the douches who practice 'magic', they are aware that 'real' magic doesnt exist. Would 'clairvoyant' encouragement seem all too brutal to accept?
Pond scum rises to the top, too.
First, you're backwards: it's "like cures like" so a homeopathic preparation of acid would likely claim to cure acid burns.\n\nSecond, you will likely encounter the impenetrable claim that homeopathics cannot cause harm.  Somehow, via magic, they always help and never harm.  You can't overdose.  Good things can't be diluted to cause bad effects.  As I said: magic.\n\nAnd if something has multiple effects, the homeopathic preparation thereof only has the good effect you desire.  So, if you're having trouble sleeping, homeopathic caffeine will help you sleep but do so without, say, causing sluggish thinking or a dangerously slow heart rate (other opposite effects of caffeine).\n\nOne more time: it's magic!
This is going to sound strange... But what did the blindless *look* like?
I don't think that the argument is silly actually. It's a thought experiment and it seems valid.\n\nIt's not an argument in favour of the existence of gods or evil aliens though. But we can't rule them out.\n\nAlso evil aliens aren't incompatible with genetic mutations in humans, they're superfluous.\n\nFrom what I read in the quoted text it doesn't look like the philosopher is claiming to believe in gods or evil aliens, maybe if I read the full transcript I could find out if he actually is trying to defend such an irrational belief, but the quoted text doesn't indicate that.
When the clouds are in focus the light bulbs being reflected in the window are out of focus.
Nice try psychology trick. But instead of red hammer I thought of having sex with my mother.
That's entirely speculation, and not supported by any factual evidence.\n\nThere are a lot of things that are possible in the most liberal sense of the word, but when their probabilities are so minuscule they may as well be assumed implausible.\n\nYou can't rule anything out unless you have 100% knowledge, sure, but you can't assume a theory is correct without any evidence to support it.\n\nThere's a lot of blatantly different level of standards of this community, the skeptical ideas are often written off without much consideration, but the believers will jump through hoops and take massive leaps of faith on anything remotely interesting or controversial.\n
Actually that would probably be the best way to do it.\n\nLet the Free Market Decide!
[better version](http://www.smartkpis.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/Calvin_Hobbes_Data_Quality.gif)
did it look anything like this video?... that was filmed almost 4 years ago to the day?\nhttp://www.disclose.tv/action/viewvideo/2130/uFO_orb_fleet_over_San_Francisco_Bay_11_18_07/
You're not thinking of the number, you're thinking of the _partial_ series\n\nsum_{n = 1}^\\m (9/10^n)\n\nAnd yes, as m approaches infinity, then the sum approaches 1.  However, the _number_ .9... is not the partial sum, it's the sum at m = infinity.\n\nBy definition the real numbers have the [Archimedean property](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedean_property), which states that for some given x < y, then there must exist some number n such that nx > y.  This matters because it means that no real number can be infitesimal to another, in other words, no number is so infinitely small that you can't add it to itself until it's eventually larger than any other arbitrary number.\n\nIf we look at the number .9..., then we have to ask ourselves, given x = 1 - .9...., what does x equal?  And it would turn out that x would be infitesimally small, and therefore not a real number.\n\nThe general problem I see is that even though people intellectually realize that infinity never stops, they never really internalize that fact.  As such, you tend to think of it as if there were some end to the .9..., and you can then add .000...1 to it and roll it all up back to one.  However, this is not true, and infinity never ends.  It is this property that makes .9... exactly equal to 1.
All I'm saying is that "truthing" is based on skepticism.
Haha yeah. I don't have an idea, sadly.
waterboarding.
The research done by the pros says that roughly 5% of sightings are truly unexplained.
That's really, really high up in the sky if it's an RC copter or plane. Here's an RC jet plane for reference, it's pretty safe to say that this isn't one; it's very noisy and flies just like a real jet:\n\nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTHWBSluUjU\n\nEdit - just had a thought how easy it would be to kill someone with one of these. This makes lawn darts look like Nerf!
Back when I watched baseball, I wouldn't change my position on the couch if the team was doing well, and I'd switch sides if the team started to do poorly.\n\nI knew for a fact it didn't do anything, hell most of the time the game was already over (I Tivoed them to skip commercials, down time, and boring times... 4 hour games were done in about 40 minutes) but I kept doing it.
First off: great find !\n\nI'm having difficulties trusting in the honesty of their reactions. Somehow it seems acted and way to controlled. Also i find it a weird time to stop the recording, since everybody i know, who had experiences like that or similar, completely forgot about what they were doing in that moment. So it seems weird, she remembers to stop the recording at that time.\n\nI'm not being conclusive here, but i do not trust this video.
Appeal to Emotion has some similarity to what you're describing.
i assume this is marketing. he's already got your interest piqued and will likely steer the convo into selling something.
Nobody wears those here anymore though.
Alright, so ? If that came with a study showing it has no downside, I'll be the first to be happy. Wikipedia seems to be unsure about wether it's safe, and apparently, it's dangerous for amphibians.\n\nEven if it was completely safe, it's an anecdotic evidence. 1 herbicide being ok does not make every herbicide ok.
I suspect you have witnessed some type of energy coming through a portal, something so strong it overwhelmed and superimposed a "count" cycle upon the consciousness of other "resonant" people (and doggie) around the event. Once the energy left things returned to normal....
>No, you test them to see if they are replicable or not. You don't try to prove them false, you they to see if they are true or false.\n\nI'm sorry, I know it's not the point of the discussion but I can't let that stay. The hypothetico-deductive method is entirely based on disproving your hypothesis. You have an hypothesis, and you try to find evidence in conflict with the hypothesis. This principle of trying to falsify theories are central in philosophy of science and has been held in high regard, notably by Karl Popper.\n\nTrying to find evidence that conforms with your hypothesis is a way of affirming the consequent, which is a fallacy.
Those who live through such very rarely speak of any romance with it. Most people who can "see" the other side, wish they didn't.
No true Scotsman, eh?
Hey I like where you're coming from.
I think it will carry home the difference between causation and correlation which is a good thing for those not already aware of it. The title is terrible and the science discussed seems very commercial or engineering-like rather than more abstract or broader science approaches.\n\nAs often the case there is some good and some bad there.
This experience might have been [sleep paralysis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis). It's when the mind has become aware while the body is in a REM state, and it usually happens either as you're falling asleep or as you're waking up. Symptoms of sleep paralysis (along with muscle atonia while aware) include hallucinations of a sinister presence in the room. What you've just explained seems to be a very common experience, usually even right down to the description of a dark, shadowy blob or figure near the ceiling. In fact, I've already left a similar comment on a story in this very thread that resembles yours. Such an experience is often mistaken as a ghost encounter.\n\n*edit*: took the "just"s out to avoid confusion about the nature of REM sleep.
that was most everything I would have typed out if I wasn't using my phone at the time... thank you
...but it aligns like that every year!
the problem with this fallacy is that idiots don't understand what it means.  even the author of the article doesn't understand it.\n\nlike you point out, he can't figure out who is qualified and the extent of their qualifications.  a pilot is very qualified to say "yes, it flew this way, and then it flew that way.  i don't know what it was."  the faa controller is qualified to say "the radar showed an unidentified aerial vehicle move from these coordinates to these, and then these, and then it went off radar.  it broadcast signals on frequencies x, y, and z."  but neither is qualified to say pretty much any more than that.  everything else is speculation.\n\nbut on the other end, i don't care who you are, a few hours on wikipedia will NEVER make you even remotely as qualified in complex fields as anyone with 20 years experience and multiple post-grad degrees in that field.  highly qualified people will be much better able to perceive/discover/research the relevant facts, and be able to render a more thorough and accurate opinion.  looking up how to deliver a baby on youtube is no different than buying an adjustable wrench.  sure, it works for some situations, but when it comes to doing the job right with a high degree of accuracy, this general shit doesn't cut it.  it's why doctors and lawyers and engineers cost a lot, and wikipedia is free.  you're paying for some degree of certainty.  we'd all love to believe that untrained janitors can research, review, analyze, and calculate just as well as MIT mathematicians, but it just doesn't happen in real life.\n\nlooking through the posts below, a LOT of people have a problem with this guy's concept of this fallacy.
If there is zero risk in vaccinations... then you are correct in that being an unsubstantiated claim.
this reminded me of the[ greatest British science show of the 1970's](http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=search_playlists&search_query=look+around+you&uni=1)\n\n\n
Assuming that there is intelligent life that has found us, it's more likely that they would casually observe us from a distance as opposed to making contact and thus creating the possibility that they might interfere with our civilization while we're in relative infancy. We would have to make some great achievement (interstellar colonization, or using a wormhole to travel from one point in space to another; the prime directive essentially) before they would make any attempt at contacting us. That's the way I see it, anyways
They aren't from NJ so they don't represent it.  deal with it nigger.  u mad
Take anything to do with Nazi's and their supposed exotic tech with a pinch of salt, most of this just sounds like mental masturbation "What if Roswell happened, but with Hitler and WW2?" \n\nAt the end of the article he claims the Nazi's even detonated nuclear weapons.
A drastic and sudden change in direction or speed would convince me that it's not space debris.
Ditto.  Especially for things like beets, carrots, and potatoes, where the pesticides are absorbed right into the part that you're eating.
. o O (Hmm...that looks a bit like Hugh Laurie...nah, probably not, what are the chances?  And the guy he's sitting next to...Oh, OK)
Yes, if you lock them up in a compound and screen all communication to the outside world.  And even that doesn't work, as demonstrated by the fact that several scientists sneaked messages out in code.
Could people stop disparaging him for this video? Seriously, it's pathetic to watch you spew this bile because you are unable to accept for even a moment that Chopra isn't this completely and irrevocably an evil person.
This was posted last week.
I believe that a mind is omnipotent inside of itself - aka fantasy. If God exists, he'd be like that. Question is: Can he create a reality aka rock he can't lift?
"Behave or the boogeyman will get you!"
 I have time to kill so...\n \n * [The translated website the article links.](http://www.microsofttranslator.com/bv.aspx?from=&to=en&a=http://ngoisao.net/tin-tuc/chuyen-la/2012/05/co-be-11-tuoi-co-kha-nang-phong-hoa-199582/) Looking around the website, they have lame rumors as stories.\n\n * [Video of the incident.](http://www.microsofttranslator.com/bv.aspx?from=&to=en&a=http://ngoisao.net/tin-tuc/chuyen-la/2012/05/co-be-11-tuoi-co-kha-nang-phong-hoa-199582/) Also has two articles which are kind of conflicting.\n * ["Spontaneous combustion girl under suspicion"](http://www.lookatvietnam.com/2012/06/spontaneous-combustion-girl-under-suspicion.html)\n * ["Police say 'bizarre' fire caused by short circuit"](http://www.thanhniennews.com/index/pages/20120520-bizarre-fire-or-short-circuit.aspx)\n * ["Expert suspects Vietnam fire girl burns things to get attention"](http://www.thanhniennews.com/2010/pages/20120523-expert-suspects-fire-girl-burns-things-for-attention.aspx)\n\n * ["Vietnam 'fire girl' to be studied by expert"](http://www.thanhniennews.com/index/pages/20120516-vietnam-fire-girl-to-be-followed-by-expert.aspx)\n\n * Lastly within the same site, [a past article](http://www.microsofttranslator.com/bv.aspx?from=&to=en&a=http%3A%2F%2Fngoisao.net%2Ftin-tuc%2Fchuyen-la%2F2012%2F01%2Fcau-be-co-the-nhin-xuyen-bong-toi-nhu-meo-189500%2F) came from Oddity Cental(Website O.P linked).
That...is like something out of a movie. I read the wiki, then followed links in the wiki to other wikis about this wiki. So basically, the government heard about Paul and decided to start a disinfo campaign to study the effects of word of mouth conspiracy and how far it would spread (also for the purposes of covering up actual military projects) They, with their lies about aliens, drove him to a point of insanity that put him in a mental hospital 3 times and then finally let go.\n\nThen, one of those involved in disinfo, went even farther releasing the majestic documents and such and creating the entire "ufo lore" whilst letting people and their fantastical imaginations spread it for them. Genius. Really. "UFOS" could be advanced military projects that have gone on for more than 60 yrs and we wouldn't even know it.\n\nI liked the part towards the end where it said something like "the military officers reviewed paul's evidence and found he did infact have video and photos of weird shit in the sky that we can't explain". Almost like the article started with "Well, ufo lore was made up from the start" and then ending with "but there might be something out there"
this has been happening to me since childhood. sometimes the dream comes true the next day, other times its months or years later. My mom and grandma (her mom) have the same thing too, so growing up they always told me that we were a very "intuitive" family. we usually tell people when we dream about things happening to them, so they can avoid the danger, or change whatever we saw happening.\n\nfor example, the other day I dreamt that my aunt (who had just moved into a new apartment) was moving boxes, and fell down some stairs and got hurt. usually i would have warned her, but this time i was too busy to call her. later that day she fell down the stairs moving boxes, and hurt her back pretty bad.\n\nunlike my mom and grandma, however, i get terrible panic attacks when i walk into a situation that i had deja vu about. the attacks last anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes, and i have no recollection of the attack once it subsides. i start hyperventilating, shaking, and sweating, sometimes i am unresponsive, and a lot of times i wander out of the building, and end up somewhere completely different. a couple of times i found myself standing in the middle of a road. now my friends know to follow me if this ever happens, in case i do something like that.
When you ask for a source to back up a scientific claim, Wikipedia and Mythbusters doesn't cut it.  Does he have a source from a credible journal?  One with good methodology that has been reproduced independently?\n\nIf someone makes a claim, they have the burden of proof.  The person you mention doesn't seem to have met that.
Bingo.
Interesting, I loved the series and was dissapointed when ultimately the story didn't match up. I was thinking maybe he was a childhood friend of the kids who spent the summer there and the memories were just jumbled the way they get with kids, and you know, being born again and stuff. :)  Always the eternal optimist here. \n\nWhen my sister was very young her big thing was 'When you're young again....."  for example: ' When you're young again will you remember me?'  'When you're young again will you like pizza' on and on.  I have always thought that was interesting, even back then I thought it was a clue.
Did they provide any evidence that they had been falsified or modified? At this point this looks like a plain old hack and leak.
Same reason the evening news shows car wrecks, scandals and robberies: people aren't interested in what works, they want to see what's broken and gawk at it.
Well from what i know,white noise is a phenom,that just occurs. Are you tying to reach someone in particular? \n\n
I can appreciate the humor of the comment while the first question actually made me wonder about how a person would interpret it.
I've been listening to all the bullshit about FC for years.  Two easy tests could confirm the efficacy or lack thereof in an hour.  \n1. Hire a Facilitated Communicator who does not speak the language of the subject.\n2. Give the subject a piece of trivial information when the facilitator isn't in the room.  Have the Facilitator retrieve it.\nEasy repeatable test that have never, to the best of my knoledge been done.
It said "possibility," but that doesn't make much sense.\n\nWhat does "raising the possibility" even mean? Something is either possible, or it isn't. Any which way, a deathbed confession still doesn't "raise the possibility."
And it's everyone's fault but theirs.
This is a tangential thought, and not intended as a troll -\n\nThere is a paradox to me that we are mad about modern woo yet we are so keen to protect and preserve ancient woo
I have never seen a group of people so afraid of data. (Homeopathics excluded, of course. They're only afraid of data if it's heavily diluted.)
This seems less like r/skeptic and more like r/conspiracy.
TIL donuts are animal discharge.
Agreed.
Not sure, but here's the same girl.\n\nhttp://www.trueghosttales.com/img/fire-girl-tn.jpg
I believe you're thinking of a crew. He's asking about the American onomatopoeia for the sound a cat makes.
On the other hand it would probably end racism if these hypothetical aliens went public. Xenophobic people would have other things than something mundane as skin color to focus on.
I'm mostly wondering how they faked the chemtrail on the Apollo 11 mission that didn't go to the moon.
Well, taste is completely subjective.  If that's you're only complaint against Aspartame, then I don't really see any problem here.\n\nI've never had a problem with Aspartame cola myself.  In fact, I like it better than regular cola.  But I have no argument against anybody whose tastes are different than mine.
I am going to steal this line to use with mothers who use amber necklaces on their infants.\n\nCheers!
Anyone watch haunted highway? To me, everything seems to happen right on cue. \n
god damn that dude can talk fast...
Also, if you have questions about the validity of my post, why don't you ask some questions that might help clarify your skepticism...instead of being a monosyllabic negative Nancy.
Yeah... this isn't funny when you telegraph the punch line.
2,000 gallons of soda per day for about a year or two you say?\n\n...Challenge Accepted, says I.
It's called discussion, all of you get so butt hurt you think I'm insulting some random persons mom. Get out of the comments, and keep your days out my week you freaks.
On the internet the fake-skeptic groups are a 'cult' if they reject tremendous evidence and theories validated by actual scientists - best examples [/r/creationism](/r/creationism) and [/r/climateskeptics](/r/climateskeptics).\n\nThe real scientific skepticism is looking AT ACTUAL EVIDENCE - and excuse me when we get somehow tired here by the endless amount of retards from the Internet who can barely add but are very convinced they are smarter than the actual scientists - since some website full of crap-science told them something which they don't quite understand but keep repeating anyway ...
Look, just because people are ill-informed and have silly beliefs doesn't make them "dumbasses". It could just mean they haven't been exposed to the same information as you have. \n\nPost like these are how I spot judgmental assholes in the wild.
Skeptics say there is a valid explanation for this phenomena but we will ignore their evidence and experience in order to sensationalize an otherwise ho hum story.
Yes.  Because there is no distinction between them.  Never mind the fact that the mind forgets dreams unless an overt effort is made to remember them and things like duologue and detail are usually non-existent or forgotten.  But there is also the fact that several days later I tried fixing the lightbulb that had unscrewed in front of me and found that the socket part of the bulb had lost a layer and sort of deteriorated inside the socket - something that I've never seen a light bulb do before or since.
Well if you think about it, one would also be able to see vast freeways which can be much wider than the great wall. That's how I figured out it was a wall of lies.\n\nEdit: Rodman930 beat me to the punch.
I did this in New Orleans and it was one of the more interesting things I did. I got to see where movies were filmed (Bram Stoker's Dracula)and famous murder cases and very old homes. They talked about why the graves are above ground. Lot's of neat architecture and religious sites and why their architecture is a mix of different cultures. They talked about French and Spanish clashes in the streets of New Orleans. It was really pretty interesting, the ghost stuff was just for the show and the books they sell you as the end really.
we did.  the issue is the bait and switch.  TAM ain't cheap, ya know?
> scientists have a hard time agreeing with each other about ANYTHING.\n\nAbsolutely, hence the reason you had to send this message out via smoke signal.
That would be going against the rules of paranormal video recordings though.
Science covers the paranormal as well, because the claim is that the paranormal affects our physical, observable universe, so it is very relevant to science. The link you've provided uses terms like "spacetime" and "quantum," among others. These terms were discovered and defined by science, and are some of the most common terms in science borrowed by pseudoscience in order to inject validity and integrity.\n\nAs I'm sure you already know, when applying skeptical inquiry and critical thought, the "Models Of Magic" just doesn't hold up.
Somebody call Shia Labouf. No, wait... don't.
That's what bothered me about this whole thing. That is why I made the NYPA comment to you, apparently some of the downvote brigade didn't like that.\n\n>Need something debunked by those in the know? Looking to exercise some critical thinking or research skills? Want to eviscerate pseudoscience, idiocy, and irrationality wherever it lurks? Skeptic's Subreddit, where all the cool kids go.\n\nYes, some of that happened in the thread, but last I checked it was condescension and down vote happy.
I've had this same idea for a while... I'm glad to find other people have thought and believed in it also! Still not sure if I entirely believe, but it's a theory and an interesting one at that!
>There's a legitimate explanation for everything.\n\nAnd while some find it boring, I think it's amazing.  What we're doing with what we have, what we're achieving... and that it still isn't a blip on the cosmic radar.\n\nAll the while things too small for us to see are changing what we do.  The finding (maybe) of the higgs boson, new treatments for cancer, longer lives, SpaceX, etc.\n\nThings are explained... but they're a long way from boring.
Know what, that makes perfect sense. Enjoy your stay!
This is more in-depth than even Robt. Hastings gets in his book, UFOs and Nukes.  Thanks much for the link!\n\nEDIT:  This link is a *must read* for anyone wanting a definitive report on the Oct. 24th, 1968 Minot AFB sighting.
Ouch. Well...if something big like the phoenix lights happened right now and i were to record it on my iPhone 4s, it would probably just look like grainy darkness with a couple dots in the sky. Same for pictures. Wouldn't be able to tell much, even if you could zoom in, you wouldn't get any real detail. Just try going to an airshow with a cell phone recording everything. Just looks like dots in the sky moving around. Until we get optical zoom on our phones, we probably won't be able to get anything good.\n\nI know what you're getting at. Its easy to be impressed with how far we've come in having these kick ass personal computers with us at all times, but they're not at the level we'd need to show something like this; My camcorder has a lot more zoom and it would still be hard with even THAT to get a good shot of a ufo
"A debate on the internet is like the Special Olympics.  No matter who wins, you're all retarded."
That circle is the camera losing focus on a point source of light.\n
>Well, unless Jesus was actually ALIVE when wrapped...\n\n3-day coma?  "Hey guys, I'm back from the dead!  I saw my father and took a bunch of dead people up into heaven and everything!  Then I came back for a few more weeks cause I love you guys so much.  Huh?  No, I was really dead, not just taking a long nap.  Honest."
That's your opinion. Enjoy living inside your box. We can put people out into space, but to cure AIDS/Cancer/etc. is just too much. \n\nAlso, the few billion they've put into the space program is not that much compared to the TRILLIONS we've spent on missiles and fighter jets. Billions might sound good, but really, the space program has not received a lion's share of funding in any way...
How would they make money in other ways though? The only way they could do it is by offering psychic services. A psychic couldn't start going to the track or a casino without incurring massive cognitive dissonance as their beliefs start crumbling before their eyes.
Oh look... waaaait a minute. :|\n\nhttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jerusalem_night_7088.JPG\n\nDate: March 2008(2008-03)\nAuthor: Hynek Moravec
> Imagine if I were to invite you to a steakhouse and you started lecturing me about animal cruelty.\n\nI would like to formally invite you to join me for a conference on how to become an Amway distributor.  It's a great business opportunity.
Well, if you are legit, it may have been an alien. But I have to wonder who says anything to a kid in a urinal. LOL. But that is the nature of the times.
I've not actually heard a skeptic say that they're not an agreement.\n\nThere are many other inconsistencies and contradictions in the Bible though.\n\nEven if they were consistent though, so what? If all the Sherlock Holmes stories were consistent would that mean that we should believe Sherlock Holmes was actually real?
I'm concerned for you because I've been followed I think by something also. I get cat scratch looking marks all over my back also. One time even cuddling with my wife and it freaked her out. \n\nAt the same time I feel that gut wrenching thoughts of despair. It always seems to happen during down parts of my life as if it feeds off my dread. \n\nJust be careful out there and keep your spirits high. Things seem to go better if you remain cool and happy.
(100+100+100+10+10+10+10+10+10+10+10+10+10\n+10+10+10+10+10+10+10+10+10+10\n+10+10+10+10+10+10+10+10+10+10)/33 = 18.18\n\n(or, [(100x3) + (10x30)]/33 = 18.18)\n\n90% of those numbers are below the average. Derp....looks like I just rewrote the foundations of mathematics.\n\nI love Neil, but it's a little strange to me that he fell for the "50% of a set is always below the average" line.\n\nAlso, consider the context "Half the schools are below-average". I don't doubt that the rating of "Below average" is based on AT LEAST the state's consideration of "average". So, if half of a city's schools fall into the "below average" set...that's cause for concern! \n\nI dunno Neil...of all of the stupidity-with numbers examples you could have pulled, it seems a little disheartening that you'd pull one that is so easily shown to NOT be stupid.
yeah... it would have been more believable if OP would have used the correct age group. I mean anything over 12 would have lost it's spook factor... but 3?! come on! what an idiot lmao
Will you upload the audio file or a clip of it if you find something? Man that gave me the heebie jeebies
because just sending food over there won't solve anything. that would give people a few meals and they are hungry again and still sick. the food problem won't be solved until they can grow their own. and they can't grow their own when ravaged by disease.
Maybe you are lucid dreaming. Right now.
My bad; thanks for the link update.
From their own website:\n\n>What clinical evidence is available to support Sambucol?\n\n..."Sambucus nigra or the black elderberry is a plant native to Europe, Northern Africa and parts of Asia. The flowers and berries have a long history of use in traditional European medicine as well as the berries being used to make wines and cordials. (1) The black elderberry, due to the dark pigmentation of its fruit, contains high concentrations of the flavonoid group of antioxidants called anthocyanins. It is these natural antioxidants that give the elderberry its purple pigment. This means that the fruit of the black elderberry have powerful antioxidant capabilities. Studies looking at the antioxidant activity of many types of fruits, including the black elderberry have shown that the total antioxidative capacity of the elderberry was higher than that of the blackcurrant, gooseberry, cranberry, blueberry and redcurrant Due to the amount of stress that modern society places on our bodies, it may be beneficial to take an antioxidant supplement to help boost the Immune System, particularly at times such as when suffering from a cold or the flu virus.\n\nDietary supplements containing extracts from the black elderberry have long been used across the world for treating cold and flu symptoms, including aches and pains, coughing and nasal congestion. Supplements are available in many forms including expressed juice, teas, syrup and lozenges."\n\n...in other words; none.
As another /r/skeptic 'er who has been banned for similar reasons, I can confirm that the community over there is generally that shitty.\n\nEDIT: hijacking my top comment here, to point to their [welcome page](http://www.reddit.com/r/atheismplus/comments/zpj6b/meta_attention_downvote_brigade/) for people over here. Please remember to look at the comments that are downvoted as well, and try and look at the whole sub, not just the part they've laid out for you. Look for places where there's debate. And don't be a downvote brigade, please.
The wikipage removal never added up. There are plenty of other so called "cuckoos" that have a page up. And as far as I know Phil is relatively  unknown to the average person. \n\nEither way he had pointed out several important things. Like the tunnel boring machines and some of the DUMBS. Some of his stuff supports Bill Coopers (mostly the NWO stuff).\n\nAnyways it's a good read/watch
Scientists don't "jump" on debunkery.  It's a process that plays out when scientists' paychecks are threatened.  For example, in Columbia university, they ADAPTED to make sure these implant-type procedures will never be accredited to them.\n\nThat's all science is; paycheck collectors that need to be in agreement.  The world doesn't have any room or respect for independent analysis.
It's a fact that we have had warmer years in the recent past, but that's possible for it to be random variation. It's not very likely, but if we happened to have a sequence with it being colder than average, then the average would return to the pre-warming values. \n\nYou cannot have something in the future being a fact.
Not very much.  There is a little bit of give between the two pubic bones, but it only accounts for a few millimeters of extra width.  Mostly human babies rotate during birth, and humans pretty much require assistance to successfully deliver.
when thrive first came out, they were charging $5 to watch it online but have since released it for free viewing.
I used to live where that happened. Shitty, shitty place.
Not if you poke the fork tines through all the rings and stack em up and then eat them! Easily the most fun way to eat spaghettios.
Dude, he had chemo many times, he had surgery, he had a fucking liver transplant!!!!\n\nall those things, but waaaaaaaait it's alternative medicine's fault because he tried it for a couple of days! Off course! \n\nget your hand out of the sand, being a skeptic means being **RATIONAL**, not being a blind cruzeder\n\nif anything, the 'real' medicine he did caused more harm
Very well said. To use and already over used quote: "I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"\n\nThe way to deal with this is providing people information about why this is a load of rubbish not banning it because it is.
these people apparently haven't heard about drinks with cane sugar
Nope probably the 80s not too worn. I just found it kinda odd and shoved it in my pocket.
The deepak stuff was enough for me. The 9/11 shit deserves to be deleted though. The 9/11 people have been screaming about just asking questions for years. There questions have been answered a million times, they just don't listen. They need to go away.
I have some major issues with Derren Brown, from what I have seen with him.\n\nMainly, his bullshit with the "lottery prediction". As [aionskull posted](http://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/obetb/what_does_rskeptic_think_of_darren_brown/c3fxx0h), Derren Brown "predicted" the lottery numbers on live television, and then promised to reveal the secret to his trick on national television soon after.\n\nThose who tuned in were treated to an absolute bullshit "explanation" about collective wisdom, and "predicting randomness", just fueling pseudoscientific quackery. As Captain Disillusion says in the video, he didn't make good on his promise, and he took advantage of his audience.\n\nI am a fan of illusionists, who perform a trick for an audience and either don't tell the secret, or don't propagate absolute horseshit explanations. When you hire actors and then pretend to fool them with your mind tricks, and then air it on television as if you're really fooling them, you lose my respect as a "skeptic". \n\nEDIT: grammar
He is planning to show his results (aka suggestions) to the Proceedings of the Royal Society A.  I would say he is pretty sure about his suggestions to put his reputation on the line.
I don't care?
That's impressive.
> So if you look at the gestation period of the human female, it's basically about 295 days. Not from their date of missed period, but from when you actually got pregnant.\n\nAccording to my good friend WolframAlpha 295 days is 42.14 weeks.\n\nOn some random sites I don't entirely trust I've found some statistics that around 82% of babies in Norway is born between (and including) week 38 and 41. \n\nSo, does that mean it is normal to start counting from 'date of period missed' as he mentions? \nI would have guessed that it would be better to guess when the conception took place, or doing sonar-magic on the fetus.
The trouble is that using the wrong term, you then did research on the wrong sorts of products.\n\nNow, instead of respectable scientific sources which do describe legitimate problems with pesticide residues, you're linking to the Huff n Puff Post, a screed by a random and clearly (yes, I scanned the article) politically-motivated unpaid blogger regurgitating sensationalist claims and misunderstood studies.\n\nSure, if you feed rats Roundup, they get sick.  If you drink it yourself, you'll get sick or die.  So?\n\nWhere are the studies about residues at the levels we might realistically experience in food, given that it typically binds to soil or bacteria (becoming inert) within three days after spraying, and considering it is typically used early in a season?  Nobody's going out and spraying Roundup on the corn crop they're about to harvest; they're spraying seedlings.\n\nOh, right.  There weren't any linked in that article.  Just about feeding rats Roundup and being shocked that they got cancer or had other side effects.\n
It's spelled herd immunity :)\n\nWhy don't you get vaccinated right away? Tell the doctor you've never been vaccinated and they'll get you all the right shots.
Beluga whales or a walrus just getting out of the water?
As much as I hate homeopathy this argument isn't really valid.\nHomeopathy is based on the idea that water somehow replicates whatever molecules you put into it, so you dilute a bunch of stuff because you don't actually need any appreciable amount of the original substance.\n\nHomeopathy is still stupid.
You said:\n\n>I do this because apparently there's enough evidence for doctors to prescribe it. *My psychologist recommended it*.\n\nthen:\n\n> Get a degree in pharmacology just to decide the effectiveness of what I am prescribed?\n\n:-)
Which jurisdiction, may I ask?
Lighter, I can believe. You can nondestructively test for that. There are easy ways to determine bone density without destroying it.\n\nStronger... well that's the tricky one to believe. You have to do some sort of structural test to prove this. You could potentially recreate the structure from a different material and test the two designs and then infer an increase in strength but you can't directly prove it without putting a real sample through at least a tensile test. And even then you need multiple samples for the findings to be statistically significant.
Even now I'm trying to not go the religious route. We sat together last night talking and trying to rationalize that should spirits/energy exist how it could be possible. I don't believe for a second this is tied to any specific religion. I do believe however that if "living-energy" is to persist outside the human experience that it stands to reason there all different levels/states of this energy. Now if these spirits are from our dead I suppose you could reason that, just like me punching a wall, once a human dies it's energy will be transferred outwardly. Assuming this is true that energy may have a copy of our memories at the time of death and so would be something like a replica of ourselves once the body dies. With this energy constantly dissipating it would make sense why these spirits need to latch onto something else of greater energy to survive and/or feed off of. This is the rationalizing we came up w/ last night. Some laws of thermodynamics would need to be stretched to make it happen but it's as good a start as rationalizing as any.
wut
I'm building up a hearty HA-HAH! SUCKAS!\n\n\nI have the Huh-HAAAAH pretty down pat. Dripping with the proper levels of joy and disdain at the foolish, but the SUCKAS part sort of undermines that. I like "suckas" but it comes out sounding like a bad Richard Prior imitation. I've still got a bit of time to work it, though. Plus I can always last minute improv it, hit them with something in the moment.
>My friends are all across the spectrum on this, but I know no men who buy astrology.\n\nI believe there is more social (and genetic?) pressure for women to understand people. So the rewards of astrology are perceived as greater.
I immediately discount anything that this freak is involved with. His "talks" on ufo's have turned in self aggrandizing diatribes. It's sad actually.
I realize not everything good that happens is God's doing. I don't believe in God as a personality but as a force of the universe that expresses love. Whenever someone expresses love in their life, God is expressed. I've seen this force in action so many times, I've learned to predict it, and your case is a "classic" example. There you are trying to do the right thing, trying to make ends meet during a really dark time, feeling like things are hopeless, and boom, out of the blue, help arrives. Of course, it could be simply an act of kindness, but to make that theory fit you really have to twist your story because no one knew about your struggle to buy an antenna and what was in your heart at the time. That's why I think spirit acted through a stranger to deliver the message that you should keep going and not give up.\n\nI know someone who, as a young girl, wandered off from her family in a park and ended up in a woods. She climbed up into a tree, playing around, and fell out of it, badly twisting her ankle. Her family had no idea where she was, and darkness was falling. She was miles from ANYTHING remotely civilized. Then out of the blue an old lady with a walker appeared, helped my friend up and practically carried her back to the park area. Her family was in a panic looking for her. The old lady had been praying when a strong feeling came on her compelling her to go to the park and into the woods. Jesus said don't worry, God will provide, and I truly believe it, not because I have "faith" but because I have the experience of seeing it happen.
My deja vu works this way too, OP. You're actually the only other person I've met like this.
There are 8760 hours a year, and we only spend 1 with reduced energy usage. That is .000114% of the year. But hey if it makes people think they are helping and motivates them to reduce usages then its a good thing, otherwise it really isn't doing anything of statistical relevance.
I hate you.\n\nEDIT: I just read you brief comment history, and now I REALLY hate you.
Reminds me of this: http://xkcd.com/628/\n\nHas he been trying to predict the numbers all the time, and he just showed us the only time he got it right?
Single page: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/05/14/120514fa_fact_specter?currentPage=all
I would definitely donate to the Kepler mission if I could but unfortunately, it won't let me...\n\nI also realize that we have no way of knowing how any ET would communicate and that our broadcasting technology has limitations. \n\nHowever, thinking that these ETs may have some "magic" com-tech we can't even imagine (and decide to not listen) is as much a leap of faith as the notion of ETs using enormous, ultra high power radio arrays to communicate and that we may be lucky enough to intercept such a session. \n\nTake Artificial ET for example; Would they bother about time lag?
I get dry skin when I take hot showers. It's really starting to bug me and I should cool it down a bit. Well, when summer starts. lol
I never mentioned aliens or the ETH. Keep your stupid non sequitor memes away from my serious discussions. Thanks.
Proof will be personal knowing in the future. Governments will likely never fully admit to anything... but slowly it'll become common knowledge. I do believe you'll get to a point where there is contact even occurring... people on this planet working together with off-planet beings on various projects, yet certain people on Earth will flat out to refuse to believe this is happening. They will think it's a hoax, or that the craft they're then seeing are from the US military or a new spacecraft from NASA. That rift will continue to exist because humans are amazing at throwing up blinders and believing in the reality that they want to experience. Even if eventually 80 or 90% of the population accepts it, you'll have this minority that flat out laughs and refuses to accept it. They won't care and will use every subconscious trick in the book to get their conscious self to experience their desired reality.
Said the pot to the kettle.
Very small and difficult to see. Could you please be more specific as to what we're looking for here?
>A greater fallacy though is to assume that something happened even though there is no evidence. \n\nI'm not assuming any such thing. I'm in fact an atheist being a little skeptical of his own beliefs. \n\nHowever, I feel I am more willing to acknowledge the possibility than most people on here. In fact, there's a level of dogmatism surrounding the non-existence of God (apparently on here, but especially on r/atheism and especially by Richard Dawkins) that I find incredibly counterproductive to critical thinking.
Heh, cunning, but a homonym would be either:\n\n> sup[poe](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law)sed\n\nor\n\n> sup[poe's](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law)ed
It happens. :) Regardless though, when you viewed this page, it asked you to login? Sorry, just trying to figure out why that is. It's a public-article so anyone should be able to view it. Then Facebook -connect spazzed out on you? That's pretty strange.
Yes, I know that.  But, that is not the case in every country, which is why there is still such destruction of the rain forest.  (For example, Latvia, which exports a lot of wood to the UK, has terrible logging laws and many of its forests are being destroyed because of it.)  When you already have bad logging practices, it takes a very long time to change to more sustainable logging practices, which is a major problem in many parts of the world.  That's why the claim of "renewable" is problematic when applied to this.\n\nEDIT:  When I said destruction of the rainforest, I didn't mean the Oregonian Rainforest, I meant the tropical rainforests in Africa and South America.
...there was a fake festival here.  Or a real festival for tribute bands, anyway\n\nhttp://www.fakefestivals.co.uk/\n
People have gotten really sick from the swine flu vaccine, if hes against that, he has very legit reasons. If hes against mumps, measles rubella hes a fucking moron and should shoot himself.
Immediate family = myself(28), my girlfriend(25) and our daughter(14 months).\n\nIt seems like at all places we've all heard them.\n\nI do, girlfriend doesn't, baby wont know until she can talk haha.\n\nMove 1 was because of black mold in the apartment/lawsuit against apartment complex, held up at my aunt's home(lots of activity since the house was built) until we moved to our 1st rental home(in the family).\n\nMove 2 was to our rental, we moved out because our lease was up and i got a better job offer in Tennessee...activity was just happening and we did what we could to ignore/live with it since nothing hurt us.\n\nMove 3 into our new home we're in now we didnt notice anything until a month into our lease, thats when things started to get interesting.
"Yes madam or mister therapist, I love women! I fully intend to be a red blooded American heterosexual male! Can I have my testosterone now kthnxbye."
No one likes a smarty, especially when they are challenging your long held beliefs, beliefs that help you get through the day.
Awww, get outta here conversionbot.  Lousy no-good piece of junk. (In the voice of the husband from The Honeymooners)
I say "aries" and then headbutt them like the ram they think I am associated with.
When I was a kid, this girl in the neighborhood got chicken pox, everyone else went to her house to play, so we would get it.
I'm glad you pointed that out as it's exactly what I was thinking as I wrote the OP.  Well put.  \n\nHow about from a psychological point of view?  We often look to psychological healers..  Would it violate ethics if they didn't explain the intent of the series of questions they were asking under the belief that you will try to consciously game the answers?  For me personally, questions are rather benign so I would put my trust in that the healer knew what they were doing in working toward my betterment.  The sugar pill's psychosomatic effect could be lost if you explained it (even though evidence points to the contrary in some studies, as pointed out below)..\n\n
I have no idea, but I've seen some weird videos on YouTube of clouds sort of being moved and molded by what seems like well directed bursts of air or gravity.\n\nIf you're into aliens and stuff, this article is interesting. A warning though, it's heavy in the new-agey stuff:\nhttp://the2012scenario.com/2012/04/the-pleiadian-high-council-consciousness-of-our-craft-and-our-earthly-lineage/\n\nClouds behave very strangely sometimes, and there's a lot of different theories as to what's going on there. Filter out the dogma people come up with and try and distill the truth out from the similarities and bare bones observations.
I was once asked to perform a series of blind taste tests between two wines to determine which was the most expensive.\n\nEach time, I picked the one that I liked the least, and I was right until we got to the (Red) Zinfandels.  I likes me some [smokey Zin](http://www.michaeldavidwinery.com/wines/7-deadly-zins/).\n\nPick a wine you like, and drink that.  Extra points if its inexpensive.
I predict, based on what I know about Derren Brown -- that this is not a camera trick. He could not have manipulated the numbers themselves, since this was a valid lottery drawing. The balls were manipulated somehow. When I first heard that he was going to do this, I assumed it would be a similar trick to the horse race predictions. Watching how the video was set up I'm not so sure. Some have pointed out that the balls appear to have moved in the video. Again, I don't think there are camera tricks involved, although the angle the camera is set at may come into play. That the balls are in numerical order rules out some methods.
Well said. Here's [something I wrote on this](http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/8a6bu/operation_ore_exposed_how_thousands_of_innocent/c08o7hx) not long ago:\n---\nI often wonder how much anomalous data it takes for the "coincidence theorist" to acknowledge that their conventional understanding of how the power hierarchy operates simply does not reflect reality.\n\nIt appears as if one must be made familiar with a veritable jigsaw puzzle of seemingly unrelated facts and narratives before one can even begin to comprehend how they all fit together. Until one learns to see the connections for themselves, such data is usually discarded or forgotten, even on those rare occasions it escapes the institutional filters our society has evolved for the dissemination and *repetition* of information.\n\nAny of the various standard narratives offered by our schools, politicians, and media are far more comforting to believe in, those being "normal" in contrast to the autodidactically acquired narrative on behalf of which one stands alone in the face of ridicule and incredulity.\n\nSo what incentive is there to seek out information leading to stange and painful conclusions which could only harm one's social standing?\n\nWho wants to admit to themselves or to their peers that they've been deceived their whole lives in light of conclusions they've drawn from a pile of research society dismisses as irrelevant, untrue, or even insane?\n\nBut is this not the minimal requirement for having an open mind? Certainly we mustn't let the tail wag the dog -- the *facts* must dictate our beliefs, not vice-versa.\n\nNo matter what our beliefs, we all grow quite attached to them; after all, belief is an attachment. But to what? To truth? Whose truth? How can we really know what's going on outside of our little perceptive window into reality? Do we seek truth for ourselves, or do we allow whatever truth emerges from the collective activity of millions of selfish human cells, each concerned primarily with their own individual goals, dictate our reality?\n\nI guess what I am asking is this: at what point have we collected sufficient anomalous evidence that, by the very same Occams Razor we would use to cut down the conspiracy theorist, we must own up to a more serious approach to truth in our own lives than the socially conditioned taunt:\n\n"You delusional, tin-foil hat wearing nutter!"
Maybe Ron Paul is Jesus...
You haven't proven one thing I've said wrong. Your only attempt was with your 'statistic' gathering which was quickly proven inaccurate, by me. The one thing I slightly went back on was the US vs. Europe mass murder counts only because it's rather difficult to prove that and I conceded that Europe is at least somewhat lower in counts when compared to the US, but that gap is much closer that the gun ownership gap between the two. Even with my concession it still doesn't help your argument since the issue is extremely complex and you are try look at it like it's a simple matter.  Culture affects homicide and violence more than anything, not guns. You are trying to make correlation equal causation without any solid evidence to back you. It's also rather annoying that you completely ignore points I make that go against your argument and then accuse me of moving 'goalposts', this is a rather sad tactic by you.
Post this in /UAP
Why are you not skeptical of the claim he exists? Why do you believe there is a single god instead of multiple?
Random question : are you from Romania, Cluj-Napoca?
No I know what it means, but OP said  "aceribo". Just giving him a hard time.
Municipal water supplies contain residual chlorine from the sanitation process. They have to in order to make sure all the microorganisms are dead. But they are very careful to test the output levels to keep them safe. I seriously doubt your mother is in any danger. If she's really worried she could purchase something like [this](http://www.amazon.com/Sprite-HO-WH-M-Universal-Shower-Setting/dp/B000CC1S9I) and save a lot of money.
I have a similar situation. I put my childhood cat down a couple years ago and a few days after she died I walked into my room and saw her sitting on my floor crouched down like how she always sat watching me and I thought nothing of it, so I turned to put my lamp on and once I realized what I just saw I swung around as fast as I could and she was gone. That was the only time anything like that happened with her.
[noooooooooooob](http://www.reddit.com/user/noooooooooooob) deleted his comments, so here they are again:\n\n[1:](http://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/gpzv5/killing_homeopathy_one_little_public_outcry_at_a/c1pg9qe)\n\n> Shit post making overgeneralizations. You sound like a shill for a drug company.\n>\n> My mom was on multiple cholesterol drugs for years. I told her to start taking virgin pressed coconut oil. Her cholesterol is down 50+ points in a matter of months.\n>\n> An older relative was having bowel and hemmhoroid problems for years. I suggested he do this.\n>\n> COMPLETE CURE in a week.\n>\n> The pharmaceutical industry is an outright disgrace, and YOU need to be REAL careful what you accuse people of.\n>\n> It is a new world out there. There is TONS of health information online now, and you can figure things out for yourself. I am in my late 30's and by FAR the healthiest I have EVER been, and I have not been to a doctor in 2 years. NOT listening to doctors and their pharmacological industry shill behaviour.\n>\n> Your PHARMACIST is NOT looking out for your health - he is looking to sell you drugs.\n>\n> YOU are responsible for YOUR health. Do your research online and VERIFY what these people are saying. And if YOU find something, DO YOUR OWN EXPERIMENTS!!! If something works GREAT for you (coconut oil), USE it!!! If it is not effective, try something else.\n>\n> You should be skeptical about the guy trying to SELL you DRUGS. Use pharmacological solutions as a LAST resort.\n>\n> In a skeptic forum, this post is shocking to find. You are being skeptical of the wrong people!\n\n[2:](http://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/gpzv5/killing_homeopathy_one_little_public_outcry_at_a/c1pgk8d)\n\n> the OP has not clarified what specific condition or treatment was offered, so we simply dont know what he meant, do we?\n>\n> He'll have to clarify.\n>\n> PS: A quick google search seems to think of coconut oil as a homeopathic treatment.\n>\n> But why dont YOU tell us YOUR definition so we can know what YOU think homeopathy means.
... to disagree.
What part of my question implied that I don't understand sarcasm? I'm just pointing out that your comment makes you look like an idiot. You ought to be thanking me for pointing out something of which you are obviously unaware.
Apollo 18 was fucking gay from the 15 mins I watched, btw. Gravity on the moon? WHOA. Or is it gravity just inside the lander? U.S. Government hiding technology from us maybe?
were you very close to your uncle or was he distant?
Don't use those things, even if you think it's a game. You are meddling in the occult.
what you're describing sounds to me like a really subjective description of absence epilepsy. I myself have complex partial temporal lobe epilepsy (read: full consciousness, non-absence, non-convulsive), and as I'm in school for neuroscience, I've done a lot of research on the subject of epilepsy.\nneurologists often get really curious about my case of epilepsy because they're convinced, based on my loose explanations of my episodes, that I'm actually having absence seizures- but, after describing possible feelings to me, they're always proven wrong. in any case, having a lower-than normal "seizure threshold" (especially when tired) really commonly leads to sleep events like sleep paralysis, lucid dreaming, sleeptalking/walking, etc. these events may not be bothersome to you in the least, but if they ever increase in frequency or intensity, then you should definitely see a neurologist about it, in case there's a structural malformation causing neural obstructions.\nof course, considering you have these when you're tired, you could just be falling into micro-sleep and attaching an emotional response to it.
Sometimes you can just shame people to make them go away, you don't have to inform everyone.  I need humour sometimes.
I don't think that is what warmtoiletseat said. Twisting someone's words to make the argument easy for you? That's pretty childish at this point in the debate. Shame, shame.
Did not happen.
Sure, but this is about descendants, it's not quite the same as being related.
>seeing a man with a horse head sitting at the table facing away from her.\n\nA ghost who loved The Godfather?\n
I understand your frustration.  I feel it too.  I want mass sightings in a very public area now!  Something amazing better happen at the Olympics or I'll be pissed off!
Its supposed to relieve or distribute pressure on the muscle from the skin. Or something like that. I saw an article somewhere on it.
Laser pointer on high dust / cloud?
informed consent is a very serious issue in medicine. it is considered completely unethical to give patients placebos without telling them they are in fact placebos. even if a sugar pill would help it is unethical to give it without that patient's *informed* consent to take it.
Scratch that, I was the next to last house on Ridgeway Drive right above the Zoomerz.
http://i.imgur.com/XhS58.jpg\n\nhttp://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread795682/pg1\n\nEdit for more:  \n\nhttp://www.casimages.com/img.php?i=120125114729181670.jpg\n\nhttp://www.disclose.tv/action/viewvideo/91890/Jacques_Nietzermann___psychic___1980___telekinesis/\n\nhttp://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/index.php?app=blog&blogid=3165&showentry=24608\n\n\n
YES!
1. It's possible that there are components of food that we are not yet able to detect or measure\n\n2. There are other variables in growing food besides pesticides and non-organic fertilizers\n\n3. Since when is "traditional" the opposite of "organic"? Seems to me, it should be "factory farms" vs. "traditional/organic".
Well, the short answer is that you can't. You can't know anything 'for sure'. But what we can do is make observations about the world and draw the most likely conclusion.\n\nIf I am indeed actually in purgatory right now, everyone else must be too, because I am able to interact with them in a seemingly normal way. In that case, if we're all in purgatory, then all you've really done is renamed 'reality' with 'purgatory' -if that makes any sense.\n\n
I have this same "ghost" on my phone. Couldn't even psych out my 8yr old daughter w it.
This man is mentally ill and everyone is just laughing at him.
The first question it raises: Is that a log, a seal or a sturgeon?\n\n
Macs are extremely overpriced computers. I helped a friend drop about 2,000 dollars on a computer that included mouse + keyboard, THX speakers, a widescreen monitor, a core i7, a solid state drive for the OS, a 1TB HDD, a GTX 570, and 8 gigs of RAM. He's also running it all in a HAF X case which provides excellent airflow and includes numerous USB 3.0 ports. His computer is SLI ready as well so he can easily increase the performance for around $250.\n\nNow check out the Mac Pro quadcore for $2500:\n\n>One 3.2GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon\nprocessor\t\n6GB (three 2GB) memory\t\n1TB hard drive\t\n18x SuperDrive\nATI Radeon HD 5770 with 1GB GDDR5\n\nLess RAM, weaker processor, no solid state, budget videocard without SLI, no mention of USB 3.0, doesn't include a monitor or speakers. We're talking about a company that charges $50 for a 1 GB stick of RAM. In order to upgrade this Mac to meet the specs of the other PC, you'd have to drop a total of around $3000. Macs are weak computers, I always say they're yesterday's hardware at today's prices.
I'm an atheist *because* I'm a skeptic.  I can see how someone might end up being an atheist without being skeptical, but skeptical without being an atheist is just... well, silly.
I experienced the same thing, at about age 10. I remember it distinctly, and told my mother who did not believe me.
Don't know why you're getting downvoted. Gould, despite being a brilliant evolutionary biologist, also muddied the waters with his proposal of "non-overlapping magisteria," which suggested that there were certain things that only religion could answer. I've yet to hear of a convincing elaboration of that idea.
If there's one thing I've learned over 2 decades of paranormal research, it's that there is no form of proof that will convince a non-believer. In the words of Frank Zappa: "One of my favorite philosophical tenets is that people will agree with you only if they already agree with you. You do not change people's minds."\n\nI believe that in today's world of technology, with audio, video and photo editing software, the only true evidence that can't be disputed is personal experience, and that is only true evidence to the person having the experience. It cannot be scientifically documented and studied.\n\nI will certainly attempt to follow your research, but I have no interest in participating. I just don't care anymore if anyone else on the planet believes or not.
I don't have an explanation except for what you can find on Wikipedia but I did experience it once. My dream/hallucination was pretty ordinary and when I finally woke up it took me a while to accept the fact that it didn't really happen. And it felt so real that if I had experienced something with UFOs instead of something mundane I would have probably thought that I was indeed abducted by aliens. I once read that some people experience sleep paralysis on a regular basis. I don't know how I would be able to cope with something like that.\n\n
Is an ELE event like a PIN number?
"Hey guys, tell me I'm right about what I think.  This other place didn't."\n\nYou don't need people to confirm what you think.  If you are right, the evidence is there.
Once people get into something like that, it's pretty difficult to help them understand that it is nonsense. I don't have time at the moment to come up with a great example, but however you approach this, leave him room to retreat from feng shui gracefully. If you put his ego on the line with a "how can you believe this? it's wrong because..." argument, he is forced to either defend himself or admit being wrong. It's a delicate, subtle tack, but one that might keep him from feeling the need to resist so strongly.
At best, chiropractic is quack medicine and a good massage.  At worst, it's quack medicine that can cause serious injury or death.  Either way, the world would be better off without it.
How about "plausible enough"?
That's awesome, great story.\n\nI've always hoped that if I ever encounter something paranormal, it's something non-threatening.
To be fair, homeschool kids aren't nearly as social, making the vaccines less important. In some states, however, the anti-government or anti-medical industry sentiment fills public schools as well.
And why is that?
Routine tasks like that are easy to do on auto-pilot.  See [Highway Hypnosis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_hypnosis).
*Ground control.....Majorr_Tomm do you read us?...This is Ground Control to Maj...oh, nevermind*
Belief is a fragile thing.\n\nStrive to "know".
lol, k.
I believe their pills still contain Zinc. I could be misinformed however.
Looks like a meteor or something breaking up in the atmosphere.
Good grief, I'd almost entirely forgotten about Red Meat!
>I'm 99.9% sure this is a fabrication by you\n\nWhen you have a closed off mindset you pretty close yourself off spiritually and live in emptiness. To each their own though.
I'm confused, are you bringing this to our attention because Mr Hagelin normally spouts nonsense, and it's surprising when he doesn't?
Theoretically sure, but what's to say that a species with another 1000 years on us hasn't developed the technology to put these methods to use?
Well that is a small photo but it looks like the reflected image of your shadow on the surface behind. \n\nedit: if your refering to person shaped shadow in the mirror.
This is pretty poor title: it doesn't entice me to visit, and there's no comment explaining why the OP thinks I should read/listen to it.
Exactly. A clear relationship needs to be established. So far, studies show a lack of cause and effect relationship between the chemicals and the symptoms. My opinion is that there isn't enough data yet to say for sure whether there is or isnt a relationship. But, that should be the focus of further studies. There could possibly even be sub-groups of individuals  with MCS where in one group there is a relationship between chemical and symptom, versus another group who get symptoms because of the "nocebo" effect. We can't just dismiss it and *not* do the necessary studies just because there's no known mechanism for it.
I suppose you never criticize anyone or anything unless you personally could do better.\n\nIt shouldn't matter.
"Engineers..."  One of their poster boys is an "explosives loader."  So... a construction worker.
Here's my experience with the Chrio I've seen in the past, who also is a neurologist. I went when after a sports injury and couldn't run and after a car accident. He doesn't claim to cure anything but does adjustments to help pain. His belief is that living healthy is the 'cure' to most aliments and every time I would see him he would tell me how I need to lose weight and work on posture.\n\nI haven't seen him in over 3 years because there as been no reason to go. I've lost 60 pounds since last june and just a few days ago noticed that I didn't have this nagging pain in my back anymore. Whenever I do feel stiff I do stretches, some he's told me to do, crack it, or roll on this thing on the floor.\n\nBut that's just me.
You shouldn't test willy-nilly. You should need a priori reasons to, to help diminish type-1 error rates. \n\nThere may be reasons, in this instance, to investigate compounds found in cannabis further, though not to test the bullshit oil itself.\n\n[review](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1040842811002319)\n\n[example](http://www.springerlink.com/content/w97480gh2253n108/)\n\n[other stuff](http://www.pnas.org/content/97/17/9561.short)\n\nIn short, it's all preliminary but there's enough to do a small cell-line study.
Just stick to other topics and you'll be fine.  I have to do this around my fundie friends all the time, and we get along much better that way.
Well, I guess we would still need to find renewable, clean energy sources, but we wouldn't have to do it as quickly, which I suppose would cost us less money. The main argument for why we shouldn't do anything about the, in their opinion, hoax of climate change, is money. And, as heb0 hinted, they think it's all just a communist plot to expand government, which especially angers the libertarian crowd, as expanding government can never be a good thing in their narrative. So:  \n\n1. It's about saving money/the economy  \n\n2. It's about keeping government small, and keeping the libertarian narrative alive at all cost  \n\n3. For the really nutty, Gawd wouldn't let us destroy the earth, so climate change can't happen and they have to deny it  \n\nas far as I can tell.  \n\n(Not trying to pick on libertarians by the way, they're humans, and like all humans, they have a tendency to reject science that goes against their worldview.)
You did say I'm my textbook, so yeah, your memory is pretty skewed.
[Some of them die of AIDS](http://www.aidstruth.org/denialism/dead_denialists), proving that if there is a god, it's got a sense of humor.
I've had the same experience, and this was my first thought too.
Sorry, but just because a broken clock is right twice a day doesn't mean I should keep using it as if it isn't. If *Scientific American* comes out with an article about this guy with quotes from credible doctors saying that they believe he really was cured by his diet, then I'll take it more seriously, but *The Daily Mail* is a shitpile with no credibility and I really don't see any reason to treat this article as if it's even remotely true unless and until someone more credible backs it up.
"Quantum", no one really understands it so I can say it means anything I want it to mean.
Chocolate has a very low melting temperature..right around 98 degrees.  You can very easily melt chocolate without killing microorganisms.
[Nailed it (44:30)](http://youtu.be/wi2IC6e5DUY?t=44m30s)
What is The Rake?
Exactly. The whole "raw food is better" argument is BS.
The scariest thing about hallucinations is how your brain is unable to distinguish them from legitimate sensory impulses. \n\nWhen you're 'tripping' on a psychedelic drug, there's generally some level of awareness that what you're seeing is in your mind.  Plus, those usually just produce distortions of reality.  \n\nTrue hallucinations, caused by psychosis, sleep deprivation, deliriants or alcohol/stimulant binges are terrifyingly realistic.  Even when they're things like 'shadow people' that you should logically know aren't actually there, your brain just doesn't come to that conclusion.
And yet average life expectancy rises...
Yeah, he actually called back a while later and admitted it was a hoax, did the voice and everything
Crankier than a parrot?!!! I'd like to see that one!
My knowledge of international politics is slender, so I don't know who the man pictured is (which would no doubt speed the search)
My point was to show that there's much more to it than ApokalypseCow described. Also that fact makes it completely different to the Elevator/Watson incident (that was initially relatively simple).
Add it to the bucket, as she has been weighed, measured, and found wanting.
Same reason anyone else does? Money. I live in a wooden house. A lot of houses that have been destroyed in the lake areas, not just possum kingdom, were either very poor houses, cheap little things, or ridiculously rich monstrosities. A lot of people don't carry fire insurance, either. \n\nWe had floods, about 4 years back, and a lot of people didn't carry flood insurance, either. They'll probably have both now, after this year.
Would like to see this, for the headcam paintball as well as the interesting stuff you've described.
There's a huge difference between "flies are attracted to it" and "ACV is a magic cure-all!" Grand claims require equally grand evidence.
Well yes, for morons.
Ive got everything from voices calling my name, to seeing things darting across the ceiling, waking up with scratches and bruises, to what I firmly believe as my friend being possessed. I used to keep a journal of everything that happened, included sketches of things I thought I saw, even had a few pictures of Ali with shadows covering her whole body, yet the light of a lamp in the background would shine through it. We even had a designated time to when certain things would happen- 11:15pm,it was like clockwork sometimes. Being out in the pool and hearing little girls laughing from all around, the screen door on the deck rattling like someone was trying to get it, leaves crunching in the yard as if they were under someones feet. Theres a lot to tell lol
This is totally a UFO.
Sun devil?
> the complex sounding name that could possibly make someone think they are not eating sugar\n\nThe irony is that I've seen some products at health food stores here in Canada that present "corn sugar" as an ingredient in an effort to sound more healthy and natural!  It's corn! Corn is good for you!
http://vigilantdream.blogspot.com/2008/12/spherical-geometry-195-degrees.html
The linked story above was posted on R/Shipwrecks but we weren't buying it since the object looks nothing at all like a U-Boat or any submarine. Later this story ran:http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/northern-ireland/foyle-submarine-is-just-rock-and-debris-reveals-minister-16157225.html
That's it, beards are no longer cool.
>Regarding your explanation of dosha, perhaps you should edit the Wikipedia page because it seems to be a little different\n\n\n.\n\nI gave you a western perspective of what all the "woo" actually means when divorced from the cultural context. The woo is merely an attempt to hang the observations onto a theoretical framework. Such philosophical frameworks are no more or less valid than any modern scientific framework until such time as you try to make predictions using them. THAT is the test that most practitioners never do: can you predict something that isn't found in the ancient texts based on the theoretical framework found in the ancient texts?\n\nFor that matter, they take the texts as spiritual truths, rather than a collection of observations + theoretical framework, and any observation that doesn't fit with the "spiritual truth" is ignored.\n\nOf course, Western scientists do this all the time too, which is why scientific discoveries are often delayed months and years: that odd pattern on the cloud chamber photographic plate isn't really an artifact: its a new particle that no-one was looking for. However it took a John Ellis to go dumpster diving into everyone else's discard pile at CERN to establish that fact.\n\n.\n\nIn other words, while "spiritual healers" are more prone to the mistake, its not as though prominent western scientists don't make the same mistake all the time.
Meh, but you get my point, yeah? I'm not really trying to fight, but I would like to try to make you understand that atheists aren't all bad -- in fact most aren't. It appears your problem lies in their expression of their beliefs, which is a topic for a later discussion, but being "neighborly" isn't only restricted to Christians and trying to say so is just ignorant. On an unrelated note, the unsubscribe button is in the top right of the side bar of /r atheism. And what is your native language?
[My Solution on paper](http://i.imgur.com/K6uxg.jpg) using Bayes Theorem \n
> One of the great unsolved UFO cases...\n\nThere are NO unsolved UFO cases.  We know EXACTLY what each one was:  NOT AN ALIEN CRAFT!
The first video is a copy of a copy. Check the other one, there's a better version there. Here it is:\n\nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KP1VsTOhiJ0\n\nI'm open to any hypothesis, and the small jet one could be interesting to explore...
EVIDENCE for homeopathy?\n\nYou keep saying that word. I do not think it means what you think it means
I don't know how anyone can infer anything from the images. \n[youtube link](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHItlBwBt9Q)\n\ncould be compression glitch\n\ndigital artifact\n\nimage stitching error\n\nand it has no properly defined outline
Correlation != Causation!
All right, let me back up a little bit.\n\nFirst of all, \n\n>I just have no idea how you can come to the conclusion that raising livestock is sustainable but agriculture is unsustainable.\n\nI don't think I'm making the claim that raising livestock is sustainable. I don't know if it really is, and it depends on how we define "sustainable." Salatin still uses petrochemical fuels, for example. Not sustainable.\n\nMy claim is a LOT smaller than that. My claim is basically that intelligently managed animal-based pastures blow the best animal-free farms out of the water, with regard to environmental impact.\n\nKinda like how you complained that I was making unfair comparisons between livestock farming and agribusiness farming, I am complaining that Vegan Skeptic's analysis is comparing the wrong things. Vegan Skeptic thinks that veganism/vegetarianism is superior (environmentally) to the status quo. That is probably correct. But that's leaving a whole level of analysis off the table -- why not compare veganism to Salatin-style farms?\n\nI'm guessing that VS wants to encourage people to go vegan/vegetarian to save the planet. Well, I think that is misguided. I want to encourage people to eat locally produced, humanely raised meat that comes from pastured animals. I sincerely think this is superior for the environment (and for nutrition, but that's another point altogether).\n\nI recognize that animal-based pastures may not be a viable solution for the rest of the world. I am saying that as an individual with the luxury of making such choices, it is far superior for me to support local pastured meat than to go vegan. \n\nI am not saying that animal-based pastures are sustainable. I am saying they are better than whatever options Vegan Skeptic offers me.\n\nEdit: I realize that you probably still think I'm wrong, and that you think the best animal-less agriculture is inherently superior (environmentally) to even the best animal-based pastures... and that's fine. Maybe I'm wrong. But I get the sense that you're accusing me of a viewpoint that I don't think I hold.
Example: who cares about the opinion of the Boo Radleys?
This has happened to me too, on many occasions. I'd forgotten about it until I read your post.
Yes, that terrible war that resulted in blacks people no longer being property. What a shame.
If I'm remembering right, the claim is that the act of birthing puts a lot of strain on the child's spine, and that is what misaligns it.\n\nAs to why they think it's related, the claim is that if your spine is messed up, your nerve system is messed up, and that makes your immune system messed up. Something like that. If you listen to an extreme chiropractor, they'd tell you that if you were perfectly aligned you'd never be sick, because your immune system would catch everything.
>3) Since this has evidently not happened we can conclude that it is not likely they are hostile.\n\nOr they're not like humans, and they're hostile and haven't attacked us yet.\n\nWho knows?  We cannot know.
I know for sports injuries you're supposed to ice it for the first 24 hours (to reduce swelling and extra injuries that can occur from that), and then you're supposed to apply heat (to increase blood flow to the area, thus speeding recovery).\n\nI know the first 24 hours bit is certainly true...  dunno if the heat afterwords is true, though.
This is probably unrelated, but when I tell people that I do pharmacology in university, some reply: "What's that, like, the study of farms?"
Its a good idea and I see what you're getting at. I am particularily enjoying his [Moon is a hoax](http://www.revisionism.nl/Moon/The-Mad-Revisionist.htm) essay. Thing is, my show is going to be working the angle of actively debunking or finding inconclusive (maybe in some rare cases, confirming) various big claims.\n\nI think it may be counter productive for me to start up a fake conspiracy theory as a mockery to people who may believe in it. It may drive away some of my target audience, and would give people like reverend Alex Jones a reason to call me some sort of government shill.\n\nIt may be something I can do in the future though as sort of an example of how messed up these kinds of things are. Perhaps one day, if/when my show becomes established enough.
wtf is a spirit box?\n
>FTFY\n\nOh, u r so witty, Mr.FearMonger.
Holy shit I want to try this! It's just too funny not to!
My boss at work is so fucking woo infected it makes me sick. She always pushes her homeopathic/naturopathic/alternative/dietetic shit on other people. I don't care if you want to put yourself at risk by treating your diseases with celery, but i'll stick to medicine personally. She told me to stop taking my insulin and start taking homeopathic medicine. I just stared at her and walked away shaking my head. A fucking diabetic should medicate with sugar pills. fuck me.
I'd like to do a blind taste-test as well.  I've definitely subjectively experienced Mexican Coca-Cola as tasting better, and I wonder if that would hold up under scrutiny.
The tall shadow looking thing on the steps going up?
Skeptics see this and think what? 'oh, nothing wierd going on here, it's just a...phone pole'.\n\nIt's all right in front of us! All we gotta do is look at the proof.
Is this meta?
well i'm either atheist or agnostic, i don't really know which but i don't mind it, it doesn't happen all that often but pretty often. if it was more physical of an entity i'd definitely get my house taken care of by a priest but i seem to be the only one it's attracted to.
>Utilitarianism is provable by virtue of its own definition.\n\n  There's a name for that :)
Glad we're on the same page.
HA!  no, usually some small cc bike in an Asian country.
[Done!](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/v5uqo/did_the_premodern_catholic_church_sanction/) Thanks for the suggs.
Yes, you aren't a big body like the ocean. You are very tiny. Try the math out. Mass and distance is part of the equation. You are influenced more by the earth than the pull of the moon very far away.
This particular example is a farm which seems to pride itself on its small scale and its transparency of process, as well as sustainability, and although those aspects are not necessarily related to natural/organic food, in this case they are.
Looks like some unique light distortion caused by the atmosphere.
Some short film called Bedfellows.  I don't know much more about it than that unfortunately.
Remember kids, correlation != causation.
I love how is it now edited to\n\n>disregard all his.\n\nALL HIS WHAT?
My co-worker and I were reminiscing about when we went to the book fair and how awesome it was.  I think I enjoyed going more than he did.  My inner child was gleaming.
Fly southwest airlines, no mother fucker is gonna try to hijack them and live. Bitch I gotta be to work on monday, you ain't getting me another job.
30 seconds of advertising for a 30 second video ; yeah that is bullshit.
Why do you believe the official story?\n\nI'm not going to mock you, I'll let you do that to yourself.
OMG OMG OMG
That, right there, is why we're raising our daughters without belief in fantasy. Fantasy is for play time, cartoons, and stories. Our oldest knows Santa Claus is a game where grownups pretend presents are coming from a jolly fat dude. The Easter Bunny is likewise a game grownups play. When she loses her first tooth, we'll introduce the tooth fairy game. Likewise for out youngest (once she's out of diapers).\n\nI would rather show them the world as it *actually is* than try to mystify them with made-up shit.
I should of thought about buying a plane ticket for last friday. I bet I could of got it on the cheap.
Thank you for taking the time to write this.
Cannabis doesn't produce hallucinations of that order at such a small amount. It will give reason for skeptics to dismiss your account, however. \n\nI was on site to a similar sighting in the mid 90s in Australia, the witness described a near identical craft. The detail about the 'fogged over' lights is interesting because this witness described the same thing, although the details of the light configuration were slightly different.
I don't feel blamed at all.  I know I'm not guilty of it.  However, she (and her puppy, P.Z.) both called sexism an "atheist problem".  It's apparent that *Watson* would like me to feel blamed for whatever reason.  ...at least that's the impression I get as an atheist.\n\nWhile I can support the idea of raising awareness and taking some responsibility for keeping such behavior out of conventions, I see no use in making a sweeping generalization about a community you supposedly belong to.  She's the only one I can think of who does this with such melodramatic flair.  We don't see Jamila Bey (another prominent figure and Skepchick blogger) calling the entire community sexist to get a point across, do we?  And she's on the same side, but I *love* Jamila... because she acts like an adult, not an angsty teen.\n\nSo now it's taboo to be annoyed by Watson's publicity trolling, lest you're labelled a sexist.  No, she's pretty much the only girl among prominent skeptics that annoys me.  Should I apologize for her giving me a bad first impression?
I'm in NC, too. Do what I'm about to do & contact your state reps. It's not passed yet. It's in the committee for Agriculture/Environment/Natural Resources. \n\nGo [here](https://www.ncsbe.gov/voterlookup.aspx) to find out what district you are in.\n\nThen go [here](http://www.ncleg.net/gascripts/members/memberList.pl?sChamber=House) to find out who your rep is.\n\nBonus points if your rep is on [the right committee](http://www.ncleg.net/gascripts/committees/Committees.asp?sAction=ViewCommittee&sActionDetails=Senate%20Standing_66)\n\n*edit - read the bill first.
http://youtu.be/uUro3Uwq6Mw
I'm skeptical about psychiatric treatments but not their clinical diagnoses personally.  Is depression 'real'?  Sure.  So is climate change probably... but do we have any idea how to fix it?  Not so much.  \n\nCheck your PDR's... when one of the side-effects of your treatment is the disease itself that is not yet an effective treatment.\n
Looks like a helicopter.
I wonder what treatment he tried though. Most (all..) of the foods with health benefits have no chance of curing you, but could have prevented some of the cancers.
I would probably try an EVP. Get a tape recorder, set yourself up in your room with some background noise (a fan would be perfect) and just ask some questions, like you're talking to a person. Ask if anyone is there, what their name is, what they want, etc. Don't ask whatever is there to "prove" it's there. Don't ask for signs, to turn on lights, move something, or anything like that. I would recommend starting there though. Oh, and when you're done recording, say thanks for their time! If there is a spirit or something there it's always best to be polite. \n\nP.S. Stay away from Ouija boards.\n\nP.S.S. When reviewing the tape, be skeptical. Don't interpret every little noise as some paranormal entity trying to communicate. Listen for voices and recognizable words. Sometimes static is just static though, so be careful when reviewing your "evidence".\n\nHope that helps!
I enjoyed your story
[Here is it.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owvpRNzoaVU)
I agree with you, The Day Before Disclosure is incredible. Have you watched the Hessdalen Light Phenomenon documentary? It's impossible to debunk..
I agree with the fact that evolution is an established scientific theory. My primary point was that I personally don't want to force any dogma at a young age. Whether you want to accept it or not, empiricism/reductionism is a dogma. What kid wants to be force taught the theory of gravity at the age of 5? Let them explore what the world has to offer and let their own curiosities gravitate them towards knowledge and the search for truth. That was basically why I oppose Dawkins' proposition. A natural corollary of that was the fact that many atheists developed their beliefs because of having been force fed religion (dogma) at a young age.
>He would still have submitted it to them, and only upon being rejected would he have gone outside the scientific community to bring pressure ON the scientific community to consider his work.\n\nI don't see why he would have done this, but how do you know he didn't? Would giving lectures, assuming his evidence was credible, not achieve this effect?\n\n>However, off the top of my head, I cannot think of how mutation rates could possibly disprove evolution unless you believe (as he apparently does) in the young-earth theory, which has already been conclusively disproven in a multitude of different ways. Not only does this tell us that he insists on believing in something which has been proven false, scientifically, but that he uses that belief to support another spurious claim.\n\nIrrelevant to everything I've been saying.
I think the footage stirs the imagination because it's so unusual, and would be a really off key event to fake. I mean a building? In the sky? Think about time travelers in the far flung future opening a portal to the past from their research lab and opening it in the air so that they would not risk colliding/destroying something on the ground. Que Dr Who Theme.
[My post](http://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/rfv3f/friend_posted_this_article_saying_vaccines_are/c45k9td?context=3) from [the last time](http://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/rfv3f/friend_posted_this_article_saying_vaccines_are/) I saw this:\n\n>[This](http://labs.idi.harvard.edu/vonandrian/Pages/_Moseman%20Immunity%20online%20%2712.pdf) (pdf warning) is the paper recently published by the quoted Harvard scientist, Dr. von Andrian. It does not at any point contradict the usefulness of any vaccine - indeed, the virus they looked at ([VSV](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesicular_stomatitis_virus)) is not one that infects humans. They did however show a very cool novel property of B cells in maintaining innate immunity, which runs contrary to the usual view that B cells only respond adaptively through the production of antibodies. Their juxtaposition of a valid quote from a reputable scientist with one from the author of [this fine article](http://web.mac.com/rblaylock/Russell_Blaylock_M.D./Published_Papers_files/Truth%20behind%20vaccine%20cover-up.pdf) is clever, but ultimately deceptive. Dr. von Adrian's findings do not support the conclusions reached by either Dr. Blaylock or the NaturalNews author.\n\n>Of course, if it weren't for NaturalNews I wouldn't have learned about all that just now, so there's a silver lining, right?\n
I'm wondering if mathematics can tell us anything about nature. My suspicion is that it can't. Mathematics needs to also have observation. Observation is not a part of mathematics though.
Agreed.
Seasquatch DSV
I saw something totally similar. Was it triangle shaped do you think?
> Are you?\n\nYou should go back and edit this post to make it say something totally different, then pretend that you didn't, because you're intellectually dishonest and cowardly. Also, because it doesn't make much sense.
that is so poor. It is the military do you honestly think they didn't have radar confirm on their plane that they were physical? The entire military complex of mexico was fooled and didn't have any more evidence with radar before announcing to their entire public that these things were ufos? Because this happens a lot in Mexico.
My brain just went blank.\n\n;)
Humans are also extremely overpopulated. Shall we reduce their numbers by giving them a quick death, too?\nThere is no such thing as humane murder. And no difference between the fundamental worth of human animals and that of non-human animals.
Perhaps he didn't want another [2-year lawsuit for libel](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Singh#Chiropractic_lawsuit_and_backlash).
I feel like it needs something more, though...
As I said elsewhere, when I say "Can't" there is an implied "without her feeling uneasy".  \n\nThe fallout from it being OK to joke about raping, killing or hurting them is that they are on guard in situations that wouldn't need it.  It is unfortunate, and unnecessary, but not without justification.
I beg to differ. Not everyone is young and supple. Where I'm from a lot of elderly folk and women with osteoporosis do it. It has very little potential for damage on fragile bones, is a graceful and dignified activity, and gives them some amount of social interaction and a reason to wake up at 6am in the morning.
That's a bit simplistic, there are various motivations for hostile behavior towards someone who is perceived as another "race" (an illusory but unfortunately quite prevalent concept).\n\nSome people hold the value that people of other races are inferior and want to "protect" the purity of their race. That's textbook racism.\n\nSome people are uncomfortable in dealing with people from other cultures, sub-culture or ethnic group, and would rather just shun them. It is not based on any theory of racial superiority, but is linked to fear of the unfamiliar/the unknown. That's a form of behavior that is better described as Xenophobia, but is still often called racism.\n\nFinally, there are the negative attitudes that minorities have towards the majority "race", caused by xenophobic attitudes by that group towards them. These negative attitudes are a direct reaction to actual and/or perceived racism or xenophobia and they are what is commonly referred to as "reverse racism."\n\nPutting everything in one bag and treating it as if it was all the same is not helpful when it comes to changing attitudes. Everyone is not "equally to blame." Xenophobia and "reverse racism" are quite common, and tend to go down with education and civil rights legislation. Real bona-fide racism, as with white supremacist, is quite dangerous and can't be solved by education alone, it also requires law enforcement.\n\nRacism is a very complex phenomenon, and it serves no one to oversimplify it.
I think these stories are popular because people enjoy them. In the annals of literature I suspect we could find a few books to at don't fit the formula, but people are drawn to the hero's journey archetype because it is very exciting.
I'm Proud of you!
So far, so good.  \n\nAnd you take more time to make sure that your English is correct than most Americans.  Points to you.  \n\nI think the only thing that I saw (and it is minor), is that craft is the plural of craft.  Crafts is almost never used.  Oh, theories is the plural of theory.  Hmm.  Negative, instead of negetive.\n\nVery well written and stated.\n\nPlease keep posting and replying. Cheers.
I think a couple of those are actually real.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saffron_terror\n
I read this is Cartman's voice. I lol'd. But then I remember that people believe this crap. I sad'd.
Wasn't everything in this special disproved ten years ago?
I have one! I was about 17 at the time, some friends and I were having a sleepover and one of them brought a Ouija board. So we start asking silly questions that I don't remember anymore, but at some point we ask about who our prom dates will be. I was thinking about asking one of the two guys I liked, or a classmate, but the Ouija said none of those names but the name of a friend I hadn't seen in a couple of years, so I just dissmissed it.\n\nSkip forward a couple of months, prom was a couple of weeks away and I had a prom date. But because of a family emergency my prom date has to cancel. I was resigned to go alone (not a big deal, a lot us were going with someone from the same group of friends so we would've spent prom together anyway) and then my mother saves the day. It turns out a friend of hers was also a family friend of my then prom date's family, so she knows about the family emergency, one thing led to another in the conversation and my mother tells her I would be going alone to prom, so my mother's friend volunteers her son. Who is her son, you may ask. Well, it was this friend who I hadn't seen/talked to in a couple of years, which the board had predicted would be my prom date.\n\nTL;DR: Ouija board correctly predicts that I would go to prom with a friend, with whom I hadn't had any contact in over two years, and I had absolutely nothing to do with the prediction coming true.
I disagree. I am irked by the "chemicals" thing precisely because it distances people from reality; by creating an arbitrary divide between good and "bad" you damage your ability to appreciate things for what they are, and you hurt your ability to evaluate things and make decisions based on what you as a person want. \n\nI am no truth machine, I am a human who want other humans to know and understand the world in the healthiest way. Lying to yourself and your customers is directly antagonistic to that which I hold dear: the human experience.
Perhaps that one's just a complete look at werewolves in folklore.  But if it does actually assume that werewolves are real, that's awesome and I want a copy!
Before you get too excited, you should read this\n\n[Poher publication suspended](http://www.universons.com/site_publication/Textes_Publication/Textes_EPJAP_GB.php)\n\n>Sir,\nI I said previously, I decided to take care personally of the referred manuscript, submitted for publication in EPJ-AP on October 17, 2009.\nI took the opinion of internationally renown experts. I add that these experts have expressed their opinion in total independence.\nI regret to tell you that we are not able to accept your manuscript for publication in EPJ-AP.\nThis decision is motivated by the following aspects :\n\n>— It appears that the presented experiments were made in a "private" laboratory, without all the guarantee from the authors about the experimental practice of Modern Physics.\n\n>— These experiments are supposed testing the experimental results from Podkletnov and from Tajmar. But it should be observed that no accurate link between the presented experiment and those from Podkletnov and from Tajmar is clearly established in the manuscript. Consequently, the experimental "confirmation" is not established. Furthermore it should be noted that the results of the experiments from Podkletnov and from Tajmar have been themselves disputed.\n\n>— One should also wonder about the orders of magnitude : how a force, supposed gravitational, can produce such important effects, taking into account its quantitative weakness as compared to an electromagnetic force ?\n\n>— The authors appear convinced that their amazing results are a manifestation of a new fundamental force carried by "Universons" that would fill the Universe. However no logical link between the experimental results and these "universons" is clearly established.\n\n>— it should be noted that the existence of the "universons" has never been established by an experiment in high energy physics.\n\n>— The annexes that develop this theory are not any more convincing. Effectively, what is asked for since a century, with success, to a said fundamental theory, is to be able to be formulated as a relativistic field theory, this is not the case here. Moreover, it is said, at the end of the annex, that the "Universons theory" is entirely compatible with General Relativity (from a series of somewhat fuzzy calculations and analogies). If this is true the authors should be able to describe their experiment in the frame of General Relativity, however that is not established.\n\n>As I told you previously, this decision of publication refusal of your manuscript is definitive. \nI ask you to excuse us for the inconvenient caused by the slowness of our evaluation procedure.\n\n
Oh man. I didn't know that. That's almost as hilarious as EBM.
Is there any evidence to show that they are reasonably safe, or just no evidence that they are unsafe?  Saying there's no evidence that they are unsafe doesn't matter if no one has done a good study on it.
Let's be honest though, asking for ammo to refute someone is a pretty poor way of learning about X.
Chinese lantern here. I can confirm I was flying over Myrtle Beach on 9/13/12.
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. That explanation makes sense to you?
It does exist.  The name "AIDS denier" gives a somewhat skewed understanding, however.  Most of the AIDS deniers don't deny that AIDS exists, but that HIV is the cause of AIDS.\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aids_denial
Being a self-identified "skeptic" means having to debunk (or not debunk) the same things over, and over, and over, and over.  Supernatural thinking is as old as thinking itself.\n\nBeing a skeptic takes patience.  There's no way around it.
Yes, this is what I didn't want to be true. :( At least he still has the 'investigates' programmes to save him.
You know they have it posted in three parts for free on their site. Not new, but still great. I recommend everyone watch this.
Did you read my post? Pre-treating paper (ie making flash paper), palming flame producing devices, hiding sparking devices in the floor\n\nThat's 3 just off the top of my head.
After 20566 tries I finally seen the one at 0:48. Pretty cool whatever that is. However, for the life of me, I can not find the one at 1:18.\n\nEDIT: Seen it at 1:18. How in the world did you even spot that? It literally pops up for a split second and it's very tough to even spot. HOW!? haha
>Without some other prejudice, there's no reason to default to one side or the other.\n\nWell, skepticism is one such prejudice (in the sense that we start at doubt, and require evidence before we raise the likelihood of something into the "worth considering" region), so in that context, it's not so unusual to default to the doubt side.  \n\nMore formally (and dealing with the issues of language you bring up better), taking an Occam's razor based view means we should ascribe lower probabilities to more complex entities.  "God exists" is essentially making an assertion of a large number of conjuntive properties: that the first thing is:\n\n - A psychological being of some kind\n - All-powerful\n - Creator of everything else.\n\nThese, especially the first, are very specific properties for such a thing, so I think we should legitimately assign a low probability.
Helium 3\n\nThere are plenty of other reasons to go back to the moon too.\n\nI was 5 when Armstrong and Aldrin first stepped on the moon.\nI was amazed,excited,curious to see where we were headed.\n\n44 yrs later,and I can only say I am extremely disappointed with our progress towards space and space exploration.\n\nWe've come quite a ways when it comes to war and lining the pockets of despicable people.\n
This is a meteor. It can easily be classified by past evidence. There is a chance that it may be a satellite, but it is not a mystery. Who wrote this text book that you're referring to?
That's not being skeptic that's just being a straight up nuisance
Oh, hell, in that case, I'm under the constellation of 'connect the dots'. Or as it was referenced in medieval France 'ze shazooom'.
...oy.\n\nWhat about the greenhouse gases produced from making/extracting vitamins/minerals? What about the energy used to *make* the almond milk? Or the pesticides/fertilizer that are used for the almond crop?
That's interesting; it could be where the person, whomever she or even he is, got the name.
It would be kind of cool to have a /r/fakeParanormal or something like that where people can share their best-faked videos of UFOs, ESP, demonstrations of "magic", etc.
Maybe there was some sort of connection between the police cruiser and the craft?
If you were capable of interstellar travel, you might find the rules a little different. For instance, if you were standing still, but warping the space around you, you could easily make right-hand turns simply by telling the computer how to warp the space that way.\n\nThe problem is... if this is the way they fly ... would or wouldn't we expect to see them going through objects? Would there be a rule about overlapping matter in space? There is, now, the way we travel.\n\nI think we should probably wait and see for ourselves. If we ever get to that speed of travel, it will be very much like breaking the sound barrier. And remember how much we learned from that. Or going into space for the first time: rule-set reset. Everything we knew up to that point was irrelevant.
"www.energy-medicine.info"...\nThere is just no way in hell, man...
>kerfuffle\n\ni love that word. i also secretly love hearing about nonconspirationists bugging conspirationists.\n\noh, not so secret anymore i guess.
Iq doesn't have much to do with it.
Or help the good ones.I think it's also our duty because we owe it to ourselves to know as much as possible about our abilities to help people who don't understand theirs. I will buy a tape recorder after I buy everyone in my family their christmas presents. They come first of course
Do not bother with Forks Over Knives. It is based on horrifically bad "science". Look it up on any decent skeptical site.
Well, I've been noting them ever since 2008, the event I described in OP happened in 2010 or early in 2011. These orbs I've seen ever since I know of, but their frequency has risen in since 2011.
Thanks for the second reply, glad I got to see this. I'll definitely be checking back for those sound clips.
Reply with "I don't believe you."
Ahh... shouldn't I be skeptical of thinking that a drama show on tv is giving me solid information? :)
"...and we never heard from OP again..."
The problem is not science training. It is critical thinking and the ability to choose neutral experts in given fields. These two compentences are all that we ask to legislators, and they more and more lack it, disregarding any expert advice.
Michael Cohen seems to be full of sh*t IMO. Sensationalist "journalist" with a knack for making stuff up.. Cohen as the primary source discredits "Eligael". Read all the crazy stuff over at allnewsweb.com and see for yourself. I like the idea of UFOs, I'm just not that gullible. Notice the "IMO" before accusing me of claiming to KNOW anything.
> forcing people to have a medical procedure scares me a bit.\n\nNobody is holding them at gun point and jamming the needle into their arm.  It's simply that now you will receive a tax benefit for getting your child immunized.\n
These shoes work by putting your legs and butt in stress positions that you are not used to. They aren't comfortable to walk in. In that sense they work, it's kinda like wearing a suit of armor every day will make you strong, but it just sucks to wear a suit of armor every day. They work to put your legs and butt in stress positions and therefore stressing muscles you would not normally work out, at the same time, it's companies jumping on a fad to take advantage of fat people who don't want to do anything and lose weight.
Well, damn! That wasn't my intention at all. Cheers for letting me know.
Just because he's trying to prove a point with it doesn't mean it's not a joke. If you think all the people that found that funny are stupid, I think your judgment is clouded by the subject of the matter at hand and you aren't looking at the statement objectively.
Then how come you said following "For clarity, are you the creator of this series or are you just absorbing the tosh"?
I recently posted my 10 year old sighting of a blue saucer: http://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/ppl5f/just_a_visualization_of_a_ufo_i_saw_at_age_15_10/ and your description comes very close to what I saw. Also my friend's girlfriend's parents saw an incredible blue light dancing over the trees on horizon, just like the one in the video — could be the same UFO.
Hi! I live in Gettysburg.  There are a bazillion ghost tours companies it seems like lately.  Some good, some horrible.  What type were your thinking about?  They have some where you can actually use equipment (those are a little more expensive).  They also have walking tours where a guide tells stories about the area and points out haunted places.
What school is this, Bastyr College?\n\n(Joke explainer: it's a small "natural healing" school in WA state...)
And full of your own qi!
If you have time, I would like some of this:)
You guys are talking about Lucid Dreaming, not Astral Projection. While the two may be related, they are definitely not the same thing. Google it first at least!
I was going to respond to him, but you, in far fewer words than I would have, basically explained it all. Thanks!
The main reason I have trouble charging a lot is because my idea of a 'reasonable amount' is skewed. I grew up dirt poor, and small amounts of money, to me, were awesome. To me, a hundred dollars is a huge amount of money, so to ask someone for that much for artwork just seems strange to me, and asking for $30 for something that only takes half an hour, to me, is beyond strange.\n\nNot that it's a good point of view, It's self destructive and self defeating in a lot of ways, but it's how I am. To be honest, I'm just happy that people see my work and enjoy it, whether they buy it or not. I used to give away my best work all the time and fix people's computers for free.\n\nI'm terrible at pricing things, and I don't want people to think I am after their money or trying to rip people off. I've seen plenty of people charge over a thousand dollars for horrible artwork, (think /r/doodles quality) and I don't want to be like that.\n\nIt's something I'm working on, learning how to price things fairly and realistically.
Have you ever heard of [balance](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0Qu8cibT9I)?
Those three sites are disinformation operations run by the lizard people who live among us.
I've notice it comes up here quite often, I've had some experience with addiction myself and was even forced into an AA program in my college days as part of an alcohol related fuck up.\n\nI just figured we needed an open, honest, rational community like this to help people who could never even get past the first step in programs such as NA and AA: handing over your life to a higher power.\n\nPlease let me know if you have any experience in addiction, or if you'd simply like to help out.\n\nhttp://www.reddit.com/r/secularsobriety/\n
Getting back to you after looking at your comment history.\n\nI retract (and downvote) my earlier statement about you being an idiot or insane. Your comments seem rational and you're apparently not lacking in introspective capacity.\n\nSo I have to wonder what gives. Are you having a bad day or something? You just dropped me a single-word drive-by comment, "Shill", without bothering to explain your statement in any way.\n\nDo you think you're being smart?\n\nIt's nothing new to me that people are put off by my emotional tone of commenting. I have a temper and I don't try to hide it. If I have a point to make, I do often write long-winded and salty comments. Political correctness is not my cup of tea; I'm the kind of guy who drinks two cups of strong coffee and lets it rip.\n\nSo given that you *aren't* an idiot or insane, I'm perplexed. I would honestly like for you to explain yourself.\n\nI'm a bit insulted for being labeled dishonest. I'm a 31-year old, mediocre student of computer science. I have an interest in UFOs because there does seem to be too much evidence out there for me to simply discard the phenomenon as fantasy. I would absolutely love to witness something that would convince me. But I also refuse to accept anything unless it is proven rigorously (you can blame my interest in mathematics for that).\n\nDo you disagree with me that huxsters and gullible UFO nuts are *tainting* the credible UFO research? I mean, come on! I can't understand why anyone who honestly *wants* to see good evidence would be tolerant of the lunatic fringe. The loonies *always* make the intelligent people look bad. To me, it's perfectly rational to demand strict skepticism, because that's what it takes to separate the wheat from the chaff.
the timing is an interesting coincidence... wheres my tinfoil hat
That or War of the Worlds.
I think that there is quite a bit that you "don't know about that" or anything else. Please provide your evidence for why you believe that the official accounts are not credible. Please, no YouTube videos or irrational speculation.
I totally agree with you and in the case I had an infertility problem I would definitely not go to see a CAM practitioner.
Tyler Durden?
If they're looking at  you and your not in pain or looking at your corpse on the ground chances are it's  harmless and there is a chance of something more interesting happening. Even if on the wild chance you do get into a dicey situation that is unpleasant, you won't remember it and  you probably won't die... at least not right away.  I know of only 4 deaths related to UFO contact for sure.  If they're I think reserved friendliness is the best approach and observe everything as carefully as possible.
I've gotten an email from the guy.  He actually claims that he's a copycat.  That could be true... but then again, he may be protesting too much.
It always astonishes me how you have to get a degree to fix a car professionally, but any idiot can make babies.
It has been about 2 months since it happened. I still have no clue what triggered it (Have no memory of the two days before it started). \nTo describe the feeling, i felt as if i was controlling my body from a spirit-like form, and could see all around me. I would stay like this until i had some-sort of human interaction then i would go back into my body, but as soon as it ended i would leave. It kind of also felt like everything was either faked, or already staged. I never told anybody around me what i was feeling. I just kept telling myself that it was not going to last forever and i would be back to normal. And one-day i happened to awaken and my life felt back to normal.\n\nNot aware of how bad my grammar is. [7]\n
Was she facing a window? Could she have seen your reflection?
As a counter-point, the most common reaction I get is "what are you skeptical about?"\n\nCould there *be* a better question to get a conversation started?
I'm confused. Where is the freemason magnetic powered antigravity device? Where are the ancient aliens? It's just not possible that he is moving big stuff by himself.
I disagree  - i dont think there will be a huge change but certainly it will be noticeable.  In case you haven't noticed, real wages havent increased in the last 30 years.
>On the contrary, finding someone with reliable ESP abilities during periods of wartime, for instance, would be a source of scientific prestige. You'd go in the history books, forever. They tried. They tried hard. Particularly in World War II.\n\nProject Stargate was instigated during the latter half of the Cold War, an attempt by the U.S. Government to utilize remote viewing in an intelligence gathering capacity.\n\nOf interest is the fact that the project was ended four years following the end of the Cold War, after the Soviet Bloc had collapsed (and the primary rival in the "psychic arms race" was no longer able to compete). Also of interest is the fact that the project had been funded for over 20 years, and that there was enough statistical evidence that the government continued to search for ways to utilize "psychic phenomena" in a practical way. \n\nThe program was ended because it was not seen as functionally or financially feasible, not because they didn't find evidence to support the existence of ESP phenomena.
I think you're right, actually. The one he's referring to is definitely on one of the moons according to the Googles. My mistake!\n\n[This is the 'monolith' on Phobos that Buzz is talking about.](http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/marte/marte_phobos09.htm)
I know this is late... but could it be bugs?
If it is a real painting I am pretty sure it was stolen by my uncle...he used to be a criminal.  I am sure it is not with the family anymore.\n\nMy uncle is in prison and I will ask my mom when I go home for he break.
plural of mien. Noun: A person's look or manner, indicating their character or mood.\n\nHad to look up what a mien was. The article starts off ok, but then the living spacecraft/alternate dimension stuff always makes me feel like the guy writing the article lost all credibility. I hate that more than fundamentalist christians. Its ok to talk about UFO conspiracy its NOT ok to start making things up as you go along. I like the jeff rense program too, but I never take anything on there seriously.
Well, I suppose you could intellectually masturbate about UFOs or you could do it over a myriad of other topics. We're in r/ufos, so that's what's done here. It's not like interesting discussion and speculation cost you anything. Some see this as an interesting puzzle.
There is no way a beam cam become molten before it breaks you say?  What about the steel where the plane hit?  We know the following:\n\nOne of the aircraft that hit the WTC was a Boeing 767.  Statistically, here's what we know about that aircraft:\n\nEmpty operational mass: 82,380 kg\nMaximum take-off mass: 179,170 kg\nCruising speed: 851 km/h\n\nThere is no way either of the two masses would be what the plane weighed at the time it hit, though it's safe to assume it would have ben closer to the second limit, since it would have had a near full load of passengers, their luggage, and since it didn't make it more than a fraction of it's entire journey, it still had lots of fuel.  Nonetheless, I'm fine with averaging the extremes and taking the mass as such.  That mass would be 130,775 kg.  \n\nThe plane was probably moving at it's normal cruising speed, not it's maximum cruising speed, which converts to 236.389 meters/second.  An elementary kinetic energy calculation yields an energy for this plane as being 3,653,837,762.6 Joules of energy.  Though you seem to want to deny the existence of the conservation of energy, it remains a fact that all that energy, over 3.6 BILLION Joules, would have to go somewhere.  And yes, it went into structural deformation, and that means heating up the superstructure of the building (and the plane). \n\nAgain, you fail at basic physics.
I really enjoyed them.  If you'd like a taste, you can read the excerpt pages available on amazon.com:\n\nhttp://www.amazon.com/Damned-Lies-Statistics-Untangling-Politicians/dp/0520219783/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1345731183&sr=8-1&keywords=damned+lies+and+statistics\n\nJust click where it says "click to look inside", you'll have to scroll past the first few blank/copyright pages, but then you'll get to read the first few text pages of the book and you can decide.\n\nLet me know if that helps you.
I'd be a ghost bro and hang out with human bros. Kind of like ghost dad but with more cussing and less kids, ghost bros don't like kids.
>CieAura Transparent Holographic Chips™ use a proprietary combination of homeopathic formulas consisting of intrinsic energies that affect positive health responses. CieAura Chips have the look of simple decals on the body or clothing and are totally non-invasive, without any chemical component. When placed along sensitive acupuncture meridian points, results such as increased energy, improved stamina, deeper, more restful nights, and other assorted reactions occur, depending on the program formula of the Holographic Chip and the related placement. \n\nHoooooly Mother of FUCK!
This doesn't require psychedelics at all.  In fact, they make controlling that experience much more difficult.
If I would be happy just not knowing I would not be asking these questions. I don't enter these discussions as some type of mental gymnastics. I want to learn. Just because I don’t happen to get your line of argument don’t assume that this means that I’m ignorant or closed minded. \n\nI'll give you a tip - it is not possible to accurately judge people on the basis of a few comments on reddit. That is why it is best to stick to debating the points and not attacking the poster.\n
what?\n\nalmost all of my friends are left-wing/liberal and only one of them believes in shit like auras. a few of them get caught up in conspiracy theories but that's a bit more understandable. \n\nthe vast majority of the people I know who believe in magical shit like auras and past lives and religion are all extremely conservative.
Allowing fracking activities to intensify without any clear answers regarding its environmental impact is probably bad policy. But, using some absurd "it causes earthquakes" justification to stop it makes the anti-fracking movement look like a bunch of kooks.\n\nIf you're going to hate, hate for good reasons.
Is it possible that one of your parents bought you a new jacket without making you aware & just switched it in with your clothes?
Haunebu.org ist looking for natively speaking Haunebu fans. Contact me.
The reason that health care is in such bad shape--and I do claim to know the answer--is because they are allowed to be. The flower lady down the street isn't corrupt, but she's trying to make a living too. All of the industries that are corrupt involve government, necessarily, because the power granted to them by government is what is meant by being corrupt. But is the answer to tinker with the privileges granted to these large corporations? Write more laws that kill competition through subsidies, tax glitches, and more bureaucracy? What you consider national health care is not what the corporations consider national health care when they are writing the thousand-page laws that the politicians pass without reading.
Haha, well the first time I was terrified, so I went back up the stairs. The second time, at my house, I watched it go into my brothers room. I waited for a little bit before going in myself. When I went in I saw nothing there.
They want to attribute a *third* of positive outcomes to the placebo effect?  A *third?*  Frankly, I dunno how right or wrong that number is, but what strikes me is that it basically suggests the more naive, gullible, and downright *stupid* a person is, the better their chances because, think about it:  placebos are fucking *everywhere* for them.
I have no idea. Do clouds form like that?  Are there any other videos online of clouds forming?
A glance at the website throws up the typical flags -- no reference to scientific research, anonymous testimonials.\n\nHowever, the concept sound reasonable, and they don't seem to make extravagant claims.  \n\nIn many (not all) cases, people having difficulty sleeping are stressed and worrying about various things.  By focusing on the moving light, the attention to the worries fades.\n\nIt's the same principle as counting sheep, or focused breathing, or meditation . . . the difference is, 125 pounds (or roughly $203 US) is far more expensive than counting sheep, focusing on your breathing, or meditating (free).\n\nA noise generator can cut distracting noises out; a wind-up clock's ticking can provide you a sound to focus on.  Either of these will cost far less and should have similar effect.
have you ever attempted to videotape or photograph these apparitions?\n\nif yes, what were the results?\n\nif no, why not?
"She gets a cold, come in and gets her adjustment and in within three or four days she's perfectly fine."\n\nThat's true.\n\n"She gets a cold, and in within three or four days she's perfectly fine."\n\nAlso true.\n\n"She gets a cold, come in and gets her adjustment and in within three or four days she's perfectly fine *because giving an infant an aggressive back rub has anti-viral effects*."\n\nWell, that's just stupid.
So it is entirely possible that it has no effect - and entirely possible it does - yet some people want to make it a law and human rights violation because they're certain it is wrong?
like reddit said before i made this comment..\n\nthere doesn't seem to be anything here
Do you know what ribbon is?
Or just offer them cow shit.  All natural, right?
Wow, sad to see that this show has fallen off of the internet. [Link to BBC site.](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0074gq0) \n\nThe whole series (4 episodes) was excellent. It's from 2007, I've seen it called: \n\nThe Bulls**t Detective, The Bullshit Detective, and The Bulls--- Detective.\n\nI can't find it on torrents or Usenet. :(
Yeah, I'd go this route. Ask him why you weren't allowed to introduce yourself that time.
> he **the bible** as credible evidence to back his claims up.\n\nFTFY
Chiropractic adjustments do not treat asthma or other 'actual diseases'. It treats spine and join mis-alignment and the pain caused by these mis-alignments.\n\nThis is like suggesting that antibiotics are useless because they don't fix broken legs.\n\nWhat did the pre-treatment examinations show on each patient compared to the post treatment examination? Were x-rays taken before and after? Or was it just based on how each patient "felt"?
I claim no benefits to abstinence, except my own, which are unique to my situation. The extent of my belief is that not masturbating is a different state of existence than masturbating occasionally/regularly. \n\nAll I am trying to do here is question the generally unquestioned presumption that masturbation is unequivocally good. I agree it can be good or useful, depending on the circumstance and individual, but I do not think it is a universal law that masturbation makes everything better. \n\nYou're right about porn, though. And so much of modern masturbation practices is based on Internet pornography. So the question isn't just about nature, anymore. It's about psychology and culture, too. \n\nI don't think any aspect of this is issue is clear-cut.
I watched Richard Saunders do a live version of this at Tam Oz, and quite a few people have been replicating it to educate people about this.  \n\nAlso, don't forget you can get your own [placebo bands](http://skepticbros.com/placebo-bands/) for much cheaper than the brand name one, and they work just as well!
I can't find a source confirming that the pulp is alkaline.  I did find [this patent](http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&ved=0CGEQFjAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fpatents%2FUS4477481.pdf&ei=EyTZT5faGISf6QHXirWmAw&usg=AFQjCNF6UZv_MTlE5ckI-erpSKkk-G8hMg), which states matter-of-factly that the pulp is acidic (with pH below 4.0, as the first step is to *raise* the pH to above 4.0).
And to be fair, I shouldn't just assume it isn't valid. Objectivity goes both ways.
the way i see it is that the 'you' in the reality that died, stops existing, and so does your conscoiusness, so you don't know you're dead. the 'you' in the reality that didn't die knows nothing about the reality where you did. if you are still conscious, you are from the reality where you didn't die. if you were in the reality that you DID die in, you wouldn't be around to remember it. i think it's linked to the anthropic principle. of course, this only applies to quantum events that eventually cause you to die, if it's an event that is impossible to avoid then you die either way (though i don't know if there ARE any events that are impossible to avoid).
> The analogy is intended to help us question our expectations and break us out of our anthropocentric bias when it comes to thinking about advanced nonhuman life.\n\n  It's not a bad analogy to get you thinking about possible missed evidence, however the fundamental issue I see with it is that fish don't think.  Evidence in any scientific sense is completely useless to them.  This makes them fundamentally different than us.  While we may not recognize evidence in front of us, we *do* have the ability to utilize evidence we find to shape our scientific understanding of the world and so we are correct to look for it before making judgements.    \n\nUnless there is some kind of undiscovered 'meta-thought' we have not yet achieved, the fish analogy breaks down specifically because of the tool we know as science.\n\n> eyewitness testimony does actually count as evidence. It's used in court all the time.\n\nCareful there.  Scientific evidence and legal evidence are two very different things.\n
I'm thinking this woman just really hates babies.
But the food needs to be shipped regardless of who raises it, unless the farmer is only raising cows for himself. More cows per farm will generally mean more efficient food shipping via larger trucks or freight train and distribution centers.
I'm probably grasping at straws, but is there any chance it was duct work?  It could have been some sort of animal that got into your ducts.  Not necessarily a rat or mouse either, it could be a bat or bird or who knows what.
It may be a good idea to cherish them as examples of how thermodynamics can easily be misunderstood. The 'Why' in why they are wrong may be more important than plain dismissal. I'm probably reading too much into your post though.
Yeah, I'd love to see them, put them up if you can!
>Trying to get more women involved in skepticism is a noble and worthwhile goal. There are problems with sexism and privilege in skepticism. \n\nReally, the gender balance and  active recruitment of women to be speakers say "sexism and privilege" to you?  \n\nThe reason that Watson even has a platform is because these mean-old sexists reached out to bring people like her in to the movement.... and then she shits on them for it.
How high we're you lol jk
Such a boring unimaginative argument, "Because Religion". Give people some credit.
I came here to say that as well. Carl Frakin' Sagan, a few passages sent chills down my spine.
There will be a serious reality check, for sure.
[What?!?!](http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/21405912.jpg)
But how can I work from home without the TV droning on in the background?
Nice, this is a great start
>Puma Punku's right angles and perfect drill holes were not made with chisels and stone tools. Thats preposterous. \n\nExactly, they weren't made with chisel and stone tools, they were most likely made with the tools available at the time. We built lots of huge monuments throughout history (during the time period of PumaPunku in particular), all of which are amazing and their craftsmanship seems to be part of a lost art unfortunately. \n\n**The PumaPunku ruins aren't that old though, they were made around AD 536–600 (for reference, that is about 500 years after Rome built the Coloseum in 80AD)**. So while it was a great feat, for the time it wasn't particularly special. \n\n\n>As for written evidence of this presumed super-civilization, there are a few theories. One is that the mini ice age of 10k years ago could have been extremely rapid in certain areas, completely devouring coastal cities (which would have been very prevalent).\n\nThis has always been my theory, that there was a lot more going on pre-ice age than we are aware of. If the ice age hit certain coastal areas harder, it would have destroyed a lot of shit because humans at the time mainly lived near the water. The summarian flood story (the basis of many other biblical flood stories like that of the jews who pladgerized it) references a great flood destroying the world. The words used for "world" though meant something different than how we would describe it today. To them the "world" meant the areas which humans inhabited. So if there were a lot of floods in coastal areas over a relatively short period of time and it dsestroyed many fo the cities, this would be described as a flood destroying the world. That has always been a theory of mine, that the flood stories are a very exagurated version of a story passed down orally from back at the end of the last ice age where raising sea levels bottlenecked mankind by killing a bunch of them and they kind of had to start over. Just a wild theory though, no real evidence for this. \n\n>they have a line of pharos going back that long that mainstream archaeology deems myth\n\nThis is also interesting and I had read it beofre. I think in the future we will find that civilization started a lot earlier than what we assume now. Archeology is still a young science though, we've only had the ability to dig stuff up on the very surface and I think with time we will find more interesting things. \n\n>Also, these ancient/historic UFO depictions in art are also extremely intruiging. http://lithiumdreamer.tripod.com/ufoart.html\n\n\nThis is what made me get into the ancient aliens theory, but unfortunately most of those have been debunked. Not that the pics are fake, but the itnerpretation is incorrect. To us it seems like UFO's, but the original painters had very clear messages they were depicting that was common in art, suhc as the moon, the sun, God etc. We see it as UFO's with laser beams or sputnick looking contractions but at the time those symbols meant something else. \n\nAnyways, I think the evidence still leans towards the fact that humans created all of this, which is in itself an amazing marvel on par with aliens if you ask me. I am open to the alien theory, but it would require much more evidence.
That's a first. Let's hope this event shines some light on the less informed.
Whether you want to go with the logic of our hunter gatherer past, or with the weight of peer-reviewed studies that indicate processed foods (and particularly refined carbohydrates) are causal factors in a great deal of health issues, it seems to be a valid eating paradigm.\n\nIt's difficult to fault a diet (as in long term pattern of eating) that encourages consumption of fruits, vegetables, and meat, all from the highest quality sources you can afford.
That was brilliant, thanks!
It would appear John Anderson decided later in life to go back and reclaim that pizza from his former self. He must have had really good memory or planned this for a long time to remember exactly what this pizza was and when to swipe it from himself.
I prefer rainbow vortexes from another dimension :-)
They aren't scams. To me they've been a life-saver after a few others failed. None the less, some people deal better or worst with it. Talk to your psych if you think they don't work. They might just not be the best course of treatment for you.
It is a tool, and tools can be a burden as well as a boon if they are misused.  I'm not suggesting people stop posting videos or stop commenting, what I'm suggesting is injecting a little less religiosity and fanaticism and a little more rationality and scientism, if you will.  This subreddit, I would argue, is precisely *not* like /r/politics in that it doesn't have to be so polarizing and inflammatory to be useful.  At best, if r/UFOs is anything, it is like an arm of UFOlogy on the internet.  A forum for posting sighting pics and vids and discussing related topics.  It's like a NUFORC for the reddit community, in that way.  I don't come to /r/UFOs to find a UFO factbook, at any rate.  For that I head on over to /r/UAP.\n\nEDIT: Also, I'm not sure how you are using the term "disinformation," as it relates to /r/UFOs.  Are you suggesting there are agents submitting misleading stories and videos in an effort to subvert the efforts of the mods and readers?  That's traditionally what the term means, at any rate.
I've been through plenty of encounters with men that go beyond creepy but I can handle myself. she makes women look weak by causing this shitstorm. I'll never call myself a 'skepchick'. and she sure as hell doesn't speak for me. \n\ncan we all just get the fuck over this. we have more pressing issues at hand.\n\n
if the report is at all credible it could take a while to determine where these "cells" came from and how lifey they are.  Jury is still out on nanobes, and these could be related, or not.
She can't remember seeing some UFO's flying in front of her, but she can remember if the lights were on or off?  Perhaps they are the lights in the room beyond the bathroom and the door was left open?  Additionally it could be an image of the sun reflected off of something behind her, such as a mirror (which are common in bathrooms, and this would explain the "double pane" quality of the reflection).  Is the mirror in the bathroom directly across from the window, i.e. parallel to eachother? (which would be a terrible location for a mirror since during the daytime you would cause yourself to be back-lit every time you looked in to the mirror) Are there any framed pictures in the bathroom that could be causing a similar reflection?\n\nDon't dismiss the glare idea just yet, you might rule out street-lights and lights on in the bathroom, but as we can see from the picture itself, a very powerful lightsource is still in effect: The Sun.  The "double-pane" quality still leads me to think it is a glare off the window.  The shape of what is being reflected seems to show a round edge very similar to the sun, and then a second hazy round edge which might be the reflection of the mirror or picture frame.  That one is slightly darker than the other is another hallmark of the "double-pane" effect. \n\nDo you have access to this specific bathroom?  Can you see if there are any mirrors or pictures opposite of the window, especially ones with round edges?\n\nLens flare isn't a bad idea, especially if the picture was cropped.  It could be of the "mirror image" type, and what we could be seeing is a lens flare of a sliver of the sun.  It looks off center if the image was cropped.
Is it wrong that I half enjoy the show Medium? It's probably a leftover crush from True Romance.\n\nI hate the idea of psychics in real life, but I have no problem enjoying them in a fantasy show. I just wish people could tell the difference.\n\nWasn't there a cog-sci post recently about people being unable to distinguish between TV memories and real ones?
wut
Sorry, who said the missile was of alien origin? Looks like it came up from the surface.\n\nAlso, why would it need propellant to maintain velocity in a vacuum - it could easily have reached that speed, using propellant earlier and then simply maintained its trajectory. \n\nYou haven't explained the coherent patterns in the other video or the fact that the 'dust' follows a path and stop dead in line with the other 'dust particles'.\n\nYou aren't very good troll, are you?
"WELL GRAVITY IS A THEORY TOO"
> Paragraph 5 of this release was changed from an earlier version to reflect that the study focused on fructose generally, not specifically on high-fructose corn syrup
Movies lead me to believe it's not that hard to make a body vomit and to put a bottle in someones hand after you have killed them with some heart attack inducing chemical that disappears from the body.  I'm not in the practice of murdering people and covering it up though, so I have no first hand experience on how easy it is.  Do you have experience murdering people?
Thank you - if only OP could have done something similar!
Don't forget the Animal Planet watermark that appears at the beginning. Then there's the "Yogic Flying - really cool!" tag from the submitter. One has to appreciate these nuances as well in order to achieve the full bouquet of the idiocy displayed here.
Since it was in the military I imagine your bed was rather small? From my knowledge this sensation happens more commonly when you're sleeping flat on your back (rather than on your side or some other way). It seems more likely that you'd be sleeping this way in a smaller bed.\n\nMy other thought is that if you were expecting this to happen, it might happen more frequently.\n\nHave you experienced any sleep paralysis at any other point in your life? Any time outside of this room? Any similar sensation at any point ever?
That's cool, always wanted to go to Waverly .. Was it an organized tour?
Upvote for ~~drugs~~ delusion.
did anyone say anything yet?
People actually believed in the tooth fairy in the first place?
They don't actually do that, true story.
FTFY:\n\nhttp://i.imgur.com/Oz9Vw.jpg\n\nhttp://i.imgur.com/jY2eu.jpg\n\nEDIT: Downmods? Oh well, I guess the LACKYS have their PRINCIPALs.
Yes it is read the damn statstics on pancreatic cancer he beat all the odds by a long way:\n\nhttp://www.pancreatic.org/site/c.htJYJ8MPIwE/b.891917/k.5123/Prognosis_of_Pancreatic_Cancer.htm
Nothing re-enforces the credibility of your product like a free Wordpress site :|
Listen shit head, aspergers or not if he was smart enough to break into nasas boxes where's the evidence?   answer the fucking question numb nuts.  Oh but because he has aspergers he wasn't smart enough to do that?  Are you fucking kidding me?  \n\n
This is a cool dream. Has lots of interesting points. especially when you asked if she is going to hurt you. the reply is brilliant. Its something we cant even comprehend what it means to say ''Yes, but it won't be painful".
Yeah, I'm pretty much done with HuffPo. They've turned into a platform for all kinds of crazies to come forward and voice their insane "opinions".
Vice magazine, burundanga.
NYC Pizza. Nothing can beat that. Period.\n\n
>The fact he was off topic is a different matter altogether.\n\nNo, that would be entirely relevant. He didn't mention anything about Egypt either, you just invented that.\n\n>The man in the video did that with a pillar balanced on top of rocks. No wheels involved with its movement. Is there a wheel in the background or something?\n\nHoly shit how do you people think? Does it rotate? Is it a device? Guess what rotary device means. The point of saying they didn'T have the wheel is that rotary devices come after wheels.\n\n>The video is about a man who moved even heavier stones with simple methods.\n\nThat didn't exist when stonehenge was built. Third time you pretend this argument doesn't exist.\n\n>Now, please tell us how it isn't a wagon with a motor slapped on instead of a horse. Stop being dense.\n\nHow would that change the fact that the motor had to be invented before the car, which contains a motor? I'm now fairly certain that you're retarded. You're arguing that X which contains Y was invented before Y because X contains Y. That's retarded.
I always wanted to sleep in a haunted house. As well as see a UFO.
commenting so i can watch the video's at home. thank you
If the transition effects are more spectacular, let alone annoying, than what we are supposed to see, this cannot be good.
If I am going to respond to the video I think you can boil it down to this one point. The video does not list sources, it is only the conjecture of one person. \n\nIt's fairly old conjecture at that.
>Einstein just had a huge hole blown in the completeness of his relativity theory until CERN can figure out what they did wrong (roll eyes), and Darwin Evolutionism is actually quite false. Evolution is 100% correct, but it occurs in bursts or waves - not slowly over vast periods of time. I can and will provide scholarship on both of those issues if you would like me to. The point is purely that we're having our minds blown every day as we find out more about our world. We should keep this humble fact in mind.\n\nYou seem to think here that the eventual evolution of Scientific Laws or Theories, or their replacement with modernized Theories gauged from observations that were impossible years before somehow entirely discredits and completely nullifies the initial discovery.  Nobody expected Relativity to remain unchallenged forever.  When Einstein was still alive there were observations in the Quantum Field that defied and were completely incompatible with Relativity.  The value of Relativity is in it's astounding success of prediction and application.  Even when it eventually becomes clear that the Universe does not work the way Einstein postulated, we will know that we couldn't have reached that point without Einstein believing and showing that it did.\n\n\n>I don't argue this at all; I do not think in terms of black and white. I think the vast vast majority of technologies are developed like you say; I just also feel there have been a few select technologies that showed up out of nowhere at interesting times. The transistor a few months after Roswell is the best example. Again, i'm not claiming to know anything for sure, but I find the coincidence intriguing.\n\nMy apologies! Your general argument is not that the discoveries came out of nowhere, it is that they came out of nowhere at specific times that you feel are too coincidental to be a coincidence. \n\n>I'm sorry, but this is extremely ignorant for you to say. I am not making a general argument. By saying you can just "apply my general argument" to some blanket condition, you are just showing that you're only interest is in your own rightness. You aren't actually having a conversation here; you're yelling at me. That's alright, man. I hope you have a good one. Take care.\n\nWell, you did make a general argument, and then you applied the general argument to the specific instances of the transistor and Roswell.  Your general argument is that if a discovery "comes out of nowhere" and a time that is too coincidental to be a coincidence, then Aliens imparted us with it.  My previous rebuttal of such a ridiculous argument, augmented with the irrationality of applying coincidence to an alleged event, the existence of which would require a far-reaching conspiracy, will suffice in showing why this general argument is flawed.\n\nI think you should know that I actually do believe it's likely that Aliens have visited Earth, and it wouldn't surprise me too much if contact was made by at least one person in the history of Humanity.  The only thing that annoys me more than skeptics who refuse to acknowledge any evidence of UFOs or Aliens are those who let their beliefs completely take over their reason, and contribute to the degradation of a community that ultimately wants to know the truth about Aliens and UFOs, but has become a cesspool of irrational thought, ridiculous conspiracies, and "hey that's just your opinion" arguments.
just curious, how old are you? 24 by any chance?
Agreed.
Cdnskeptic are you Erik Davis?
Interesting indeed. The problem as I see it with acupuncture though is that it would only work if the problem would go away with relaxation.
Not arrogant at all and I respect your perspective as well!  Cheers!
> It makes me believe that the military's internal security works as intended.\n\nIf it worked then how did the Disclosure Project get the information?  If the Disclosure Project doesn't have evidence why are they claiming they do, if they do then why are they suppressing it?\n\n> It's not short sighted to come to a conclusion while still in the evidence gathering phase?\n\nIt's not short sighted, no, it's some other word, like foolish or something.  Nowhere did I present any conclusion about alien visitation, only that I want to see verifiable evidence.  So while I agree it's foolish to come to a conclusion without evidence I don't think asking for evidence implies a conclusion has been reached.
There was a good overview of the fallacy and I liked the content, I just didn't like how he went about parts of it.  It assumes too much about the reader.\n\nI also don't like when blogs title stories in the following way "10 Things You Didn't Know About X."  I much prefer "10 Things You *May Not* Know about X."
Another way of classifying it as psuedoscience is that it claims to have answers without good reasons for them. If they disregard reason in favor of nonsense, that is their choice. All that does is convince me not to take them seriously.
Haha, whatever kiddo. Keep drinking your tap water.\n\n\n\n\nhttp://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090420/ap_on_re_us/pharmawater_factories\n\n\nhttp://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090403/ap_on_he_me/baby_formula_perchlorate\n\n\nhttp://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/environment/2008-09-22-EPA-fuel_N.htm
You just breathed Hitler's last breath
Oh, I actually got a different reply than everybody else, I feel honored! Although I have to go to bed now and will take a look at its meaning tomorrow.\n\nedit: hehe, got it. So creative I actually overlooked it!\n\nedit 2: no wait, I think I didn't get it. Nevermind, off to bed now!\n\n**edit 3** Well, I'm pretty sure now it's "well done" with a simple substitution. Could also be "Bummed Us" with a typo because your code says (with a shift) "Bummed Ut" ;-)
reminds you some? it's the same type of craft!
Last Saturday, not yesterday, which was Monday.
did you find the dimes after?
Agreed.  The skeptical community has long been ignoring the importance of proper diet.  It seems like everyone assumes that 1) everyone eats too much food anyway and therefore 2) the vast quantities of food we are eating are providing us with more than enough nutrition to live healthy lives.\n\nAnyone who pursues regular exercise knows that this isn't true.  You can feel the difference various foods have on your performance on a day-to-day basis, and it's repeatable. And while the idea of "nutrition" is typically a more long-term view on things, the basic idea remains the same - Eat junk food, be unhealthy.  Eat nutritious food, be healthy.
the only time that line has legitimately creeped me the fuck out, usually i ignore it, wtf happened this time
This was fantastic.  I loved it.
Snopes has it covered\n\nhttp://www.snopes.com/computer/facebook/privacy.asp
I know what this is, Teslas patent on wireless! Is it by aliens or people with Tesla tech who are creating these? Odds are it's not aliens. \n\n http://www.freeenergyinventions.bugs3.com/Pictures/Tesla_wireless_power1.gif\n\nThe crop circle looks to maybe be a bit more complete, Tesla would keep a lot of his patents incomplete to protect his ideas from banksters & crooks.\n\n
>At this rate, if I had an almost-new car stolen from me every year, I would still be better off.     \n      \nYou have no way of knowing whether you'd be better off as you've not ever been in a society without a government.     \n      \n>I could always hire protection or insurance agency services at a small fraction of the cost of government.      \n      \nAgain, there's no way to know what your specific life would be like in this alternate no-government universe.
It's a shame to see these myths re-told from engineer to apprentice with no fact checking or correction because of fear.
/r/firstworldanarchists
Seems a little too movie like - you know, glowing eyes, dark hair. It just seems a little bit too stereotypical to be true, sorry.
I've never believed the great wall was visible from space. Why would that be visible and not every 10 lane highway on earth?
looks like a weather balloon to me.
It was pretty good cgi.  I read somewhere how you could spot somewhere on the edge of the video where it was overlapping which is a tell-tale sign of cgi.  I am not all that great at spotting things like that but I can understand when it's pointed out to me.  And I will admit I was a bit disappointed, too.   I guess the old adage is true: If it's too good to be true, it probably is.  Soon, though, I think there will be no room left for doubt.
Soso, nobody´s seen Chinese lanterns before,..
Well, it is a subreddit *for* skeptics, primarily. We should be allowed to share jokes, too :-P
Evidence in general tends to be ignored by conspiracy theorists. This entire bullshit theory centers around the idea that a man who didn't go to college couldn't possibly write such great plays.
> Are you "qualified" to inform customers or are you just somebody working at the store? It hardly matters if you 'know' that this is homeopathic crap. If you get caught handing out medical advice without the proper qualifications you can be fired.\n\nI'm wondering how to inform customers that Oscillococcinum is diluted duck innards. I'm *not going to suggest* that customers not take it, but instead, I'd like to let them know what their +$12 dollars is buying--'a ratio of one part duck offal to 100^200 parts water'.\n\n> If I was in charge I would suggest isolating these pills as a way to cater to believers in homeopathic medicines. I would sell it as a positive marketing idea. That way people who like that stuff will go directly there and other people will not be fooled.\n\nIf I was in charge, our grocery store would not sell homeopathic sugar pills. I was really surprised to see that we carried *anything* homeopathic.\n\n> The reality is that you probably work at a huge chain and have no influence on how the store is layed out.\n\nI'm not trying to influence the layout of the store. What are you talking about?\n\nI've been asking customers why they're buying this product. Usually, customers give me some weird, nonsensical explanation about how the product "boosts the immune system" and "only works if you're 'on the verge' of getting sick" (whatever that means). When I press for further explanation about the immune system boost, I'm usually met by a clueless expression.\n\nSo, I'm just wondering, how you guys would dissuade a friend, customer, etc. from purchasing this product without being a dick. \n\nHomeopathy, in my opinion, is a huge scam. I hate it more than I hate organized religion. I lost my grandma to homeopathy after she was diagnosed with a completely treatable cancer. Instead of recommending that she seek professional medical help, her holistic, homeopathic 'doctor' recommended that she take more homeopathic pills, eat less tomatoes, and bathe her feet in vinegar. For real.
> How in any way is it okay to make this much profit off of a person's spirituality?\n\nYou may want to read up on other organized religions (e.g. Scientology, Catholicism, ...). Where do you think they get their vast amounts of cash from?\n\nNot that I'm saying it's OK but it's hardly extraordinary.
yeah that sweet "alien mothership shooting pods" video? lol yeah
Many people don't seem to grasp that ADD/ADHD, like many mental conditions, is defined entirely by its characteristic symptoms--it's very real, especially since all an accurate diagnosis is actually saying is that "relative to their peers, this individual has deficits in their ability to pay attention to arbitrary stimuli". Whether or not it is overdiagnosed or underdiagnosed is hard to say, given the conflicting and evolving body of literature on the subject, but one thing we can definitely say is that, as our understanding of the mechanisms for ADD/ADHD become more robust, the criteria for a diagnosis could easily change to some degree. We also know with relative certainty that the pharmacological approaches currently commonly used for treatment of ADD/ADHD are *highly* correlated with positive educational outcomes (although, to be sure, such stimulants also produce positive results in just about anybody, [there are differences](http://scholar.google.ca/scholar?q=education+ADHD+stimulant+nonmedical&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&as_ylo=2008)).\n\nAnecdotally, the only significant problem that I've encountered with ADHD-diagnosed children that might lead others to deny its existence (speaking as someone with an ADD diagnosis), is that at least in one case the parents' misunderstanding of what the ADHD-diagnosis actually meant led them to allow their child to become violent and disruptive at school with relatively little effective discipline (given my background in developmental psychology, in retrospect it's perfectly likely that they were relatively authoritarian at home and this led to the child in question acting out, but *at the time* noone publicly doubted that he was just getting a free ride at home). When asked to account for 'bad' behaviour, said child would cheerfully exclaim that "I have ADHD!!" as if he had been led to believe that this fact had any bearing on his violent outburts. My mother complained about it religiously, especially since her own kids all were eventually diagnosed with ADD or ADHD and so she knew fully well what the actual challenges were, but other moms would suggest things along the lines of "well, *I* heard that ADHD is just another excuse to drug our kids up anyways" etc.
Great. Soon Mike Huckabee will feature him on his show and declare Monday as Barton's Rally for truth day and we'll see a bunch of morons chuck their money at this guy to prove their faith.
Best. podcast. ever.
Is there science that massage works?
For rectal use only.
I disagree that we can't tell what the cause is. Remember, physicists predicted an increase in CO2 would cause an increase in temperatures *decades* before any increase was absorbed.\n\nSo, here are the facts:\n\n1) CO2 is a greenhouse gas, whose warming effect was calculated in the earlty 20th century\n\n2) Humans have increased atmospheric concentration of CO2 by about 40% over the last 150 years or so.\n\n3) A temperature increase consistent with the predicted rise due to CO2 has been observed.\n\n4) We have actual satellite observations that show an increasing amount of heat (infrared photons) are being trapped in the atmosphere at the absorption frequences of CO2 and other greenhouse gases.\n\n5) We have ground-based measurements that show a similar phenomenon, with an increase in downward infrared radiation.\n\n6) Other phenomena predicted by AGW theory are observed: nights are warming faster than days, poles are warming faster than the equator, the stratosphere is cooling while the troposphere is heating, and the tropopause (the boundary between the two) is rising.\n\nKeeping all of these in mind, it becomes *extremely* difficult to rationally claim that man-made climate change isn't real. To claim that "no one can prove the cause" behind the current warming is to ignore the empirical evidence supporting AGW theory.
http://imgur.com/rddF9
Does someone understand what the witnesses are saying?
As far as I am aware, there is no significant known danger to smoking marijuana (in terms of damage to the lungs). \n\nI know that, intuitively, it feels like there *must* be some harm that results from it. But I do not think that's actually the case.
whoops.
>Many things they "busted" were actually valid (if you're lucky, they put that in the outro of a later show or something)\n\nYou mean they came to a conclusion which they later had to modify, given new data? Sounds like science to me.
this ^
Ok, thought I'd through my knowledge in here.\n\nMy father is a senior paediatrician who specialised in diagnosing and treating behavioural conditions (specifically ADD/ADHD). He says that in extreme cases you can diagnose from the age of 4 (although it is better to diagnose at around 6, when you can monitor their behaviour around other children), and that prescribing ritalin in these conditions is standard practice.
One of the most interesting things mentioned in the article was that he met with FBI Agent Steve Bongardt. Davenport says the four hour meeting was about UFO's. S. Bongardt confirms that he met with Davenport along with a few others but doesn't say what the topic of discussion was. I would really like to hear what was said in that four hours in detail. If... in fact it was about UFO's.\n\nSome quick research on S. Bongardt shows that he was a Naval Academy grad, Top Gun fighter pilot and has some nerd type cred working with computer crime even if it is behavioral analysis. You would need know your way around computers a certain amount to do that.\n\nSmart guy, former fighter pilot turned FBI agent. Sounds like that could be the type of person that would have something to do with UFO's. What involvement? Who knows. Maybe he has just seen something or maybe he has looked into them somehow officially.\n\nLike so many other types of "evidence" it is tantalizing but just not quite enough info.\n\nUnited States Naval Academy class of 85\nhttp://www.e-yearbook.com/yearbooks/United_States_Naval_Academy_Lucky_Bag_Yearbook/1982/Page_89.html\n\nTop Gun Navy fighter pilot\nhttp://books.google.com/books?id=wAa5m41M3dgC&pg=PA142&lpg=PA142&dq=Steve+Bongardt+top+gun&source=bl&ots=BEZdMibLzP&sig=yJDPcwd1GswJSar8EZuknZOl33M&hl=en&ei=zH9UTZKgKYO_gQfZxN3yCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&sqi=2&ved=0CBcQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false\n\nF.B.I. Behavioral Analysis Unit’s Cyber Behavioral Analysis Program (CYBAP)\nhttp://www.secureworldexpo.com/events/index.php?id=268\n\n\n\n
lol. There's a faint comet looking thing.
My favorite is the one about the Federal Reserve being involved in promulgating a one world government by debasing the money supply of the USA. Throw in the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, the Illuminati, The Rothschild, The Masons, just pick and choose your favorite secret group of usurpers and voila! New World Order. Oh, and Woodrow Wilson started the Fed and the income tax, so he is the original evil genius.\n
Totally.  I have a friend that was extolling the benefits of his vegetarian lifestyle and made some mind boggling leaps of logic when it came time to discuss nutrition.  I asked about what books I could read to better educate my self about the subject and he told me he doesn't read.  Nonchalantly.  It's a god damn sickness I tell ya.
If they're coming here then they're probably looking for something that seems very rare in the universe: life. Proteins, DNA maybe some very useful microbes. Maybe they're addicted to fossil fuel. There's more value in the jungle than in the desert.
It sounds like all of this has a totally simple explanation, which you've even provided for us in your OP. However, it seems that you really are open to the idea so there really is no harm in attempting to talk to whatever it is that might be causing it. My belief in the paranormal is that there's a scientific explanation for it...but it doesn't make the events any less cool and interesting. I don't necessarily think that it's a spirit or haunting or anything like that, but perhaps your mind is a bit more receptive to a different type of thinking, which would be pretty rad. Next time this happens, just say, "I don't know what you're trying to say. Please help me understand." \n\nAt worst, nothing happens. \n\nAt best, you can open your mind to different ideas.
I find the pyramid ufo hard to believe. If there was a giant pyramid mothership hanging out above a really large city, there would be waaaay more videos than what youtube currently offers. How could there be a huge pyramid floating above a city, without someone going directly under it and not snapping a couple pictures/videos? Crap like this is what makes people believe extraterrestrials don't exist.
It makes it extremely difficult for it to exist.
>tons of evidence. \n\nthe answer is always "Show me".
For those too lazy to Google it, it's Howard Stern.
I'm with you on this. Online stupidity is getting out of hand, maybe this could restore some semblance of balance.
Well it is on the news every time it happens so not sure there's too many ways to deny it.
You posted and not sixty seconds later got two downvotes. Is some creep stalking you from /r/conspiracy?
>But this doesn't depend on positives or negatives it just depends on the offender stating that he violated parole.\n\nWell, I think it does. For my full argument, see below. But in case anyone isn't clear on what I mean when I say "false positive" and "false negative", let me explain.\n\nWhen you are asked a yes/no question during a polygraph exam, there are four possible outcomes:\n\n* (True) Positive - You answer truthfully, and the polygraph is interpreted as you being truthful.\n* (True) Negative - You answer falsely, and the polygraph is interpreted as you lying.\n* False Positive - You answer truthfully, but the polygraph is interpreted as you lying.\n* False Negative -  You answer falsely, but the polygraph is interpreted as you being truthful.\n\n>The only downside is if the test somehow forces him to admit to things he didn't actually do.\n\nThat's part of what I mean when I say it can be coercive.\n\nReally, it's another kind of false negative, and I completely forgot to include it. There seems to be two types of false negatives here, which might not be immediately obvious. First are results that say someone is truthful when they're lying. Again, it is a very serious problem if you need polygraphs to work accurately, like in counter-espionage.\n\nThe second type of false negative is someone saying what they think the interrogators want to hear because they are scared. \n\nConsider physical torture for a moment. You've been locked up in a cell. A detective walks in and explains to you very calmly that they want the truth out of you, and that they will *know* if you are lying. Then they start hitting you. They beat you until you think you're going to pass out, then, they stop. The detective tells you that unless you tell them where the body is, they're going to just beat you to death. You of course don't know where the body is, so the beating goes on. Eventually, you either bear it, or you say something, anything, to not die. Because you are more scared--at at that moment--of dying than you are of any sort of consequence.\n\nOkay, but that's just physical torture. It's understandable if you're being electrocuted that you'll say anything to get it to stop. But what about psychological torture? Well, people can and have made false confessions under psychological duress. However, it's a lot harder for people to imagine falsely confessing against themselves under psychological torture than under physical torture. So that's really part of the reason we're having this argument--because the thought is a bit inconceivable. They're not beating them with rubber hoses, so they're not going to say something that isn't true.\n\nBut again, it's happened over and over again--usually with alleged suspects who are minors, have cognitive or social issues (illiteracy, learning disabilities, low IQ or mental retardation, etc.), but also with "normal" people--that false testimonies against oneself have been given under psychological duress. A polygraph of course isn't the same as interrogating someone for 50 hours straight, but the possibility remains for someone to give the interrogator what they want to hear because they are scared.\n\nAgain, it's an odd thing to think about, because our gut reaction sitting at home in comfort is to just be baffled that someone would do such a thing. But it happens.\n\nSo again: What's the harm? False convictions. Some people might be okay with a handful of people being wrongly convicted--or even just the possibility that someone could be wrongly convicted. I'm not.\n\n**EDIT** I didn't respond to your second part. Let me do that...\n\n>Now, you might claim this is some sort of coersion but I think the police do that sort of thing all the time (threatening various punishments if they don't co-operate and so on) so I don't see this being very different. If Law & Order is to be believed the police threaten physical harm all the time and no-one cares as long as they don't act on the threat.\n\nAgain, we're detouring into ethics, but suffice it to say that just because people do it all the time doesn't mean that it is morally acceptable. \n\nIt seems a lot of it comes down to what you're willing to justify. Maybe it is okay for the police to threaten to beat somebody if they think they committed a murder and the person actually did commit the murder. But what if they didn't? Then the police are threatening to beat an innocent person. Some people are of the opinion that that doesn't occur--or at least is rare enough that the police should be able to "do what they need to do" to get a conviction. But that's one of those things I have an awful hard time justifying.\n\nEven just pragmatically, if we're interested in getting the truth, why open ourselves up to the possibility of, for whatever reason, not getting the truth? Why introduce fallibility?
This movie is pretty effective in fitting just about every new agey and metaphysical theory under a single umbrella. There's a few diamonds here among a whole lot of rough.\n\nI'll just say, even a broken clock is right twice a day.
Belief in astrology == instant turnoff.
Came for intelligent discussion, stayed for Morgan Freeman.
He only pretends to push with all his strength.
That's because they are.
Except it's not as simple as that, because [some ](http://www.foodpolitics.com/2010/03/hfcs-makes-rats-fat/) [scientists](http://where-is-the-beef.blogspot.com/2010/11/is-high-fructose-corn-syrup-hfcs-eviler_22.html) have found this study to be deeply flawed.\n\nSo it may in fact be true that HFCS is worse than table sugar, but this study isn't the one to prove it.\n\n\n\n\n\n
To be fair, I do this with my single malt whiskies. However, it's really more of a "Yeah, I'm about to drink this here shizzle" than anything meaningful.
Good thing I'm not worried about you thinking I'm a crackpot then.
I wish I could get paid to be a skeptic.  Are there classes for this? \n\n> in b4 physics 101 joke.
I'm not saying it was the government, but it was the government.
If the space craft was this big wouldn't the gravity from it disturb mercury's orbit?
This is a horrible idea that stifles critical  thinking. It's not going to be 100% accurate it will lead to people only looking at what's highlighted critically. There are also going to be people disputing basic facts such as that the earth is round, or that on 9/11 the two world trade centers went down due to highjacked planes by terrorists.
Military drones. Move along.
icky_boo,\n\nIf you do run a test, please let me know the results.
Electromagnetic waves can damage the body, but wifi can't. You have to wear sun-screen to protect from the sun's UV rays, which is a kind of electromagnetic wave, but not when you're listening to the radio, which is another kind of electromagnetic wave. Wifi is a non-ionising wave, which can be read as harmless.
But of course. UFO stands for "Unidentified Flying Object" not "Alien Spaceship".
Just out of curiosity, what MW2 map/where on it?
I ended up watching the whole thing, and I must echo your statement.
Says the guy stealing content and reposting torrential spam on subreddits.
Well when you are a Lizard man you can do that sort of thing.
There is factual basis to the claim that fluoride is toxic in high doses. Optimal water fluoridation doesn't approach them. The [ADA fluoridation booklet](http://www.ada.org/sections/newsAndEvents/pdfs/fluoridation_facts.pdf) (pdf) addresses most of this stuff.\n\n(a,b,c) The [NRC book](http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11571) that the petition refers to dug pretty thoroughly for evidence of harm at low levels and was even co-[paneled](http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11571&page=R5) by a prominent anti-fluoridation activist (Thiessen, and possibly someone else), but they didn't turn up much cause for concern for the .7–1.2 range we call "optimal". If anyone claims otherwise, check the report itself plus the [Bazian review](http://208.109.172.241/sha.basian.nrc.feb09.pdf) (pdf) of it.\n\n(d) They seem to be referring to the [Bassin study](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16596294), which so far as i know is alone in finding a positive relationship (while at least [one other](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1615731/) found no relationship and, interestingly, mentioned a biologically plausible *protective* mechanism). Doesn't seem conclusive, at any rate.
Why do people think aliens look like this?
You are reliving the event in your head. So even if you're not "scared" your body still wants to react to the situation in your head. Maybe?\n
\n\n> I think that neuroscience is to psychology what physics is to natural philosophy.\n\nThe big difference here is that psychology follows the scientific method. A hypothesis is generated then tested, analyzed, replicated, etc. Philosophy involves expounding upon the fundamental nature of the certain phenomena or ideas, but is inherently non-scientific as it is not guided by the scientific method.\n\n> One issue here is certainly which psychology we are talking about. \n\nI would argue that all branches of psychology *can* be scientifically valid. Some fields (e.g. cognitive psychology that is based in neural imaging and mental functions) are inherently "easier" to seem more valid than others (e.g. social psychology that is based in human behavior). \n\n> At this stage in the discussion, it might be useful to identify a psychological experiment that you would deem as scientifically valid as a respected physics experiment. And to be clear, I'm not saying psychology is a complete waste of time, but that it is on a level below the hard sciences. \n\nThe problem here stems back to the idea of which subfield of psychology you are discussing. I can provide you with examples from any field that you wish, but I will expand upon a social psychology study below (since I get the impression that social psych is one such branch that you would consider to be less scientific.\n\nLeon Festinger's 1959 study into cognitive dissonance and behavior is a classic example. In the study, participants were given a hour-long task that was designed to be very boring and tedious. For the first 30 minutes, the participants were given a tray of 12 spools. Their task was to empty the tray of spools onto the table and then refill the tray. They repeated this for 30 minutes. Then for the second half, the participants were given a board with 48 square pegs. The participants were told to turn each peg a quarter-way counterclockwise, and then repeated this for every peg for 30 minutes.\n\nAfter the hour was over, they were split into 3 groups. One group was given 20$ to lie to another subject (actually an experimenter) and say that the experiment was very interesting and engaging. One group was given 1$ to lie to the subject. The control group did not talk to any subject or was given any money.\n\nAfterwards, each participant was asked how rate how much they liked the experiment (arranging spools, turning pegs). Contrary to what you may have expected, the group that was given 1$ consistently and significantly gave the experiment a much higher rating than the group that was given 20$. Festinger explained this as caused by cognitive dissonance. The participants were told to say that they found the task exciting when it was actually very boring. These ideas were at conflict in the person's mind. When paid 1$, the participant was forced to internalize the idea that it was exciting since they had no other justification for why they would say it was exciting (1$ would not be enough to make someone spend an hour doing such boring tasks). The 20$ group had an obvious external justification (they got paid 20$) for their behavior, and thus experienced less cognitive dissonance.\n\nThis idea has been repeated many times, most popularly by making participants write essays that are opposed to views they believe in and then paying either a small amount or large amount.\n\nAs you can see, this social experiment followed the scientific method. Festinger correctly hypothesized the impact of cognitive dissonance in the beginning, designed an experiment, tested it, others replicated the experiment (or similar experiments), and thus cognitive dissonance theory appears in all psychology 101 textbooks. The experiment led to many applications in real life. For example, it has been shown that if you make cigarette smokers admit that there are significant and dangerous health effects from smoking, they are more likely to quit smoking than if they do not admit so. Problems arise here when people claim to have the DEFINITE cure for smoking addiction when in fact this technique may only be effective for some.\n\nThis theory can accurately be used to predict behavior. While everyone may not act in the way that cognitive dissonance predicts, this is okay since the theory does not claim to be able to predict all behavior. On average, though, people will always do what ever it takes to eliminate their cognitive dissonance even if it includes lying to themselves.\n\nPhysics is concerned with describing definite phenomena. The gravitational constant will always be the same. Psychology is concerned with describing human behavior and mental processes. Unlike fundamental laws of physics, no two humans are the same, nor will they always act/think in the way predicted by psychology. Again, psychology is typically not concerned about universality. It is acceptable if someone in the 1$ condition rates the experiment as very boring. But as psychology predicts, humans will tend to rate the 1$ experiment more exciting than the 20$ one.
pseudoskeptic
Wait, is this just about science or is someone making a psuedoscientific claim? It looks like there's a basic disagreement about the impact of these connectomes, but not about their being important: it's an argument of just how important they are.\n\n\nAnd in the second letter, it's not even an argument about these connectommes, it's an argument about what's the best way to look at them. \n\nI'm not really sure this is about debunking something or someone making a bullshit claim.
You'd think they would transport hogs on Hogs.
Time Travelers seem to me more likely than even aliens. The Time Travel idea actual removes the questions of: \n\n1. Why grays and other aliens look exactly like us. \n2. Why Earth is their focal point. \n\nAlso time travel may be more possible than FTL travel, depending on how that works out.
See, now you are framing the debate. \n\nI never said what my Wing Chun school was, you assumed what it was. Now you are choosing to define what Wing Chun is and what it is not; yet you have shown that you are not aware that there are various schools of Wing Chun that teach various things. \n\nSince you don't know what is taught in various Wing Chun schools, have never practiced it yourself, how can you claim that it is not Wing Chun?\n\nWing Chun is, and always has been a framework. Unlike TKD and Karate there are only 3 empty handed forms. Why 3? Forms are generally considered a waste of time to memorise, so only 3 to get all the key movements. The rest is sparring (3 more forms if you count wooden dummy, knives and long pole). \n\nIf you redefine what someone else's martial art is you are framing the debate; that is disingenuous at best.
*theoretically*
Well yes, but that presupposes that it is actually we the consumers who want the cars. What if we've been told that cars are the only way, and that we must replace that car every year to boot? Perhaps the proper answer to moving people isn't cars at all, it is automated rapid transport that never has lethal accidents, doesn't pollute, is nearly noiseless and is powered by renewable energy. ;) \n\nBottom line here being of course - it is not nearly enough to "understand economics" (and I'm giving everyone a huge pass on that one, because I would submit that virtually nobody understands every aspect of that particular game) - to claim that capitalism is the only way requires you to have encyclopedic knowledge of societal forces, human psychology, human genetics and so on and so forth. \n\nIt is not enough to know how to fix the engine.
Wouldn't that make him agnostic?
I posted instructions below on how to make one :) they are cheap to do...
I think teaching counter-arguments would be fine. Teaching how an "irreducibly complex" mechanism can evolve, or how two species with a complex relationship can evolve in parallel seem quite appropriate to a science class.
The double-slit experiment is not "completely made up."
How about showing us the actual pictures he tried to take. Even if they don't show anything the metadata might prove they were taken when you say they are. And if it was with a phone they could even be geolocalized.
Who's Leith?
This may sound like illogical tripe, but I always took them after a round of antibiotics that are known to negatively affect gut flora, but beyond that I always thought it was strange to supplement a system that shouldn't be broken unless you have some disease that gives you a diminished gut flora.
Lol, I love that music video man. Aphex Twin, crazy stuff.
\nI'm sort of not quite getting the point you are trying to make.\n\nI'm under the impression that in many cases it would be unethical to test a new treatment against a placebo - a doctor *cannot* prescribe a patient a treatment that has no other mechanism to work if there is effective treatment available. You can test a treatment against a placebo *only* if there is no treatment available for it, and I'd say that's pretty rare in these days.\n\nMy quick peek through pubmed did somewhat support my assumption - the only studies actually using only placebo as a control were the kind of non-vital, not that well-known speculative ventures, like eg. studies to the effects of stimulants on gambling success. The other placebo-controlled studies used known effective treatments for their subjects like e.g. a cancer study, and I quote from the abstract: "Fenretinide and tamoxifen have additive antitumor effects preclinically. We performed a randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind adjuvant trial in breast cancer patients treated for 5 years with tamoxifen, with or without fenretinide. Between October 1995 and October 1999, 426 postmenopausal women with hormone receptor-positive breast cancer were randomized." \n\nAlso, the Declaration of Helsinki states that:\n\n*"The benefits, risks, burdens and effectiveness of a new method should be tested against those of the best current prophylactic, diagnostic, and therapeutic methods. This does not exclude the use of placebo, or no treatment, in studies where no proven prophylactic, diagnostic or therapeutic method exists."*\n\nwhich has since been clarified by the World Medical Association:\n\n*"The WMA hereby reaffirms its position that extreme care must be taken in making use of a placebo-controlled trial and that in general this methodology should only be used in the absence of existing proven therapy. However, a placebo-controlled trial may be ethically acceptable, even if proven therapy is available, under the following circumstances:*\n\n*— Where for compelling and scientifically sound methodological reasons its use is necessary to determine the efficacy or safety of a prophylactic, diagnostic or therapeutic method; or*\n\n*— Where a prophylactic, diagnostic or therapeutic method is being investigated for a minor condition and the patients who receive placebo will not be subject to any additional risk of serious or irreversible harm.\n All other provisions of the Declaration of Helsinki must be adhered to, especially the need for appropriate ethical and scientific review."*\n\nIf all that you were trying to say was that one must use placebo as a control *if no other treatment exists*, I can only say - well duh. (Actually, reading through your comment again, *that* is *exactly* what you're saying. As I've already said, well duh. Still, it's pretty rare to find completely new ailments these days. As I stated before, most of the time drugs are tested against other drugs, not placebo. I'll leave the ethics bit I've written for the benefit of others.) \n\nAS for your second point, the concept I'd like to stress more than what constitutes a lie in a legalistic sense is ["informed consent"](http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/physician-resources/legal-topics/patient-physician-relationship-topics/informed-consent.page): a patient cannot consent to a treatment if one could reasonably expect that they might decline it if they knew what it truly was.\n\nOf course there is a chance that they wouldn't - there were people willing to take the placebo even when they were informed what they were taking.
yeah, He most likely will, although his stepdad full heartedly belives it is a spirit he does not believe it is harmful, so I don't think he will have a problem with it.
Yoire giving witnesse WAY too much credit. Some people don't even know these exist
*(whoosh)*
Note to self: when I can't sleep so I get on Reddit to clear my mind, how about we avoid /r/Paranormal, eh?\n\nSo is this looking out a window, or what?
LOL
One of the things that bugs me; they say 'Natural medicine' but their own rhetoric requires supernatural phenomena.
He's not a pedant, he's simply *wrong.*  ... I think.  It's a little difficult to know what he's actually saying due to that high blood pressure of his.
What do you think a government does then?
actually, rulers only come in one size and you need 3 Ph.D's to get it.
meh.. pics or it didn't happen;)
I would agree if that's the case. I was considering going for a home birth even though insurance wouldn't cover it, but decided that I would rather have the medical help closer than further away. It helps that my local hospital is very good about not rushing or intervening unnecessarily -- it would have been a harder decision otherwise.
Since you're interested, there have been at least a couple major attempts to replicate Bem's results since it was published, and both have been negative. The most recent one ran into some issues with the journal that published Bem's original article, because their policy has been not to publish straight replications. After some hubbub, I've heard that they are actually going to publish it, so that should be coming soon.
But Airborne was CREATED BY A SCHOOL TEACHER! Unlike normal medicine which is made by Doctors. What do they know?
He had way bigger balls than you, sitting there at your keyboard with your big talk.  At least he did something.  You may not like what he was doing, but wait.. you don't have the slightest clue what he was doing, or why, or how, since you're relying on Bush area propaganda to make your argument.\n\nEither way, dumping him in the ocean was spiteful.  Spite is childish.
Nicely.
as someone who spends their days animating and modelling 3D characters as a means to make a living, i would bet my life on this being a cg character. but im sure your a cg expert and this must be aliens. \n\nedit: if you need a specific moment that gives it away and why, look at 1:35 and the motion his arm makes, arm is raised with virtually no effect on the rest of his torso, this is a classic sign of un-finished animation. there are lots of other things like head movements that are simply too smooth and such but 1:35 takes the cake
I agree with you and have thought this many times. My conclusion is that they really have nothing to study. We have film, witness accounts and all that, but nothing definitive that we can hold or observe.
Im more disappointed by the number of people that believe we invaded Iraq because of 9/11.  Or, rather, that Iraq had something to do with 9/11.
Maybe we live in some sort of Tulpa world thats now out of control but cracks are appearing?\n\n[edit] So unlike the matrix ( before anyone says ) our minds are projecting outside and masking reality, kinda like a mass holo-deck ( thanks STNG ).\nThe point being that we have been so fooled into thinging that the world is mundain and the paranormal is no-existant/reliable that no-one needs to control us anymore as it self perpetuates.\nThere maybe people out there that know the truth but who could they prove it?\nAre all the paranormal phenomina just cracks in the perceived world and actuallyh are the reality?\n\nQuestions, questions, question.......is there a spoon?
I haven't read the article yet, but I just wanted to comment on the thumbnail. That has got to be one of the most unattractive pictures of Kirsten Dunst I've ever seen, [and I've seen a lot of unattractive pictures of Kristen Dunst in my time.](http://cel.webby.no/img/gjesp/kirsten-dunst.jpg)
Touche
>The closest definition I have come across simply means "interpretation".\n\nI've never heard it defined like that. Metaphysics literally means "above physics(/science)", it's the study of what's "real" beyond appearances. It may be the case that what appears to exist also does exist, but metaphysics is the field that attempts to determine whether this is true or not. \n\nWhat this means is that a metaphysical position can't coincide with a scientific hypothesis, as science only deals with phenomena (appearances). The metaphysical position would (ideally) need to explain why these appearances exist if they are distinct from what is really there, but it doesn't need to be consistent with the scientific findings (unless our metaphysical position is scientific realism).\n\n>In what sense? I haven't seen physicists trying to isolate the "redness" in objects which are perceived by us as red, for example, but some currents of philosophy have spent a great deal trying to make the redness into a physical thing (substances, essences, quiddity etc.) as opposed to a mental phenomenon.\n\nThat's not naive realism. Naive realism is basically just the position that what you see is what you get. There's no need to assume that all things that exist are in themselves material, but generally there is an emphasis that they are at least products of material interactions. That is, they don't believe that "movement" is a physical property of a car, but they argue that movement, whilst not a material entity, is not immaterial like souls or minds are suggested to be. There's also no need (as a naive realist) to assume that perception is perfect - you can be tricked by optical illusions and cognitive biases, the main point is just that what you see is usually real (i.e. the tree in your garden isn't really batman murdering a gnome and you've just never realised). \n\nThe description of "redness" as a physical thing sounds like some absurdly extreme form of materialism. I'm not sure I've ever heard any theories like that, except sometimes as strawmen presented by non-materialists (not that I think you're a non-materialist presenting a strawman, I just think you might be repeating something you'd seen in a debate or discussion). \n\nAs a simple guideline, keep in mind that 'naive realism' is a description of what the average person believes about the nature of reality.
>one-on-one attention from a therapist\n\nThis being the only part you can't get from home (unless you live with a therapist, but that's awkward anyway).\n\nI'd just as readily book an appointment with a licensed therapist at a spa. Same benefits, plus my skin would be so *smooth*!
Well, Chopra was claiming science *ignores* subjective data, and the narrator was just explaining that the placebo effect is acknowledged and studied by science. I don't think he would've had time to explain [how the placebo effect works on a mechanical level.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo#Mechanism_of_the_effect)
Neither. Just take it for what it was, a tragedy where innocent people died. Does it really matter? Skepticism in this and the JFK assassination... it all seems kind of pointless. You can believe whatever the hell you want it makes no difference, so simplify it. It sucked... there ya go.
The saddest thing is the wholly preventable death of Dana McCaffery who was too young to be vaccinated. Anti-vaxxers need to understand that their decision not to vaccinate their own children has fatal effects on those that are unable to be vaccinated themselves. This population lost their herd immunity and Dana died as a direct result of that. \n\nAnd that just sucks.
I got to /seduction a lot, and while there is some nonsense, it is nowhere near what you find on /nofap. /seduction is mostly just pragmatic advice, like "don't be clingy" and whatnot.
Although I'm doing Keto which is a cousin of paleo.  I've lost 70lbs, lowered my blood pressure and maintain even energy though the day.  My objective to prevent my body from releasing insulin which is driven by carbs primarily.  Paleo stays away from carbs but can get carby with too many fruits.  I'm not a paleo expert but /r/paleo seems to have a very active group as well with my group /r/keto  Drop in those subreddits and see what kind of results they are getting.  Also people claim it's just another way of cutting cals but I'm still as piggy as ever and put away at least half a stick of butter every 2 days.  yes I've been checked out, all is well.  Although I'm primarily speaking for keto so just throwing in my 2 cents.
the little boy in the video says he sees and talks to his uncle bo all the time its creepy as hell and  but when bo was alive he would fuck with with me all the time, jump outta closets and scare  the shit outta me and his sister when we were kids so part of me thinks if bo is still in that house hes enjoying how much it freaks me out
> She accused me of being unable to understand how the abilities work, because I had only toe-level energy while her energy level was up to her knees.\n\nI am so stealing this next time I'm in an argument at work.  \n\n"You see this?  What's that?"  \n"Your... knee?"  \n"That's right!  Knee-level energy, toe boy.  And *that* is why we don't pass strings by value."  \n
That....would be great.
I'm interested in aliens, I want to see in my life time lifeforms from outside the earth, sentient or not, and if sentient I want to be alive long enough to see contact be made.
On the face of it, I'd have very few objections to such a policy. As a general rule, I'd suggest that any health care worker that isn't informed enough to realize how critical it is for them to be vaccinated (for the sake of all their patients) cannot possibly be informed enough to do their job competently.\n\nThat said, I also know of many health care workers that actually don't get their shots (as reported by my physio-therapist mother, who complains about her coworkers' wooish tendencies regularly) despite their chosen profession, and as much as *I* might want those that didn't pay attention at med school removed from the system, many in the general population either don't care or actively *want* such woo peddlers--any attempt to bring such a policy into force is going to encounter significant blowback and might even have logistical problems if a large minority of medical staff refuse outright.\n\nPROTIP: Ignore the comments, the CBC has a sizable contingent of reality-deniers frequenting its articles, and they've been extra active of late thanks to CBC coverage of [a batch of this year's flu vaccine from Novartis that *might* be *slightly* less effective than intended due to a manufacturing error](http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2012/10/27/novartis-vaccines.html), and because of the recent coverage of how last year's flu vaccine was not effective against a different strain that emerged the same year.\n\nDEVIL'S ADVOCATE: [Here's a review](http://www.escriber.com/userfiles/ccoch/file/CD005187.pdf) that suggests that vaccinating health care workers that work at elderly health care facilities has little or no detectable effect on influenza rates amongst patients.
The lights are: Mars, swamp gas, a flare and a weather balloon. \n\nEdit: spelling.
>Sally has been forced to bring libel proceedings\n\nYea, her hands are really tied there.  What else do you when you've been exposed?\n\n>would not be appropriate for us to make any further comment whilst the legal action progresses.\n\nThe legal proceedings you initiated?  How unfortunately convenient.
Homeopathic food would probably work.
Was that your response for every picture book when you were a child?
Harmless? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Reagan#Influence_in_the_White_House
I think the reasoned arguments combined with the threat of having to find another practice will result in many parents on the fence choosing to vaccinate their kid. Thinking of it in terms of the matching law, a parent on the fence would initially view vaccination and non-vaccination as otherwise equal, and thus tagging on an extra aversive variable onto the "non-vaccination" side of the equation would make vaccination a more likely option (highly simplified, of course).\n\nSo it could work in that sense, but I don't think anyone would believe that the stubborn parent that gets "fired" will see the error of their ways and come back for the vaccination. I think the whole point of the "firing" is to accept that they're a lost cause.
But I HAVE put effort in. All I kept coming up with was material from organisations with agenda, Green Parties, Environmental Protection Agencies, News Articles, etc.
Hardly a "climate villain" \n\nLomborg, in his first book accepted the existence of man-made global warming. "The point I've always been making is it's not the end of the world," he told the Guardian. "That's why we should be measuring up to what everybody else says, which is we should be spending our money well."  http://reason.com/blog/2010/09/01/skeptical-environmentalist-sti
yes mine is similar..he does talk to himself while he plays. The talking to himself or just out to no one does bother me a bit but he is totally content and doesnt ever act out or seem bothered by any of it.
Calcium is extremely important; Calcium is not only used in the breaking and creating in bones by the osteoblasts and osteoclasts, but also in muscle contraction. Without calcium, your heart would not be able to contract and you would die.
As well, my words were more jumbled than mumbles. Like (for an example), instead of xbox360, I'd say play station 360
I knew from the thumbnail...  Monster parties.. aw yeah.
Another fake.
What? I don't believe in some version of the paranormal.
Of course I can expect better - they actually showed me that they *can* do better!
Which episode did he bring up this video? I wanna find it.
I would suspect that the snapping would have released most of the ice crystals.  The ice would have collected on the tether after launch as the natural humidity in the air cools down and the violent action of the tether snapping would cause the crystals to become detatched.  This would result in almost universally small crystals that appear as only a speck (but then are exagerated by the lens)\n\nI'm really glad to see this thread filled with nothing but rationality and clear-headedness.  All to often a post like this will turn in to claims of "NASA Shill" and the like.\n\nThis is the sort of stuff that needs to be on the front page in r/UFOs if we are ever going to get to the truth.\n\nThe chaff has to be removed.
I get the impression he thinks that because he has arguments like this all the time and thinks it impossible to change anyone's mind. Because he's clinically insane.\n\nOr he's a very successful ironic troll
Sorry for the error, we loaded the wrong deck image into the interface you two we're sharing. In a way you were both right, family was still there, and you saw they weren't.
and yes, i know of /r/askparanormal . but there are more eyes here.\n
great picture
Dear Dawkina.\n\nGetting felt up by a priest isn't much compared to getting raped repeatedly over several years, only to have your church hush everything up, move the rapist priest away and protect him, and leave you scarred for life. \n\nSo stop whining, will you? For goodness sake grow up, or at least grow a thicker skin.
What are the issues? I would have to confirm but can they do anything more than just monitor?
Hey dudes, just so you know: going into other subreddits and downvoting everything makes us look like assholes and is part of the reason people dismiss us. You're making our lives more difficult.\n\nInstead, challenge with questions, start discussions, and honestly examine any evidence provided. The guy posted four peer-reviewed articles that were all downvoted to oblivion without a single reply. That's disgraceful and so totally anti-reddiquette that it makes kittens cry. The least you can do is let him know why you're downvoting.
I make mistakes. I am human. If you feel the need to proofread everyone's posts, then start at the top and work your way down. Why stop with me?
Right and there are none as we know of same as lepercons, ghosts, esp, gods or any other made up crap.
Doesn't answer the question, and explains nothing about the "serially credulous" except that they have magazines.
mh, so either the UN data is wrong, your data is wrong or the UN data is indeed per year?\n\n( http://data.un.org/Data.aspx?d=GenderStat&f=inID%3A12 )\n\nIf the UN data is per year, i have to admint, i find the numbers shockingly high (not only for russia).
scumbag religious leader: convinces u that u r pregnant, steals babies to prove it! this guy is a class act all the way.
[STS-114](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoeZ4ceAZes)
> I always thought astrology was meant to be make believe goofiness, and as such never merited serious debate anyway. Am I alone in this?\n\nThat how I see it, too. But I'm always dumbstruck by otherwise intelligent and rational people who nonetheless think there's "something" to astrology. They'll admit that the mechanism behind it don't make sense. But they'll insist that the character traits associated with the various signs apply to most people they know ("He/she is a typical Virgo." or "I've had three Gemini girlfriends, and it's true what they say about them" etc). Explaining confirmation bias to them doesn't help. Pretty frustrating.
> The question is about whether the government had advance knowledge, not whether the government carried out the attacks themselves.\n\nRight. Which is why the article says that it's a shame that the pollsters didn't actually dig deeper and find out whether there were any Truthers in their sample, just implied that it may be possible with a generic question.\n\n> the Christian Scientists and the Scientologists are both anti-vax organizations.\n\nScientologists are hardly a conservative entity. As for Christian Scientists and fundamentalist religious groups which reject medicine in favor of faith healing, it was never said that the issue was solely liberal.\n\n> Jenny Mcarthy does not speak for the left-wing\n\nShe's a favorite of many liberal moms who embrace the "natural" woo aimed specifically at the more left-leaning market. Trying to decide who officially speaks for the left just gets you into the territory of the No True Scotsman fallacy.\n\n> and Oprah is a brand name\n\nWhich also promotes woo aimed towards the same market as Jenny McCarthy's speeches.\n\n> Not explicitly stated, but implied by the liberal-conservative frame of the article.\n\nThe frame of the article is that there are lots of irrational people on both sides of the political spectrum who are being fueled by idiot pundits. There are just three and a half sentences directed towards pointing out that there's a whole lot of woo on the left that's being frequently ignored by the mainstream media. But because you don't like the wording, you're blowing them out of proportion and reading things that are outside the article's scope into the bit you don't like.
Came here to post this, saw it months ago.
just curious but what do you do when friends / family talk about 9/11 conspiracy stories?
it still achieves precisely dick, but if it makes someone smile and is free then I can't be against it. My only issue with prayer as a cure is when people resort to prayer alone. that shit is just criminally negligent
>My memories were of being taken into a giant cave\n\nDo you have any notion of why they would abduct you?\n\nAlso, I'm curious if you gained any sense of how much more advanced they are than us.
"Evidence-based" may be a better description.
R.I.P. aazav.
Reminds me of [this clip](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzHHZ5oXAr0&feature=related) from the Big Bang Theory.
> Watson supporters...\n\n... it's Chinatown, dude.  It's Chinatown.
*"In a 1988 study conducted at UNM, psychiatrist Rick Strassman found that approximately 20 percent of volunteers injected with high doses of DMT had experiences identical to purported Alien Abductions"*\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_abduction#Examples
UFOs are not physical craft. They're metaphysical in nature. The disinfo is to assume that they ARE craft and that they ARE from outer space. THATS THE DISINFO. \n\nUFOs come from this planet. 'THEY' have been here for thousands of years, if not more. 'THEY' are watching us, like the all-seeing eye on your dollar bill.\n\nLike the plethora of corporate logos espousing their allegiance to 'them.' \n\n[CBS](https://encrypted-tbn3.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQYPaAiH3RBMCmBA0DlS3uJF2nPNs1R9uzkm0kMAK-XlHw-MorH)\n\n[AOL](http://bostinno.com/wp-content/uploads//2010/11/aol-logo.jpg)\n\n[Time Warner Cable](http://sdsa.org/support/images/Time-Warner-Cable-Logo.JPG)\n\n[Fidelity Investments](http://www.collegegrad.com/images/company_logo/186.jpg)\n\nso much more...
YES! Super upvotes for you!
i find myself wondering if it was it you or your wife farting?
Would an advanced group of beings necessarily have a concept of government or even the hierarchy of rules of order?\n\n
Unless you eat cell phones.
C'mon, you can do better than that. I don't feel insulted at all.\n\nAsk each of them to describe *exactly* what they saw. Separately, without talking to each other. You'll see that they all tell different stories. My mother and I both guarantee it.\n\nPlease note: This does not make them liars and I would never call them that. We have all had moments in our lives when we misinterpreted something we saw, smelled, heard, etc. I don't fault them for that, I've done it myself. But they are still unreliable if a supernatural force is considered a possible source for the phenomenon.
Lesson already learned. \n\nAlso because **some people can't taste the huge difference** between "open yard free-range grass-fed" (to not say organic) chicken eggs. and caged chicken eggs.
Content aside, check out readability.com for pages like this. It's a little bookmark that makes Neon Green on a black background text into something, well readable. I don't work for them or anything, it's just a helpful tool to use when I come upon pages like this.
>Was I too subtle? You made the claim that if you say something intended for a narrow audience, it's totally fine to say disparaging things about people outside of that audience. You didn't specify that there's a threshold of severity above which your premise is no longer true. Be more specific next time if you want to set up cute little rules like that.\n\nRight. If you can't see the fundamental difference (other than scale) between being rude about people's beliefs and racism, I don't have anything to say to you, you're just a lost cause. \n\n>Basic high school level psychology - piss someone off and they're much less likely to respond positively to you.\n\nYou seem to think that Dawkins wants to convert the religious directly... Newsflash: he doesn't, otherwise he wouldn't be insulting them. He's simply highlighting the idiocy of religious thinking and theism to anyone who is willing to listen, and frankly, his abrasive tone is gaining him a lot of free press, just like it did for Hitchens. In any case, you can't reason a man out of a position he didn't reason himself into, but you might convince society to deem religious thinking to be socially unacceptable, which, in the end, achieves the same thing.\n\n>Calling all religious people stupid is quite another.\n\nA spade is a spade. Most people outgrow their imaginary friends.
Shit. No cure for MS. I'm out.
Read the comment again. \n\n>Everywhere a system **other** than capitalism (or more accurately some capitalist hybrid) has been tried, it has failed reletive to other nations\n\nI am talking about the failures of command economies, state run industries and the like. I am not talking about forms of capitalism failing.
...that's the name of the fictional lab in a video game called Portal.
And then teach them that correlation does not negate causation.  I find that people have a tendency to latch onto this concept.
come on meh, its a map and you still managed to misidentify the location
How can someone say they are the exposer of the NWO and all the elite world controlling bankers, yet still think the bible is real. Its just weird.\nIt was hard for me to convince myself of his possible mental issues, but I did and now I feel like a much more improved person, like I can debate people, without coming off as the idiot.
Yes, I generally avoid talking about it too, and when I met anyone that starts talking about it, especially in connection with the brain, they automatically go into the quack box until they can demonstrate they're not idiots.\n\nI remember at a friends party, I was sitting down reading a neuroscience textbook that I'd bought, and my friend's girlfriend asked if I was studying neuroscience. I wasn't, and just said that was reading it out of interest, she then said "oh yeah, I read textbooks about quantum physics", and I asked if she was any good at mathematics as that's an obvious prerequisite, she didn't reply... I later remembered that my friend had said his girlfriend believed she was psychic, I imagine that she thinks that quantum weirdness allows for any kind of bullshit.
I'm a big fan of Campbell and I enjoy Karen Armstrong's work.  I took anthropology classes with a professor who seemed to be a proponent of Campbell's mythic story types and emphasized the hero (professors can hide their biases, so I'm not entirely convinced he wasn't waiting to see who would think and disagree with him or not).\n\nThe problem with the works of these people isn't that they aren't right, it's that they aren't entirely right.  Yes, a thousand times over, much of what each of these people wrote and said is accurate.  Myths aren't Platonic forms, though.  They aren't cultural archetypes welling up from a shared psyche like Jung proposes, even if there are many features shared in common.
That's interesting. \n\nI had acupuncture a couple of times, fully disbelieving its medical effectiveness (as I still do). However I put that down to the overall treatment or experience: peaceful darkened room, relaxing music, one-on-one attention, the sense of being "tended" to. Afterwards I felt astonishingly tripped out and floating, a bit like coming round from anaesthetic. However, I am certain I would have felt like this *without* the needles part. \n\nSo I can certainly see how strongly someone might be duped into believing there was something in it. We should perhaps consider the entire "theatre" or performance of alternative medicine when it comes to analysing the placebo effect.
nah, i don't think this guy is ignoring evidence, simply interpreting it terribly. I skimmed a couple of his 'articles' and one that stuck out as particularly flawed was about how yeast cytochrome b is equidistant (in terms of sequence differences) from practically everything else, yet doesn't fit in the evolutionary hierarchy. I didn't follow that last claim (seemed kinda empty and I don't know shit about yeast) but for the former, he's making all sorts of crappy assumptions about the necessity of a particular metric and its implications. Needless to say, he *is* looking at (relevant?) data and using it as evidence, counter to what you said.\n
I need to know if I'm moving in the right direction with my life. I recently got a cord cutting if that makes any difference. I do feel better though.
It's as fad as vegetarianism or veganism!!!! </bold>
I do not understand, he had the episodes mislabeled, why is this a glitch?
New comment on this youtube video: \n"the original uploader of the UFO video (YouTube user "alymc01") has two Sony Bravia commercials on their channel which were created by "BEAM TV", which is located in the exact location that these UFO's were "filmed"\n\nBasically they are viral filmmakers just like the Jerusalem videos \n
I used to get them on my phone all the time, but none since I repaired the exposed copper line.
I do not trust "Dr. Dave David"\n\nAlso "medical grade stainless steel" WTF
LOL Randi...  what a joke.
Really interesting information but the droning, monotonous voice of the narrator kind of spoiled it for me.
They mention Santeria in one of their songs.  I think that's why this question was asked.  Great, now I have "Santeria" stuck in my head.
Well that makes me happy.
Thanks for checking.  I did too with no luck.\n\n\nThe plaintiffs did come up with some crack pot experts.  Their guy claimed:\n\n > says he recently traveled to consult with “the king in South Africa” on Wi-Fi dangers\n\n\nSince anyone fresh out of grade school knows that there is no king in South Africa, then it surprises me that the court would consider that an expert witness.  Could I be expecting too much?\n
I enjoy PZ's atheist rantings, but I *love* his biology talks.  It's what he's best at, and I eat up these lectures like candy.
I call *bullshit* on this blog post:\n\n> But you know even our smart debunkers are running out of arguments when they choose to introduce former Vice President and Nobel winner Al Gore as an “asshole.”\n\nAre you fucking kidding me? Al Gore has got to be one of the greatest assholes in the planet, and the one with huge 'political blinders' is the blogger that apparently can't stand anyone criticizing Gore because he has such a crush on him.
Hitler is very evil, though, so... yea.
I used the headline from the link...
I create mutant viruses through just the power of my body! Every time a virus infects me, my cellular machinery manufactures huge numbers of mutants.
I fucking hate the term "boost the immune system".  You know what happens when your immune system *truly* is "boosted"?  Autoimmune disease.  Your body starts motherfucking destroying itself from the inside.  Boosting your immune system is a great way to kill yourself.\n\nOf course the sole thing those products really do is take money from your wallet and transfer it to the companies that make said products.
Or, you know, sunsurfin was making a joke.
No, I doubt it. After all, it's only people interested in science in the first place that'd be watching these kinds of shows for the most part. If anything she's probably doing more damage than good with stuff like this.
If she does, clearly she's wrong. The problem is that vaccines for boys contain more mercury. D'uh!\n\nBRB, I have to go finish my tuna fish sandwich before the bread gets soggy.\n\n
I don't know wasp your talking about.
I'll give the same response as I presented Angryhobbit below.\nThere are 2 options. The cynical option is that it was carved in. This kind of thing has happened repeatedly throughout history. The other is that it's just differential erosion. Something present that the granite formed around which was eroded away more easily.
Radiation kills anything.  It's indiscriminate.  Doctors used highly focused radiation to kill cancer cells.
I like /r/trueatheism pretty well. But I didn't submit this. \n\nWell, like I said, I have some reservations as far as the conclusions the authors  came up with. But I also take issue with the implication that I have to be skeptical of everything posted on here. I generally don't read or participate in threads on /r/skeptic that are simply outrageous scams or hoaxes or woo. That stuff is frustrating enough. I do appreciate articles, like this one, that illustrate skeptical thinking and examination.
While I do think there are details that haven't yet been addressed, which seem mysterious to the normal layman, I'd sooner ascribe that to bureaucracy than some vast conspiracy. That said, I too have read plenty of specific and complete refutations of most of these points, but it just doesn't matter. There are those that still believe the moon landing was a hoax. There's just nothing you can say to those who've decided what they're going to believe.\n\nIf you hear hooves, think horse, not zebra. However, if there's a zoo nearby, it's not completely unheard of for animals to escape... Think about it.
The philosophical skepticism of the ancient Greek Skeptoi is a little to close to the idiocy of nihilism for my taste. I much prefer modern scientific skepticism a la Sagan, Kurtz and Randi.
Very much so. Check out the link to Joe Nickell's article. Also, research was done by Dan Loxton of Junior Skeptic.
James Randi is offering $1 million for anyone who can demonstrate that they work. Why is this dude standing at a mall kiosk?
They make you get it again now if you have a newborn or will be in frequent contact with one. Evidently babies aren't immune or can't get the vaccine until 6 months, and even nursing won't protect them.
A’shayana Deane is batshit crazy, but no moreso than most of Camelot's "whistleblowers." I mean at least she doesn't have dolphin DNA or the ability to kick a thousand times a second. ಠ_ಠ\n\n(see also: Aaron McCollum)
This is why I subbed to UAP in the first place. I feel like I am surrounded by brainwashed retards half the time in here.
I always did until I heard it being discussed on The Skeptics Guide to the Universe. Also loved their eye opening discussions on the female orgasm.
Dude, that website is like The Onion, they make up fake news to scare the shit out of idiots and give the rest of the world a good laugh.
She says she believes in everything. I think it's something like, "we live in an infinite universe, so everything is possible." To me, this sounds like a line con artists use to sell you some impossible horseshit.
Can you do a reading over the Internet?
http://www.ghosttowns.com/states/ok/welty.html\n\n\nrelated?
**zoinks!**
Agreed.
>That is to say, that if we are to continue believing that our personal, undocumented sightings are true, we must treat other anecdotes as just that: genuinely awe-inspiring and inexplicable to the individual. \n\nSymmetry is the hallmark of perfect logic. \n\nI think we'll get there. For the record, I actually believe that 12/21/12 will be a pretty interesting day. \n\nNaturally, everyone's going to assume that I know nothing about anything -- reddit's knee jerks exactly that way. But the Mayans were pretty interesting. \n\nAccording to the Toltec tradition as described by [Don Juan Matus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Juan_Matus) (the *nagual* of Carlos Castañeda), the Mayans were excellent *seers*. \n\nSkipping ahead to the interesting part, the calendar describes a cycle. The pole's axis traverses a loop in the sky.  August 11, 3114 BCE was the last "ending" of the calendar (and beginning of a new cycle).\n\nAnd when did the age of [Kali Yuga](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kali_Yuga) begin? Hay, that's odd ... January 14, 3102, just 12 years later. Is there mathematical wiggle room there? Statistically, yes. To be "off" by 12 years in a cycle of 5,126 years is respectable. (And anyways, who and what was "off"? The Mayans, our scientists, the Siddhus or our scientists that interpreted what they wrote?)\n\nSo if you believe my argument that this calendar's importance is about progression, then you'll see that 12/21/2012 is the beginning of a new cycle. Hopefully we'll do better this turn.\n\n[The Siddhus were seers in their own rite. They predicted that in the age of Kali Yuga ("darkness"), women would scrape the children unborn from their wombs. Women would dress and act as men, and men as women. For some reason, these two in particular were abhorrent to their culture. Because it comes up over and over again, like a mantra, that every time they mention Kali Yuga, they say, "Kali Yuga, that age where women scrape their children from their bodies..." etc.\n\nThe wikipedia [link](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kali_Yuga) has more of their predictions for this age.]
Your second question:\n\nNo video or photograph, regardless of how good it might be, will ever convince people that aliens have visited Earth. Video and photograph is too easy to fake and won't actually prove the existence of aliens. Even if there were videos of aliens or a clear shot of what looks like a spacecraft, it wouldn't matter unless we actually had a body, alien DNA, a piece of technology, or another form of *hard* evidence. That's the only thing that would settle it once and for all.
Includes YouTube vid of a really nasty scam artist and their come-uppance.
Feynman was a physicist, who gives a shit what he thinks? Social sciences necessarily relate to people and/or society, and since that's only a part of psychology, at most we can say that some of psychology is part of the social sciences. \n\nAnd we already have laws of behavior that give us accurate predictions. Look up psychophysics and behavioral psychology, we have laws of perception, and choice theories. The matching law, for example, accounts for 95-100% of the variance when looking at any organism choosing between at least two alternatives. Surely that's a reasonable result?
[AboveTopSecret](http://www.abovetopsecret.com/) has always been my go-to in the past.  There seems to be a lot of schizophrenics on there so sometimes I find it hard to laugh.
Liberty County, aka United States\n
Judging by his comment history, it looks like [OuterWorldly is fightin' the good fight quite a bit.](http://www.reddit.com/user/OuterWorldly)\n\nGood on ya, sir.
So is violence not okay in a movie because our society is strikingly violent?
Is there a site in the internet which lists those errors and then gives the REAL explanation of that issue?\n\nI could find only this same copypasted text in different forums\nhttp://forum.noblerealms.org/viewtopic.php?pid=60781
I heard once from a former military person who claimed to have had top secret access to this or that, and he said that they have no problem with you telling things, so long as you are unable to prove it. I wish I had a name or a specific source to link to for this.
There's no business like show business!!
I have nothing else to add than the fact that that's some scary shit. Thank you for answering me back and not just thinking I'm some skeptical douche :)
Thanks for outlining the American system and using it to explain why the article about the UK/EU system is a steaming load of crock.\n\nBen Goldacre is a doctor himself, and a leading champion of rational skepticism in the UK, and is highlighting what he sees as a problem regarding the transparency of pharmaceuticals.
Juice has calories
Affirmative.
It's not just that it costs money, it's that the money is being spent on something that doesn't work. When you spend money on a hobby you generally get what you pay for, but those healing crystals are just a really expensive placebo. There's at least one study that shows that the placebo effect can still work when the person *knows* it's a placebo, so it doesn't seem like there's a reason for this expense when she could just buy some sugar pills.
Nope. As the OP said, they think Christianity is the correct worldview. People get annoyed when others mock their worldview, so he is naturally annoyed when that happens to him. I think atheism is the logical worldview, and I get annoyed when it's mocked. Why would I be annoyed at someone mocking something which I clearly think is stupid?
our local universe used to be really tiny and then expanded really fast. The question of whether or not the universe is flat or closed has raged for a very long time. The current consensus is that it is flat (infinite) but the question wasn't considered fully resolved until recently (and technically still isn't as it is a scientific theory, after all).
Isn't there an agreement between the Queen and him that she would abdicate in favor of William?  He had to agree to it to get her to sign off on Camilla.\n\nCan't find any note of it on a quick search, though.\n\nNot that the brat is any better, of course.  It would be nice if this is the last generation of those parasites.
Start small. Explore the science of what EVP recordings are. Gives you something material and definable to begin with. They are clearly *something real*, but what?
Not that I object to answering your question, but, would you argue that McDonald's is good for you?
Well, I did enjoy your responses, though I felt kind of bad that you fell for his trolliness. I'm glad you take a positive view of it.
This last part is pretty important. Start insulting people and they become entrenched because it is now *me against you*. Always try to be the outsider who simply is informing.
Myth: Busted
I haven't really read up on her, but I think her position was that AIDS never existed in the first place and the reason people who "supposedly" have AIDS die is from AIDS treatments which the AIDS denialists believe are toxic and harmful. So she isn't really right, just the people saying she died from AIDS are technically wrong. It wouldn't be unreasonable to just say she died from AIDS, though, because whatever killed her very likely wouldn't have if she didn't have a fucked up immune system.
More like an app.
this is just retarded. If he was thinking of that licence plate number as he actually saw it then you would have something. Your post was a waste of time for both of us.
I don't think she called it "sexual assault", just that it was kinda creepy. This whole thing has been blown seriously out of proportion.
Woo-hoo! Where do I get my official amateur debunker merit badge?
holy fuck. this is awesome.
Did anyone watch that last night?
Why don't you just set up a camera to a place where this has previously occurred and record it? You would at least know for sure if there is something paranormal, never tried it and don't know if it might piss an entity off, but might be worth trying.
Indeed. Best of all worlds.
I'd like to believe. I think the world would be a cooler place with ghosts and aliens and bigfoot. I can't actually believe, but I'd like to.\n\nSagan talked about it a bit in "Demon Haunted World".\n\nWhen the topic of UFOs comes up in casual conversation I explain it lke this:\n\nThere is, undoubtedly, other intelligent life in the universe. I'm not arrogant enough to believe we are it.\n\nUnfortunately I'm also not arrogant enough to think that any interstellar race capable of getting out to our little backwater would find anything of interest here.
**OBJECTION**  \nQuestionable Cause
this was the best explanation I had for a long time, but it turns out he was "invented" by an artist named Kaz. he has a very unique style, and I think that as an artist, he wouldn't just take a submission as a character to use. the character design also fits his style really closely, so it's unlikely that it would just fit in with his other character designs.\nhttp://www.kazunderworld.com/zoot-rumpus/
This is Cuckoo in the Cuckoo Clock Crazy with Underpants on Head.
Give me examples of us being "huge assholes". \n\nI, like, have opinions on stuff. As do many people on Reddit. She was promoting an event about a subject I have interest in, so I simply wrote:\n\n> I dig your hats, but this is a festival that essentially celebrates and promotes ignorance and fear of science. No thanks.\n\nAnd she responded so I calmly addressed her points, trying to keep it civil and non-personal.\n\nThat's being a "huge asshole" with my "trollish douchebaggery"?
nah I'm in southeastern.... the shithole of Ky lol, but out of all the nearest cities... Cincinnati is my favorite lol\n
Um, I think you need to re-read that definition.\n\n> to negate the truth of a claim by pointing out a negative characteristic or unrelated belief of the person supporting it.\n\nNo one pointed out that a person had been drinking, rather the report stated that someone claimed that another person said that "someone was drunk" as a way to discredit their observation. There is no evidence to support that the person was drinking. None whatsoever. I cannot believe that you are posting to r/skeptic and have a complete miscomprehension of what being a skeptic actually means.
Ahh. A MRA troll. Crawl back to slimepit moron.
Previous /r/skeptic coverage of this documentary can be found [here](http://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/10p4fh/xpost_from_rjoerogan_ancient_aliens_debunked/) and [here](http://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/10qxhl/ancient_aliens_debunked/).
Don't like protein, how about the other informational requirements (carbohydrates, net quantity of contents, statement of identity), nutrient content claim regulations, and required information on beneficial components(fiber, vitamin A, vitamin C, Iron, Calcium). \n\nFood labeling regulations are used for much more than just warnings to avoid public health concerns. They are, and have always been, intended to force honesty and openness from the industry. \n
Well that kind of thing has happened to a lot of people. I had it once, but my mother has a much longer version of it.\n\nWhen I was 13 years old in 1995, my grandfather passed away and my mom got his wedding ring along with my grandmother's after the whole ordeal was over. She placed them in her jewelry cabinet and didn't look at them or take them out for nearly 6 months.\n\nIn December she pulled the draw out to take them over to my aunt's to give to my younger cousins as a memento of their great grand parents; but she couldn't find them in the whole little cabinet! She checked every draw, pulled the whole thing apart and looked under the soft foam mats, and even looked all over the room and eventually the house including the Christmas tree, in the kitchen, and the garage. I helped her search during most of those times too; even double checking the carpet in the hallway and in my room just in case.\n\nAfter searching pretty much all of the holiday season, right after the start of the new year during mid-week of January she happened to be getting a necklace out and lo-and-behold in the top draw of her little jewelry cabinet there were the two wedding bands. We never did have an explanation for this - be it weird over looking, ghosts, glitches, or what not.
The woo is strong with them.
No its cool you make a very valid point about the double standard "god" has demonstrated through his 100% percent good vs. evil bastard thing and the only thing I could offer as a point of contention AS I AM NOT BACKING HIS EXISTENCE AT ALL would be that perhaps he has some grand form of goodness if you will about which that of the human mind on an individual level cannot comprehend. Just because you or I do not know fully the will of this being how does that refute what his goodness would be? I see that by taking this position i may be walking into a trap well if you or I don't know fully the workings of god then why is he 100% good? NOW I COULD BE WRONG AS I AM NOT A BIBLICAL SCHOLAR but wouldnt a god anything less than 100% good be contradictory or un-godlike? I think if there is a god NOT FUCKING SAYING THERE IS wouldn't that being have to be 100% good? As far as what i can choose...yes i can choose to believe whatever the fuck I want I can choose to believe the earth is flat or the sun circles the earth or whatever i want to but there is a distinction between what is true and what is just idiotic. I still have the choice however, perhaps our brains work differently...i dont necessarily think so but whatever honestly it sounds like semantics to me but whatever, I think you make very valid points on all accounts and agree with you in alot of instances. Next time perhaps just a link to Pascal's wager will be sufficient as I think you have misunderstood my intentions for asking the question in the first place and has given me the opportunity to speculate on what else you may have misunderstood with reagrds to this subject in general.
As someone who listens to some very strange music this is entirely likely.\n\nI've also lived with some large sound systems, but mainly in industrial warehouses and spaces.\n\nBut one of them was in a residential neighborhood with about 8k watts of tri-amped PA rig with 2 dual 18" 1200 watt woofers for subs. It was mainly for outdoor use and throwing parties but occasionally we'd hook up a bass synth and run test tones through it to watch the whole house shake and flutter. \n\nIf you found the right tone the eves of the house would visibly wobble an inch or two in the standing waves. I'd say our neighbors hated us but we lived in a kind of ghetto neighborhood so they were probably just jealous.
If nothing else, they're keeping their editor employed. I can only imagine the hours and hours of footage of night vision they need to whittle down to get a single ep.
I was jsut showing that it may be original, dont get all the down votes. here have one as well, join the party
Wow! Your approach is much different than [mine](http://imgur.com/qvEIC "AKA the 'hide all by dumbass' approach; it's super effective!").\n\nWhere did she get the claim that vaccine studies do not use inert substances as placebos? It sounds like a talking point, but I'd like to know if there is even a fraction of a grain of "truth" in it.
There really isn't a "should" to mathematical axioms.  They are just defined presuppositions from which we build out other concepts.  From what the poster says, it just seems more convenient to him/her.  That's not a compelling reason to redefine pi to be equal to 2*pi, especially when we have sufficient math to convert to all the values as desired.  It seems to be just arguing for a different starting point for no good reason (other than it makes someone's favorite computations a step or two easier).\n\nThe OP fails to link to the paper, but this seems to me to make as much sense as writing a paper to say you think a square should have 6 sides or that tacos should be renamed pizza.
>It isn't true that we are "all agnostics". There are claims which can be ruled out, especially claims about gods. If claims about a god contradict themselves, you can rule that out as simply not possible. An all forgiving god that sends people to eternal torment simply cannot exist. A god that is both invisible and pink cannot exist. One of those claims about the god is false, therefore the claim is false. I am an gnostic atheist about those god claims.\n\nStrictly speaking, contradictory positions don't necessarily render something non-existent. At best, you've eliminated the possibility of one interpretation of "God." According a Calvinist, their god is not all-forgiving. According to a charismatic, there is no eternal torment. What we see here are mutually exclusive *interpretations* of a manifestation of a particular deity. Your line of thought also indicates that an internally consistent deity can exist by virtue of its consistency. But we know that evidence is a much better criterion than theological integrity.\n\n>The problem with the idea that we are all agnostic is that it takes what is actually known, and castrates it. You don't know with 100% certainty that just because the earth has rotated around the sun for 4.6 billion years that it will continue to do so tomorrow. But to say you agnostic about it is asinine.\n\nSure, but this observation is based on direct and independently verifiable experience. In the context of this discussion and this sub-reddit, however, "god" is essentially hypothetical. In which case, wider ranges of position are acceptable.
Republicans destroyed American in the 80's by using Regan to sell the entire country to Wall Street. So tell him not to worry anymore, its long over.
The main problem is that a lot of people have mixed up Crop circles with all sorts of other mumbo jumbo in an attempt to explain it all, and end up only confusing the field
You'd likely be disappointed.
Spoken like someone who's never actually studied any of it beyond the crap that MRA websites will feed you.
No need to name names.
>Also, the chemical DMT, which is naturally secreted in your brain, particularly your pineal gland, can give an onset of visions, literally transporting you to another dimension.\n\nI don't think you know what the word "literally" means.
Hilarious, worst photoshop ever...
Note that #6 doesn't really apply to mathematicians, viz, Andrew Wiles, Cantor, Godel, etc. Most _did_ work alone, the first in fact did work in his attic. But then again, anyone claiming mathematics is science is sadly mistaken.
Not really... that's just the sensationalist media for you. I live in the small town of Lafayette, and hadn't heard about this until today, when I was Googling for something and the auto-complete happened to show me "Lafayette Colorado UFO". Too bad I missed the event... I was out East where the lights were just hours before it happened. Had I known it was going on, I would have just driven out that way to see what I found.
I have a few from a house that I used to live in.\n\n1) I saw a completely black figure walk past me one time. I thought it was a friend, so I didn't freak out until I walked out my front door and saw him standing there. \n\n2) My brother came home twice to find everything out of the cabinets on the counters when no one was home.\n\n3) Our house burned down and a dog died in the fire. After we rebuilt, you could hear the jingle of a dog collar go up and down the stairs sometimes.\n\n4) It was quite common to hear footsteps when no one was home. Several times the shower upstairs would come on by itself.\n\n5) My bedroom door would slowly open and close by itself. It freaked a friend of mine out so badly that he almost never came over to my house again.\n\n6) My mom swears that she saw my grandmother in the house after she died.\n\n7) Sitting at home by myself, a really heavy cake holder (glass) moved off of the top of the fridge and fell to the ground. \n\nI know a few of those happened to other people, but that's what popped into my head. I have more, but I'll have to type them later. \n\nEdit - I forgot, I did get an EVP at a graveyard here in Austin. Unfortunately, my friend has the tape. I keep trying to get it from him.
They don't understand science, at all. It's really kind of terrifying when you realize the scope of it. It'd be one thing if it was just some small percentage of nuts on the internet. But the more you really look into it, the more you realize just how small a minority it is that actually has what should amount to the most basic high school level understanding of how experiments work.
Numerlogy is found throughout the Old Testament, The Quaran, Vedic Literature, etc.\n\nAnd... one of the earliest writing system (certainly the only one still in use) was used for the Old Testament and both Hindu and Arab mathematicians, devout religionists/spiritualists all, are credited with some of the most important discoveries and/or codifications in the entire history of mathematics.\n\nCareful who you imply is illiterate.
Lol my ex is a nurse i would help her study when she was in, school, coolest thing i learned is that when the baby is inside the mother the blood is going in the opposite way until it gets slapped on the ass and takes its first breath when the lungs inflate. I use that in abortion debates lol
I have one major problem with that study. Pit-Bull type isn't a breed, it is at least 3 to 5 fairly common breeds (APBT, AmStaff, Staffie, Bull Terrier, Mini Bull Terrier). On top of that many Bulldogs are easily classified as Pit-Bull types (Olde English, American[fairly popular too], Alpha Blue Blood, Valley, Aussie, and Mallorquin). Heck, though they are not extremely popular many other Molossers fit the "pit bull type" definition.\n\nI wouldn't be surprised if these breeds did hurt a lot of people because they are powerful. I just think the study fucks up and skews the results by saying Pit Bull Type is a breed.
Scientist did NOT test GT200. The company that makes it won't let anyone test it. This is an interesting examination of how the device could be tested, but that's all.
It actually is a theory.  A theory is what happens when a hypothesis is backed up with observable evidence, but we do not yet understand all of the laws surrounding it.  If it can be disproved, it stops being a theory, and a new hypothesis must be formulated on the new data.\n\nBecause so many don't understand what a theory is, in their ignorance, they have accurately represented it.  Or, they intentionally got it right....but I remain skeptical of that.
No problem. The U.S. Government is rigging an internet kill switch, just like Egypt.
It's a biography- he's done a whole hell of a lot more than debunk Popoff.
It's always creeped me out what happened to me, and I've had no explanation of it from anyone as yet.\n\nI was with two of my friends from school and we wanted to go to this lake area in my village. We usually went there through this horse field and the horses have always been placid so we just carried on going through there. This time, the horses came from the other side of the horse field (about the size of a football pitch) and chased us away. This creeped us out in itself, but we wanted to go to the lake so we went around the long way.\n\nWe got to the fence which we had to climb over to get into the lake area and we heard this really loud bang, like a gunshot, but a bit like someone stamping on concrete in really heavy boots as well (still can't explain the sound). So we looked in the general direction of the sound and we saw this hooded figure, dressed all in black, emerging from behind a tree and walking towards the horse field.\n\nUnsurprisingly, we shit ourselves and ran back to my house. I've never spoken to anyone who was there about it. I maybe should. What do you all think?
Did he take caffeine consumption from other sources into consideration? Not doing so is amazingly common in papers about caffeine and caffeine containing substances, and pretty much invalidates the research. Even if I can understand why. It's really hard to find people who don't get regular doses of caffeine every day. Even among kids.
Nonsense. It's clearly Gene Simmons.
It's like you got super confused!
Worst article ever. Wtf man
Technically speaking, atheism *is* a lack of belief in *gods*, not the supernatural as such.  There are more atheists out there who believe in at least some aspects of the paranormal than you probably realize.
Which is a Matrix reference in itself
that and filming footage for an alien version of david attenborough to voice over about our primate ways
I don't want to hear scientists saying things like "I wish I could get my hands on those little shits! They've fucked over 6 months of work!".
neither do I...I'm looking it up now
I Remember halloween was approaching. We contacted a spirit named Henry how hung around our house. I asked "hey Henry halloweeens coming up. What are you going to be?". Guess what his response was!
That was the reason i first thought this was a joke.
[](http://)
> You've fixated on your wife's woo as if the woo is the problem. I don't blame you - she's clearly deeply into it, clearly completely irrational about it and clearly using it as both a crutch to prop herself up and a wedge to drive between you. But ...  your wife sounds like she's dealing with mental illness \n\nIf you'll forgive my liberal application of the ellipsis, I wanted to add my support to this response.\n\nThe problem here seems much deeper than merely diverging beliefs.  To the extent that I don't think this post even belongs in /r/skeptic.  Your wife's beliefs have allowed her to avoid dealing with real issues (e.g. that she appears to be unable to support herself).\n\nI tend to agree that counseling - or some form of professional help - would be the best course of action.  I have no opinion on whether you should stick with her.
i can see his point on soggy cereal.
Going to get slammed here, but I will put it out anyway. Not all skeptics are athiests. I am a skeptic, and I am a Christian. \nI agree with the rest of your comment, though. Well said.
Touche
Does the pattern also coincide with the release dates of different X-Files seasons?
Or peeing in her own mouth.
So youre saying you are like  Slightly Psychic Paper?
Thank you for the information, although it wasn't necessary for you to be so abrasive towards me about it. I just had never heard of anything like this before - neither had she - and my friend was assuming it was paranormal. She's so level-headed about everything, I was surprised she jumped to the conclusion that it was a supernatural event. I simply wanted to know whether someone had experienced this or had any explanation.
At no point in my argument did I say that said culture was a) primitive or B) Unable to do such an act. \n\nI did say that the more likely scenario is that it is an illusion or a trick.\n\n>Inflicting a dramatic, but survivable, injury is a powerful means of demonstrating that the injured peron has divine protection and thereby winning converts or support for the cause. If the observer assumes, as you did, that there is no way that the person can survive without immediate medical attention, the injury has achieved its purpose.\n\nExactly although using an illusion is just as likely to produce this effect as usually it is performed in front of true believers or those who want to believe and in that situation the performer can repeatedly do it thus spreading the word even more without ever having to worry about accidently killing themselves, which is much more likely. \n\nI also admit that injuries like this do happen and that people are able to walk around, but you are exaggerating the hits and ignoring the misses. Overwhelmingly injuries like this do kill even if treated as an emergency. Does the occasional freak injury happen where the individual appears to be unharmed, sure, but this is the exception and far from the rule. \n\nYes, a surgeon could do this to another person agreed, with a surgical instrument which is designed to pierce and cut skin and muscle with as little risidual damage or tearing to the surrounding tissues and muscle as possible. The person pictured used what appears to be a sort of *curved* machete which is used to roughly hack and slash at  plants, or hunks of meat. \n\nAlso one has only to look at performers like those in the Jim Rose Circus who specialize in performing piercing and pain endurance in extremely sensitive spots and I doubt if they with their expertise in such practices would claim to be able to pull this off. Again I could be wrong maybe they can although none of them have appeared to do so although sword swallowing, testicle piercing, etc., etc., are no problem.\n\nHowever, like I said it is possible that he did it however extremely unlikely, especially when one considers it would be much easier and safer to use illusionist techniques. Double so since the person pictured would be doing said trick on a religious celebration, in front of a majority of religious people who will most likely not question the act. \n\nAlso this is not exclusive to this area and I make no claims about the culture, and perhaps it is a handed as down ritual. It just seems much more likely to be charlantry similar to faith healers here in the states, or the christian religous sects that speak in tongues.  \n\nI think the arrogance was yours sir to assume I was denigrating another culture. Stuff like the thing pictured is everywhere and more often than not is people using age hold magician's tricks.\n\nHowever for truly disturbing things check out the the Filipino crucifixion reenactments where they use glass combs for flaggelation and perform actual crucifixions for the reenactments. \n\nAgain not a judgement of the cultures but an observation of human perception and self deception.\n\nContext matters I'm sure if these same people at the Hindu event saw a similar trick at a magicians show they would probably see it simply as a trick. \n\n-edited for terrible grammar and spelling (I really need to reread my stuff before posting.)
I have encountered dreams as well. Most of my experiences have been have been awake. Some times I feel that they some how how know that you aware and they want to contact you. Nothing to be worried about, Just simply tell them you can't help.
There's also no reason to brag about your awesome car to those of us who have an economy car.
I have those same patio chairs but they don't pose nearly the threat to me as they do to this guy.
I had whooping cough when I was very young. The only time I've really spent in hospital. About a week I was admitted I think. I might just get that booster shot maybe.
Trololololo
Certainly too simplified to spend so much extra money on a product with questionable benefits on every level.
Everything that exists in the universe is natural[.](http://i.imgur.com/UmpOi.gif)
I thought this was awful and wrong until I got to his comments about having sex with women.  And the 'god' thing is an especially huge red flag now that I think about it--why would a religious bigot write god and not God?\n\nHoly shit.  Good looking out, bro.
Philip Klass, when he was alive, was a full-on debunker of the worst variety.  Man never had an open-minded bone in his body and was never overly respected outside of his own debunker peer group.
thats neat she likes it. Most of my fiends in their 30's  wives all hate TMBG for some reason.
Agreed.  Once we cure all diseases, types of cancer, genetic disorders, and aging itself.  Then we can move on to EM sensitivity and after that Carbon allergies.
For the record, in case you don’t have RES, you actually got 28 upvotes for this comment.\n\n21 down… haters gonna hate.\n\nEdit:\n---\nCase in point.
I didn't think Roids show up on drug tests, unless you work as a professional athlete.
Except the research is still making the assertion that their version of ancient briton is the correct one. The findings that this study concludes in the first place aren't worthy of mention because so much is based on speculation.\n\nI get that acheology is by it's nature inexact, and I am OK with that, but there is so many incredibly wild leaps of assumption that I do not think it's even fair to call this a study. It's fiction, plain and simple. We need to accept that some things about ancient society are unknowable, and we need to focus on the things we can know. Stonehenge, as interesting as it is (and as much research dollars as I'm sure it attracts) falls into the former camp. There's just no way we can piece together a complete enough view of ancient british society. \n\n\n
LOL
>The information available to the public, for free, does not say if they did or not.\n\nGood point.\n\nAs for the crackhead comment: I don't think that Ottawa has much of a Crackhead issue based on [these](http://www.ottawapolice.ca/en/crimefiles/crimemaps_reports/crimestats.aspx) crime statistics. Yes, this is a pretty baseless claim, but "generally" rampant drug use causes crime, and there is just so little of it going on there.
Yep. The EXACT SAME THING as depicted in the OP, same day in the evening... moving south, changing direction.
Surprise!
Most organic/natural brands are now owned by major brands pictured here, even though they (purposefully!) avoid declaring so on their labels. It's the illusion of choice, really.\n\n[A picture](http://i.imgur.com/Ks8De.png).
While sleep paralysis is a documented condition, some that suffer from it have reported having experiences that they believe are also paranormal in nature.\n\nIf your interested in the subject, there's a well written book that investigates the parallels between these two topics, it's called Dark Intrusions: An Investigation into the Paranormal Nature of Sleep Paralysis Experiences, written by Louis Proud; a man who has experienced the phenomena since his late teens.\n\n
It was so eerie the word ATTACK flashed into my mind in letters, I've followed little feelings like that whenever I get them since. It may be rare but I'm sure most people can attest at times dreams certainly can be eerily spot on predictive, maybe its guidance from another place while our minds are in a quiet, open and relaxed state? Or perhaps just coincidence but it's certainly helpful, I don't want to think what could have happened if I hadn't been there, I think not mentioning the urge was kinda right as he knew to stay the fuck away from those people afterwards.
> But don't let the word intellectual scare you off.\n\nI hate that they felt a need for a caveat.
Aquarians never believe in the Zodiac.
["It's all bullshit and it bad for you." - George Carlin](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJr_ggTeq64)
It's a myth that ground rhino horns are used as a medicine.\n\nEdit: Turns out, I'm wrong - see the comment by n33.
Perhaps a clue that they should call it "Edgar Allan [Poe](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Poe's_Law) Community College"...?
Try recording on your phone and see if it still tries to be a dick. If it stops around cameras at least it is one way to have a break when you are sick of being bugged by the ghost. Also, if you capture stuff on film be sure to upload it to youtube or whatever and post a link on here.
We need energy and we need to stop global warming, and we are fat as fuck so we should have rolling blackouts to get us out and decrease energy consumption and fossil fuel reliance. Of course this wouldn't apply to vital infrastructure like hospitals and firestations. Because let's face it with the current state of renewable energy we can not supply the current energy consumption we have. Hell if the blackouts cut enough usage maybe we can switch to renewable energy sources.\n\nThis post is not serious. Few would ever agree to this, it's political suicide, would be bad for business, and would have horrible effects for communities in areas where climates approach extremes in temperature.
They have to be, what with some of them having three or more feet.
This is fake and debunked.
For someone new to this subreddit like myself, what is a "birther"?
It can be if you start feeding it to people before the diseases of modern life and metabolic syndrome set in.  Adjusting for activity level and such also.
Hahahaha, wow. I'm 21; no plans for marriage or children. For what I'm looking for, my relationship and choice of partner are perfect.\n\nOne of my SO's shining qualities is his determination to better himself and his flexibility when it comes to important opinions and thoughts. And he's 28, so far more "set in his ways" than I am. \n\nI understand your experience from what you've written but suggesting to a stranger that her boyfriends ability as a potential father may be lacking is really pushing what you can extrapolate from a reddit post. Maybe, if I may apply some armchair psychotherapy, you're trying to project your own experience onto me to validate your choices. \n\nMoral: Every situation is as different as the people in it.
even the best of em can have senior moments...
If these are Chinese lanterns then I have a couple of questions:\n\n1. How does one get the burn rate or the flicker to synchronize so mechanically between widely-separated lanterns?\n\n2. What are the shiny objects that can be seen falling and sparkling as they fall?\n\nAlso:\n\nOne of the commenters on the video stated that they could see the entire craft from their vantage point. Interesting. I wonder whether there is additional video from opposing angles that could allow one to triangulate the location of the impact area of the sparkling objects dropped from this set of lights.\n\nI don't know what they filmed but it is fairly high definition and appears to be a genuine film of something that did happen.\n\nNice. Whatever it is.
This is frustrating. They may as well call the article "Parents are scared of stuff!" So pointless.\n\nOften, new parents are afraid of every thing! They have a new baby!! Suddenly the entire world is dangerous and they are have to protect this new tiny little human. The fear doesn't indicate that it is rational, obviously. Obviously they are going to want to put it off, until the kid is less precious and slightly more annoying :P
Actually, I kinda like well made Balut, I picked up the taste for it. And biltong, too, which is another love-it-or-hate-it, and salmiakki. I have to draw the line at cambodian fried spiders, though, I've eaten most of one, and bought it back up real fast.
Why debunk it, that's awesome!
>Based upon nothing at all you raised allegations and challenged me to respond.\n\nMy comments were based upon your exact words.\n\n> I declined and tried to illustrate that there was no cause for your attempt to start a flame-war.\n\nFlame-wars are purely emotional affairs. I addressed problems in your logic and reasoning. If you didn't want to engage in a rational discussion, then you had an easy option, move on. Instead, you insulted me for doing something this site is specifically designed to facilitate. \n\n>Your claim to making innocuous comment to my inflammatory remarks does not bear out.\n\nI do not claim my comment is innocuous. This subject is emotionally charged and I do not expect discussion of it to be perfectly neutral. I fully expect people who are challenged in that way to get defensive. However, that does not change the fact that my comment was reasonable. You very clearly showed a lack of critical thinking, and even though I knew pointing this out could upset you, it was a perfectly reasonable observation. The problem lies with your response, not my comment.\n\n>As I said before, teachers advise people to read the question and answer only that question.\n\nAre you sure you should be making statements so clearly meant to be derogatory while claiming to dislike flame wars?\n\n> If you wish to advise the OP that all opposition to the official 9/11 account is to be ignored then you have numerous forums to do so.\n\nFirst, I do not oppose opposition to the official account in principle. I oppose specific claims brought forward by the truther movement. Second, one of the forums to discuss such issues is r/skeptic. Which, happily, is where this discussion is taking place.\n\n>I expect people to be reasonable and respectful. When they are not I make that clear. You're unreasonable. \n\nThis whole thing started when I pointed out why your position was unreasoned. Your defensive reaction is not my fault. You made biased and illogical claims in a subreddit devoted to reasoned critical thinking, and then got upset when someone pointed that out. Worse, instead of engaging in constructive discussion about the topic, you've chosen to go off on this weird tangent of somehow claiming I had no right to make a comment in response to yours. This is absurd in the extreme. It not only goes against this subreddit and Reddit, but the very nature of internet forums in general. You are not guaranteed to be free of criticism when you post your views on the internet. The whole point is to have discussion, and yet when that discussion arose, you chose to become insulted and complain about the nature of the site you are using. You *could* have ignored the comment. You *could* have actually addressed the issues I brought up. You chose to whine.
I'm pretty sure that's not true. I'm guessing they got mixed up by the question.
That's not a class A. In fact you have to do a a better job. The little sound bite sounds like one of the others starting to say something then abruptly halts. You need infrared camera, and put all those in your group in front to ensure no one is else is talking.\n\nTo make anything even remotely scientific you must remove all doubt of contamination of the experiment.
And as if our first X-man would be someone who was just a bit sticky.
The article on ukprogressive says that he looked for confounding variables such as population density, race, urban/rural divides, but that precinct voting trends did not correlate with anything other than number of votes cast in the precinct.\n\nRight now, my biggest suspicion is where these numbers came from. He provides the supposed raw data, but it's quite possible he just made it up. If the data is real, and no other parameters correlate with voting trends, then vote rigging would seem to be the most likely explanation. But for now, my main suspicion is of the source of his data. If it were true, wouldn't the Dems (all it would take is one senate/congress rep) be all over this?! It's so easy to verify.\n\n
So anyone seen the video?
why tell someone when all you want is money? I got five on it.
Interesting documentary.  Really did enjoy it.  One thing I would add to their final test would be another group with legit medicine and compare the control, to the homeopathic, to actual drugs.  \n\nThe only catch would be that the actual drugs would have to be done in a way that was also blinded and went through the same homeopathic dilution methodology without diluting the medicine (which wouldn't be hard to conceive entirely), though doing so might not entirely be answering the hypothesis they really are testing.
Once upon a time, people were actually held responsible for the messes they made, big or small.  Now with corporations like BP in bed with the government, this doesn't happen much anymore.
Exactly
Well, Mormons for one.
I am in no way defending slavery.  Simply pointing out that setting and timing can change issues to a dramatic degree.  \n\nKarsh
This has been confirmed fake for quite some time. You should probably do some research before you post next time. Just a heads-up! ;)\n\nSources:\nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umbWXrVu67c\nAnd this is where the trumpet sound is actually coming from:\nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RwYF5N9bW8
Extraordinary claims do not get the benefit of the doubt. You don't default to the most bizarre position, you default to the most likely. And you are aware that the air force was in fact flying night training and did drop flares right?
I don't see anyone saying it is a good thing to do.
Currently there is a small price increase if you were to do your grocery shopping at a farmers market. But that's only because those local farmers don't get the same "discounts" that larger companies get.
[1932 article about Byers's death.](http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,743525,00.html)
not when I fart they're not
Not really. They get a source, any source, that supports the comedic narrative they are attempting to portray. /r/AskHistorians has had numerous threads that discussed Cracked, and most all of them concluded that they do have facts, but they also slant and frame stories to suit their needs. For instance, they had a Cracked article about crazy conspiracy theories that are actually true. The Gulf of Tonkin Conspiracy was one of the ones listed. Their premise was, "CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?! THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENED!" Well, that's not really disputed. I know it, the government admitted it, anyone who knows about Vietnam knows it. It happened. This isn't surprising. So, essentially, they're doing the *exact same thing as the media*. As in, taking something known and pretending like it was some big secret.\n\nNot to mention, sometimes they're blatantly incorrect. I would recommend checking out the Cracked article about the New World and our misconceptions about it in this regard.\n\nBasically, having a source doesn't qualify as fact checking. It's not a *fact* if your source is *wrong* or if you misuse your source to form a non-sequitor. This all runs along with *hgritchie*'s comment below. He stated it perfectly about that their business is comedy, not facts.
You might *believe* it. I've looked at the available evidence and reached the conclusion that the Earth is warming and humans are part of the cause.
I often think that this was to avoid some paradox. Maybe my life, or the life of the other driver, would accomplish something so important... maybe not.\n\nMaybe this is something we all go through when about to be hit a life ending event. We move over into other multiverses, but usually don't see the mechanism; we just say, "whew, that was close!" Then, in many other multiverses, our families mourn.\n\nIt's been troubling me for almost 15 years. I think about it every day.
I'm also a Psych student. Yes, DID is real, yes, there is a lot of controversy about it, and I did not watch the TV show in question. DID is extremely rare and it only occurs under very unusual circumstances.
I used to do that. The feeling would always hit me after I'd been reading. More so if I'd been really involved in the story or reading for a long time. I think it was prompted by the thought that there was no 'good' reason for me to be the person I was, rather than a character in a book.
No offense intended to you, but I believe my bluntness is warranted when I say to op that this is very bad advice.  Do not encourage ignorance and superstition, it is deadly. It warps a person's mind into believing that they can will whatever they want to believe into truthfulness. \n\nWhen a person is starting to get into religion or other superstitions as a way of life the damage potential is far too great.  A responsible friend or family member should no sooner stand by and watch this as they should a heroin addiction.
Some people *might* have an intolerance for it. \n\nSome. As in, very very very few. Like... less than actual peanut allergy.\n\nSo of course it's the debbil.
Ah, that was perfect. I carried back the link onto my Facebook wall and suddenly couldn't find the post she had left on my wall. This woman is a friend of my very Christian sister, so I went to her mutual friends and couldn't see her there either. I think I got blocked.\n\nI'll post it anyway for the skeptical dittoheads on my wall, though.\n
Global Climate Change.  The mass media got a hold of the term Global Warming and ran with it.
/r/ShitRedditSays is a circlejerk. /r/SRSDiscussion is not.
Well, Mike Adams is a clearly a lunatic, and the conspiracy theory mentioned in the article is clearly insane. I do, however, have to object with one thing in the linked article: \n\n>He’s suggesting that the government killed a dozen people and wounded 60 at a Batman movie in order to take away everyone’s guns.  The stupidity and insensitivity of his assertions is beyond belief.\n\nThis quote seems to suggest that we ought to value the sensibilities of others when analyzing truth claims, which is a very dangerous road to go down. There have been success conspiracies in the past; the Gulf of Tonkin incident being the most notable. It made be offensive to those who served and lost loved ones in Vietnam to suggest that the whole thing was based on fraud, but it is still something that needs to be talked about. \n\nIn this particular case (and in the case of almost all conspiracy theories), there is simply nothing to back up the grandiose claims. It should then be addressed as a stupid hypothesis, rather than vilified for its perceived offensiveness.
> body simply recovering after it has sabotaged itself.\n\nThat's the second time you've said something to that effect. What about externally caused injury? Or infection?\n\nJust a nitpick.
Its called Alice in wonderland syndrome
Except for the part where we burn an effigy of the fucker on the bonfire and cheer.
Didn't work for Dumbledore.
>So if you were to say that you believe in some sort of higher power, but you don't think any modern religion is accurate, then by actual definition you'd be atheist because you aren't following anything...\nDisagree, if the higher power is a being (that created / maintains the universe), i.e. a god, you're not an atheist.\n\nLooked it up, you're right.  I think what I was getting at was an alternate definition somewhere ... but yeah, atheism is the rejection of a belief, so what I said doesn't make any sense.\n\n>Higher power != supernatural...\n\nhmm, I think I'd disagree with you here.  Unless you're applying the term higher power to simply be in a controlling place of power higher than your own.  As in, my boss is a higher power.  In which case I'd agree with you.\n\n>Nice chat. Enjoy.  Agree :) Mucho Thanks to brybry26.\n\nYeah, I love these kinds of discussions.  As put up top, one of the reasons I'm proud to be a redditor.  And almost entirely civil throughout the entire thread to boot!
what are the facts you have collected on building 7?
Amber gives really nice massages. She's a pro. I'd say it's legit. You can give her a necklace, if ya know what I mean.
To answer question 1 with my own question: What expense do you think would be appropriate and necessary?  What makes you think it's "so little"?\n\n Question 2, same line: The purpose of the 9/11 commision was not to explain the details of the destructions of the buildings. Discussing Building 7 is completely irrelevant to their cause.  Their mission was to investigate and decide what allowed the terrorists attacks to happen, and to provide recommendations based on that finding to prevent further successful attacks.\n\nHere: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11_Commission\n\n"The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, also known as the 9/11 Commission, was set up on November 27, 2002, "to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11 attacks", including preparedness for and the immediate response to the attacks.\nThe commission was also mandated to provide recommendations designed to guard against future attacks." \n\nSo... yeah.  Building numbers and such.  Completely irrelevant to them.  Doesn't matter. They were in charge of finding the faults that allowed it occur.  I wonder why this question has come up in several places? Who rose the question about why Building 7 wasn't mentioned in the Report in the first place? Did you investigate why this wouldn't be there for yourself?\nThe key to coming to a "valid" conclusion is collection of evidence, even evidence that directly contradicts your previous conclusion.  Gather it all, anaylize it all, examine it, consolidate it, design a conclusion the best encompasses all of it.  I feel like I've typed that 95 times in this thread.\n\nAnd about how he's shit-painting a wall: He isn't presenting a conclusion (a painted wall) that we can examine the parts of to determine if he painted it all with the same or what.  He's presenting point after point to be contradicted or explained away by the other parties.  Every time one little piece of shit falls off (he concedes a point, or a point is just blatantly wrong/false/etc), that little patch of white wall gets another steaming piece of turd thrown at it in hopes of keeping the overall picture the same (conclusion was foregone, just keep presenting evidence to make that a plausible)\n\nThe shit wall is flakey and brown, some of it is dribbling down.  Turds constantly being thrown to keep the whole wall that nice healthy brown we medical people seem to fetishize.  \n\nA better developed  conclusion would start with a blank wall, each piece of evidence is a puzzle piece, the wall becomes the completed puzzle picture (may also be a picture of shit, may be a covered bridge with 3 yellow ducks under it, who knows until it's done!), and uses every piece of the puzzle you have.  If you find a new piece, tear it all off the wall and start again.\n\n\nSorry, this analogy was fun for me, I kinda liked the idea of a monkey constantly flinging his feces at a wall being a metaphor in a subject such as this.  And I'm delirious from lack of sleep.  You have to entertain yourself sometimes.\n\nAs always, I apologize for my errors and such, most likely caused by lack of sleep, and I'd be happy to explain, elucidate or discuss any of these points.  Or anything really.  Especially if you buy me a beer.
No, this is wrong. Not sure where you get 6ppm from that is about half of the concentration of thorium in soil. But even at 6ppm you would need to move a whole lot less earth to get your energy with thorium than you would with coal. The calcs are pretty easy if you wanna do them yourself.
Came across this in my quest for reliable nutritional information. Maybe not entirely reliable, but entertaining...
How does it not work?\n\nSome people believe paranormal activity is actually spirits ( spirit paradigm)\n\nSome people believe that those that claim to have had experienced paranormal experiences are mistaken, crazy, prone to suggestion etc. (psychological paradigm)\n\nSome people believe that paranormal experiences are the result of some energy abnormality or that they can detect ghost with an emf detector, evps or what not (energy model)\n\nthese paradigms do exist..
Too make his quote less pithy, you can understand it as:\n\nThe Bible is an ancient collection of texts that can only be accurately approached by understanding the time and place in which they were recorded/written.\n\nThey were meaningful to the people of that time and place, but they were never recorded or written with the intention of being used as a personal guide to life hundreds or thousands of years later.\n\nYou may choose to use it as a guide to your life, but all of the modern meaning you derive from the texts is coming from you the reader, not coming from the people who created the texts originally. Your personal interpretation has nothing to do with the original intention of the writings.
Sounds like your jacket got turned inside-out.
Your confirmation bias is showing.
I figured that's what you were trying to say, so I tried to rephrase it :).
The Vatican Observatory's scientists seem to be very accepting of the concept of extraterrestrial life.
I think you meant "post hoc ergo propter hoc". Still; thanks for reminding me of the Police Academy movies. :-)
I like the nipple holes.
Mweh, this again.\n\nThe assumption that certain frequencies cause certain feelings are to be approached with similar skepticism as the ghostly things they are used for to explain. Sound frequencies especially. There is no other way to enter the brain other than physical resonance, which may or may not occur at any frequency. This will be different for each person. It will never be absolute.\n\nAlso the "20Hz" thing gives this away. Humans are relatively deaf for low frequencies. We here best at ±4000 Hz, and the lower it gets, the more deaf we are for it. An airco may produce 70 dB SPL around 60 Hz without being loud, but if it were to produce a whine at that sound pressure level around 4000 Hz, you'd turn it off right away.\n\nThis deafness does not start at 20Hz exactly. Your subwoofer needs to be really big to produce 20 to 40Hz audibly, not because the waves are so large (20Hz is 17.5 meters!) but because it needs to move a lot of air, because you are too deaf to hear it otherwise. This deafness is a curve, and it's different for everybody. I bet a large speaker and a big amp can produce 19Hz at an SPL that most people can hear.\n\nThat said, I do get very dizzy and uneasy when my GF ventilation system is on. It has very low audio components at a loud volume.
[Indeed](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_1T7c7OcCdc4/TNqEmy0xHXI/AAAAAAAAASM/Gt2MYvQ4d7M/s1600/tealc.jpg)
Ghosts, no ghosts, whether they're real or not, be patient and have fun. See some neat places, learn some interesting history.\n\nI've never called myself a "ghost hunter" but I have spent close to a decade exploring interesting, off-kilter, lesser know, interesting, oddball places, many of which are reportedly haunted.\n\nIn the supposedly haunted places I've been, I've had a handful of strange things happen, but I've never seen (I have had objects inexplicably move on me twice), videotaped or photographed anything I'd call supernatural. \n\nAnd for the handful of experiences (mostly auditory - some of which were pretty interesting) that I have had, I've also spent many dozens of hours upon hours sitting quietly with nothing happening. I've cumulatively driven thousands of miles going to these places, some of which were reportedly "the most haunted place in (wherever)" only to have shit all happen.\n\nAfter all this, I think there MIGHT be something out there.  I have had an amazing time with friends and I wouldn't trade the experiences for anything. At the end of the day, for me it's about going interesting places with friends, laughing, having adventures and occasionally having something a little strange happen.  \n\nSo my advice has nothing to do with EMF meters or anything.  In fact, I haven't even brought a camera with me the last 6 years or so.  So when half the Confederate army manifests itself in front of my eyes next time I am in Gettysburgh, you'll just have to take my word for it.
>...hostility towards alternative theories and explanations...\n\nRight.  Alternate theories, which are unproven fantasies.\n\nWell, someone has to buy the do-it-yourself bomb shelter kits.
Which is especially funny since corn was basically invented by Native Americans over centuries (or millenia?).\n\nedit: It has come to my attention that the word "corn" means something completely different outside of North America.  This discussion was obviously about maize, which is what I meant.
Wait, there are places where you get *cookies* with lap dances?  I've been to all the wrong bars...
I don't know if this is legit, but it's getting pretty annoying over the past few years seeing excuse after excuse for fatties to not get up and lose weight. And I say this as a former fatty that knew other fatties that braced these excuses. Something pops up on the news while they dig into their bucket of kfc about how being fat isn't really their fault and they're all "see?! I've tried so many diets and nothing has worked. I must be special! I got a condition!"\n\nA lot of fat people I knew, a lot, would say "I've tried all these diets and nothing worked". Nobody said they were currently dieting. Nobody. It was like a way of them defending themselves against judgement by saying "I've tried! Just can't do it. Physically impossible "\n\nPurely anecdotal, just throwing it out there. There are people out there with medical issues that make losing weight a little harder, but the ones I saw never even\nMade the effort. It's one thing to eat right and try your best only to still be fat, it's another to not even try and still eat junk with no exercise while saying "but I've tried everything". I tried eating less fast food and getting some exercise everyday and the weight came off. Didn't need to try any crazy diets or anything. Just no junk and get out everyday. Maybe I'm lucky?
I'm convinced that we will eventually be able to replicate brain function with technology, though it's likely a longer way off than Kurzweil believes.  It will probably start with something like a cybernetic "cure" for Alzheimer's, allowing people to supplement a failing short-term memory with a mechanical system, and bit by bit (forgive the pun) people will become more accustomed to replacing biological machinery with synthetic alternatives.\n\nAt the moment, such ideas as a future *gestalt* of networked minds amount to little more than fantastic science fiction, and unlike Kurzweil, I don't expect I'll live to see it happen.  But given human nature it seems almost impossible for it not to happen eventually, barring some cataclysm and/or political-religious backlash knocking us into a new Dark Ages.
Yes.  I get that.  You didn't respond to my question.
Well, that's the point.  We don't care if it's extraterrestrial.  We just want to know what it is or what the cause of it is.
Normal condensation trails, but with additional mind or environment controlling chemicals.
Huh? All i did was ask you to define "drastic action" before I agreed to take it.\n\nWhat are hiding?
D2>D3
"...to confront *red bar* and ME"\n\nFTFY
Ad Hominem
The only people you see pushing this line of BS are people who have never enjoyed pot and are generally equating it to the only mind altering substance they are familiar with, alcohol.  Of course more potent alcohol would be a problem since a single bottle of liquor contains more than enough alcohol to kill an adult human or 2.  On the other hand 5 pounds of the finest, most genetically superior cannabis on the planet won't even make you sick.  Sleepy yes, sick no.
>However, when someone publicly disagrees with you, I see no reason why you shouldn't call them out by name.\n\nWell then you are a disagreeing with your original point that "you don't call out the person by name".  I think you should of course, but what you shouldn't do is abuse your privilege as an invited guest and talk about something that has *nothing* do with the talk you were invited to.  That's disgraceful and about as unprofessional as you can get.\n\nBear in mind, just because two people are both in public does not mean they are equally afforded the same privilege to speak.  McGraw was a member of the audience and thus offered no opportunity to correct or challenge Watson who was on a podium.  Don't try to pretend this was a genuine debate when it was really bullying.\n\n>McGraws comments were clueless and missed the point, \n\nMaybe they were, maybe she did.  This doesn't give you a free pass to bully someone.\n\n>I also think you're twisting things a little bit. She had some of McGraws comments and name on screen, amongst other people's.\n\nYeah, the other comments being from youtubers who said some of the most vile and hateful things on the internet like "lol u need rapin" etc etc. There's certainly nothing sinister and deliberate  with juxtaposing those next to someone who's making genuine and polite disagreement!\n\n>Are those her actual words, or are you paraphrasing?\n\nI am paraphrasing since no recording seems to exist and I'm building this from memory.  If you look around the comment sections on the relevant blogs you will see these words being thrown around at any female voice who dares dissent. [Another example](http://scienceblogs.com/erv/2011/07/bad_form_rebecca_watson.php)\n\n[And you can actually see the comment from Rebecca that changed it up a gear here](http://www.unifreethought.com/2011/06/fursdays-wif-stef-33.html?showComment=1309494284400#c1446541235942337573)\n\nWhat's most disgraceful about this whole affair is how it's being revised to be about how Watson received hateful, vile comments for making a genuine honest remark (she did, and probably still does receive vile hate mail and comments, everyone is on her side against this though) and so anyone who dares disagree with her is either a mansplainer or a gender traitor, end of.  When in reality it became about her bullying dissenting voices and propagating a shitstorm in the comments that divided the community.
Best prime minister in Canadian history though.
>Disaccharaides must be broken down into monosacharides first before being used by the body, so, potentially, that bottleneck could be responsible for differing effects in digestion\n\nPerhaps you forgot that you typed that, and that's the context for my replies.
that was surprisingly not shit.
The only problem is that I feel he spreads a LOT of misinformation and could be giving people bad advice  :(
Yeah, that's where I had to stop. I didn't even get to the other 3 or 4 acronyms...
See my comment to the same question above!
Here in Wilmington, NC, we have [The Gallows](http://www.easternparanormal.com/Gallows_Hill_Wilmington_NC.html). Creepy place to be...\n
you predicted the future in your dream :O
Is that master chief in the top left corner?!\n
[I thought it was NOFX](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zu7I-h5kpRU)
Read about shadow people, here are some links:\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_people\n\nhttp://www.shadowpeople.org/\n\nhttp://libertarianalliance.wordpress.com/2012/01/26/shadow-people-attacks-on-humans-increasing/\n\nhttp://skeptoid.com/episodes/4175\n\nhttp://www.unknown-creatures.com/shadow-people.html\n\nhttp://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/column.php?id=97317\n\nhttp://mythbuster.hubpages.com/hub/Shadow-People-Series-General\n\nhttp://mythbuster.hubpages.com/hub/Shadow-People-People-Series-Hat-Man\n\nSome are paranormal links and some are skeptic links, if you have time read all and make your own decision.\n\nHope it helps.
Agreed.
**(1/2)**\n\n>You're right, I've provided no evidence. Do you have any explanation for a placebo effect? I have a pain in my back that's constant for days, I get massaged and it feels good, after some time there's a sudden pop, and instant relief, the pain is gone, I can move and turn normally again. \n\nIt's not necessarily a placebo effect - it could also be explained by something like regression to the mean, or it's a self-limiting pain, etc. A lot of these anecdotes are heavily affected by regression to the mean which (simply) means that some problems, especially chronic disorders, have pains which wax and wane. What happens is that when the pain gets really bad (when the pain is at the height of one fluctuation), they go to see someone about it, and then it feels better. But it was going to feel better anyway, as the pain was about to decrease as part of its natural cycle. \n\nSo there are so many factors that need to be taken into consideration here and we can't say what it was and was not based on the limited information we have. But let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that the chiropractor slipped and did something different, or maybe he has magical hands and it happened to work. This makes no difference to the validity of chiropractic because the scientific evidence we have says that it does not work. So just because you got lucky does not justify an entire field which has no effect at all.\n\n>You're 100% confident that we're all under such a heavy placebo effect?\n\nNot "100% confident" at all - I'm only 100% confident that it wasn't a chiropractic technique that helped. So it's either some confounding variable like a placebo effect, confirmation bias, regression to the mean, etc, or he used a technique from physiotherapy to help (making the fact that he was a chiropractor entirely irrelevant). \n\nYou should note, however, that placebo effects can have hugely significant effects on the body. For example, it can turn off your immune system:\n\n>One of the most dramatic demonstrations of a placebo effect in\nnonhuman animals involved conditioned immunosuppression in\nrats. Ader and Cohen (1975) paired a novel saccharine-flavored\nliquid with the immunosuppressant cyclophosphamide. After a\nnumber of pairings, the saccharine solution administered alone\nbrought about a decreased immune response in the rats (Ader &\nCohen, 1975). The saccharin solution had become a CS (placebo),\ncapable of eliciting immunosuppression (the placebo effect).\nAder’s groundbreaking experiments caused a stir, for it was generally held at the time that conditioning procedures could not\ninfluence the immune system (see Harrington, 1997). Many of\nAder’s results mesh well with the regularities uncovered in classical conditioning research. First, as would be predicted from the\ngeneral finding that a stronger US produces a stronger CR, rats\ngiven two doses of cyclophosphamide during the conditioning\nstage later exhibited greater conditioned immunosuppression than\nthose given only one dose. Second, the extent of immunosuppression depended on the schedule of reinforcement. Third, in the\nabsence of CS–US pairings, the conditioned immunosuppression\ntypically extinguished (Ader, 1985). The finding that immunosuppression can be conditioned has been well replicated (Ader &\nCohen, 1982, 1991; Ghanta, Hiramoto, Solvason, & Spector, 1987;\nKrank & MacQueen, 1988; McCoy, Roszman, Miller, Keely, &\nTitus, 1986). \n\n([The Placebo Effect: Dissolving the Expectancy Versus Conditioning Debate](https://www.ptsdforum.org/c/gallery/-pdf/1-42.pdf))\n\nSo it's not that difficult to believe that a placebo response could significantly help a chronic pain issue.\n\n>More serious problems are always consulted with doctors, and this guy has a PH.D in physiotherapy and he practised physiotherapy most his life, and he uses only safe, practical stuff from chiro to enhance the therapy. Most people think about the mantras, meditations, and spiritual healing and then imagine someone twisting peoples heads 360. This guy isn't that. He only does a quick massage with some gentle stretching.\n\nThat's great that he has training in physiotherapy, and when he uses physiotherapy techniques I have no doubt that they are helping you and your family. However, there is simply no evidence that the chiropractic techniques he's adding to his practice are having any effect whatsoever. It's like a builder chucking some jelly into his toolbelt, just in case he needs it later on. \n\n>I really want to stress out that I know there are a lot of fakes everywhere with the spiritual shit. But there are also a lot of enthusiastic people who don't know what they're doing, maybe flunked physiotherapy and they think they know enough to do massages. So they call themselves chiropractors, because it's in some kind of grey zone, and fuck people up. \n\nSure, but you have to understand that when people attacking chiropractors here, they aren't attacking them because they're crazy, or because they have wacky beliefs, or because they've had bad experiences with these bad chiropractors. They attack them because **there is no scientific evidence that what they do works.** They are performing dangerous techniques on people without testing to see if what they believe works, actually works. \n\n>But the thing is: if you visit a physiotherapist, he can help you just as a chiro can, only with longer therapies and pain medications.\n\nA physio can help you *more* than a chiro because: 1) they have more techniques at their disposal, and 2) they have evidence to support their techniques (whereas chiro doesn't). Physios don't always have longer therapies (the last time I needed a physio, I only needed a 10 minute consultation). And they'll only suggest pain medications if there is evidence that they can help - for example, many conditions are caused, or exacerbated, by inflammation and so pain medication can help with that aspect. If a chiropractor doesn't recommend pain medication when there's an issue like inflammation, then they will either have to wait for the inflammation to go down naturally before they can do anything, or they can try working on the joint whilst it's inflamed and further damage it. There is no middle ground there.\n\n>Sure, when you have a pinched nerve drugs will help. To ignore the pain, they won't unpinch your nerve. \n\nOf course they can. If it's a misdiagnosed pinched nerve, or if it's pinched due to inflammation, medication can sometimes be the **only** treatment for it. Medication doesn't just "mask" symptoms, or help you ignore the problem - most often medication solves and cures problems.\n\n>But they're so strong and so well established that you don't mind when they get billions of pills out, only to find out later they could kill you, cause cancer etc... But when someone offers you a pill to feel better, you will take it, mrsamsa. Even if it's a placebo.\n\nBullshit. I research any medication I need to take - both to check up on possible side effects, and to figure out how effective and accepted they are in the medical community. If I were given a drug that was no better than a placebo, of course I wouldn't take it. What would be the point?\n\n>Yes, the companies have absolutely no problem giving objective evidence that their pills work. And underpaid doctors will gladly tell you to take those pills. But this is a whole other subject, and I'm really starting to sound like a conspiracy nut.\n\nAnd that's why we don't simply trust the evidence presented by companies. Instead we look at research done by independent researchers - governments, universities, non-affiliated research labs, etc. Remember that in science, the best and easiest way to make a name for yourself (and make a little cash) is to disprove something that is accepted as true by everyone else. This is why there is a massive push currently to disprove the effectiveness of antidepressants - but currently all efforts have been unsuccessful (although they have taught us of some limitations of antidepressants). \n\nSo if these people, who are making a living by attacking the evidence of these drugs and desperately trying to do so, cannot dispute the evidence supporting these drugs, then I take it as a reasonable sign that they probably work.\n\n>Well true. All I could give you is my word, and these gigantic walls of text of support for a single awesome guy. I'm not 100% sure, but I'll ask my mum if she still has the x-rays of her shoulder. That is the only evidence I could give. There were (thankfully) never more serious things in my family for the need of x-rays.\n\nThe problem is that you can't go back in time and record the sequence of events accurately - and, even if you could, I don't imagine that your mum was part of a double-blinded randomised controlled trial, so even if she did get better, we have no way of knowing what caused it.\n\nWhen I ask for evidence, I mean scientific evidence. Peer-reviewed articles.\n
I shall PM you, as there's something quite uncool about giving away magic secrets on public forums.
> Please give me your definition of memes.\n\nThe context is sufficient for this, I think.\n\n> Mine is strictly based in the Dawkinsian sense\n\nThen you will find yourself rapidly more and more unable to communicate effectively. Language evolves, and as such technical terms find different uses in the vernacular.\n\n> Why would I post this to /r/atheism?\n\nThat's where the low-brow mocking of morons generally goes. It's lovely and therapeutic, but doesn't go here.
[Oh please.](http://jordankinley.com/gif/backpedal.gif)
oi that meme was relevant 5 years ago
It's not hyperbole. 97% of actively publishing climate scientists accept AGW theory. That's a vast majority.
Am I the only one that remembers when TLC meant The Learning Channel?
[False!](http://www.snopes.com/food/tainted/cutonions.asp) Source = Snopes
The problem with that is that our understanding of all the details of how our bodies and different diseases work often is quite weak. We often have to use treatments that have been shown to work (through double blind trials) without a full understanding of why it works.
[Google doesn't update the address every time you get directions, this should work.](http://maps.google.ca/maps?saddr=Minnesota,+USA&daddr=Edmonton+Alberta,+Canada&hl=en&ll=50.162824,-104.084473&spn=11.550545,33.684082&sll=51.138001,-102.32666&sspn=11.314794,33.684082&geocode=FVEJyQIdNDVb-imbC3hgmltYTTEPov4Qm8miAg%3BFYwCMQMd7EU8-Skj_96ARSKgUzFdFfZKDKAfQQ&vpsrc=0&mra=ls&t=m&z=6)\n\nNote that it says it is a 20 hour drive.
Yep, I do believe that this is the case. That on *any given moment* we are rarely using more than 10%.\nFun fact: You might have witnessed a person that are using the complete 100% of the brain. People tend to call this epilepsy, where the brain fires signals like there's no tomorrow. Therefore ghosts exists.
I would be more concerned with humans being out there
That's not quite religious TV, mind you. That's from a movie called [The Adventures of Mark Twain](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088678/), and all of it is based on his stories.\n\nThat particular segment is based on [The Mysterious Stranger](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mysterious_Stranger), which is actually a big critique of religion in general.
when he asks the little girl to explain what she meant when she said it looked like it had evil eyes and then guides her into saying she felt it wanted to take her away with it.
I think we are actually on the same side here, as I agree with you on most points. I apologize for calling you 'snotty.' That was rather snotty of me. All I was trying to point out was that the article suggested that it was somehow impossible to both change one's diet and have an operation for cancer. It is the lack of surgery that had a detrimental effect, not the diet. I am not advocating eating special food instead of receiving cancer treatment, either. All I am saying is that the author of the article seems to have made Jobs' medical decision into a reason to attack "alternative medicine". As you said, the lack of evidence for naturopathy as a treatment for cancer stands on its own. I was not actually implying that naturopathy did work for cancer. \n\nInstead, I was attempting to point out that the linked article was drawing a line of causation that was not there. Jobs embracing alternative medicine was not necessarily what lead him to reject the operation. He had already undergone several operations, including a liver transplant. I am not an oncologist, none of us are. We are all discussing a very specific medical case with insufficient information. It is not up to us to judge Jobs' medical decision.\n\n\n\n> Also, it's not the wild herb or root that is working, it's a compound within the herb/root that is having the effect.\n\nI agree with you. However, many herbs contain a variety of compounds that cause the effect, such that every compound in the plant must be considered. A prime example is cannabis. I advocate scientific research into the nature of such potential new medicines.
I agree that it's likely futile.\n\nThe problem is things that are known conspiracies (the non-tinfoil hat kind), get lumped in with the tinfoil hat ones and lose credibility as a result--because 'conspiracy theory' *is* held as a pejorative now.\n\nAlso… I apologize if I came across very rough right there. I've felt that I might have since I put up the post. I was awake for all of five to ten minutes when I composed it, and I don't always speak very nicely in those first few minutes.
I think so too, I'm turning this thread into a skeptical resource for the movie, If you have anything to add, feel free to do so.
I never said I believed the video was real, simply that it was a fairly convincing fake.
Best part was his title though! You put the 'cross-posted' stuff in brackets at the end of the title and use the original title or something close to it... come on man!
A better question might be what relationship is there between one's opinion and scientific validity?
Read the title as "Paranormalfish." I was briefly terrified before I went back to re-read it.
I'd rather go to JennyMcCarthyBody.com
I downloaded the photo and brightened it. Wow the person in the background was immediately noticeable. Very creepy
Make an account.
Guys got a pretty short attention span; gets bored after 47 seconds and stops filming.
Fair if people would stick to using the word one way.  But Aunts and others often use homeopathic to mean "home remedy"; I know, they're confused, but anyway the confusion is widespread.\n\nAlso, in homeopathic medicine dilution is procedural, but not all homeopathic remedies are diluted until active ingredients are no longer substantial.  Their operating theory is that it becomes more effective as it is further diluted, but homeopathic remedies are sometimes found to have minute amounts of whatever is theorized to cause the symptoms one is trying to relieve with it.\n\n> *all* homeopathic remedies have been proven to have no remedying effect outside placebo\n\n"*All*" is a bit strong here.  It's true that homeopathic medicine has been generally & widely debunked, so say that instead.  It makes sense to be especially skeptical and critical of any remedy labeled homeopathic, but you cannot evidentially prove that *all* homeopathic remedies have no effect.  Even a logical proof is problematic, both because 'homeopathic' is a label that is more liberally used than it ought to be, but also because the definition you assume is oversimplified: homeopathy always dilutes the 'medicine', but not absolutely always until there is none left.
\nCited by 2 PubMed Central articles\n\n    * Autistic spectrum disorder: No causal relationship with vaccines.\n\n      . Paediatr Child Health. 2007 May; 12(5):393-8.\n\n      [Paediatr Child Health. 2007]\n    * Autistic spectrum disorder: No causal relationship with vaccines.\n\n      . Can J Infect Dis Med Microbiol. 2007 May; 18(3):177-9.\n\n      [Can J Infect Dis Med Microbiol. 2007]
They know this bill would be overturned by the courts; This is pure election year pandering. They are doing this as part of a larger culture war, they do something clearly illegal and then campaign on the premise of a war on religion.
this thread has made me realise i don't follow any superstitions, other than spiders are evil.
Where can you watch these documentaries?
Past conquerors did the horrible things they did out of a desperation to survive or aquire more land. They were also primitive, driving the necessity to do horrible things up because to them, they didn't have very many options.  They were still figuring out civilization, dealing with people, rights, moral issues. These were things they hadn't figured out yet.\n\nSo a race of beings that were able to evolve and survive for millions of years? I don't think they'll come here in their sailboats trying to claim our land. \n\nI don't believe we've been visited, but the zoo theory is my favorite. Just here to study and watch. If they wanted resources they don't exactly have to announce to us they're doing it. They'd take it in secret while continuing the experiments. This could be far bigger than any of us can comprehend. Even messing with our DNA, government/political process, religion. Who knows what they'd do or influence if they were really here?
What's happened inside your house?
Thanks, I did wonder. It's all very scientific and reasonable, no gimmicks or pseudo-nonsense.
The hilarious thing is that I get paid the big bucks to essential use logic all day long. Your anger is showing again. You still don't understand, and its extraordinarily entertaining.
http://youtu.be/l_B09NyZ2IQ  wobble wobble wobble!
You don't need magic to move giant rocks into place- [even single-handed.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCvx5gSnfW4)
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? Kinda makes you wonder if "someone else" is rattling around inside his brain with him.
I had a dream once at uni where I was cycling the quite recognisable road to campus and then out of no where as I was turning this car slams into the side of me. All I remember about the car was a flash of blue, but it felt insanely realistic. I felt the air get knocked out of my lungs, my body crumple and my leg smash against my bike, then I flew into the air and as I hit the ground the dream ended. That was the only dream I remembered having that night and freaked me out ridiculously. I kept an eye out for that shade of blue car for the res of the time I cycled there just in case but nothing ever came of it. I never even saw a car that particular colour. It was just a dream, you'll be fine.
Oh trolls why must I be so easily baited.
Yeah he must do. He's obviously not malicious, or he'd be destroying things and taunting you. He's probably a lonely kid who just wants some company. \nAt least you know his name now and when you hear something moving or a voice, you can say hi to him etc. \nI'm weird, but I've always wanted a ghost like that. Unfortunately I've only experience malicious entities :-/ Now I try to ignore them lol
>If you didn't have companies making closed source operating systems, and claiming ownership of the intellectual property that produces then we wouldn't have any operating systems.
Where are you reading that?\n\nEdit: I just re-read what I wrote. I apologize if I'm coming off as a dick; I'm not trying to. I'm a big fan of parks both state and national, and have traveled to a bunch of them (there are 394 units of the National Park system, and I've been to 333). Also, I've visited both Hopewell Culture and Serpent Mound. I was just trying to be correct in the thread.
It seems this overly accepting attitude is becoming common these days.  There are *doctors* (actual MDs from good schools) who no longer talk to me after my suggesting that acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine have no place in a public health care program.  Hell, Deepak Chopra got a pro-alternative medicine piece published in JAMA.  Sigh.
I have no idea how to read this graphic
I don't think comparing the remission/success rates is a good way of measuring whether or not AA is good makes sense.  You need to compare it to other forms of quitting.  If quitting on your own has a 25% success rate, then a 50% success rate is pretty good, etc.\n\nI do agree though that we have too much focus on AA in the USA, and are ignoring medical advances in treating alcohol addiction.
"Even after weeks of practice and intensive training, Oswald barely managed to qualify at the level of "Sharpshooter," the middle of three rifle qualification levels in the Marines. He obtained a score of 212, two points above the minimum for the "Sharpshooter" level. In other words, even after extensive training and practice, and even though he was firing at stationary targets with a semi-automatic rifle and had plenty of time to shoot (even during the so-called "rapid-fire" phase), Oswald narrowly missed scoring at the lowest possible qualification level.\n\nThe next time Oswald fired for record in the Marines, he barely managed to qualify at all, obtaining a score of 191, which was one point above the minimum needed for the lowest qualification level, "Marksman." To put it another way, he came within two points of failing to qualify. "\n\n- http://karws.gso.uri.edu/JFK/the_critics/griffith/Oswald_poor_shot.html\n\nPages of cited evidence there for you to go through.  Enjoy.
LOL
Chemo-therapy: for when you want to poison a person who already has cancer.\n\nMy grandma had cancer. The chemo made it worse. She died shortly there after.\n\nFuck these brutish wankers and their burn / chop / poison solutions.
I don't disable adblock for anyone.
No, TB is one disease. Cancer is a massive set of very different diseases. You can certainly cure X type of cancer (and some have already been cured!) but you cannot find one cure to EVERY type of cancer, any more than you can find one vaccine to ALL viruses.
Every skeptic should read Hegel's "The phenomenology of the mind."
> I mean, this stuff has been going on for a year now, I could easily fill a book with the details of every last event.\n\nPerhaps you could start keeping a detailed log, the extra rigour might reveal something.\n\n(I would be *fascinated* if unexplained things were happening around me regularly enough that I could start double-checking the assumptions that make the phenomena seem supernatural)
Fluctuations in air density due to heat rising from built up areas changes the refractive index of air, which gives stars and in this case planets the often spoken about "twinkle"
>when it comes down to it, there are always things out there we can't always explain\n\nIf we can't explain something, shouldn't we just admit we can't explain it?\n\nWhy assume ghosts/spirits/demons/etc. are the answer when those things are even *more* of a mystery than the thing you can't explain?
I have a profound neurological disorder that inclines me to argue with brick walls. In that sense it's like pure sex.
Seriously. I live in Portland and these people will buy anything in green packaging.
>The criterion of embarrassment seems like such an incredibly subjective thing from culture to culture\n\nThat's true. That's why it's important that the event be embarrassing to that specific culture.\n\n>I don't know how anyone can take it seriously as a proof of anything.\n\n\n"Proof" is a bad word, as history (much like science) can only work in what is or is not probable. It's certainly possible that something meets the criterion of embarrassment but never actually happened. It's only meant to increase the probability that it actually did happen.\n\n>What he means is that it's hard for a white male American theologian to understand why a hypothetical early Christian might do such a thing.\n\nAre you really accusing Bart Ehrman, one of the most respected textual critics and New Testament scholars, of not knowing the attitudes and culture of the people who lived in classical antiquity? Obviously they lived in a different culture than we do, but when you actually understand their culture (as Ehrman does better than most) you also understand why having a Messiah act the subject of a baptist is embarrassing.  \n\nThe fact that different cultures find different things embarrassing doesn't mean that we can't use the criterion of embarrassment.  It only means it helps if you understand the culture before you apply the criterion.
Better than Doritos right?  Could be a step in the right direction.
We should pool our money, buy one and go around using it.
I'm rooting for the tensor. The generality really does make it more likely.
Being an atheist doesn't mean I should rule things out immediately.  I keep an open mind on the subject; after all, it can be quite entertaining to say the least.
Feminism done well should and does help both men and women, because it's not only a facetious remark to point out that Patriarchy Hurts Men Too.
Yea, we don't want *those* in our body.
It's likely the unusual number of downvotes for such a generic subject in a video is due to the butthurt new age Gaia / hippy types annoyed that mere mortals can make *swirly patterns in a field* without the requirement for intervention from advanced alien civilisations or Mother Nature sending us a message to stop polluting.
I'm going to go cry now.
My wife recently gave birth with all the interventions we could get. She and the baby both lived, because this ISN'T THE FUCKING 12TH CENTURY.\n\nIf you choose against medical advice (and it's always against medical advice) to give birth 'naturally' you're not a hero, you're an idiot and your dead baby won't thank you for it.
OK you need a big counterweight scale and a duck...
Sorry, edited for clarity.
Thanks for commenting.\n\nShe was indeed quite calm & honest. Before spouting her religious nonsense she gave me the impression that she was somewhat smart (and she definitely was a pleasant person).\n\nI think you're right: I should view this as a learning experience.
Reminds me of The Quiz, a supervillain from Doom Patrol whose power was having every power you couldn't think of.\n\nHer enemies had to shout things like, "Invulnerability! Super strength! Firebreathing! Uh... gun hands!"
You cannot legislate morality big guy. You can't punish thought or speech in a free society. It creates resentment and causes more problems. \nIs racism despicable? Yes.but \nBut do you or anyone else have the right to punish someone for thinking or expressing those thoughts? Absolutely not. That's what dictatorships and totalitarian regimes do. \n\nI'm sure you'd love it in North Korea, they don't tolerate objectionable speech either.
We already do, we just don't know it.\n\nIt wasn't his time.
I felt quantum of solace was utter shit...
So true.
what about octopi or octopodes?
So proud of myself for voting No on this. and proud of my state for knocking it down.
If the breathing corpse was able to "miracle heal" people, why didn't she just miracle-heal herself out of her coma?\n\nYeah...logic just doesn't apply here.
It makes the most sense that he had to have at least seen something that piqued his curiosity while on duty. I almost think it's naive to believe his forty years of air service and his interest in aliens were entirely separate details of his life.\n\nEDIT: sorry, I didn't realize I already replied to this comment.
Dude, it's Magick.
Human wives are so very difficult sometimes, Vulcan Ambassador.
Hang on, that is a post to FtB, not the one we are talking about.  FtB posts get an automatic pass because atheism+ came from FtB
> Evolutionists consider the structure to be poor design, which should mean that natural selection would have eliminated that design.\n\nI share your frustration - it's amazing how often I see people doubt evolution because they don't actually understand how it works.
That is not true, I'm still unsure what to think, considering both "sides" can provide so many good arguments! Don't judge me please.\n\nThe thing is that such a complex conspiracy is bound to make me NOT believe it AT FIRST GLANCE seeing as how such an organized event is unlikely.\n\nI posted this to learn more about the arguments that are against the conspiracy, because it seems like me and my friend are at a standstill and our discussion is going nowhere.\n\nTo provide a bit of info on this thread, I'd like to add that Enron and Bush were apparently great friends, most likely due to Enron paying the Bush administration so as to not get busted for their enormous debt.\n\nWhy did Enron go bankrupt and everything came out a month or so after 9/11? I don't know..
I would argue this point with him, if only to make sure he doesn't spread this nonsense to more students.
I have black nightshade and I use it in my salads. But stay away from deadly nightshade.
It's not that they are defending it; it's that there is no good reason for it to cost (nearly) that much. If they are really paying their lawyers that much, there's clearly some incompetence going on somewhere.
That could be. I built mine about 4 years ago, it might have been the old style, but it was extremely simple. Maybe the older models are available on ebay. I still think the whole thing is a bit of a waste of money though. There's no way credible evidence will ever be captured on one. As it is, skeptics state that EVP is actually radio interference being picked up on digital recording devices. Attempting to capture evidence on an actual radio receiver is counter productive and will never be taken seriously.
As sad as it is, Heaven's Gate is small potatoes when it comes to how awful cults can get.
This bearded man is God! How could anyone doubt him?
I don't have that much time on my hands but sure, i dare you to fake a photo, post it with a fake nick and see if anyone believes you.
I knew Dr. Oz was bad, but I didn't know he was *that* bad. Cripes.
It also makes for a shitty read, heh.
It is best without any context.
Lots of comics have hidden jokes, check the side bar on either /r/comics or /r/webcomics.
What I mean is that there is no proven model that explains both [Einstein relativity and Quantum Mechanics](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mechanics#Relativity_and_quantum_mechanics)\n\nThat means you have  a big gaping hole in your physics.
Sounds like a rogue app fucking with you.
Funny how he's using the arabic numeral system which was invented after the time of Christ to explain something like that, because God always communicates in a system that we are currently using.
I don't know... try and be a little less critical of governments, we don't really know how far they would go. There's a difference between evidence for a cover-up and being so caught up in the thrill of conspiracy that you HOPE it's a cover up.
"Before we bust up this party, and God dammit we're going to bust it up..."
You missed a preface that really adds to the effect of the quote, "Alternative medicine by definition has not yet been proven to work, or has been proven to not work.  What do you call alternative medicine that has been proven to work? medicine".  They will be getting a lot of Tim Minchin quotes in their results.
Imho, the people controlling the Greys are just people, ancient super advanced people, but human nonetheless, if you ever encounter one or a group, just know that they are merely lab equipment.\n\nDo not resist if you're paralized, from what I've read they sometimes try to calm their subjects, but their appearance makes it hard to do so, but as long as you think "lab equipment" the fear should subside.
Ah, I misunderstood. (Also, rereading my post, I did not intend it to sound "harsh" either, so I apologize if it sounded like I was "defending" or anything like that.)
Hmmm I doubt it. However, I have been on a new sleep schedule because of work so it still may be possible
I am inclined to think that the footage is legitimate. My first impression is that its a static tube shaped balloon or a blimp like this one. http://youtu.be/8kl3ofWXBP8\n\nI would note that this is Allen Epling's first impression also; "My first guess is an exotic balloon of some type. If its not that, its anybody's guess." \n\nIf some one has a link to a previous paperclip fake I would be interested in viewing it.
Oh indeed they do. I didn't see that, thanks. That makes it much easier to share the links with people.
If I were more diligent I would do more research than [looking at the Controversies section on the Wikipedia entry](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibromyalgia#Controversies), but I have other things to do at the moment. Remember to follow the citations!
burn sage in every room
I bet they don't. Love the show though.
I never have anything funny to say for a first comment, so I'm gonna point out that your grammar sucks.
I've had it, and I also believe it's a placebo.  However I did find the overall experience relaxing.  This I believe derives from the fact that you have someone attending to you, asking you how you are, then leaving you in a quiet, darkened room for half an hour, with relaxing music.  I think a lot of us never really get that kind of calm and quiet, and that is relaxing.\n\nSo knowing this, if one could recreate that kind of private, uninterrupted quality quiet time, I am certain the "benefits" - the relaxation/sense of less stress - would be identical, even without the needles.  And a fuckload cheaper.\n\n
What group would be threatened by an anti-viral treatment?
It's my understanding that OP is giving it away for free to circumvent that exact situation. What you're saying really isn't relevant in this case.\n\nI'm downloading it now and will be reading it later tonight when I have time. Thank you for the download, idboutit, this looks very interesting. This is a subject I've been fascinated by for a long time.
It's time for the professor for a refresher course in Laws of Thermodynamics.
You're probably right, but while I'm being a dick about grammar, I'll point out that just because they're intentional doesn't make them correct. I'd have gone with "good without god". Same with "A cruel..." should be "a cruel..."; changing your text color isn't cause for capitalization.\n
I'm just regurgitating what I saw... I think the point was that it was "cashback" or something like that... the shop keeper was expecting to get the money in change or something.
LMAO, that's awesome - I hadn't seen that :D
>Who said I blindly accepted it? That's an awful big assumption to make. \n\nYour absent criticism of TF's flaming butthurt and less than honest blame-shifting speak _volumes_.
Yes there are other sources which refer to 'The Gazette' outwith UFO literature - it took me a few days as I'm not fluent in German or Austrian but I tracked the original document from 1561 (The Gazette) to the Central Library of Zurich from whom I obtained an electronic copy which I now enclose;\n\n[Imgur](http://i.imgur.com/aiUU1.jpg)\n\nI think it is of the utmost importance to stress that the Central Library of Zurich now date the woodcut and the accompanying article at 1561 - the date the event took place - and not 1566 as is commonly referred to on the internet.\n
Indeed! This whole Denver ufo media frenzy is TOO DAMN FUNNY!! :D\n
I did take a class. That's not what schizophrenia is. That symptom doesn't appear in the diagnostic criteria for any of the several types of schizophrenia.\n\nThe thing is, you don't know that she has schizophrenia, so you shouldn't be dismissively telling her that she does. It's incredibly rude to tell somebody that they have a mental illness when there's no way that you could know if they actually do.
Nope. Sorry. I'll agree with the conservatives on this one. Shut the fuck up and sing. He was paid to talk about football. He wasn't given that platform to lecture us on his pet political issues.
Yes.  Fructose is broken down early, bypasses the insulin-based satiety mechanism, and metabolizes into a much higher percentage of fat than does glucose.\n\nWhich is a roughly equivalent problem for both sucrose and hfcs.  Want to avoid that stuff? Use glucose syrup and balance the sweetness with sucralose.
I just skimmed it, but some things stood out:\n\nIn 3) he says that being able to see into the future through dreams isn't an extraordinary claim. He doesn't know what extraordinary means.\n\nIn 6) he misunderstands the burden of proof, as usual. Skeptics generally doubt claims, not make the opposite claim.\n\nPlus that many of his counterexamples that are supposed to show that the skeptics are wrong are horrible evidence-wise. Like him thinking that eye witness reports are good evidence for UFO's just because military personnel said it.\n\nAll in all, it doesn't sound like things skeptics do in general so it's kinda dishonest to focus on us.
You know what else was written a long time ago?\n\nThe Lord of the Rings. another great piece of fantasy fiction.
Paul Ekman (the guy that Lie to Me is based on) did some serious research on this. Some people have the ability to detect and read micro-expressions to better discern emotion without realizing why they can do it.
Can you provide references to "active placebos"? I've never heard of this term. \n\nAgain, I'll state that a placebo by definition is a substance with no medicinal effect. The "psychological" benefit you mention can have no possible cause by the chemical makup of the placebo otherwise it wouldn't be a placebo, it would be a medicinal compound. \n\nThis is easy to confirm by just changing the type of placebo (ie, a sugar pill and then a starch pill). Both would have exactly the same result (regardless if that result is zero or non-zero). If both have the same statistical result as the test medication, then neither have any medicinal qualities.
I think part of the issue is that everyone is a skeptic to some degree. \n\nNo one believes everything they hear and no one questions everything they hear. There is a continuum between gullible and conspiracy theorist, which creates an issue with the 'skeptic community'. Where are the upper and lower bounds along the continuum that define the community? Do two bounds even exist?\n\n\n\n
It's interesting to me. Mothman alone is weird. Like some kind of Americanized technological era version of an angel of death, or the ill omen black dog from European lore.\n\nThe story of Indrid Cold is weirder. There was a great episode of Coast to Coast AM that was all interview with a guy who wrote a book about Woodrow Derenberger's accounts. Indrid Cold seemed a lot like a typical Man in Black, coming to visit the location of Mothman, but he seemed much more friendly than what these characters are usually reported as.\n\nI was disappointed that The Mothman Prophecies was so far away from what people actually reported the events there to be like. The depiction of Indrid Cold was especially changed for the movie.
like when bush anounced iraq had WMDs nd ties to al qaeda.
Yeah I posted it back when it happened!
Oddly enough I've been reading r/Atheism since my first day on reddit. I should have known to look here.
they are really good. one of my favs. \n
[Relevant](http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=2081)\n\nDr. Novella does a pretty thorough dissection of the supposed links between this study and Homeopathy, as well as discusses a few of the more prominent problems with this study - not the least of which being the unreasonably fast peer review process it underwent (3 days from start to finish).  I definitely suggest reading over Dr. Novella's article, if you're interested.\n\nIncidentally, the mere fact that one is a Nobel Laureate isn't enough to insulate one from criticism; Dr. James Watson for example, a man who won a Nobel for his work discovering the structure of DNA, has stated that he believes that [blacks are inherently less intelligent than whites](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/fury-at-dna-pioneers-theory-africans-are-less-intelligent-than-westerners-394898.html) - a claim that is both spurious and ridiculous.\n\nI've said it many times: you can be a scientist or a doctor or a scholar and still be wrong.
>I have a friend that is anti-organic because you can't feed everyone in the world with it. Is that close?\n\nNot really.\n\nIn a few words, I am interested in progressing agriculture to the point that it provides adequate food but at the same time does not pollute the environment, can be farmed using minimal labor at all levels of production,utilizes completely renewable resources for all fuel and inputs, and lastly minimizes land and water use.\n\nNo current farming system does this. Organic pollutes less, but not completely, and it uses moderately less fuel/inputs depending on who you look at. It manages this by simply increasing the amount of man hour labor per bushel and increases land use.\n\nWe already have a HUGE problem with the exploitation of farm workers, and the US is highly reliant on the constant influx of migrant labor for harvests. Without copious minimum wage latin american immigration the US organic industry would collapse on it self. This is not even to mention the fact that we already buy a majority of our organic produce from China on the cheap, creating an unsustainable trade network.\n\nConventional agriculture has solved the land use and labor problems effectively, but not sustainably. The standardization of crops for mechanical harvesting leads to low diversity and higher rates of disease. The chemical inputs used to simplify pest control pollute the environment and can lead to exploitative economic treadmills. On the up side they have also ushered in a new generation of conservation by promoting no-til methods and genetic level methods of IPM that have eliminated millions of tons of chemical use per year.\n\nIn other words, both approaches can make lots of food, but neither can do it in a regular sustained fashion. We need to fundamentally re-invent agriculture if we want to survive as a species.\n\n
*COULD have water.
Looks like they are a religious cult too, steeerike one; http://damanhurinsideout.wordpress.com/damanhur-a-brief-overview/frequently-asked-questions/\n\nFrom wikipedia;\n\n>Damanhur, is a commune, ecovillage, and spiritual community situated in the Piedmont region of northern Italy about 30 miles (50 km) north of the city of Turin. It is located in the foothills of the Alps in the Valchiusella valley, bordering on the Gran Paradiso National Park. The community has its own constitution and currency, the Credito.\n\n>Damanhur is named after the Egyptian city of Damanhur which was the site of a temple dedicated to Horus.\n\n>It was founded in 1975 by Oberto Airaudi with around 24 followers, and had grown to 800 by the year 2000. The group holds a mix of New Age and neopagan beliefs. They gained fame in 1992 through the disclosure of their secret excavation of an extensive underground temple, the Temples of Humankind, which was begun in 1978 under complete secrecy.\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federation_of_Damanhur\n\nSounds very culty to me.\n\nYoutube comments are filtered.. steeeeerike two!\n\nQuote from the uploader about the machine.\n\n>This is an area we here at Damanhur have been researching since 1976. We have a device that we build by hand, which means we can only make a small quantity to share. We have a prototype of a device that can be built and sold economically, but we need help to fund the project. **If we created a campaign to raise the funds, would you be interested in participating?** If you are, please vote this comment up?\n\nSTEEEEKRIKE THREE!
Which is more likely? That your brain has the ability to alter spacetime and future events? Or that you can perceive events outside of the present?\n\nThe latter seems more likely to me, and so I wouldn't worry about you yourself causing harm to anyone. The more we learn about science and nature, the more we are able to predict things. I'm quite certain that if there was a being who was infinitely intelligent and knew exactly where every particle in our reality was lined up at the begininning of time, he would be able to predict every future event until the end of time. We're all probably just playing our role in a predictable universe adhering to a set of rules that we don't yet understand. We likely have no control over any outcome and no real free will.
I was thinking that maybe if a joint or muscle was over extended that the tape would somehow prevent that muscle from being strained again.... Best I could imagine.
One doesn't simply ***BELIEVE*** in Evolution, one studies ***THE FACTS*** of Evolution.
Absolutely.\n\nA lot of people tend to mischaracterize the ad hominem fallacy as though the source of information had no relevance in the way we evaluate information.\n\nIn reality, when information is limited, what we know about the source is a valuable part of what we know, and information is always limited.\n\nExample: Homeless guy wearing a colander on his head runs up to you and says that a meteor is about to hit the city and your only hope for survival is to jump into your car and drive hundreds of miles away.\n\nOr.\n\nA reporter comes on the news interrupting the current program and announces the same thing.\n\nIn neither case does the source *make* it true or guarantee it's truth, but I'll bet not many people would spend a lot of time trying to evaluate the homeless dude's claim.
haha, you don't know much about India... astrology, vastu (indian form of feng shui) and other such crap are taken very seriously by many here.
The problem with this and other psychiatric treatment methods is that they all seem to function about the same.  They also are only ever compared to no treatment or standard psychoanalysis.  Also there is no comparison to placebo and no real blinded studies.  All of the studies for EMDR may be positive, but they are worthless as evidence if they are not performed well. Homeopaths have studies for homeopathy that are positive because they perform the tests in such a way that they are bound to get the results they want. I am no Scientologist, but a lot of psychiatric treatments are just as magically ridiculous as what Scientology believes.
well, the house is in mexico so that is kind of hard.
Wow, fascinating story!  I love seeing a culture with a strong belief in their folk stories.
If this were a reflection you could clearly tell.  This is two points of light in the sky, a UFO.
I'm assuming that you mean "secular humanist", because there are many different kinds of "humanism" and the basic description is kinda generic? No, nothing is wrong with calling yourself a secular humanist, but realize that while it contain skepticism as part of it (without actually using that term), not all skeptics are secular humanists just like skeptics aren't all all atheists.
Aren't you forgetting to shake properly?  Also, perhaps more damning, is that the solution is far too concentrated for homeopathy.
Only if there is a natural predator that preys upon stupidity.
I'm not sure that he knows he is lying. He says he is making ORMUS gold. ORMUS is a snake oil cure all that can't be detected by American spectroscopes.  \n  \nMore info here:  \nhttp://rationalwiki.org/wiki/ORMUS
Unfortunately, nothing to treat Font Abuse.
Sorry, but no.
It was a good read but I'm wary of it for one reason - why would he need to work out of an office at all? He did nothing there he couldn't do sitting at home.
The well-made point of the comic is completely lost with me trying to figure out what the hell that atheist is, where his eyes are, and if those are ear muffs.
are you a time traveler?
I am saying that anyone who says they know what this is shouldn't. It isn't bullshit, it's an open mind and a lot of data.
i have no idea if it's real or not.  but im 99.999% sure he didn't just record his TV screen, run an app (which wouldn't work on his phone), & upload it to his dvr (which wouldn't work) to then re-record it again w/ his phone.\n\n\nas far as just running an app while he's recording, again TV bezel & moire.\n\n\njust sayin'.  if you're going to proclaim it's debunked, at least provide a theory which makes sense.
As I stated in another comment, it's possible this one guy is lying. It doesn't match the testimony of any of the other people involved and isn't corroborated by anyone else but him, which makes the source non-credible.\n\nThe lighthouse explanation seems extremely improbable to me, for a few reasons: \n\n* The lighthouse would have been there for some time, which means it only confused the military personnel for 3 consecutive days and not once before or after that? \n\n* Lighthouses (usually) have a single revolving light that is predictable. That is not what was described, at all, by the men involved.\n\n* It's a lighthouse. They don't move. It's inconsistent with multiple witness testimony.
Yes exactly. I believe that there are spiritual orbs, but I believe that 95% or better are dust, pollen, moisture, etc. Because there are so many things that can cause them that are not paranormal, I completely write them all off.
I'm not going to lie, your point is a bit unclear to me.\n\nTo the extent that you're saying the studies don't have an adequate framework in which to analyze subjective "sensual pleasure" it sounds like the anarchic argument: we can't test it so no one knows other than in their own experience.  \n\nI'm not sure what you mean overall, though.
Tesla himself allegedly claimed a connection to aliens, but we are talking about a guy who talked to pigeons.\n
Bill did a good job in a bad situation.
Yes I did but from what I heard sits nothin paranormal nor should you worry about it. :)
But isn't that the conundrum itself?\n\nIf our quest for truth, i.e. the evolving dialog we call society, is motivated at an individual level by overwhelmingly egoic concerns, guess what happens?\n\nThe truth, whatever it may be, is *influenced*.\n\nHow influenced it becomes as a consequence of our collective selfishness is the question that a true skeptic must begin asking in a world full of ignorance, suffering, and conflict.
I had a relative that was a "psychic healer" until "faith healer" became more profitable.  Her clients swore up and down that it worked, but they weren't reliable types (especially the actors, who tend to be loopier than most) and it all looked like fancy voodoo to me.\n\nI vote placebo effect.  I don't know why anyone would pay $500+/hr. for that.
Which uses [this scientific study](http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/126/4/656.abstract) as the source.
O.O
> Why can't these people accept a naturalistic explanation?\n\nPerhaps because they are not you?
Yep, that happened to me too, once or twice. But if it happens to you that frequently you could test it by taking a picture every time you look at the clock, if it stops happening it means it was just an attention thing, if it keeps happening then you have the picture to double check.
I guess, yeah. "Skeptics" tend to note the nose looks a bit different.
dont try to fly in heaven, I dont think that shit works.
Criticize Scientology?  That's a suin'.  Better lawyer up, Xenu will find you!
Those are harsh words. :P\n\nI don't think science has found one direct explanation; Instead I think it is important to familiarize yourself with many small anomalies and postulate your own theories. I am not saying there is a link or any type of connection, but maybe... :)
You can use plain rubbing alcohol for most of these tasks, and it's cheaper. Don't use rubbing alcohol for anything people eat or put in their mouth.\nVodka is just purified alcohol & water. Rubbing alcohol is the same thing with a chemical addition (methanol, IIRC) to make it poisonous if consumed, but cheaper.\n\nAlso, vinegar works just as well for several of these purposes.
This UFO has now been sighted in almost every part of the world.  I have even seen it myself.  I am now wondering if it is a satellite or not.
I dont normally engage in this kind of thing but once I started I was committed.\n\nTowards the end, just before he deleted the thread I was struck by that quote about playing a pigeon at chess.\n\nIts knocks over the pieces, shits all over the board but  even in defeat struts around triumphantly.
3 top-level posts and all 3 just from deniers that are incapable of talking about the real points from the article? If AlyssaMoore joins with a post on "Poptart truth" about Scientific American the entire collection of delusional morons and Heartland operatives will be complete :)\n\n**EDIT: Priceless! As seen below - just minutes after my post, the Heartland operative in charge of denial and organized downvoting cliques has started his/her 'work'.**
It looks like the exact same thing that has been popping up in all of the other videos, does anybody know if this is the same camera from the other occurences?
 Are you guys really believing this?  or is this like a for fun sub reddit?
It can't be "falsifiable" as it isn't a scientific claim and it's not a description; it's a proposal for how things should work. Some key points that people always misunderstand in these discussions:\n\n- NOMA does not say that religion makes no testable claims. It asserts that religion should restrict itself to non-scientific claims, and any testable claims that it does make should be handed over to science (i.e. if science disproves a claim, then theists must accept that the claim is false).\n\n- NOMA does not imply that religious views are valid or that it deserves an area of knowledge to itself. We can simultaneously accept NOMA and accept that religion is bullshit.\n\n- NOMA does not suggest that we should respect religious views and never criticise them.\n\nWith all of the above in mind, nobody can really argue against NOMA. It's a great suggestion and the best possible approach on this topic. I think one of the important features of NOMA is that it emphasises the importance of avoiding scientism, and trying to abuse science in order to justify personal opinions. So regardless of our views on religion, we should adopt NOMA as a result of appreciating and loving science.
I wish I had gone on a date with a guy like that! My dates are always about designer clothes and how whatever I'm wearing is not good enough.
I'm not entirely sure that taking down their ads is the best course of action.  Certainly many people are seeing the ads, but that doesn't equate to them believing the ads.  It seems more responsible/fair to simply advertise the truth, than to try to silence your critics, no matter how ill informed those 'critics' are.
I think the reason why the OP and so many of us skeptics were disappointed with the movie was it looked to be a return to somewhat intelligent sci-fi leaning more toward hard sci-fi but instead we got a rehash of Erich von Däniken's ancient aliens, and characters who act like pawns simply to move the plot forward rather than exploring the nature discovery.
They may not be random. \n* Pre-write mystery texts.\n* Set a schedule (Dates, and time)\n* Rob the guy(s) who come to the factory\n* Profit (And a felony)\n\nGood luck!
I think you are correct about the article being somewhat ambiguous. But the study it cites does say they "may increase mortality" and I have heard in the past there is evidence they may actually do just that. [See here](http://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=Vitamin+A%2C+beta-carotene%2C+and+vitamin+E+may+increase+mortality%22&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8)
Wow, I wasn't expecting this question. I'd have to go with the research done by Dr. Michael Persinger and the god helmet. It hasn't toltally ben debunked (In my opinion this issues needs to be beaten to death) but failed a double blind so it's as good as dead. Even though he was out to disprove the spiritual and paranormal as a product of the mind caused by a combination electromagnetic and neurological conditions, I had hoped that his research would provide a possible avenue for skeptics and mystics w/ the paranormal enthusiast to communicate it. That's the toughest blow I've taken lately. \n\nSorry if you were expecting something more, however, with the emergence of the concept of the meta model of magic the perceived ends are more important then the means. Even so much that in this meta model it doesn't matter if it's all psychological as long the effects on say random occurrence are repeatedly or definitively perceived. I myself though based on my personal experiences believe that if the experience is genuine that while an experience can be up to 99% psychological, there will be that 1% that transcends the bounds of pure psychology.Even more then 1% can be attributed to any possible scientifically known thing . I sort of chuck up the strong clash between skeptics and paranormal enthusiast as sort of the difference between the left and right brain and how they perceive things more or less.
Absolutely. If I brought my infant to my doctor and she contracted measles because some idiot in the waiting room didn't get their kid vaccinated I am going to be furious. If the doctor knows that a child could be spreading potentially fatal diseases in their waiting room, doesn't that directly violate their principle of First, do no harm??
I like your attitude.
How about dropping the stupid ad hominem from the submission title and actually making the title somewhat informative?
Your prerogative to stick with the WHO telling you there's nothing wrong and ignore the results that show otherwise.
>I maintain that Germany's policy of extermination is not the logical end of a discussion about tax code. \n\nOf course not.  It is the logical end of "because it is the law."
That does makes sense for all we know there could be someone pulling open off camera.
Well the article is written by Mercola, who constantly makes false claims about health.
Well, why thank you, feel free to be a friend of mine on here and occasionally message to chat anytime you have a question or anything really, and I know what you mean, I've been bullied in school my whole life, get taken advantage of a lot and one internet bully sets me off every time...it's a defense mechanism I suppose. lol. I'm only 19, but I go through some pretty messed up stuff for my age, I have to get a restraining order and file a lawsuit against some crazies that live near me...needless to say my medication was for depression and anxiety but I'm diagnosed with bipolar disorder and anxiety. My depression and anxiety are severe, I went to a psych unit in December for attempting suicide, I don't really mind who knows it, as long as people don't come back with that stereotype of "emo" because god do I hate that nonsense, why can't someone be who they are without being judged constantly? I have black hair and piercings so I hear it way more than I ever want to. lol. I had my reasons for it, I've never gotten along with my mother and now she has Alzheimer's...very heart breaking...and just a million other things in my life like that restraining order...lol. I had a mental breakdown and one thing lead to another but that stereotype will forever hang over my head just because I dress a certain way, have piercings, and black hair. -_- I really hate people some times. This turned into a rant of some sort somewhere along the line...I tend to do that, sorry! lol. It's just nice to actually have people to talk to ya know? Very few people on the internet are as interesting and kind as you, and I hope you find more people like us, not everyone on Reddit is a little bastard, just most of them. Aha. I may check into other subreddits maybe cross post into 1-2 of them see the results. If they aren't what I want to hear I'll delete it, because I hate ignorant comments, but there's bound to be a few, might as well suck it up lol. xD I've found that this is one of the more interesting and definitely more relaxed subreddits, not as many ignorant people, so maybe they'll take it easy on me...maybe...lol. I've been on this particular subreddit for a couple days because it's just so fascinating, I really like this subreddit. The people seem very nice and interesting too. I hope to get know more of them and hope they're as kind as you are!
>Why can't someone be anti-GMO because of Monsanto?\n\nBecause that's an amalgam, you are dismissing an entire field because of one company; that'd be like being anti-computers because of Apple.\n\n>playing a semantic game with the "natural" and artificial stuff\n\nIt isn't a semantic game, it is the core of the argument in my eyes; people oppose natural plants to GMO plants, as if it was a tremendous change to how we do it. If I remember correctly some strains that are used today were irradiated to trigger mutations and then selected for thos mutations. If that's not a GMO, what is ? Only the ones using the gene transfer technique ?\nAnd on what ethical/scientific ground is that distinction made ?\n\nFor me that's the core of the issue, on one hand you have an ill defined "natural" plant, which plays right into the naturalist movement (toxins, chemicals and so on) and on the other the "evil" GMO, mostly because of the actions of one company.
You are acting like an asshole.
You should read A Thousand Years of Solitude, just for it's beauty. But it helps demonstrate that mythmaking evolved into the scientific method. They are not fundamentally different enterprises.
I think the ghost one with the ouija board was better, even after the hoax was revealed instead of admitting they'd been fooled they went even further and said that they had brought another ghost into the house.\n\nAt least the guy that was the victim of this deception thankfully admitted he'd been fooled, and didn't try to hold on to it and make up further explanations.\n\nI honestly think I'd have been fooled if I'd been in that guys situation. With muse's law though, I'd like to think that I'm now just slightly harder to deceive.
You should research acupuncture a bit.  It DOES seem to work for certain things.  I'm not saying inducing labor is one of them, but there is a chance it could be.  I'm also not saying all the chi, qi, or whatever bullshit is true either, but I'm sure there are unknown scientific reasons as to why it does work.
Yea.. but unless the friend who sent this is trolling real hard, they'd have a very simple way to debunk this. If the kid threw the toy in the air, it would have had to have happened VERY shortly before this picture was taken. The little girl is drinking out of a cup so she probably didn't do it, and the little boy doesn't have his hands in the air or anything suggesting that he was tossing a toy around.
Nice try Jenny McCarthy.
easy.  stop debating people who believe in horse shit about their believe in said shit.  just don't deal with them altogether.  OR, if you like them anyway, just don't let it be brought up.  you're gonna have to bite your tongue sometimes.
As someone who lives with a couple of the little vicious jungle predators I can assure you that the cat SETS your schedule.
One and a half minutes in, it sounds like a lot of rhetoric.  I don't want to, but I'll keep watching 'til the end, and reserve judgement 'til then.
My sign says "Must be at least this tall to ride"\n\nMy sign is on my belt buckle.\n
Exactly
Prepping for the Olympics, perhaps?
My mum's a nurse and one day she was thinking to herself, "There haven't been any [some random medical procedure that rarely happens and I cant remember the name of] for a while." Then the same day there was one of those medical procedures. She came home with 'undeniable proof' that physic abilities are real
Can someone explain why Weird Al has to even ask for permission to do a parody? Wtf?
Come on, "neck manipulation" as opposed to "spine manipulation" is just splitting hairs.
Interesting, I was honestly wondering the very same thing that reader was. Now I know. Thank-you! :)
~~Yes~~ Probably.  There is no evidence of Bilderberg being anything other than a trade convention for world leadership.  \n\nThey work towards their self-interest.  People, countries, companies sometimes cooperate on areas of mutual interest for mutual benefit.  That doesn't require any overarching organization.
Awesome! There was me thinking SGU stood for Stargate Universe...
That may be the case now, but I feel that the duty to avoid harm to children should supersede this.
What! I missed it?! ... shit.
http://creationwiki.org/Jobe_Martin\n\nI would like to see Dawkins debate this moron.\n\n>While teaching at Baylor College, some of his students challenged him to find credible proof that the Theory of Evolution was accurate in its explanation of the origin of the earth and its organisms.\n\nWhat? Evolution doesn't even begin to try to explain the origin of the earth or life, just the diversity.
Scientifically speaking there is no evidence that solar variability has caused the majority of strong warming (please note I wrote majority, as it has contributed a little bit) for the last three decades. This has become a zombie argument that has been dealt with many times.\n\nThe problem is scientifically that manmade climate change is not on shaky ground at all, and is incredibly sound. The reason most people think its shaky is due to simple propaganda techniques that even many skeptical people have bought into (this is a great list of all the zombie arguments http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php) . (Also I recommend this book that deals with the way this propaganda has been established: http://www.merchantsofdoubt.org/ )\n\nI do not know of any organisation attempting to use climate change as a way to rip people off but I am sure there are. That does not mean that that all companies selling products or services to help with climate change are bad, as I am sure there are some fantastic ideas and products out there as well.\n
Doesn't seem like your chances are completely blown. She seems like a very tolerant, open minded individual. I'd date her. Get off your hight-horse a little and ask the fine young lady out, before I do. ;)
lets throw it!
Everyone spam this link in every reddit. If you haven't, DO IT. Make it get seen.\n\nI am very curious to see what happens with the requested amount of signatures.
Judging by your username angryhobbit, seems like you have nothing better to do then to troll subreddits you don't care for and try to belittle people. Big bad boy behind the big bad computer screen. Be kind, no need to say mean things when you don't share the same beliefs. BTW you're now the one who seems to be the idiot for leaving post in a reddit you don't agree with. Or maybe you do, you're just scared of what is behind the veil. that goes to the rest of the angry comments here as well.
But that would mean I'd have to meet Carrot Top.\n\n(Or photoshop him in. Whatever.)
I'm sure he struggled with bringing to the public for all these years and now wants mankind to benefit for the technology right?\n\nThen I see:\n\nLast April, Hellyer published a book on the subject called Light at the End of the Tunnel: A Survival Plan for the Human Species.\n\nJust another guy pimping his book/film for self-gain. Nothing to see here.
>It sounds as if gut feelings are more accurate than careful thought. Doesn't really sound right to me.\nI have a feeling that this is bullshit. Should I trust my feelings?\n\nI think the problem is that you're viewing this conclusion as an absolute (i.e. "you should *always* trust your feelings"), and perhaps you're thinking of 'gut feelings' as these magical snap decisions which have no rational basis. The truth is a little more nuanced than that, of course, where the claim is simply that *sometimes* intuition can be more accurate than deliberated thought, and also that intuition itself is basically a summary of our collective knowledge of a situation. \n\nThinking of intuition in this way we can see in what situations it would be useful to use it, and what situations it wouldn't be. For example, it would be better to use our intuition on professional matters where we know a lot about a subject, and it would be bad to use it in an unfamiliar situation that could be quite emotionally charged, like a police officer judging if someone looks suspicious. \n\nI suppose a simpler way of looking at it is to realise that thought processes operate in the same way as behavioral processes. For some things that we have practiced over and over again, like a professional golfer driving a ball down the fairway, automatic actions are more successful than rationally breaking down the steps of all the actions. In fact, what we find is that when professional athletes like golfers try to describe what they're doing, they end up disrupting their shot and hitting it into the rough or missing the ball completely. But obviously when we're learning to play golf, it's not a good idea to rely on "intuition" for figuring out how to strike a ball, as that will likely result in bent clubs and tufts of grass flying through the air. The same basic process appears to apply to our decisions and thoughts, where we can end up "overthinking" a conclusion that our past experience has already given us the answer to.\n\nI've only skimmed this review, but it looks like it gives a more comprehensive overview of the research in this area: [Deciding analytically or trusting your intuition? The advantages and\ndisadvantages of analytic and intuitive thought](http://www.econ.upf.edu/docs/papers/downloads/654.pdf).
Are your suggesting that people in first world countries -- say, the United States -- are, for the most part, properly nourished?
Motorized or magnetically pushed via a motor/magnet mechanism in the base. \n\n\nThese things are made of large, needless blocks of wood for a reason.
Its also true that bullshit is often stranger than fiction.
Yes! Another good point!
I was mostly kidding, as I have never done special effects before.
Has Yahoo Answers confirmed this yet?
I meant in regard to the tigers
of course the placebo effect is in play, but it isn't the extent of the drug regimen. Are some people ssri resistant? absolutely. That's biology.\n\n[I'll just leave this here](http://tinyurl.com/6obx3jt)\n\nedit bad link
Thousands of years?\n\nI've never heard of fireproof table cloths and napkins in ancient history.  I would be very curious to hear where you got that bit of information.
Libertarians, dude.
If you've spent any time on this subreddit at all, you'd know that the main point of commenting is trying to collectively think of a reasonable and logical explanation before simply dismissing it as a glitch. No one is ridiculing you, we're just trying to find out what might have caused this. Not everything posted here is a 100% glitch, there's explanations for some of the occurrences. Our job is to figure out how this event happened and if it's plausible in the world we know today.
UV light is way outside of the visible light spectrum.
> With sufficient latitude to pre-shape a situation suited to a preconceived conclusion, anything is possible.\n\nHave you ever thought to apply the "preconceived conclusion" idea to yourself? Because your assumptions about me seem to resemble a certain straw man.\n\n> Your continual use of absolute statements does not endear one to your position.\n\nThat's only because you don't understand as well as you think you do.\n\n> What you conveniently overlook is how the scientific method naturally resists a certain degree of "emotional whims." That is the whole reason it exists. If it was not a superior method of discovery and understanding to all other methods, nothing around you would work properly, or even exist.\n\nIf done dispassionately, I agree. But then again, if you have an emotional stake in the debate, if you "torture the data long enough, it will confess".\n\n> No, I would not, because I've tired of this absurdity\n\nWhat the heck are you doing on Reddit then?\n\n> you would just deny it anyway\n\nWhat exactly would I deny? Again, perhaps you should get the facts before making assumptions. Although you praise the superiority of the scientific method, you certainly don't seem to follow it.\n\n> You're never wrong here, remember? You're just enduring the arrogance of my elitism. You are not here to exchange ideas, but to confrontationally ram your "truth" home to the straw men you see all around you.\n\nYour words, not mine. And have you ever considered that you're the one creating the straw man? Perhaps you're projecting yourself onto me...\n\n> Like I said, you've created a scenario where you cannot be wrong; those who disagree with you merely do not understand what you are saying.\n\nStraw Man Fallacy Alert!\n\n> your disposition is transparent and your position is absurd.\n\nJust so we're both on the same page, what exactly is my position?
TheAngryPharmacist has a whole post about it [here](http://www.theangrypharmacist.com/archives/2011/02/vaccines-autism-and-dipshit-jenny-mccarthy.html) along with the Penn & Teller: Bullshit! episode about vaccines.
You should have hit him with the cross eye move.  Works everytime.\n
When I started this subreddit I actually did consider calling it UAPs or including it in the description somewhere. This is why I didn't:\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism#Euphemism_treadmill\n\n>As with Gresham's law, **negative connotations tend to crowd out neutral ones**, so the phrase mentally retarded was pressed into service to replace them.[14] Mentally retarded, too, has come to be considered inappropriate by some, because the word "retarded" came to be commonly used as an insult of a person, thing, or idea. As a result, new terms like "mentally challenged", "with an intellectual disability", "learning difficulties" and "special needs" have replaced "retarded". Its worth noting that in the UK the term 'Special' can now be heard as an insult in playgrounds.\n\nThe term "UFO" has a bad connotations because the field of Ufology has bad connotations (unfortunately, and to a great degree unfairly). With terms that carry the weight of political correctness you can guilt people in to using new terms and keep the euphemism treadmill going. I really doubt that such a thing is possible with the term UAP.\n\nI think UFO is the term we're stuck with and the only one that the general public is familiar with. If you say "UAP" only wonks are going to know WTF you're talking about and they're not the ones who need convincing. \n\nI think the solution is to try to give UFOs a more serious treatment; not to runaway from a particular acronym. Leslie Kean's book is a good example of what I'm talking about. She called her book "*UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go On the Record*" not "*UAPs, etc, etc*" but she took a serious approach in the book and was generally received seriously by the mainstream media.\n\nAnyway.... all that said I wish you luck with the new subreddit and trying to change the terminology. I think your subreddit will work out but the rebranding thing is just kinda tricky.\n\nBTW, if you want an /r/UAP link in the sidebar let me know and I'll go ahead and add it.
I thought this was just another post of that one. Glad I looked at the comments to see it's completely different.
Did this person describe what the lady sounded like or any other details?
I'll go get the inflatable shack.
>I doubt many people would want to work for the companies where they were of little significance.\n\nAnalog: Do you have more significance in a democratic-republic than in a monarchy?\n\nI would rather be "the man" in my department than part of a committee steering a company, and that's a reasonably attainable goal, over the course of a career, for people to have. Significance is relative.\n\n>What exactly is it that you would propose as a solution?\n\nAs a solution to what? (I'm an anarcho-capitalist, if you haven't figured it out already.)
i think i might have lost a couple of days. could've been because i was high
It is entirely possible, and it is a huge, steaming load of bullshit.  Bullshit which might might make an entirely acceptable tea if brewed in the pot orbiting between Earth and Mars, but bullshit nonetheless.
Not a problem, it's not nice to feel alone, it's just a shame my sister doesnt go on the internet much, would have been better from her I believe.
I think its a question of social pressures and science literacy. Someone in business can admit ignorance of how dilution works with impunity, but if a chemist didn't recognize a Shakespearean quote they'd look stupid. Surely Avogadro's number is *at least* as important to humanity as Hamlet's soliloquies.
A Witch!
Sounds like something similar that happened to me once.\n\nI was at an early morning marching band rehearsal. We were all inside because it was raining and I was just out of it. I felt like I wasn't viewing things through my own face. It really felt like I was dreaming, but everyone told me I wasn't. It went away and I continued with the school day just fine.\n\nI have no explanation for it and it hasn't happened since.
While they are watching the video, steal their lunch money.
**Breaking news:** Sickening grocery store cover up! Grocery store manager claims his fresh produce doesn't cause miscarriages.
Not much beyond what I said in the post.  He just got really quiet quiet and hid under the bush.  Didn't see him the rest of that day, but the next morning he was back to his normal batshit insane old self.
I've never understood this continuing argument that doctors don't try to treat what you're suffering from, only the symptoms that you can see. I can't understand why anyone believes this, unless every considerably sick person in the history of western medicine has died, since the condition wasn't treated, just the visible symptoms, then it's clearly bullshit!
They should re name this link to "The 4 Most famous Alien Encounters".
Woo, the chinaman?
it was too loud, I coul still hear her, just not as loud.
Rosie also never addresses why the As+/P- bacteria grew better than the As-/P- bacteria, other than saying that the medium may have had enough phosphorus impurities to account for the growth in the As+/P- case.  If so, then why didn't the As-/P-bacteria grow, given that there would be the same levels of phosphorus in both media?
That's the exact web page I was referring too, there's an actual role playing game written in the same style as well, kept looking like a mad man to find either of them, thanks for the link :D
First it was perpetual motion, now this? I'm suprised the rest of the scientific world still takes us seriously.\n\nYou guys do, don't you?
To answer your question, OP identifies him/herself as a Hindu. So, OP admits as much. It's not nakedjuggler's assumption.
Has she interacted the same way with other occupants of the apartment building?\n\nDoes she tend to hang around a particular spot or person?\n\nWhen she looked at you, did she have an emotion on her face?\n\nEdit: just saw your other post. Did your neighbor see the woman around the time the objects were moved?
It's a lot like someone saying that bishops are best for attacking a closed position in front of a group of people that know nothing about chess.
Strikethrough is right, here is the part of the article I was referring to:\n\n>"He has also been accused of having inappropriate relationships with his apprentices. The accusation went public on an episode of Oprah in which Randi was asked to debunk psychics. One of the psychics accused him of improper relationships with young boys. Randi denies the allegations: "She was referring, of course, to my apprentices," he says. "I've had many fantastic apprentices over the years."\nThose closest to Randi are fiercely loyal. His longtime companion, Jose Alvarez, met Randi 20 years ago..."\n\nThen I started thinking that he isn't married and has no children that I know of, so everything started to fall into place. Again, I don't know for sure I'm just making an assumption based on the article. As I said before, it doesn't change my opinion of him at all. I dare say he is probably one of the most important figures in the past half century when it comes to promoting rational thought and science.
Agreed, I didn't imply it was significant, just that it creeped me out.
You just go and rage against the machine, man.
Are these pennies new pennies or the old kind that were all copper?  Just curious.
I think it is too, sort of. I mean, I guess there could be many interpretations.
There's a saying for, somewhere... Ah yes... My Brother once said this... 'The burden of truth always lies with the person claiming something to be true.' Thus, proof, or it is not true. Or,'pics or it didn't happen', in interwebz-speak.
Seeing as how the tallest (with irrefutable evidence *establishing his actual height*) person ever was 8'11' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_people) It's not that surprising to hear reports of 8-9 foot people thru history. It's not that crazy reporting 10 foot people, because that could easily be the result of poor measurement by scientists before they had adequate/refined methods for deriving heights from skulls/bones (basically saying there's experimental error when you use reports of people's heights from the 1800's).\n\nUnfortunately this guy goes off the crazy end with his double rows teeth stuff and framing his findings as controversial and revolutionary. There's a much more reasonable explanation for tall people other than invoking a 'giant race of humanoids' which is simply a pituitary gland abnormality.\n
I think that r/skeptic is "against" everything in a sense. It doesn't matter which sheep you are, the idea is to challenge the ideas of the other sheep as well as your own.
Well the Biblical flood was actually a flood of Dino farts. And the ark was able to float on the farts because god. That is also why saltwater fish didn't go extinct.
This is quite fantastic.
I disagree. I think there is more than enough evidence to conclude not of this world life forms. I would go as far as to say that most life forms here came from out there. Almost zero came from here in the beginning, IMO. \n\nAlso, they are not coming here just to do "fly bys". There is a reason(s) they are here and have been here. \n\nCrop circles being one proof for me of visitations of INTELLIGENT extra terrestrial visitations. Even if they send a remote robot to create the crop circle, that is in essence a visit from an intelligent extra terrestrial being just as we do with the mars pathfinders. \n\nStill no one can explain the pyramids or the rock work in Peru. There are probably many, many other unexplainable places on earth that were clearly not made by man and the machines/tools that man could build by themselves. \n\nThis is were I don't understand non believers, how they cannot believe. \n\nDid you see the flute they found recently, about 42,000 years old plus or minus? So ancient man can create the stonework in Peru and Egypt but the flute looks like shit? WTF. Please, someone explain to me this? Please, I'm dying to hear your logic!\n
Or even worse, when someone admits to being an atheist, and then discusses how their homeopathy treatments are going.
I have seen this before, and.... wait for it.... it's fake.
that's awesome, should have recorded!
Proper attitude.\n\nThe one who affirms the existence of something bears the burden of proof.\n\nIt's the oldest trick in the book that "believers" use. "Well you can't prove me wrong". Sure hun, but it's up to you to prove that you're right. Till then, you're just nurturing a hypothesis (best case) or an illusion (usual case).\n\nI firmly believe that a rainbow-shooting, narwhal-shaped entity lives in a hollow cavity near Mercury's core and that anyone who denies its existence is just pure evil and deserves ten lashes unless they prove me wrong. Religious reasoning ftw.
When you move to a higher altitude, your body generates more red blood cells over time over a period of weeks or months. Even in a few days, your body adapts to higher altitude and less air.
Ha! The conspiracy theorist in me says check with the US govt for that,...\n\n\nBut then again, if Joseph Farrell is right, we're currently living in the govt created "alien visitor" propaganda era, and all of these are terrestrial in nature & the govt WANT us to believe they aren't,...\n\n\nYour choice to believe whatever you want, but don't be lazy,...the proof is there for you to find,...as inconclusive as it may be, you can't say there isn't a crapload of pics(like the belgium ufo incident) or vid on youtube that you consider unidentified,...
Can you elaborate?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PeUPvAfkaM
How do you respond when they say the research has been censored and the government and big pharma are blocking it?
Well, you asked for opinions, mine is that it was your imagination. You haven't given me any reason to think anything else.
Removing an ad because it is controversial is bad. I don't want this ad to go up either but this is the same logic and tactics that anti medical marijuana groups use.
I think you're missing the subtle point is that they're not denying eating too much as a necessary condition for gaining weight - they're denying causality. That is, your body's metabolic system is influenced in a way that your appetite is increased *because you are gaining weight.* There are many theories out there that try to explain what disturbs the metabolism, to include Gary Taubes' carbohydrate-insulin hypothesis, and Guyunet (and others) food reward hypothesis. But all these theories claim to share the causality flip, that overeating is an effect.
Probably a hallucination or something. Nurses aren't generally the ones coming out of and into a building.\nAlso Happy Birthday!
Get old skool and watch [James Randi in Australia](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqoYrSd94kA) take on dowsing.\n\nLots of people can seem to be successful, or at least convince themselves of that.  It's important to do 2 things: recognize that finding water isn't that hard (many places can sink a well just about anywhere and hit the water table).  Additionally, urban environments have pipes all over the place, so getting "near" isn't that hard.  Second, be sure to keep track of both hits and misses.  We all have a tendency to remember when we're right and forget when wrong (or at least under-count).  Keep some strict records and reflect on them.  Do they appear better than chance?
Get I get a cliff's notes version?  I don't have sound at work....
I'm interested to see what my generation's (I'm 24) grandkids will think of us.  Even I was born late enough in the 20th century that my grandparents were no longer from the era where higher education was uncommon (my great grandfather had an 8th grade education, but his sons all had PhDs).  I think the stereotype of "quaint, uneducated grandpa" is going to be dead within 20 years.
> Considering that 75% of the American public\n\nOnly 40% accept evolution, every fifth American thinks the Sun orbits Earth.
Publish it.  It only hurts the paper's credibility.  I would hope that it could be published as a story interviewing an expert skeptic from Skeptic magazine.  This would give the rational side of the story.  That would be a preferable way to handle it.
Same here, haha. I went through the same train of thought as you did.
Learn some chemistry. Your body doesn't run on MEAT, it takes in nutrients.
haha, the thought has crossed my mind.
I know a lot about RC and have done night flying, they are 100% model planes.\n\nRange would be 1 to 2 km and night flying counter intuitively is easier to keep visual orientation than day flying.\n \n
It's a controversial topic. There are going to be studies supporting both sides.\n\nhttp://www.constructal.org/en/art/THE_EVOLUTION_OF_SPEED_IN%20ATHLETICS.pdf\n\n>Anthropomorphic measurements of large populations show that systematic differences exist among blacks, whites, and Asians. The published evidence is massive: blacks have longer limbs than whites, and because blacks have longer legs and smaller circumferences (e.g. calves and arms), their center of mass is higher than that in other individuals of the same height. Asians and whites have longer torsos, therefore their centers of mass are lower.
There are cars out there with better mileage than a Prius.  I think the VW Golf Diesel TDI has better mileage than a Prius. Plus it looks and drives better.  \n\nSeriously, our Prius drives like a minivan
Can you throw us a source?  If they've been debunked, let's see the evidence so we can move on.
K, you already said that.
I think MSG is harmful to me because I go into anaphylactic shock and black out shortly after eating it.  Just sayin'.
Nope.  Sorry to disappoint, dude.
I want to know why you're treating people with radiation poisoning? Where you from? IAMA!
You also missed the part where Paul is a well known crackpot busy blowing smoke up the ass of self-deluded "skeptics" like you.\n\nTry spraying a little vinegar in your face.\n\nYou go inspector!\n
I thought it was Flavorade.
Relatively meaningless. Most of deaths in Western countries with high rates of firearms ownership are suicides, and substituting firearms for knives, bludgeons, and so forth does not necessarily mean more people die. In Switzerland, where per capita gun ownership is very high amongst the native Swiss, suicides are almost ten times as high as homicide committed via firearms. The US in comparison has a drug war and symptoms of a multicultural paradise to worry about.
I just never wear the clothes in public again.
Since Hagee said it, I suspected it might never have happened.
Wow, I, uh... well, wow.  \n\nThat was one of the most woo filled videos I have ever seen, if they had used alkaline water I think I might have blown a fuse in my brain from all the quackery.
My dad sent this photo into some paranormal team a while back and they contacted some TV show on TLC called Haunted New England that wanted to do an investigation at our house. He declined because there is a large WW2 collection in our home along with a Art Rock Poster collection he didn't want to show the world. But the ghost who roams our home has been there since we moved in. I did all the research myself and I know who it is. This is the most solid evidence we got of the man who froze to death behind my house in 1981 when he drank to much and died of hypothermia.
Haha. Thanks Neurobonkers. The aim IS to convince Daily Mail readers to use it. Not because it is a skeptic tool, but because it is a tool for discussion. Or as they are more likely to think of it - A way of showing everyone else how right they are....\n\nIt is phase three or four, and we will get there. :)
Watch out people, the new buzzword is "skeptic". Prepare for the coming tardstorm.
Many of those posters are probably 15-year old boys. Big deal.
I agree, correlating men's rights with the abuse of females is inappropriate, a bit of a slippery slope. How are you certain that she would not rescind such a statement through reason?\n\nI fail to see how a momentary lapse of reason constitutes someone's inability to question their beliefs or previous statements. I would also argue that many people hold irrational beliefs, but what makes us skeptics is that we would question and reconsider them given the opportunity. Do you have evidence of her clutching on to these beliefs as a "hardliner" would? Or perhaps some example of her restating the same (or similar) fallacy?
That would require the US media to ditch the lowest common denominator requirement that is so prevalent in it.\n
Interesting, grounded and not over the top. Thanks for sharing!
that's so chilling
I'll never quit smoking wood!
I've got OCD (for reals, I'm not talking about the way most people use the term, which usually designates some kind of neat-freak finickiness), so unfortunately I find my self still engaging in a lot of superstitious behaviors of my own weird invention. Things like feeling compelled to blow air out of the side of my mouth in the direction of something in my environment that I find somewhat disturbing or ugly for fear that I'll somehow become "contaminated", or needing to say "rest in peace" every time I pass by an area in my neighborhood where I know someone was murdered (I live in an area with significant gang activity) for fear that if I don't something bad will happen to me or someone I love.\n\nIt's really a trip to me as an atheist and a skeptic that I sometimes can't shake these irrational fears. Even when I'm doing these things, I'm simultaneously admonishing myself for doing something so irrational. But especially in times of stress or high anxiety, the emotions in the moment are just that compelling.\n\nNevertheless, skepticism has been a terrific tool for reducing the severity of my symptoms. These things used to be crippling at times. Now they're just annoyances and I'm finally able to laugh at myself about them.
I would hope so....ಠ\\_ಠ
So your skeptical of climate change because you think we can reverse it? \n\nAlso, saying we don't understand ice ages is a reason not to act is akin to saying 'don't get the fire hose, it might rain.'
I've not watched this yet, but I'm becoming less convinced by this case the more I see it.  There were a tiny number of witnesses and a large number of rational explanations.  Also, a lot of the supposed evidence is either mis-stated or taken out of context.\n\nDon't get me wrong, *something* happened there but I think it was something perfectly rational that was misunderstood, either due to weather conditions or the heat of the moment.
it looks cute,....but the 'sheet' should be hanging loose from it's body but the feet should still show
you're boring, this OP is dead (deservedly)\n\nmay i suggest r/antiatheismplus if you want to yammer on obsessively about how much you personally dislike Watson/Myers etc. \n\n
Great article, thanks!\n\nI'm not quite sure what "popular neuroscience" would entail, but the two books I've read recently that I thought were quite good were Self Comes to Mind by Antonio Damasio and Out of our Heads by Alva Noe (this one's really good). Though these do skew more towards science-of-mind than neuroscience.
It's genuine, sadly.
Pretty common in states that follow Colorado Doctrine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prior-appropriation_water_rights
Um.... if they don't work, why do people use them?
This kind of stuff always makes me think of the movie [AByss](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096754/)\n\nStill is a great movie I think.
I do love it when a skeptic pulls an even more far fetched explantion than aliens out to explain an incident. Rendlesham forest being explaned by a lighthouse beam or the Theran incident as a pilot chasing jupiter.
LOL, the vid is actually kind of comical.
We need Indiana Jones on this, pronto.
[Let's just wait](http://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/240/098/4ff.jpg)
UFO - Unidentified Flying Object, like space debris, which this definitely looks like. And yet everybody jumps to alien spaceships...
Wow that sounds really cool. I really wanna check it out, could you inbox me the exact address?
I wouldn't go chugging a Bt stock solution, but there's no biological reason or evidence that it affects humans.  The proteins themselves though have a very high specificity to the insect groups they target.
I will talk to someone who had a recorded copy, might take a few days. I will try my best, I work the next three days- but I was more curious to see if this was an isolated incident or a glitch with the phone company.  But as it looks, more people then I thought have experienced this.
maybe different colored pills for the up and downvotes
I would say that there are fundamental questions that science (I won't lump logic and reasoning with it here) *cannot* answer. There's quite possibly a number of True things that are not falsifiable and therefore outside of science's capabilities.
Only for the kids with gullible parents.
It was about 7+ months ago, I was asleep and woke up immediately but just blew it off. I look at the foot of my bed and see a human shaped black mass. Keep in mind my room was also 'pitch black' but this was something darker. As I lay in panic sweating from terror, I text message a family member who was sleeping in the other room that they needed come in my room to check it out. I hear the phone go off in the living room and realize that no one is there to save me. I wasn't suspecting it to be something supernatural more than I was expecting it to be an actual person standing in my room that broke in. I thought I was going to be murdered. I hide under the blankets (like a scared toddler) for I don't even know how long until I fall asleep. Scared. The. Shit. Out. Of. Me.
I don't think there's anything "clear" about it. It seems that way, yeah. And it's far more likely. But it's not clear. I'd say it's just as likely them mistranslating something real (like vibrations or electrical charges) as whatever mumbo jumbo they wanna pretend it to be.\n\nEr... before I hit submit I should say I didn't watch past the 6-minute mark. If there's clear indication of a music player being present after that point then fuck me in the ass.
I think they've been scared off by their previous failed attempts. The mention of libel reform in the Queen's speech also gives me hope!
Because JP Morgan went for the alternative. There's no money to be made in free energy. When you have a finite resource like oil that requires millions of years to form naturally, that's the profitable alternative. And because oil has become the dominant standard for the past century and it's choking the world in more ways than one. Think about all the geopolitcal issues that are the result of oil resources. The exploitation of third world countries, wars, corporations running amuck, environmental disasters and etc. It doesn't take a genius to understand that the oil paradigm will not last forever. For fuck's sake we're running out right now. Why do you think they're drilling in the oceans? It's not cheap and by no means safe. It's because they're running out and accessible oil on land is running out. \n\n\n
[It's bad for business.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TcRjxPyhv0)
Nobody in Frisco says "Frisco," either.
That was pretty awesome. I love how the "digitally modified" picture by pixar doesn't actually match the desert at all. Also, all those desert shrubs that aren't in the Mars pics.\n\nBut the rant is *identical* to the conspiracy theorist rants.
That's because there's nothing to talk about. We need evidence.
compelling story... especially when you start seeing all of the other sightings around Texas the past few weeks..
> Here it is again: since ~2000, the rate of global warming has decreased. The Earth is still heating, but the rate of increase is slowing. You get that? Does that message sink in?\n\nThat's why retards like you have nothing to do with science and SCIENTIFIC skepticism in general - I HAVE SPECIFICALLY LINKED to a page with many links to the actual PEER_REVIEWED PUBLISHED CLIMATE PAPERS which are showing that is not the case - most recently [***Foster and Rahmstorf 2011***](http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/6/4/044022) (or you can take a look [***here***](http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2011/) at an even more recent NASA study from January 2012 that talks about that) - I am not interested in your FUCKING RETARDED OPINION - I am ONLY interested in PEER-REVIEWED PUBLISHED PAPERS ON THAT SUBJECT !!!\n\n> I'm not talking about the scientists, you fool. I'm talking about people like you.\n\nYou are not - you are a RETARD without any clue that has yet to link to any EVIDENCE for your 3 RETARDED TALKING POINTS while I am strictly linking to THE ACTUAL PEER-REVIEWED PUBLISHED PAPERS ON THAT SUBJECT - in other words if you have no published evidence for your positions admit you are just a retard without a clue and fuck off - we are not talking about your Kochsucking OPINIONS based on Faux News !!!
Stuck in the corner and when you moved wardrobe managed to lodge it a bit until it eventually fell.\n\n
It's an interview, you'll have to click the "listen" link to hear it.
You shouldn't eat meat  :\n\nhttp://www.wcrf-uk.org/cancer_prevention/diet/ask_the_nutritionist.php\n\nhttp://iospress.metapress.com/content/u2888162632ul521/\n\nhttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2840051/?tool=pmcentrez  \n\nI'm definitely not a fanatic. I hope that you eat meat...and die young ( not YOU, of course...EVERYBODY ELSE! ).  :)\n\nSYNOPSIS: Avoid sodium nitrate like it's cancer...because it is.\n\nRead this as well( or skip the rest and just read this one):http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_nitrate\n\n
I agree, let's hold a trial for it, as she claims responsibility for grievous bodily injury to another person.  I bet she doesn't claim responsibility much further than that.
If it's true that there is secret testing being done on the types of crafts we've seen flying about, and if we can assume they've test piloted and maybe even mastered flight of these crafts, but yet NASA has continued to send people up in those comparably archaic rocket ships that are dangerous even at the most root level...that ain't right.
its the state forest that ghost lake is in
That's what he's implying.
LOL
The amazing thing:  There are actually comments from people on that post defending homeopathy.  Amazing.  It beggars understanding how one can defend it!  It goes against more than a century of solid science, and violates the most basic principles of the way chemistry behaves!\n\nI find it infuriating, frankly.  And you know, I'm not sure the stupidity of wasting a poor child's life is the worst part.  People kill their children all the time, and have done so for centuries.  I suppose I'm jaded in that respect, and not being a parent I don't carry the same emotional reaction a parent naturally would.  The part that bothers me the most is that chemistry is wonderful.  The reality of it.  To manipulate chemicals and produce wonders the likes of which man had never even imagined before!  \n\nBah.  I'm going to go play with my chemistry set....
Nice digging!
Holy shit internet ads are so much worse than ones on TV.
I knew the word, and roughly what it meant, but I've never known the exact definition, so I looked it up. And I looked again, at least for me, the result for 'woo' is 9 items down. Rarely, if ever do I need to look below the fold for a result.
This is me just being ticked off with kooks such as Mr Delingpole attempting to claim to be a "true" skeptic and pissing all over other "fake" skeptics simply because they don't agree with his rants.
Interesting question. I guess to some extent I see everything as a combination of two main things: firstly, everyone is absolutely a product of civilisation now, which has taken us very firmly out of our evolved habitat. Our sexual lives have now been forever tainted by the last 10-13000 years, and in a practical sense, we won't be able to just slip back in to our natural ways. So everything which we can understand about 'Homo Sapiens' the species, has to be tempered with our understanding of modern humans as intelligent creatures within a very specific environment (environment socially, politically etc)\n\nSecondly, I am also VERY aware whenever I see the amazingly blinding power of our current sexual paradigm. Coincidentally I was just watching a TV show called 'True Love' (BBC, David Tenant) which had a cliche first story about a happily married man with two kids suddenly have his world rocked when an ex love came back in to his life after 13 years. He still has intense feelings for her, he resists (because he is happily married), but can't hold off. Meets up with his old lover, has sex (after having lied to his wife of course).\n\nThis brings us to the power of the modern paradigm of sex, love and relationship: These two people are laying there talking about what they can do. And they clearly assert that they have to go back to their lives. He MUST go back to his wife and kids, she has to go back to her own child...... OR... They run away together.\n\nThis scene is incredibly emotional and you can see how serious they are taking those two options. But think for a second about what has happened. They want to be together. But he has shown no signs of not wanting to be with his wife. And definitely doesn't want to leave his kids.\n\nBut no one, not even for a second thought that there was any option outside of 'Go back to our old lives' or 'run away together'. What about having loving relationships with more than one person at a time? No one? No one could even THINK of that? Let alone suggest it? Sure, maybe there are reasons it won't work (thank you society!), but there wasn't a discussion of it and then dismissal because it was a bad idea. The idea of having loving and sexual relationships with more than one person at a time is so thoroughly ... not even denied! It is erased, in much the same way 1984 explains how they will erase the idea of 'freedom', that people in our society fail to even know it is an option.\n\nSo in that capacity : Yes, I absolutely think (almost all) people are broken. In much the same way as someone who cannot see outside of any other religious absolutism is broken. (and this is where I feel like the ex-fundamentalist. Because I still deal with the same broken parts within my self, since I too was raised in a world where 1 man and 1 woman were the only options ever available. 2 men, or 2 women is weird enough. Fuck, even homosexuals shit on the idea of 3+ people in simultaneous loving relationships)
www.spaceflare.com :)
I'll ask him about these things and get back to you.\n
You're kind of just saying things...  *Why* is an investigation into what sets humans (mentally) apart from non-humans "silly"?
Loved the interview on MU. Can't wait for you guys to make this more widely available.
>Let me just ask one question: what kind of person would get a dog that frightens a significant number of other people\n\nSomeone who is familiar with that dogs public image, and is willing to adopt them out of compassion.  I don't think people just get them to intimidate children.  My ex has two probably because she feels bad knowing they'd otherwise be euthanized just for the breed they are (well, that and she's not as allergic to them as with many other breeds)\n\nShe also has 3 kids and a couple of ferrets... which the dogs get along nicely with.
Dude, this isn't the thread to preach materialism in.
Doing the Googling so they don't have to:\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher-order_thinking
American Gods by Neil Gaiman.
Sounds like an Argonian.
>all alcohol is a poison\n\nAnd our bodies break down sugar the same way they break down alcohol so why shouldn't sugar also be considered a dose/type dependent poison as well?
You should immediately double, or even triple, your skepticism if it comes from facebook.\n\n[Looks like something chiropractors are trying to spread around.](http://www.facebook.com/lundellchiropractic)
Tie them to a chair?
Some good discussion points and some good identification of common incorrect (or at least not quite correct) ideas that seem to be popular in online skeptical communities.\n\nSeems to have been a bit of stretch to fit some of the ideas into a "myth #X" format though. I'm pretty sure that "Science is a self-correcting system" isn't a myth just because science isn't a *perfectly* self-correcting system, and the suggestion that these skeptics think it is is a big stretch.\n\nThere is an interesting point in here about the shorthand sayings in skepticism that are roughly true but also contain nuance that is ignored when people throw talking points at each other online. Some of these sayings are more like skeptic shibboleths and carry a subtext of more nuanced and complex ideas when used within the skeptical community that is lost when used outside the community.\n\nI think some of these points are interesting and should be talked about. Some of the behaviours he's calling out *are* stupid. \n\nForcing the discussion into this "myth" format just obscures the points with a bunch of strawmen (the fact that these common sayings are not absolute laws and there is always context and confounding factors is widely accepted, and considered obvious among skeptics, in my experience). \n\nIt's right to question the shorthand and skeptic shibboleths that have developed, as well as interesting to talk about them. This format almost seems designed to get skeptics to argue about the presentation and obscure the central idea, it's also a classic link bait format. Bad choice.
Travel faster [was] then possible.
Maybe i'm afraid to close the door and say 'that's it, we've figured it out'. The reason why is I believe in another 100,000 years (assuming we're still here) that our model of the universe would have evolved to a point that today's understanding will look very primitive, like looking back on early man discovering chemistry or something.\n\nIt feels to me as if we're only an inch down a mile long wormhole.
I had never heard of Ken Ashcorp until Glaze made a remix of him on YouTube. I'm probably going to Google him later though.
Touche
Well my family and i named the little girl "GG" (short for ghost girl) but basically shes become very fond of me in some manner and try's to freak out every girlfriend I had. It happened with my ex and its happening now with my current gf. She's not evil but very mischievous so she'll do stuff like move something, change the channel, or knock on the door, or make some noise outside of the door if its shut. I've heard her talk once and it was a very faint "hi" but it was right behind me. I also have heard her laugh/giggle. Parents have had experiences of there own as well but since I left for college things stopped happing at home and now started at the dorms. It's primarily when my gf and I are together or about to do something sexual or just cuddling.
That pen incident is exactly the kind of thing I want to hear in this subreddit. Things that are totally insignificant and benign, but still ostensibly unexplainable.
You really have no idea what it's like to be at the mercy of someone else's desire whether you want to be or not, do you.
Good read, I have not seen most of these and love when I find new unexplained storie. I've Been online a loong time and a lot of stories are rehashed over and over... (BEK's Cough*) \n\nThe story about the SS Ourang Medan sounds familiar, I think it was used in a movie or something. \n\nThe aluminum wedge was cool, but I wonder if it could have just been a modern piece of aluminum that had been exposed to weather.... \n\nThe commandment rock story was of great interest to me since I have family there and I'm sure they have heard about it. I would LOL if it turned out that Mormons where right all along and Indians where really Jew's. HA!
Ok...\n\nSeems a poor analogy.  Surely nobody will be in favor of legislation forcing people to get regular oil changes unless they can prove they've received information on the benefit of regular oil changes.\n\nIs that better?
Consensus doesn't *prove* anything, you're right. And scientists can be wrong, I've never argued against that.  but it's more than window dressing.  Evolution is a theory, natural selection is a theory, I accept those to be true because there is a lot of evidence that supports it.  \n\nThere is evidence that global warming is happening and is caused by humans and this is a theory, but you're right there's no proof.  and what would proof be to you, what to you is the burden of proof that global warming is happening and is caused by humans?\n\n\nwith regards to consensus, a scenerio:\n\nIf I go to 100 different cancer specialists and in one scenerio 50 tell me that my tumor is benign and 50 tell me it's cancerous I'm not going to be very confident of either diagnosis.\n\nIf I go to 100 cancer specialists and 3 tell me it's benign while 97 tell me it's cancerous.  My logic leads me to believe that most likely, it's cancerous.  I will treat the tumor as if it is cancerous.  So the consensus has value my decision process- and I believe this to be a reasonable process.\n\nSo I accept that consensus is not some ultimate truth but to act like it has no value i think is an error.
Yes sometimes this happens - it's called 'retained product'. It can happen after a miscarriage or after birth, particularly if there is a placental abruption and/or the mother is hemorrhaging. It does start to rot, and can be life-threatening. They go back in and do a D + C to clear it out.\n\nHowever, against the risks of inducing labour and/or a c-section this is the safest way to remove the tissue.
NYC has pizza, by try getting a decent taco.
>"I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it is much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be wrong."\n"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool."  \n  \nThat's Richard Feynman?   \n  \nAnyway the idea is so controversial because they are using a possible paradigm shift in one area of science as evidence that all of science is flawed and we should accept their spurious bullshit.
It seems kind of Pie in the sky for now, but like any Transhumanist future narrative, I can see it panning out(ignoring iatrogenics or disastrous outliers)\n\n\n
your joke comprehension needs work.
what a sorry piece of evidence-free rumormongering. note the completely callous disregard this clown has for the fact that two little kids are dead, and the person who quite likely killed them was a trusted figure. Families are shattered and lives are torn, but this jerk just looks for a "conspiracy" angle. One which doesn't even matter.
What bullshit detecting is needed, then?  If lack of citation is "bullshit" then you've already detected it without community assistance.  If Techdirt's claims could be backed up by people that may be able to provide you with unbiased research, why close your eyes to it because of your presumption of bias of those people?  Why not make the attempt?
> peer review exists to maintain objectivity.\n\nSure.\n\n> It's the entire point.\n\nNo it isn't.\n\nThe point is understanding the world around us.\n
Is this a test to see how many fallacies we can identify in a headline?\n
With the shift to physical therapists getting a doctorate (DPT) degree, what do you see as the main differentiator between the scope of practice for DCs and DPTs?
His wife ousted him of faking pictures, BUT I am not sure if there was any evidence against him, I think they had a dispute and she may or may not have lied. This is me saying this from memory and not actually searching the net to see if I am right or not.\n\nedit: on a side note, whatever you believe about UFO's, Pleiadians, Billy Meier, one thing is certain, the teachings of the Pleiadians are some of the best stuff around, if our planet actually followed these teaching we would be much better off as a race.
like in Somalia you mean? The infrastructure is great there.
You need to sell it to me hard. I'm pretty skeptical about your claims so far.
Sure, he practices critical thinking, but the kid has no economic sense whatsoever.
Could anyone PM me a link of the full episode if you find it?  I'm saving this thread, too, in case someone posts it here.
It was an interstellar spacecraft from a planet orbiting Tau Ceti crewed by 8 humanoid beings on a mission to study mankind's effects on Earth's atmosphere so they can pass this information on to the high council in order for them to make an informed decision on whether they should intervene or not.\n\nEither that, or an airplane.
This is actually (Yep, I know) a repost from a while ago and some of it is actually false.\n\n
See Robert Hastings address [THE MJ-12 AFFAIR: Facts, Questions, Comments](http://www.textfiles.com/ufo/hastings.ufo) from 1989. \n\n\nYou just cant find these commentaries from individuals like this anymore because they've already addressed these issues back in the 80s & 90s. Anyway, a great place to waste an afternoon and brush up on some cutting edge discussion from back when blurry youtube video of lights in the sky wasn't the epitomy of ufology.
well then, you might as well also go judge atheism from the subreddit with the same name, if you think that's enough.
find something you wouldn't really watch...make it a competition with celebrity judges. still, it's a good show even if ross is starting to look really strange
See, while you joke about that, I know people who actually _believe_ that. It's scary what people think when they're tripping on God.
About feeling peoples anger and emotions, i do the same thing all the time. i always no how someone's feeling but never talked to anyone about it. \nPeople always wonder how i've known when they're angry or sad before they've told anyone. i've always just kind "... Lucky Guess?" Im glad i'm not the only one crazy one..
and hows that working for them?
You got me with the TL;DR lol
No need to be snarky about it. You're title is unneedlessly inflammatory and does not follow. That's all I'm saying.
This might help: http://www.snopes.com/religion/soulweight.asp
Your comment reminded me of [this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMGIbOGu8q0).\n\nMaybe you've seen it and that's why you mentioned it, but if you haven't... cheers!
There's also the people who believe their *own* bullshit, and they are legion.
This was 100% useless.\n\nDrive,wave gay flag,drive,wave gay flag,eat,eat,drive,arrive at Roswell complain and leave,drive,drive eat,eat,eat,arrive at area 51 and launch some little fireworks,drive,eat,drive,eat,drive,eat,the end.\n
If God == POO is true, then God programs object orientedly.\n\nElse, he programs using another paradigm.\n\n*I know, so lame.
The problem is that it's not real science. If you're asking how would a homeopath answer it then thats a different question all together. Maybe try /r/askpseudoscience
Do you have a link to this? I tried looking for it and couldn't find it.
I wouldn't say that they are all beneficent. In the realm of spirits there is balance; good to evil, and in reality there is always contention by one to disrupt balance and reaction by the other to restore it. If good exists on their plane so does evil, and it's likely that the evil ones would attempt to hijack and dis-inform anyone who would be a recipient to their influence. Be wary and approach it all with skepticism and file it into the box of "maybe, could be, who knows, eventually."
This story genuinely gives me the creeps.
>Look at James Randi's homeopathy challenge, and ask yourself if he would ever consider offering $1 million to an actual scientific discipline to prove their claims.\n\nWell, to be honest, this challenge could easily be seen as the equivalent of the Kent Hovind challenge to prove evolution. Of course evolution is true, but the conditions you had to meet in order to show this were ridiculous and completely impossible to fulfill (due to them all being based on the assumption that evolution was false). Conceivably, homeopaths see Randi's challenge the same way we see Hovind's.\n\nThat doesn't make it so, I'm just saying that's what they'll want to believe. In fact, Randi's challenge is quite honest and open.\n\nEdit: For anyone doubting it, I am playing _Devil's advocate_. I _do not_ personally agree with the opinion I have described above.
Medical patient of three years here who has done all research possible before first usage.
That is pretty darn strange.  The biggest possible thing to consider is: was one of the others involved in any way?  I know you said the phone was out of minutes/service, but perhaps there was a glitch.  Can you say with 100% certainty that one of the others was texting it with the info and creepy messages?  We (the readers) will never know if you're telling the truth, but it sure as hell is interesting.
Thank you for the examples, they Illustrate your point clearly.
http://herebedragonsmovie.com/\n\nSurprised nobody has posted this here. I find the format of the video to be a little silly, but it's not a terrible resource.\n
The avoidance is not bullshit, but the reasons people think it is wrong or unhealthy are almost definitely bullshit.
Fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever had to face!
Traumatic, certainly. I have a lot of sympathy for abductees, and it obviously has a devastating psychological effect on them. I don't mean to minimize that. I'm just not ready to conclude that it's completely malevolent. \n\nI do think it's a matter of perspective as you suggest. For example, if your dog could describe your motives for taking him to the vet to have a procedure done, or a chimpanzee undergoing medical research, he might describe it exactly the way you have:kidnapping, mutilation, misinformation, unwarranted secrecy. He would also say that "it doesn't matter what your motives are!".\n\nEthics are complicated when you don't understand underlying motives, and alien motives could be beyond our ability to even grasp. There are differing viewpoints about the real aim of abductions; the David Jacobs school of thought is similar to what you are describing. I tend to lean more towards believing the John E. Mack school of thought.
I was simply pointing out the ridiculousness of your belief that aliens would not want to use more mainstream forms of communication due to our political climate.
What was the date of the report on CNN?
LOL
I stopped watching after the silly sounds that were added in.
I'm sure they can detect this soul, correct?
Brings to mind the movie, [The Road To Welville](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111001/),\ngreat flick btw.
With these thousands of other people who died just now you didn't feel the need to write "I just have trouble feeling sympathy for someone who died of their own stupidity". \n\nBTW - my comment here was directed at the people who had already posted on this thread. So I'm bit confused why we are having this conversation as my comment was not directed at you.
Pretty sure what he's talking about is what Edgar Fouche spouted off a decade ago. Not a credible source if you ask me. For one, he said these objects use a "magnetic field disruptor" that's supposed to reduce its weight by 89% although nothing in modern science supports this claim.\n\nHe also said that the craft is propelled by conventional rocket engines, which again makes no sense since that would make a LOT of noise, which is contrary to the claims in almost every triangular UFO sighting I've heard of.
>Men and women are held to totally different standards ... thats why the mrm is perceived as being heretical and nobody bats an eyelid when its feminists or the mainstream female media.\n\nYeah, that's probably why!
Yes, acupuncture is a placebo. \n\nBut placebos [do have an effect.](http://www.skepdic.com/placebo.html)
Corn is tough, and can be grown at higher latitudes than tomatoes.
It sounds like he saw a tr-3b. Look it up. Its the one that's huge slow and triangular shaped.\n\n There were sightings in Belgium (I think... might be Germany tho) in 1991 that has since been reported on by one of the highest ranking generals in their army. If I wasn't typing this on my phone I could go get some links for you.
(sorry, I wrote an explanation to another person but I believe that this will answer your questions, and copy an pasted it here)\nThe only other weird thing was that there was an extremely(very very) quick flash in the air overhead, but I have not experienced anything suspicious happen to myself. I actually saw some the night I posted my story which is a testament to how often I see them. I recently have come with a conclusion as to they're origin. I only see the lights in the wintery months, at times while people would generally be awake, and having fires at home. Considering this fact, I believe that some of the smoke particles act as catalysts for some slow chemical reaction that occurs at a atmospheric boundary that is fairly close to the ground. My next door neighbor's pond always loses water at night which could be part of it. 1,2-Dioxetane is a dimer of formaldehyde and could theoretically interact with the soot particles in the air to form a air suspended flame. This would explain the blue glow and the fact that the only long lived orbs are the ones I see over his pond while the others are fleeting. I should also add that I live in a very swampy part of New Jersey, and around late summer, at night, in a local park that has a lake, I see small(1-2 cm) flames that persist for about half a second, coming out of the ground in places that have not been disturbed by foot traffic. these flames differ from glow bugs not only because they happen when it gets cold but because they shift from blue, and go to a light green and get blown away about 2 seconds faster than glow bugs, and when I shine a light on the spot where the flame has happened, there aren't any bugs, just cracked dirt with some leaves. it is very cool and never noticed it until I recently spent way too much time in the woods. \n\n\ndespite such a mundane explanation there are things I cannot explain.\n the only time i strangely wake up in the middle of the night is when I see the lights. I also used to experience neurological symptoms but I don't really as much now, the symptoms may be caused by to much carbon monoxide which could be a product of these flames, or perhaps the CO could be attributed to the environment.\n\nextra facts you may be interested in\n last night, the colour of the ball I saw was shifting between dark brownish red and blue very quickly when I looked at it through my binoculars(very painful to look at). It sort of looked like a dull flame and wasn't blinking but was moving and stopping, getting brighter, and then darkening and moving again.
>I think he probably saw his opportunity, the only one he'd get, and went for it.\n\nActually, the evidence that anthropogenic CO2 has caused temperatures to go up [is pretty compelling](http://www.skepticalscience.com/its-not-us.htm).\n\n>Not so elusive is evidence that if you pay scientists to find evidence to support the global warming hoax, they can and will amass a great deal of it. Including a lot of fabricated evidence.\n\nI'm sorry, but that's just conspiracy theory. The fact is that there is no evidence of "fabricated evidence" whatsoever.\n\n>This has the illusion of 'settling the science', because these so called scientists aren't getting paid to find evidence to the contrary. Why? Simple, that would not be profitable.\n\nThat's not how science works *at all*. There's nothing scientists love more than proving other scientists wrong, and they don't get paid according to specific outcomes.\n\nI'm sorry, but you're just talking BS here.\n
But it's not about fear in these incidents.  Do you mean taking our gut feelings/instincts too seriously and making something big them when they're not really important at all?
i don't believe in caps.
Train by day ancient aliens by night, all day!
Glad we're on the same page then =P
I think fallacies are implicit in the article. If you wish to link to a reference which expands upon fallacies because you believe it will supplement the post, that's entirely your prerogative. Ideally, such a link should exist in the sidebar, like it does in [r/UAP](http://www.reddit.com/r/UAP/) (which will be 'going public' soon). That way, people using the reddit will be aware of -- and know how to counter -- fallacious arguments which tend to be endemic in public forums.
I'ma firin' ma lazer
> 2) Homeopathy is cheap and makes a ton of cash without any of the legal issues.\n\nOther than possibly becoming a defendant in a medical fraud lawsuit.
There was a [Bob Lazaar post](http://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/firu6/bob_lazar_passes_a_lie_detector_test_oldie_but/c1g90x4) the other day and it was mentioned that he was discredited mainly by Stanton Friedman. I don't necessarily believe he's been discredited, so it's interesting to get a more of an in depth explanation of what he was exposed to on the job...
When will government acknowledge ufos. You think they would be a bigger threat to national security then wearing shoes in the airport.\n
>School lunch officials said that in some years Beef Products testing results were worse than many of the program’s two dozen other suppliers, which use traditional meat processing methods. From 2005 to 2009, Beef Products had a rate of 36 positive results for salmonella per 1,000 tests, compared to a rate of nine positive results per 1,000 tests for the other suppliers, according to statistics from the program. Beef Products said its testing regime was more likely to detect contamination.\n\nhttp://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/31/us/31meat.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
78 pieces of board, actually.
Yes.\n\nI know people's typing fingers are itching to start banging out something along the lines of "correlation is not causation" but that's really not relevant here. The reason is the specific wording they're using.\n\nThe key phrase here is "single best predictor". They're NOT saying that "you like sex because you like beer". What's being observed is a relationship between two variables, one of which is a predictor for the other. The fact that "liking beer" and "having sex on the first date" are not causally linked doesn't make a difference; what this is really saying is that there's strong overlap between those two pools of people, regardless of the reason why, and that if you find someone who fits in one pool, the chances are better that they fit in the second pool than that they don't.\n\nIt's a statement about group probabilities, not individual certainty.
No, but it's accurate.
It's certainly a skewing of statistics using a grain of truth. You certainly can make the case that people's poor diets cause more deaths than smoking or drinking, especially if you count non-cancers like heart disease (the leading cause of death). Even if you're just talking cancer you can probably make a good case that diet is a bigger culprit. In modern western countries poor diet usually means lots and lots of processed meat, and very little fiber or fruits/vegetables. From this point of view you could say that eating meat is worse than smoking, but you're missing a lot of the story.
I just depends on how much money the owner is willing to pay.  Most just want to spend the least they can which results in that really low resolution you see all the time in America's most wanted.
I've read it, but this seems even weirder than that.  In that case, their revered leader was still pushing for the belief.  In this case it's the guy in charge of the organization who had the results published.  "We own this thing.  We thought it might have been the burial shroud of Jesus, but apparently it's not.  Good to finally have that settled." is a world away from what the religious leader in *When Prophecy Fails* did.
I'm kind of a paranormal magnet myself. It sounds like the things that happened to you were by far and large more violent then what has ever happened to me, or anyone around me experiencing it. I would like to hear more of your experiences. However, I have noted this: When I start to discuss these things, they seem to start happening around me with a heightened frequency. If this happens to you, then I will leave it at your discretion to discuss further
FYI, his name is Werner, not Warner.
I wish I had the patience (and the time!) to do a rebuttal like this every time I see bullshit. Good for you!
Yeah, but it *is* meant to be Fawkes' face, so I can see the point.\n\nCorrect me if I'm wrong, but (at least before *V For Vendetta* came along) wasn't there a fair variety of Fawkes masks for Bonfire Night?  I've never seen the event myself, but I seem to recall that back when the film *just* hit I actually had a hard time finding the movie version on a Google image search (quite the opposite now, of course) for all the actual, different Fawkes masks sold for Bonfire Night.\n\nIf this is the case then it seems to me that it's upon the celebrants of Bonfire Night to use a mask which hasn't been co-opted by another movement/identity/meaning: people wearing *V* masks are no more celebrating Fawkes^1 than people who dress up as Michael Myers are celebrating [William Shatner](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_\\(1978_film\\)#Production).\n\n___\n^1 ^At ^least ^in ^theory; ^many ^*do* ^think ^that ^the ^terrorist ^shitfucker ^was ^some ^kind ^of ^hero ^because ^they've ^never ^heard ^his ^name ^outside ^the ^film ^and ^have ^no ^idea ^what ^an ^*unreliable* ^*narrator* ^is.
On the TV screen, we both saw it dial 112
First, I can't 'make' anyone do anything they don't want to, but I can make a person more likely to talk with me, given the circumstances.\n\nAlso, a bar is not a very good environment for this work because of the noise and distraction.\n\nBut let's say it is a quiet bar with a relaxing atmosphere, I'd put myself into a relaxed state.  With as much detail as possible, including all of the senses (audio, visual, olfactory, kinesthetic, etc) as I can, I would imagine myself in the first person talking with this person and having an absolute **great** time; laughing and smiling and touching (arms around shoulders if a guy, or hand on arm if a girl).  \n\n
And those are all questions he needs to put forth answers for or at least testable hypotheses.\n\nWith EVPs, I find the Stone Tape hypothesis interesting. I know that there is no proof or evidence behind it, but it's kind of cool to think about.
That's a joke?
Sure, it's hard to study OBEs. It's also hard to study dark matter. There's no scientific evidence for dark matter either. But there are reasons suggesting that both exist.
I guess I should have been more clear. I meant I felt sad for the kids for having a mother who's into humbug like the antivax movement.\nI myself have friends whose parents have split up, and they've grown up to be perfectly normal people.
Wow! I lived in Long Beach for many years, and although I never saw a UFO there (saw one in close-by Redondo Beach VERY close up) I have friends who've had an almost identical sighting in Long Beach! My girlfriend and three of her friends all saw a bright green orb with a tail - it looked like it was "falling" over the water but then one of them saw it scoop back up into the air. Another time her and another one of our friends were standing on top of a building on Pine Street when they saw an orange orb - said it looked almost like an airplane on fire - but when it went behind a building it disappeared.\nThere are rumors of a USO base underwater between Long Beach/The South Bay and Catalina Island...
If you guys keep saying that, you're going to kill us all.
I'm reading it now. So mind blowing! I'm constantly having to regather my brain matter.
I LOVE health care reform.  We need more of it, with more innovation.
Assuming it's not being covered up.  It happened halfway across the world and it was a year before any dive happened.  They had plenty of time to fabricate evidence.  It's happened before and will happen again.
The fact that they choose to hate people solely on changeable aspects of their lives as a dispute to my analogy is not helping you in any way and I feel only bolsters my argument.
Loyal listener and Plus+ member here!
If it's equal, then recycle or reuse the fucking bottle instead of throwing it out to sit in a landfill for thousands of fucking years.  Tell your friend that he's missing the whole fucking point.
They're not wrong.
I'm pretty sure it's a repost... and further video proved they were planes
Obviously, god is scared of his progress.
You are correct.  That logic forms only a starting point from which to work.  And it seems to do a very good job.\n\nWe may be able to craft healthier foods, but we don't seem to be able to do so well at all.  Perhaps in the future.\n\nDifferent /= bad, this is correct.  But that does not imply that different = good either.\n\nYour life expectancy argument is flawed.  We have increased life expectancy, which is average age at death, there is no question here.  I don't know of any solid evidence that we've increased maximum lifespan.\n\nSo what's the difference there?  Life expectancy at birth was very low for all human societies until very recently.  Conditional life expectancy is very different.  Life expectancy at 15 is much higher than life expectancy at birth, and again life expectancy upon reaching middle age (around 45) is much higher than life expectancy at 15.  Many pre-agricultural societies have a strong tradition of grand-parental care of children.  How is this possible if everyone is dead by 30?  Well, it seems that we don't have much on HGs in terms of maximum life expectancy, and haven't until post-industrial revolution (~200 years for the consequences you imply).  Pre-industrial societies face greater mortality from disease, injury, accidents, and violence, it seems, but old age is still reached by 1/4 of the population.\n\nThis data comes from a [study on human mortality](http://www.anth.ucsb.edu/faculty/gurven/papers/GurvenKaplan2007pdr.pdf).  There is one section (page 342) that I'd like to quote:\n\n>Black (1975) reports that most infectious diseases are absent in \nnewly contacted groups, because small, mobile populations cannot support \nthese contagious vectors. Post-contact prevalence of infectious disease among \nAche is similar to rates among Yanomamo (Hill and Hurtado 1996). Tsimane \nshow a similar importance of respiratory disease at 20 percent of illness-related deaths. Bakairi have suffered repeated epidemics of respiratory illness, \nespecially tuberculosis and whooping cough (Picchi 1994). Pneumonia and \ntuberculosis are claimed to be the top killers of adults and older children \namong !Kung (Howell 1979: 63). Gainj mortality and more recent mortality \namong Agta also show high rates of infectious disease.\n\n>Degenerative deaths are relatively few, confined largely to problems \nearly in infancy and late-age cerebrovascular problems, as well as attributions \nof “old age” in the absence of obvious symptoms or pathology. Heart attacks \nand strokes appear rare and do not account for these old-age deaths (see \nEaton, Konner, and Shostak 1988), which tend to occur when sleeping. It \nhas often been remarked that few risk factors for cardiovascular disease exist \namong active members of small-scale societies (Eaton et al. 1994), although \ncompromised lung or kidney functioning can interact with cardiac fibrosis or \nmoderate arterial stenosis to cause cardiac arrest. Obesity is rare, hypertension is low, cholesterol and triglyceride levels are low, and maximal oxygen \nuptake is high. Overall, degenerative disease accounts for 6–24 percent (average 9 percent) of deaths, with the highest representation among Northern \nTerritory Aborigines. Neoplasms and heart disease each accounted for 9 of \nthe 42 deaths due to degenerative illness.
Penis is the correct word. She came up with leg butt on her own.
Where in that article does it prove that they are fake. It seems to prove more that whoever wrote them didn't have a good grasp of the language. And it seems to mention that it is the opinion of one man. Further it is all based off of pictures. No actual analysis of the material? This doesn't seem like they are fake so much as one guy is just arguing against their authenticity.
You shouldn't trust anything. Especially a drug that is changed every year and never tested for long enough to actually be completely safe.
Atheist. For me, being an atheist is the result of applying skepticism to religious claims.
So I'm back with a little info, I'm gonna post a high quality mp3 link tomorrow, I examined the footage again with audio at max and with speakears, noticed some sort of dim voices/shouting of people, I'll check it out and send you the file, I will upload the video too since I noticed a black moth with what I think to be RED EYES, you can doubt my story man, but the video will be posted shortly and those black moths have freaked me out so bad I actually feel some sort of strange depression right now.
Oh, it's all part of the "gluten is evil" fad.
More proud?  All she did was link to an article about Herd Immunity.\n\nAlso, if you and your girlfriend are so smart, why do you have such crazy idiot friends on facebook? Unsubscribe/defriend them.\n\nAlso,  your girlfriend took the trolls bait, hook line and sinker.
Aw, just this morning I used the word 'wackaloon' and at the time I felt it was a reasonably less-used word than wacko or loony. Guess not.
Oh, right, those guys who had set camp in that house painted a bright colour in Washington. I remember them.
It's quite possible she's sleepwalking and opening the doors. When she heard the door slam that may have been her subconscious telling her brain what's happened as she becomes lucid. This would render the lock changes useless as she would have access to the keys. This same thing happened to an Atheist friend of mine. His now wife had scratch marks of upside down crosses  etc all over her which seemed to randomly appear. He set up a camera one night and she was sleepwalking playing with his chef knife set while he was asleep. This guy was the most rational person I know but he ended up calling a preacher. He's now 'born again' and goes to church four times a week. MFW. Be careful not to let this get to you. There will be a rational explanation.
I hate to say it but "Woo" was an abortion of a word; it never had a chance in the real world. I much prefer bullshit or nonsense or some other term.
He isn't even feeding the rats.\n\nHe takes other peoples data, and re-analyzes it and magically finds harm where others only saw noise.
I really wanted it to be "the most horrific EVP" I've ever heard but it was so difficult to differentiate between background noise and actual EVP. It would be helpful if the time was mapped out to when these various utterings occurred.
It seems rather unfair to criticize an entire group of people based off of their worst members. Michael Crichton was an MD who believed that all diseases were psychosomatic, is it okay for me to say now that all MDs are quacks? Of course not! It seems that you opened this thread expecting a bunch of people to just agree with you and whenever anyone has posted any evidence that Doctors of Osteopathy have been growing and adapting their philosophy to match that of Allopathic physicians you immediately dismiss it. \n\nI would trust my life with a DO and the life of someone that I care about. I plan to become a DO and I'm a very skeptical person. While I admit that their are flaws with the historical beliefs of Osteopathy I'm not willing to call people who are DO's quacks.
Interesting. I'd keep an ear out to see if anyone else experiances anything.
LMH is an UFO alarmist and true believer.  I try to ignore 80-90% of what she says.
When somebody argues for it by claiming it's "reality", then pointing out it's not reality is actually an excellent counter point.
This is hilarious. Like you said though, the secret is probably to pick something that you know they already think is bullshit. Last thing you want is to is get them into more woo.
lovely. i also like "cyclosophy" by Cornelis de Jager. Same bullshit but with a mathematical proof, for anything.
I'm sure you've done this, but just point out the obvious - if chlorine causes cancer, why doesn't every person who has been to a swimming pool have cancer?  According to [this](http://www.historyofwaterfilters.com/use-of-chlorine.html), chlorine is used for water purification in about 98% of municipalities, so why doesn't every single person in the US have cancer?
I am a skeptic myself of many things. Everything has an explanation, A lot of the paranormal is all in our heads as rather disappointing as it is. One must accept it as truth.However I have had personal experiences that cannot be reconciled so simply. Essentially being in sound mind and hearing very clear footsteps coming down the stairs with no one but me home. The likely hood of say the house shifting 12 times in time to someones pace is very small. It was certainly no hallucination. I had many similar experiences when i lived in that house and have since lived in many different places and have not had any similar events. This is by no means any proof that there are the disembodied souls of the dead floating around but it does make me curious as to what went on. And as such i often lurk this subreddit looking for proof which there is very little but a few compelling stories here and there but many are simple ghost stories and some miss identification. I would love to study the paranormal but if it genuinely exists it certainly exists outside our current understanding of the world. But "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."
Watching Rising Sun now.  That's some crazy stuff.  I was in San Francisco, right near the Presidio, at the time he was destroying those documents.
I personally believe that this may have been done on purpose by a very limited amount of people. I don't think that the event was put together in any way by these people, but I do think it is possible that they helped aid it happening.\n\nWe have the largest military in the world and we couldn't take down 1 out of 3 planes on our home soil over a relatively long period of time? really?\n\nIt would be very easy to rationalize letting a small number of people to die to prevent more nuclear proliferation as the bush administration apparently believed Iraq was trying to do, especially if religious beliefs pertaining to the end of the world are brought into play.\n\nIf any subreddit is to convince me otherwise I would guess it would be this one.
Your girlfriend is being dramatic, that's what's going on.
Humanity: Pope does not speak on our behalf.
It definitely is!
Could it have been one of the stars from the constellation Aquarius?
My wife volunteered at a Equine Therapy place for an internship, it's amazing for certain things from what I hear. I don't think it necessarily involves "telepathy" though, sounds like that might be something that particular place does. Are you sure they didn't call it 'telepathy' just in the sense that you connect with the horse? Since some of the patients are mentally handicapped and often unable to communicate well verbally, trying to sense what another thinking or feeling (i.e. "telepathy") might be part of the therapy. \n\nSince you posted in /r/skeptic I would assume you're wondering about the validity of equine therapy in general. It's got a good amount of research behind it as being a useful tool for certain things in the therapy toolbox. It is not claimed to be a miracle cure for anything as far as I know, and leaving out the telepathy part I think it's pretty uncontroversial.
Looks like martian gypsies walking around the desert!
It's a good thing they packed the lawnmower.
I've not read it. Is it at all similar to *Chariots of the Gods*?
That was precisely my point : what is "safe" ? safe for whom ?
I wrote to him and he replied "They're tapping these emails. Delete your account, and don't write here again."
As a rule, I usually avoid comments on sites like the one posted. Since you mentioned it, I looked. *Ugghhhhhh.......*
I remember the Penn and Teller "Bullshit" episode on recycling was pretty interesting, however That show was often VERY slanted and nonfactual...\n  Where I live, an independent company called "Ripple Glass" has donation centers set up and a fleet of trucks that service these locations...  So we will see if they stay in business or not...  From what I gather, if a material is efficient to recycle there will be profit in it.
Infrared Camera is two words.
Two questions:\n\nAre you an American citizen and/or do you reside in the United States?\n\nIn a short few sentences or less, how would **you** personally define libertarianism?\n\n\nThese are incredibly relevant, because in the United States, corporations essentially own the government and manipulate it in an effort to reform or remove limitations and regulations in order to maximize profits. I see libertarianism as allowing that because there is, essentially, little to no government involvement in the economy whatsoever. Strong governments with strong economic limitations and regulations, as well as high corporate taxes, are actually proven to be quite efficient and quite awesome. Look at Japan, who has a decent amount of government regulation in the construction industry. Because of that, strict codes apply to the construction of new buildings, which keeps the buildings strong and resilient against earthquakes, which saves lives. Also, they have strict automative regulations, which allows them to produce amazingly fuel efficient (and safe) vehicles that trump American-designed vehicles. Everybody wins. Could you actually see something like that working under a libertarian society? In a society already riddled with poverty, crime, war, and desolation, do you honestly think that setting it to a near-anarchy government is the best?
I am not a religious or spiritual person, although I do find the thought of reincarnation calming. I have done a good amount of research into the near-death experience phenomenon and I believe I may have some additional information for you. Many NDE experiencers have come back to report that they were told (or rather, reminded) that time is an illusion. According to some of these NDE survivors, we take an oath before we are born to pretend time is real. This is part of "forgetting who we are", so that we may live life as human beings and have that experience. The true purpose of the *life* itself is a mystery, as experiencers frequently report that they are told the purpose of their life and of lives in general but are told they will not remember it when they return to their body. The general idea, however, is that every person has a mission in life and the ultimate idea is to grow toward becoming a more loving and god-like being. \n\nIn particular, the NDE experiences of people who try to commit suicide indicate that each of us are here for a reason- they are told that they may remain "home", but that eventually they will have to go back and relive the events that brought them to the point that they decided to kill themselves because they have a role or mission to fulfill in life. They report that there is no punishment from God for committing suicide, but depending on the nature of the suicide (ie, to punish an ex-lover versus having terminal cancer and choosing to die now rather than slowly and painfully) there are many karmic repercussions and the soul may find themselves in a much worse situation than the one they were facing on earth.\n\nOther primary observations from NDErs: God (or gods) exist and are indescribable, "heaven" exists in many forms as does "hell", however hell is not what is traditionally taught on Earth. It is not a permanent place of torment but rather a "spiritual time-out" where a soul will reflect on their actions and seek atonement. God does not specifically punish anyone but if they create an evil place within their hearts they are not permitted to "rise" to higher levels.\n\nI'm getting really off topic here. If you're interested, [this website on NDEs can provide more information.](http://www.near-death.com)\n\nI wouldn't blame you for not being a big believer- the stories are pretty fantastical, and they can be much more easily explained by brain chemicals and whatnot. However, there are some examples of situations that can't be rationally explained, such as NDErs waking up in the hospital after a long period of unconsciousness and accurately describing something that happened at their home across town while they were being operated on, down to the smallest details.\n\nI have also had the pleasure of interviewing some NDE experiencers and, honestly, if they're right then dying is about the best thing that can happen to a person. Again, although I hope it is true I don't believe it is logically, but listening to these people talk, you can tell that they *really* experienced something very, very profound.
I am just making an uneducated guess that the inactive ingredient is vegetable glycerine. I believe that is actually a pretty good remedy against some earaches, and so it may actually calm and soothe.\n\n\nConsidering it should be pure vegetable glycerine, I assume the use with antibiotics is pretty safe too.\n\n\nThis may actually be a pretty truthful bottle by accident.
When the sheeple come, it will be all your fault.
Pictures, videos anything to get some proof. What happens if the don't show up on camera, or you see a crazy time portal open up in the classroom they walked into via a 24-hr camera. \n\nConsidering the age of the school, are there cameras set up in the hallways/ outside and such? Would be very interesting to see!
It is just a weather balloon... move along everyone...
As far as the scream is concerned perhaps [Exploding Head Syndrome?](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploding_head_syndrome)
If it is real, it is good evidence.  He drops to the ground, then you see a black shadow on the soda case followed by a reflection of something walking away before the toilet paper gets thrown off the shelf.\n\nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knDvbMohUwA&feature=player_embedded#t=64s
So is the Sinatra song.
THis is incredible. Their FAQ is classic.
Check out Joseph P Farrell
seems to me that the skeptic subreddit has made up their mind. Nothing better than a group of non experts confident in their position all claiming to be skeptics as well lol. \n\n\n\nEdit: Let me clarify a bit. Temperatures have risen in the last century. We are all capable of fact checking this with credible sources. What is not clear is the cause of this. Natural cycle, pollution, both? Hell even the lack of major volcanic activity could be a factor. \n\nTo just assume: "Man did it" is frustrating to me especially coming from this subreddit. \n\nEven if Man is the culprit, I hate to see this subreddit enveloped in something like this for a couple reasons. 1. There is no easy fix and changing daily life habits tomorrow will have minimal impact for years yet this is something that is pushed on the common folks "us" on a daily basis. 2. The elite claim to have the answers and we are supposed to trust that these answers are in fact aimed at the right issues. Things like carbon credits and mandates will do nothing but bankrupt the common man yet the perpetually ignorant push these as if we will all be saved from certain death without them.
If only all the cryptozoologists would go off and look for their cryptids and not return until they'd found them.
AKA the placebo effect.
I'd go if I didn't look like I was browsing some mystical page from Geocities. What will the people at work think of me?!
I have no idea what to say. Examining frame by frame and trying to think of possible theory's I just cant tell. There is just no way something like that could be reflected from outside the windowed door also there is a mist around it that moves from the door to the wall, It then looks as if it fades into the next room to the left of the door. The pixels also blend perfectly with the environment. I'd love to know more about this.
I'm definitely a skeptic, but I definitely think that skeptics and modern medicine have a lot more they can learn from naturopathy.
But all that does is prove the placebo effect.  It doesn't provide any reason to believe that accupunture would be more effective than a sugar pill.
There was a mith of the LHC destroying the world, so I guess this counts as debunking. Maybe it's just a little late since all the fear-mongers finally shut up about it when it was turned on and the world was still there.
What is to debunk regarding an unidentified flying object?  They are seen all the time.
Did it have dice in the mirror?
Pretty much anyone that never took a chemistry course is vulnerable to this.
Because I want us to come to a common agreement about the nature of science, skepticism and confirmation bias?\n\nI find this place quite unscientific; most scientists want to find new stuff.  The skeptics here just want to dismiss it and move on.\n
This view is common but can be a bit patronizing and dismissive. People are perfectly capable of logically (though incorrectly) analyzing themselves into seriously flawed belief systems. (see just about everything Aristotle thought about the Universe)\n\nThe trap that seems to have really caught a lot of Camping's followers was "Escalation of Commitment" or the "Sunk Cost Fallacy".  At the point where the evidence of their error is most clearly laid before them, they could either admit to the loss of all the material and emotional capital they'd invested in this belief system, or they could (and commonly do) double-down on their beliefs to avoid the painful reckoning of how much time and capital they've invested.\n\nEvery human does this at some point or another, and not just in the realm of religion.  Many an unfilling carreer path has been followed due to escalating commitment. Plenty of scientific researchers and inventors have spent years pursuing unproductive lines of research due to the sunk cost fallacy and the promise of an imminent breakthrough. \n\nLogical traps can be sprung quickly at a moment of vulnerability, or slowly, over the course of years of not looking at the bigger picture. I think the latter is actually the more dangerous to the progress of skeptical thinking,
Oh wow, I saws this and thought it was legit because in the video it actually seems like she's typing by herself. I don't see anyone helping her, I'm confused, how is this facilitated communicated, or is it just misleading footage?\n\n*edit* apparently I was ignorant on how ground breaking this would really be if it were true, i'd still like an explanation why or how they gave such misleading footage.
Not really. It's examples of Free Software taking the concept of the wheel and building upon it until they figure out the axle.
Very cool of you to look up all those links for her. Had to upvote that.
well, I kind of feel crazy when I say it out loud. So... you know, please don't think I'm nuts. One time, a few years ago, I was seeing a therapist for anxiety, and decided to try some hypnotherapy to help get past some food aversions I have. (Couldn't eat beans and other things due to sensory overload issues.) About a third of the way into the session, my mind (though still hearing what she was saying) took me to another, unexpected experience. \n\nFirst, I saw myself, in all my strengths and flaws. Then, I saw something much larger, which seemed to somehow be my true self... or potential, or I dunno. It was me, but so much bigger, and I knew that that bigger 'self' was either a power, or a potential that I had not tapped into.\n\nThen I went further out, and I saw this sort of spiritual cloud around the world, which I think was sort of the 'noise of mankind,' or perhaps the thing that people call 'the collective unconscious,' and then out past that... something much, much bigger loomed. I think it was God.\n\nAll of a sudden, I shifted again, and I was in a past life. It was a very, VERY long time ago. The society I lived in was rather advanced, but its science was one of alchemy, not technology. I was a scientist/researcher and I had figured something out. An alchemic truth. It was good. It was big. All I have is an impression of it now, but it was something substantial, that needed to be used with care.\n\nI felt, while watching this happen, that I should have kept it to myself. However, I took my discovery before a group of my peers. \n\nMy recall got jumpy after that, but basically, from that meeting, somebody used my discovery in an unbalanced way, and the result was that the entire continent my city was on turned to water... this was out in the pacific ocean somewhere. No impression of how big the continent was. I know this sounds like Atlantis, but it was not. This was long before any theory could place Atlantis.\n\nI was punished by not being able to come back until recently... I got the impression that I came back once before as a woman in dover, a couple hundred years ago, (my life there was one where I was kept on a tight leash, and lived in wealth. I remember not having much to do except read... in my home which I was rarely able to leave was an extensive library. I think I died young.) and now I'm here again now.\n\nI'd like to say, that I actually don't believe in reincarnation... Maybe I sort of do now? Certainly didn't before this experience, so, that's what makes me feel like this story is so crazy. But, you know, if it was true, that might draw a god and goddess of alchemy to me, right?
So the giant conspiracy people told them it had fallen down when it hadn't? Yeah, that makes sense. Not like they'd have noticed it otherwise, best someone get the info in early. WTC 7 was key to the plan, because, well.... Err... Yeah.\n\nI'm sure it's not incredibly hectic in a news room with conflicting reports all over the place on the day of one of the biggest terrorist attacks in history. Yes, it seems much more likely it was all a giant conspiracy...
No, the wikipedia article is wrong. But it has since been [edited](http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gary_McKinnon&oldid=518490216), so that's a moot point.\n\nMoreover, if he was able to view the image, was it not technically already downloaded to his computer? It would take him roughly 10 hours to download a 256MB file using a 56k modem. In other words, he would have to somehow reduce the file size in order to view it.
Get yet physics out of my magic.
it's a matter of scale. Pits can bit maybe 100% harder then golden retrievers (but that was from animal planet, the only real study showed merely a 50% increase) but wolves can bite 300% harder then pits roughly. When a dog attacks a 4 year old it doesn't matter if their bite force is 168 pounds, 300 lbs, or 1500 lbs because the result is going to be the same. 4 year olds should never be left unattended around any dog to begin with regardless of the type of dog ever (a 2 month old human was killed by a 6 week old golden retriever puppy in the 90's). The total number of deaths by dog attacks in the united states since 1988 is 187. That's roughly 19 per year! While it's horrible when someone dies because of a freak accident realize that it's just that. A freak accident. If pit bulls were somehow predisposed to killing humans I imagine there would be a lot more of us getting killed every year.
sorry for the delay, I haven't checked reddit very often lately. Thanks a lot for your info. In spite of what you say (which I think is ok), I have had 4 sessions and it was really great for me. I don't know about the foot part, but the girl who did it to me managed, very easily, to find some awful inconscious contractions that I have been doing for years with my body, mainly in my back, and know I'm conscious about it during the day and I know how to deal with it. It forces you to be more relaxed and focused. I bought it¡¡¡
INSIDER TRADING!!!! :)
Dowsing.
The reason the paleo diet works well for people is that it does conform to a lot of scientific findings about nutrition, despite the fact that it has a lot of woo-like paranoia to it as well. Protein = good. Short and medium chain fatty acids = good. Too many simple starches and sugars = bad. Trans fats = bad. Super-high calorie food as a centerpiece of your diet = bad. (Fuck you Health Canada, I don't need no stinkin grains!)\n\nI don't follow the paleo diet, but I take its (logical) logic (as well as that of raw veganism) into account when eating (and I ignore the paranoia). That said, I actually take in quite a lot of processed food... but mainly because my diet is high in whey protein and other milk products, potato chips (I've got an addiction... leave me alone!), and the occasional bowl of oatmeal. I also take in lots of coconut milk, avocado, olives, (all for the good fats) fruits, and leafy greens (spinach and leaf lettuces mostly). My meat sources are chicken and fish (red meat is linked quite strongly with colon cancer) .... and I eat soy when I can stomach it (I really like salted soy nuts and Bolthouse's albeit high calorie vanilla chai soy protein drinks). I tend to avoid bread 99% of the time, and I don't include many other grains in my diet... the exception being rice (or "powergrains" which have flax, sunflower seeds, buckwheat and millet, as an alternative) when I have curry. \n\nI've lost almost 40 pounds in the past year, and I've maintained my weight loss rate through the cold Canadian winter (without exercise in such weather)... and I've gained enough muscle mass to go from lethargic geek to active runner since last May.
That's some intelligent swamp gas
Super Mario Brothers *Carnage*
Excellent. Essential knowledge.
Best watched with sound muted.
I feel like we should be skeptical of the source....
"quantum, space-time continuum, woooo, look at my waving hands, you want to give me money now."
She is probably also a skilled cold reader; she'd be an idiot not to have developed that skill in her line of work.  Combine that with an audience that really wants to believe in her and the loss of her earpiece for one show won't make much of a difference.
Not really. He was being sarcastic. You can sort of tell by the tone of his voice.
These things happen more often than you think--I study these things and there are many reports of them. But think of it this way, even if it is just your mind making this up, it makes you feel good, gives you some closure, so what difference does it make if it isn't "real." we don't know it isn't anyway. \nI had something similar happen recently--I was in a bicycle accident in May, crushed my shoulder. There were so many accidents that day, they just drugged me up and waited until the next morning to do surgery. That night my Dad came into the room and stood at the foot of the bed and held my feet and smiled.  My Dad died in 1980. I don't care if it wasn't real, it felt great.
The magnesium is below the line for treatment of ADHD in childrens, not for general health benefits (it's not listed).
I guess you are referring to the nocebo effect?
Since the 1980s?\n\nIt's backwards to the way we read and the way everyone else has been doing them since they came out.  That's quite lame of you to keep doing it against convention.
You're too quick, I posted, then edited it already. Please hit reload. :)
I could watch that for hours...
Herd immunity applies to adults as much as kids.  Force them too.
No no, the chips are in the vaccines. Or is that the anal probes?\n\nOh well. It's all the same thing in the end.
Imgur cache: http://imgur.com/HVaWi
Also, imagine yourself being shrouded in white positive energy like a force shield.
>It didn't say that women in Western countries didn't have problems though, which is how some people took it.... I just thought he was implying that they were being over the top. In hindsight not a smart move.\n\nIt was a direct reply to Watson, where he basically said that since feeling vulnerable and scared in an elevator is not as based as what women in the Middle East face, then she should stop complaining. This is of course obviously fallacious, but more problematically it was adding to the sexist problems women face (e.g. their opinions being dismissed as a result of privileged people not understanding the seriousness of the situation).\n\n>This is such a silly dichotomy, but it seems to be one that a part of the skeptic/atheist community is pushing.\n\nWhere is the exaggeration or false dichotomy? It seems like a good description of the problems in making people aware of their privilege. They raise an issue which negatively affects their life and well-being, and they essentially get told that they're making too much of it, or that it's not something worth complaining about, etc.\n\n>The rest of that article I think is viewing Dawkins comments through a lens that looks for any negative spin on what he's saying with regards to skepchick, It's certainly not using the principle of charity which is pretty fundamental to skepticism.\n\nReally? You agree that his comments there are pretty bad though, right? The passive-aggressive way he's dismissing women's rights issues there seems bad enough to justify the tone of the article, in my opinion.
OP said they had not returned to the apartment in the interim. From the text it sounds like he was going through old papers in his office that hadn't been in the new house, so they would not have been part of a bundle that he picked up while going back and forth.
People should not go around saying words like "never" and "exactly" especially when there is a hint of science to be done.
Anyone who still believes in magical amulets deserves to be fleeced - fleeced right out of the gene pool.
"tiny dots" - "There isn't even a name for them in the English language. Isn't that strange?" - ROFL
How is Zen Buddhism and it's desire to understand the essential nature of the mind itself incompatible with atheism?   \n\nZen Buddhism rejects the study of scriptures, religious rites, devotional practices, and other religious woo.
No.\n\nWhile some things may be factual, it's all scare tactics bullshit, and whoever made the poster has an agenda.
Here fixed it for you:\n\nSOME humans are motivated by money and notoriety
I'm anecdotal evidence of that.
Meat Burrito == DEATH!
Rituals.  If I write my problems down on paper, burn them over a candle, put them in a bottle, then seal the bottle with the candle wax, they'll go away or at least not be as bad.  Add this to all the smaller ones, like washing in the same order and starting over if I get it wrong, and there's a lot of things I have to do to be calm in a day.
hate to post something from a website with such a name, but it seems to be relevant:\nhttp://www.doomdaily.com/2009/sudden-super-sunspot-so-intense-say-astronomers-b-c-class-flares/
How does sodium level directly affect diabetics?
Woo is often the deal-breaker.
Forget Greer.  Look at the FOIA documents.\n\nNY Times story confirming Clintons' visit to Rockefeller's ranch:\n\n[Reporter's Notebook; Night Under the Stars for the Clintons](http://www.nytimes.com/1995/08/29/us/reporter-s-notebook-night-under-the-stars-for-the-clintons.html)  \n
Maybe you had a nightmare about what could've happened, and it became a false memory.
I live in albuquerque, where was this?
LOL
Sounds like the preacher from the Mechanic.
Thanks for the blog, I love the paranormal and especially ghosts. I've shown interest in the paranormal when an old boyfriend from my niece showed me how he can absorb pain(s) through Reiki and remove that negative energy by just shaking it off. I'm glad you can live with your ability, I'm afraid I'd die of a heart attack if I would receive the ability to see ghosts now, haha.\n \n      \nSince you showed up here. There are so many questions I would want to ask, but only few come to mind.\n\n\n\n- Have you ever been curious as to visit a haunted house/place to see if it is really haunted?\n\n- Are there situations where you actually hate the ability? \n\n- Do the people that visit you know that they need to visit you or are they drawn to you (or your energy)?\n\n- Are they aware of their current state as if they were still alive? \n\n- Do you get tired of having this ability?\n\n- Do the ghosts have given you advice?\n\n- As last few questions, do you have any ghosts that keep revisiting you? If so, do you know why?
Brilliant!!!
I think the OP is saying he's annoyed by the amount of buzzwords piled into this advertisement.
>I've heard that masons are into devil worship\n\nMasons are a Christian group, fyi.
Ideally, I'd have done that already. Unfortunately, I live on the other side of the country.
Some interesting pics here. Not sure how easily explainable they are, but the first pic still gives me chills.
In looking at the website the nurse provided, I see that the Symbiotics brand can be purchased online, and pricing seems in line with supplements in general (I didn't compare other brands of bovine colostrum).  That would seem to rule out a MLM or a profit for the nurse herself.  Publicly-traded company, I suppose she could own stock.\n\nAs for the nurse's behavior, extremely unprofessional, potentially dangerous, and likely career-limiting . . . agree it should be reported.  No telling what OTHER, and potentially far more risky, advice she's handing out.
To read the complete story go to: http://www.1111invitation2012.info
nah, i guess a few of the ones on the first season were. but now it's never. usually the footage is filmed over the span of about 4 nights give er take. but aside from that, their evidence is legit.
I think it's a pretty good source. Like any wiki you shouldn't be taking it as the final word on anything, but it'll set you on the right track.
Polygraph results may not be admissible in most courts, but confessions obtained while hooked up to a polygraph generally are. So if you can fool the suspect into thinking the machine is going to catch him in a lie anyway, and you then say "tell the truth and I'll try to get the DA to go easy on you," you might just get a confession in a few minutes rather than having to go through a long, drawn out trial process. \n\nThere is no rule that says cops have to be honest with you about their interrogation techniques. \n
Dr. Barry Taff believes most, if not all, poltergeist or ghost activity is actually caused by our subconscious minds 'acting out' in a psychokinetic way, which would imply that our subconscious minds can project itself into reality and actually cause things to happen that would seem impossible or unexplainable with our current model physics. It's called RSPK (Recurrent Spontaneous Psychokinesis) and is a lot more common than the scientific community, media, and government would like to admit.
None of your links support your claim.\n\nThe first is merely making the case that: "Economic assessments of proposed policy to put a price on carbon emissions are in widespread agreement that the net economic impact will be minor".  I agree with this statement. However, there is no scientific evidence indicating that the proposed policy to put a price on carbon emissions will halt or reverse global warming.\n\nThe 2nd link refuses to factor in the benefits of Global Climate change, and runs into the same trouble as the third link:\n\nThe 3rd link makes assumptions about the effects of global warming that aren't supported by the IPCC's models.\n\n>Also, should temperatures rise by more 6C, we might trigger an anoxic event in the oceans. That would be really, really bad.\n\nThe IPPC but the upper limit on temperature increase 6C.  By assuming it will rise by more than this number, you are contradicting the scientific consensus, just like the Republicans.\n
Those fat cat researchers and their lavish $80,000 salaries and their graduate assistants on food stamps. How can you *not* realize it's all corrupt?
Wow, you sir are a grade A jackass. What a waste of time and space.
True dat.
I have heard of these, they seem more creature then human what my friend and I saw was similar to human
Oh nice. No I didn't know that. Good, all I was thinking was heating up gas = big explosion.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/w733326833783406/\nhttp://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/02770903.2011.584358\nhttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21285476\nhttp://journals.lww.com/menopausejournal/Abstract/2009/16030/Yoga_for_menopausal_symptoms__a_systematic_review.31.aspx\nhttp://journals.lww.com/practicalpsychiatry/Abstract/2010/01000/Hatha_Yoga_for_Depression__Critical_Review_of_the.4.aspx\n\nexamples of articles. no real solid yes or no either way, really depends on what the treatment intention was
Start to?
I was gonna defend the guy, cuz a glitch experienced while under the influence of drugs does undermine the credibility of the experience, but damn, dude.  I know plenty of people who smoke hookah who have never done any illegal drugs, and then he acted like a dick about it when people called him out for making an assumption.
You don't seem to quite understand definitions. I never said they practised neuroscience, I said they look at the brain from a structural and/or physical perspective. If they practised neuroscience then they'd be neuroscientists. I would disagree with the statement that the two are completely separate, there are areas of the two which obviously are, and that's the statement I've seen here. But there are areas (such as the plasticity area which I mentioned) which are often shared. \n\nThe categories aren't arbritrary. They denote particular sub-fields of psychology. I was hoping you'd take those and do a bit of investigation yourself into it all. I don't have the time, nor the will, to give you a full rundown of every field. But, for example, neuropsychology is largely concerned with brain functioning in regards to particular brain areas and their direct affect on behaviours. A stereotypical study would be to take an animal, lesion an area of its brain that's thought to have an effect, and run a series of behavioural tests for say... reward behaviour. You'd then obviously have control animals, and this would be done over 200 or so animals. Another thing cognitive neuro often looks at is brain anatomy and functioning in people with brain damage (the pop science version of this is Oliver Sacks book "The man who mistook his wife for a hat" which while a bit exploitative, is a good read).\n\nIn part, developmental looks at Natal development, and thus brain anatomy and differences intranatal and post. Clinical obviously takes its background from a lot of different areas, but many disorders and neurologically based (i.e Schizophrenia has both chemical elements in regards to chemical reuptake at the synapses, as does depression, and issues with information processing at different brain junctions). As a result, some clinical psychologists who are academics will focus on such areas, while others will study more behavioural aspects of therapy involved with anorexia and body dismorphia disorder for example.   \n\nMoreover, practicing psychologists, i.e clinical psychologists don't "do" neuroscience..... I don't know where to start there. Clinical psychologists that practice, run clinics, they provide therapy and treatment for individuals just like a psychiatrist.\n
So they should suppress opinion and arts?
Yeah, I can't quite make it out either. Can you supply us with a higher-resolution photo?
If you live in America, we have that holiday very frequently. \n\nSome say so frequently, that it feels constant.
Occam's Razor might help you.
Agreed.
What man doesn't love glitter and pink?!
I've heard of them, but I honestly thought they ran barefoot.
Why did I even click that first link... ugh, time to go browse /r/aww or something...
I, too, benefit from foam rolling as a runner, but the point of this article is that the "I get results" argument is a bad one to use.  I don't think the author is trying to argue against foam rolling, but merely saying that a study in which this question was tested had a lot of problems.  \n\nIt's an inexpensive treatment that is harmless when done correctly under the guidance of a PT, and after having used it my ITBS eased dramatically.  However, the author has a point that we should be skeptical of all medical claims, especially when the studies of their effectiveness are flawed.
looks like a child standing there to me.
Yea, I really wish there was a follow up.  Partly for the evidence, partly for the laughs.
You must have missed the part where I was being facetious. Of course they were satellites. So was what this guy saw. So if what he saw was a UFO (and it wasn't, get it now?) then I've seen hundreds.\n\nYour reply was a terrible idea.
Scawy!
Is this presented here for us to be skeptic about it or as an alternative view to hold opposed to the Kony 2012 video?
I don't like being experimented on, mister!
This is a no true Scotsman logical fallacy. \n\nUnfortunately, chiropractors practice "treatments" based on 100+ year old woo about spinal subluxation causing all medical problems. Chiropractors should be avoided until there is scientific evidence proving efficacy, and the efficacy would have to outweigh the significant risks.\n\nFor back problems, see a physio, pt, pr primary care doc.  This is really your most scientifically vetted route.
The pediatrician's brother (Dr. Sears)  is into alternative vaccine schedule/anti-vaccine group of quacks. I've heard "The Doctors" have had him on.
There are probably a few.  I think most are going to fall into either (1) I don't understand the science well enough and have reservations in my explorations thus far or (2) I have a reasonable understanding, and consider the extrapolations from limited data to be of dubious value.  Generally you're not going to see r/skeptic spit out the nonsensical canards being used by other deniers.  This is just my observation among the community.\n\nFor myself, I tend to trust the experts and there does seem to be a consensus among those with relevant expertise.  And beyond that, I think it is pragmatically important that we reduce dependence on finite sources of energy (like fossil fuels) as good policy.
post the pics you took. might be something in them
Allow me to indulge myself for one minute.....\n\nWe can accept eyewitness testimony and photographic evidence in a murder trial, yet this is not enough to warrant further investigation into the UFO phenomenon?\n\nI am not saying that photos+plus multiple radar returns+corroborating testimony+landing trace evidence= the alien hypothesis per se.....\n\nI AM saying that if we can convict someone to die based on this evidence we can sure as fuck use the same to warrant further study within the field of ufology.\n\nKirk out
Honestly, they hurt their argument more than help it.  Wikipedia states the skull DNA is human.  They responded with saying that *if* the nuclear DNA was tested it *might* be half alien.  Sure, or it might be half starfish or half rock.  Get the nuclear DNA tested, what's the hold up?\n\nWikipedia states dentists that studied the skull note that the upper maxilla is that of a human child.  They respond saying other dentists *that won't be named* claim it's an adult skull.  Two problems here are the fact that their dentists don't claim it's an alien, and they don't feel strongly enough about their investigation to put their names on it.\n\nMore than anything, I've found that unwillingness to have testing done and unwillingness to name researchers two of the most prominent indicators of wishful thinking.  Not saying the skull isn't paranormal or whatever, just that they seem more eager to discredit detractors verbally as opposed to proving them wrong scientifically.  Just my take.\n\n
I *think* he was too, the trial would of been a snap; but until then he was innocent.
Exactly
I agree. in general, I think most things are in need of further study. Why just scoff at such things? Proves or disproves neither.\n\n Investigate and make logical assumptions. \n\nFull disclosure: I am a believer, but one who is sick of crappy cgi and obvious bullshit videos. I respect your comments and submissions dopp, because you'r obviously well versed on the subject, but still no idiot, and objective. Just what the subject needs.\n\n*I am drunk, ergo: terrible writing.
This is anecdotal, so take it as you will. I have grown up in the NW, which many people done know is a pretty huge producer of beef, pork, and chicken, among other food animals. I have visited many slaughterhouses, kill yards, and farms. I have seen factory slaughterhouses (though very uncommon in the NW as most of the meat farms in the area are smaller farms and many focus on organic or grass fed meat) as well as smaller independent slaughterhouses, and (technically illegal) private slaughter barns for individual farms or a coop of farms. I have some experience but no science. \n\nWhat I know from my experience is that factory farms are pretty goddamn awful, though FAR worse for chicken than for beef. Hell, dairy products are probably much more inhumane than slaughter is for cattle. But, end of the line, yes the animals are mistreated...I don't know how anyone could deny that. Is it anywhere close to as bad as the vegan propaganda, not even close except for chicken farms which are seriously fucking disturbing, but they are still bad. I would recommend, since I don't believe veganism is healthy, natural, ir sustainable, is that if you can afford it eliminate ALL products produced from animals that came from a major national or even regional farm. I just have never really find one with practices I found acceptable. Do a search for farm coop groups in your area, also local farms, and fresh/local/sustainable buying groups. I recently made the switch over completely, I buy every single animal product from a local farm (beef I get a bit further away but within 200 miles). Cheese, milk, all meats, ice cream, etc... Are all bought locally. One of my farms delivers directly to me, another I go and meet them at a predetermined place and time, and the beef I buy from a farm ay the local farmers market. I have personally toured each farm, inspected the conditions the animals are raised in, seen pictures of the slaughter facilities, and frankly the most important thing, I have heard the passion and concern for the animals in the farmers voices and seen it in their eyes. I know without any doubt that I am getting meat which wad well loved and cared for. \n\nIt is more expensive, but not hugely so. For instance, in of the farms just had a bunch of hogs come to slaughter that were a heritage breed, really damn near wild boar, and extremely high quality meat. I paid 6.99 a lb for it, which is about 50cents more than the grocery store, but the difference in quality is like comparing sex with Christina Hendricks to masturbating with 20 grit sandpaper. You have never experienced meat the way it was meant to be tasted until you eat meat from a good ethical SNF passionate farmer. \n\nThis is my solution to the ethical dilemma faced with unethical farming practices. I get to eat meat, which is both more natural for my body and really tasty, and I am supporting ethical practices. Also, nearly all of these local farms and coops will also sell a weekly bag with all local fresh organic and seasonal fruits and veggies that are amazing. \n\nGood luck, and if you find any sources let me know.
Let's not insult the mentally disabled by comparing them to nut jobs pleeease <3
Video has been posted a few months ago. Its Birds hunting insects which are being attracted by the light beam. Those dots don't look much like birds because they get overexposed by the light, which makes them appear as dots. There was a video on youtube which I can't find right now that showed the same light beam swarmed by those insects.\n\nAlso, when you look at the comments in youtube, you can see taht a lot of people who live in vegas post there which confirm that those dots are insects/birds/bats.
It looks like you were adding a link, if so I'd like to see it.  But know that I agree with you.  It is really sad for some.  For others, that life gives them hope and mystique. I guess I mean, for some of them it works and I am genuinely happy for them and their perspective on life.  For some it has robbed them of freedom, happiness, life, and love.  Which should be admonished to a highest degree.
It's a profession... or something...or uh... ....\n\nSee above.
eh, perhaps not as reliable or sensitive as Western equipment that can do the same thing, but certainly cheaper, AND it has the potential to keep a lot of people working in the medical profession, especially in parts of the country where sophisticated equipment and western-trained doctors are in short supply.
well let's improve the contrast, etc.\n\nhttp://i.imgur.com/b8adx.jpg\n\neverything is so noisy that it is hard to tell if the person on the side isn't a normal human being\n\nneed not be photoshopped, just a shiity picture of someone in the shadows.
This was a fair while before it became standard for people to carry cameras around in their pockets.
They taught Tesla in high school, and I went to a pretty lower class high school. Never went to college so can't speak to that, but if they don't mention him in the Universities than that is pretty sad.
Season 8, Episode 10 - "Vaccinations"
I imagined this said by Conspiracy Keanu.
Fucking Rainbows How do they work ?\n
I actually think that's a strength of MBTI. Two people can type to different personalities, agree with their own descriptions, read each other's descriptions, and then say, "ew, who would want to be like that?" I've seen that happen.
I understand the traumatic side of your argument, but it seems to me to be the following:\n\ntraumatic exp = ghost\n\nWhat mechanism would cause a traumatic exp to enabled the electric field that makes up you continue with out the normal chemical reaction creating the electric field? This is the part i don't understand. what mechanism the human body would cause this? Is there a section of the brain that creates a unique EM field to maintain this? and if so why would the brain do that? doesn't the brain normally try to block out exp if traumatic enough? Are there answers for this i missed in the FAQ?\n\nAs for animal, i would say most probably not, since if there is a unique aspect to the human brain that would allow then most animals wouldn't have the brain makeup close enough to us for it to happen. I suppose chips and some other apes may be close enough. CHIMP GHOSTS!!!! imagine all the animal testing sites that must be haunted 0.o
Take THAT hopeful people!
Yeah! The reason why I want to start this thing up is because most of our local groups are skeptics in the pub deals, and i want one for teenage/young people.
great link. thanks!
Actually I think we need a source that it *isn't* legal.  If there's not specifically a law or at least a court decision establishing its illegality, wouldn't it be fine?
It was the Straus pdf that wouldn't load (though it since has). Your latest link is a fair point (though it doesn't address the 90% stat directly). \n\nRegardless, I agree with their argument. I still think that if the parents didn't agree, a presumption of joint custody would tend to create a lot of stress and acrimony for the child, and that this could be largely avoided (for the child, not the parents) if the former primary caretaker (typically the mother, since society has the idea that parenting's women's work) was given primary custody (unless challenged).
I don't know all the details, but it seemed to me that he approached the discovery in the right way -- he urged for verification, but made a statement based on the information he had. \n\nI hope this wasn't just "You screwed up, so gtfo." Because (assuming there really was no impropriety) -- it seems that he was going about things in the most scientific manner possible.
Don't be a douchebag.  That doesn't help.  And MS can be terrible, it's easy for someone to get desperate and not think clearly.  His friend needs helpful guidance, not ridicule.
Institution?
I would have fun with that...\n\nShow up for the first class fully equipped with a proton pack and ghostbusters outfit just like in the movie.\n
> B/c most drugs don't cure - they treat symptoms.\n\nBy itself, that's a meaningless statement. Are you comparing drugs treatments to drug cures by dose or by drug line? Are you comparing drugs to other treatments in general? Are you selecting a set of diseases and seeing what percentage of drugs for those diseases cure them? Can you point to any specific evidence, other than a general mistrust of the "Big Pharma" to which you've referred?\n\n> I think *skepticism* of new drugs is very much warranted.\n\nNew drugs have to survive a formidable amount of evidence-based research before they are approved, and "nutrients" don't. If anything, I'm less skeptical of new drugs that go through the normal approval process for that exact reason.\n\n> Legal, prescribed drugs kill 10's of thousands per year.\n\nAgain, by itself that's a meaningless statement. Drugs are very often prescribed for people who are gravely ill. You don't see many "natural supplements" in the emergency room.\n\nAs an example, imagine you have a 99% chance of death without a drug. There's a drug that cures the condition, but your body is in such bad shape (say, liver failure) that there is a 70% chance that the drug will kill you. You're going to take that drug, and the drug is likely to kill you, and that's still the right choice to make. Yet that contributes to the scare statistic that drugs kill people.\n\nNow, there's still several systemic problems of pharmacy errors, mis-prescribing due to drug interactions, and patients not following their drug regimens. All those kill people as well, but that's irrelevant to drugs versus "natural supplements" because the same thing can happen with "natural supplements".\n\n> I can't think of any large scale deaths as a result of people using natural supplements. Maybe they're there, but I haven't seen them.\n\nNo offense, but that's just ignorance. Take a look at one of the champions of herbal remedies, [St. Johns wort](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_John's_wort). It has some use as a treatment for depression, and it is generally well tolerated. But just like a drug, it has a long list of possible [side effects and drug interactions](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_John's_wort#Adverse_effects_and_drug_interactions), some potentially fatal. It is entirely unwarranted to think that St. John's wort is safer than a drug simply because it is "herbal", "natural", "traditional" or any other meaningless new age bullshit adjective. It IS a drug, and [a relatively poorly understood one](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_John's_wort#Pharmacology).\n\nLet's put some real faces on deaths from herbal remedies. [Where's The Harm](http://whatstheharm.net/herbalremedies.html) has many well-documented examples. A schizophrenic woman stopped taking her effective, prescribed anti-psychosis medication Tegretol, and started using St. John's wort instead. She then [murdered her two daughters](http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Giving-up-hope-of-miracle-man-buries-his-slain-1151380.php), Brittney and Jessica Dorcy. [This study](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_John's_wort#cite_note-31) suggests that St. John's wort can exacerbate psychosis in schizophrenics.
Isn't splitting threads fun? :-D
>The only label I actually assign myself is that of a behaviourist (in psychology), but now that I'm examining that in detail it gets the same results as other loaded labels; people presume I think there's no such thing as cognitions.\n\nYou should talk with MrSamsa, he's in the same field.
Now why did you have to go and get them started. We don't need them mixing up a batch of kool aid.
Discussion of flaws in this latest Swiss study [going on in r/science now](http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/haq2p/experiment_finds_that_honeybees_wont_return_to/). Good comment there links to [Bug Girl's Blog where she rips the Swiss work](http://membracid.wordpress.com/2011/05/12/bees-ccd-and-cell-phones-still-no-link/).
For starters, having the label read that it contains 200 whosa-ma-whatsits of medicine is terribly misleading. At that dilution, the probability that even a single molecule of medicine remains is laughable.
I'm sure most of the people who subscribe to /r/skeptic are aware of Skeptoid - but if they aren't they certainly should be.
Disclaimer: I have posted this to be debunked, not because I agree with it.
In all fairness, a foundation of science is to simply be skeptical, of everything. Assuming the students are actually taught facts, I don't see this as being *absolutely* horrid.
Presumably, if you were ending the program, you would put the whole thing up for auction. Lab equipment, vehicles, excess materials, even the coffee machines. \n\n50 million to shut down a 2 million a year program strikes me as an extraordinary claim and one that at least in this blurb is thrown out there with no evidence at all provided. It might very well be true, but in lieu of more info, I'm inclined to think that there is a high likelihood of some selective accounting going on.\n\nBusiness close all the time and rarely (read never) do they have to spend 25 times their annual budget to do it and that's including horribly polluting industries. Unless these guys have been dumping gobs of mercury in the lakes over the years and can't leave until they get it out I honestly can't envision a senario that would justify a number like that.\n\nSo I guess what I'm asking is, what exactly is costing 50 million dollars. There must be an accounting somewhere.
NSFW.
>Warmer climates enable increased food production\n\nSorry, you clearly haven't done your research if you think that's true.
I don't mind /r/atheism. They're circle-jerky as hell, but it's their space and they can vent there if they want. It's when they act the same way outside of the sub that gets annoying, but that's hardly everyone in the sub who acts that way.
I want to believe this, but it's just so easy to shop some white dots floating in the far off distance into a video like this. This is kind of the dilemma all videos face since it's just way too easy to fake.
As a beekeeper, I can attest to the fact that honey straight from the apiary does indeed taste much better than the crap you get at a store. (note: anecdotal) But all the shit about the supposed health benefits it has is crap. I'm bombarded by it all the time in the beekeeping community. It's impossible to escape the BS. There's always someone who thinks literally every thing that bees make (honey, pollen, propolis, wax, bee venom, *yes* I said **motherfucking bee venom**) has health benefits. You'd think bees have some kind of magical properties by listening to my fellow beekeepers.\n\nThe sad thing is, you don't really need to invent pseudoscientific bullshit for this. Fresh honey really does taste so much better than storebought honey. and there are economic and environmental reasons to support local beekeepers. No need for snake oil bullshit. It's kind of the same with organic foods too, I've noticed. I don't buy into the hype, but I have noticed that organic things do taste better. That could just be me, though.
"Perception arises and subsides in an abundance of sensations"
vegeta, what does the scouter say about the woowoo level?
On reddit you're just preaching to the choir so at that point you're being a gratuitous asshole, not fighting the good fight. Like I said, just because she's misguided and the message is wrong, doesn't make her motives malicious or her a bad person. That you all can't see the difference, or like you said don't care to, shows a lack of character.
I see it; right next to Mario. Can't find the girl for the life of me though; and that's the story of my life.
you know... you can make up a name instead of using just a letter. we wouldnt know any better. but for some of us just a letter for a name takes us out of the story
In 1/8 of the time it took to type your comment you could have verified he's real.  \nA quack and a shill, but real.  \nD+ on your Detective Skills final.
I've always held this video as some very strong evidence in favor of UFO's, aliens etc.\nIts hard to refute this sort of stuff. At least I have never seen any skeptics try.
Like [this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBpu4DAvwI8)?
Ah, I see. Fair enough, then.
Pesticides allowed to be used on organic farms:\n\n* Rotenone (Mildly toxic to humans, extremely toxic to fish\n* Pyrethrum (Actually safe, and guess what synthetic copies are also used in regular farming practices.)\n* Nicotine sulfate (Toxic to humans, actually more toxic than arsenic)\n* Copper sulfate (Also extremely toxic to humans) \n\nThat's just a few, and there are more, but they're still toxic to humans. Organic does not mean pesticide free. Most actually need to use MORE because organic pesticides aren't nearly as effective as modern synthetic pesticides. Oh, and another really awesome fact is that organic farmers and modern farmers actually use some of the same chemicals, just created by different methods, for instance *spinosad*. Both farming methods use the same exact products. \n\nOh, and you know when you hear about synthetic pesticides on your food, you may one day notice that they never give the levels of pesticides they found or the toxicity levels of those pesticides. Why might that be? Because they are well under the danger level. Detectable does not mean dangerous. Also, just because they're pesticides doesn't mean that they're actually dangerous to humans, be it organic or synthetic.\n\n> Are you a religious leader or something of the likes?\n\nAww wonderful lame ad hominem. And it doesn't even make sense. Why the fuck would you assume I was a religious leader? Would you explain your rational for making that assumption? \n\n> Thanks. I see you are truly a skeptic.\n\nAnd i love this blind assumption that it was I who downmodded you. Way to make un-evidenced **ass**umptions.\n\nEdited to add some stuff
No advice, sorry. My parents are very rational in comparison, but they still like to pester me with the occasional miracle cure. Mostly it's stuff that sounds reasonable if you're a little gullible and are prone to selection bias. Right now it's "dried fruit and vegetable pills" for my dad and some weird spinal-nerve-activation "therapy" for my mom who insists that it's totally working. They always get get a little butthurt when I'm skeptical and demand scientific backing. "You could just try it and if it doesn't work for you, no harm done, right? I'm *telling you*, it works!" - Nope, **Nullius in verba**
Have you considered why that may be?
ending suffering = murder?
True dat.
There is no they. It is all you, all the way, tuning into subconscious info and making nice synchronicity events. :)
actually I gave several reasons, watermarks everywhere. Avatar looks better than that.
>There’s nothing about the dramatic increase in weather-related catastrophes worldwide:\n\nWhich are easily attributable to the change in what is deemed\na  weather-related catastrophe.\n\n>There’s no mention of the increase in declared disasters in the U.S.:\n\nSame\n\n>There’s not a word about the record-shattering heat waves in Europe in 2003, or Russia in 2010,\n\nWhat is that line you guys love so much?\nOh ya, *local weather not global climate*\n\n>No mention of the increase in wildfires in the U.S.:\n\nWild fires are mostly a product of piss poor land management\non the part of the USFS.\n\nThanks for the fish.\n\n\n
But what happens when the kids realize that's stupid as fuck.
> The camera that made the clip was mounted near a window\n\nActually it is hand held, if it was mounted then the window frame would never move relative to the picture frame.  You can easily see the telltale movements of a handheld camera throughout the footage.\n\nThe only time the DAC camera was mounted was when it was used on the rover.  The reason I suspect it was fogged over is because he was holding the camera with the lens in the palm of his hand before he started to shoot, I do this all the time with my SLR camera, but I realise immediately because the viewfinder looks through the same lens.  The DAC had no viewfinder, so it would not be obvious that the lens had been fogged over.\n\n> so any spots on the window would indeed be blurred if not almost transparent, how did I overlook that.\n\nThe DAC camera overall has a fairly small aperture and so you do pick up objects that are in the foreground such as the window frame and the spots on the window.  This is why they are about the same amount as blurryness.  I doubt you would see it without the frame stacking, but the frame stacking process is designed specifically to bring these sorts of details out.
I think this entire story is absolute bullshit and I think half the people here are crazy for believing anything they read without a shred of evidence, but billions (and trillions) of dollar have gone missing just in the last 10 years, it sounds crazy but it's been happening for a very long time and is no where near the realm of conspiracy. \n\nHere, however, is a conspiracy which I believe to be happening:\n\nI often think things like these wars, 9-11 etc are just ways of funneling money into the black budget. \n\n1) Start some big expensive project that allows you access to infinite money from the taxpayers/fed reserve (like a series of wars).\n2) Get your buddies some defense contracts\n3) You send them taxpayer money, paying $100 for a hammer, they cover their overhead for the hammer, take 20% as profit, and then the rest of that $100 goes to some black fund somewhere for all the secret shit that they do off the books. \n\nIt makes perfect sense, I think the whole perpetual war thing is a giant money laundering scheme where they slowly take it from the taxpayer, filter it through defense contractors and straight into the black budget purse.
If there were a god he would not be a cosmic messenger boy, in reference to prayers.
I asked you to prove this:\n\n>A civilization cannot organize itself to be space faring, being so advanced, and still extremely violent.\n\nYou did not.\n\n>Gathering resources on a global level to achieve progress cannot be done with wars and violence.\n\nProve that an alien civilization cannot do this.\n\nHypotheticals and theoreticals are not proof or evidence.
Well then read [Orac](http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2011/10/steve_jobs_neuroendocrine_tumors_and_alt.php), someone who does not.
You should check this book out\nhttp://www.amazon.com/DMT-Molecule-Revolutionary-Near-Death-Experiences/dp/0892819278\n\nit has some insights on the exact moment that the soul enters the body through the pineal gland
Yes. your paranoia is unfounded.
Frigate bird was my guess.
I wouldn't recommend firing either in a tunnel without damn good ear protection.
Obviously, you're not a bookie.  You won't make much money doing odds in reverse.
Gayy!!
I really need to clean my screen this is getting out of hand.
One's not better than the other, they're both just as bad.  Doing either show that that person doesn't know anything or try to know anything about what they want to put in their body.
Still strange though
Only an ignorant would deny climate change, just as only an asshole would take advantage of it to monger fear and get into peoples wallets, claiming it is man made and mans responsibility to stop it.
Yea I feel like it was a white noise kind of thing, but wayyyyyyyy more direct. I've always been "connected" to spirits throughout my life. That's why I described it as the anxious goose bump feeling. I always get that when something ghostlike is about to happen/happens.
I think what nigga_progeny meant is it's hard to tell what the lights in the background are because these two lights are moving so quickly it makes the other lights seem "immobile" and hard to identify.
I don't own photoshop nor would I try and doctor a picture. I posted it here to get some answers.
becuse not everyone walks around with a 400 dollar camera all day.  some of us have more important things to do then film every second of our lives.
I really don't care how you feel about me looking into your posts. \n\nAnti Semite is a cliche, falling back on amateur psychology is cliche.\n\n I've been discredited you just can't explain how. \n\nMy GIF and article offered more insight than all your huffing and puffing.\n\n I don't need any more mouth breathing sycophants whining about anti semitism or pretending to be Dr. Phil. \n\nIf you can explain why the Holocaust is a Holocaust despite a steady trend of millions of proven lies that would be more effective than basically whining.\n\nMoshe Peer "I was gassed six times maybe children resist better I don't know"\n\n Eli Wiesel "10,000 died everyday at Buchenwald I was always the last at the gates they stopped... why?"\n\nBuchenwald later revealed not a "death camp"
Bit of a broad question.\n\nI'd not be surprised if there were articles in there that were mistaken though.
It's probably a Hannukah miracle.
Thank you, you're just reinforcing what i've been saying.
The first time I read a story about these BEKs (supposingly written by someone who ran into a couple), I went outside to have a smoke and there was a teenage kid with a hoodie, sitting outside the building next to mine. He had his hood up, and was faced directly towards me. I freaked the HELL out, went inside, and I'm still here.\n\nI'm pretty sure it was my neighbor, trying not to puke from his alcohol consumption, but still. Scary stuff.
Woah, everyone knows ghost alien  mutated fish-frogs don't exist. It looks more like a mutated frog who was genetically spliced with a fish (by aliens), and then killed and resurrected as a ghost. That is the only conclusion I see.
Dermal Staphylococcus Aureus infections, general enteric upset (food or water poisoning), PMS, exhaustion, cold and flu, oral abscesses and toothaches, sore throats and panic attacks probably make up about 90% of what I treat.\n\nMind you that most of this is for other people, not myself.
One way to determine its a fake is the fact that the water isn't reacting to the mass properly. Something that big in a current that fast there would be white water all over it. However, "its" floating though the water undisturbed.
Probably a dream.
Too late
My thoughts went from "This is hilarious." to "Dear god, what's at the end?  Am I going to get spooked at the end?".\n\n\nEdit: "Patenents"\n\n\nEdit 2: "a select few" will get the plans or "absolutely everyone" will get the plans?  If it weren't $50, I'd want to buy it just for the fun of finding out what the fuck it is. \n\nEdit 3: Oh no, "big energy"! So, this isn't a "power bracelet" scam, it's identity theft, right?
I don't know what to think. I'm a very skeptical person (sometimes to the point of crossing the line into douchebageryville), and I'm immensely wary of non-cognitive-science, Freudian-esque pop psychology. That being said, my Myers-Briggs test is insanely accurate and not in a vague, crystal ball kind of way. I mean, I'm willing to accept that there are archetypes, and I'm not some beautiful, wonderful snowflake. To this day I just chalk it up to dumb luck, I suppose, rather than a testament towards the test's validity. \n\nI had taken the test long after I had self-evaluated myself and come to terms on how I reason, deal with people, and view the world (i.e. recognized my biases).
Only purely organic parsley which they're hiding from you, it's all a big cover up, the government in is in on it man
I like [this one](http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2296#comic) and [this one](http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2286#comic).
Agreeing with a video by a comedian does not make your opinion any more valid. You can't put the idea of expert opinions on a pedestal and then dismiss that same notion when you don't agree with the outcome. \n\nPretty basic.
How does the paleo diet compare to a more standard medically recommended diet including carbohydrate sources like rice and wheat, in terms of health metrics such as life expectancy?
What is with the strong anti-AA sentiment in the comments here? I'm all for the helpful bits of AA. It sort of sounds like a few people got forced to go to AA and are upset about it.
Some of us, including myself, did try to stay civil and present her reasoned arguments and science. Now, considering how much money she is obviously making, I have sincere doubts that she will ever consider the possibility that she's wrong. She probably didn't expect such a backlash, but even if we had all stayed polite and diplomatic, I don't think she would have accepted our arguments.\n\n(Still doesn't make it right to insult and belittle her, though)
"teaching them grammar and spelling" conspicuously absent.
I think that Project Camelot is just hocus pokus
Were there any animals? Maybe you let the cat/dog/whatever in or out? Newspaper delivery? Mail pickup?
Its been pretty disgusting to see the interent reaction to this tragedy.  I concur with the article.
Um, excuse my ignorance but how in the FUCK would someone be under threat of arrest in INDIA for calling BS on a Christian miracle? Did I miss something? Are there a couple centuries of religious warfare of which I am unaware?
One more quick response, because it's directly in my field and I dislike the implication that pre-clinical studies and animal modeling are anything resembling thorough, you could do to read the following strategic guide that's now being used as the guiding principle for U.S. and international tox testing and drug development:\n\n[Toxicity Testing in the 21st Century: A Vision and a Strategy \\(2007\\)](http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11970&page=R1),\nNational Research Council (NRC),\nBoard on Environmental Studies and Toxicology (BEST),\nInstitute for Laboratory Animal Research (ILAR)\n\nThe idea that animal modeling is a predictive, or even a vaguely effective way, to evaluate clinical therpaies for human use, is something that has been abandoned for decades but kept in place because there's a vacuum of human-relevant testing options. To wit, investigational new drugs entering phase I clinical trials today have about an [8% chance](http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=203771) of making it to the market--the other 92% that pass preclinical testing via animal models fail to make it to market because they are ineffective or unsafe in humans. That 8% number has been dropping for years, especially in terms of cancer therapeutics.\n\nWhat's worse, systematic reviews of instances where we thought we'd found good interventions are now turning up absences of effect, sometimes even negative effects. I've worked with Dr. Sena and others involved in [systematic reviews of stroke studies and interventions](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20361022) that are really mind-blowing in this regard. For instance, a 30% overstatement of efficacy for focal ischemia from the 499 eligible studies (which, furthermore, don't represent unpopular findings--results of around 1 in 6 animal studies have never been submitted for publication).\n\nThere are real, defined problems with our modes of drug discovery and development. Licensure and marketing is much less of a concern relative to these aspects, in the grand scheme. Please, become a toxicologist, physician, epidemiologist, etc. and help us solve these problems!
He should write down his experiences and then sit down one day and re-read them.  Perhaps a bigger picture is yet to be seen.  The first thing to come to my mind is astral projection and time travel, but ultimately, it's fascinating!
> Most of the time the tool is uses as an "interrogation tool" not a truth detecting tool\n\nRight, and although **by itself** it may be unreliable in indicating if someone is telling the truth, it can give the person administering the test more information when they suspect (for other reasons) that someone is trying to be misleading.
Agreed.
Exactly what species are you comparing humans to?
The Angel of Death. Not to be feared , but accepted as the natural conclusion of life. We'll all meet him one day.
It's
I remember when i was at a bar, one of these women started talking about the universe and how it loves her. I went along with it till she said  "you are Indian you understand".\n\nNo lady , just because i am brown does not mean i believe in the same woo you do
Their first investigation was actually quite valid and very well done.
Funny how a country where the State and Church have the same leader can pulls this off, but we can't manage it in America, where we're supposed to have separation of church and state.
My take on it is that there are no gods. Many people dream up various gods to fit various needs, and some of them write down their various theories, which include theories on behavior.\n\nSo there are bibles. The various bibles were written by people to explain various occurrences and to encourage various behaviors which they wish to reward. The behaviors they approve of and wish to reward are called moral. Because it's all written by people and because there are no gods, one may take the bibles literally and still have subjective morality.\n\nIn reality, morality is subjective if you mean it comes from societies and the people within the societies. Social behavior ends up requiring some individual sacrifices for societal good, and we call that moral behavior. Societies reward behavior that perpetuates individual life and the life of the society. If that's "subjective," there you go. It's all made up by societies to perpetuate each society. But all laws and all moralities come from people.\n\nEDIT: put in a needed s at the end of the first sentence.
Common sense would be a UFO?
I'm skeptical about spending money on a movie starring the dude from Wings & Tom Arnold.
exactly. I'm guessing maybe 20+ years and using the water a lot. Anyways go ask bunnings if they have these lead testing kits (i'm guessing its like a pool kit?). Man you have gotten me worried now. I've been in my federation house (I think it was built in 1890ish) for 25 years, I've yet had issues but I'm starting to be forgetful (blaming on beer and age). I'm going to test my water now!
Point to their chest and flip their nose when they look down. Repeat as often as necessary to insure they will not fall for stupid tricks. By age 5 they'll learn to be skeptical.
I don't understand why this is news. Trump, despite his scummy ethics and often disgusting behavior, is not a dumb man. He's just drumming up controversy, like he did with the birther thing, to make money. Trump has no real opinions on these matters. He has no real opinions on anything unless it's profitable, in which case his opinion is "do it." If anything, he knows he's spreading lies. Giving this any attention just gives his irritating empire more free publicity. The man's just trying to seem relevant or edgy so he can get even richer and make more ugly buildings with his name on it.
This is certainly correct.\n\nBigfoot is a totally neat idea, and some of the video evidences looks reasonable enough on the surface. You have to look at what that species would take to survive, and not be discovered at that.\n\nFurthermore, they would have to be a primate given the descriptions given of them. No primate besides humans have been found in the American continents, nor will they likely ever be. We stick out like a sore thumb.\n\nIt's so incredibly, incredibly, mind-boggingly improbable that a sustainable population of a very large primate species exists and isn't seen all the time in the Americas. \n\nBeing open to evidence, I won't say with absolute certainty that they **don't** exist, but I'm pretty damn sure they don't.
All talk, no action....  I'd pass if I were you.
We should just gather up all the medical quacks and shower them with positive energy in the form of positrons.
Regrettably, with CGI technology advanced as it is, it's hard to say how this was done, but I'm gonna have to say hoax. Just because they always turn out to be.
Agreed.
"the rest became a cup of herbal soup and a bowl of potpourri."
Just saw this ~~advertised~~ promoted on the reddit front page. It's an interesting spin on the usual multivitamin nonsense. I especially like how they very strongly imply it cures hangovers, without ever actually saying what it does, besides the usual waffle about "toxins."\n\nThen there's this:\n>Dr. James Pendleton is a licensed naturopathic physician \n\nNaturopathic you say? Well, I'm convinced!\n\nThe other Dr involved [apparently](http://www.karenvieira.com/) has an actual PhD in Biomedical Science (whatever that is) but apparently no science undergraduate degree. She does have a degree in management though.
Of course it's not for her. You will no more change her mind than she will yours. The thing is that mocking someone publicly only works if the public already agrees with your mocking. Calling a believer in extraterrestrial abductions a kook will conform to what people already believe, and the mockery might work. If you try that with a random street preacher, depending on where you are, you might get a lot of people looking at you weird thinking you're a douchebag.\n\nThat's the whole point of what I said, if you act like a dick, there's a very real chance you come across as a bully, and people love to root for the underdog. So never make it personal. Keep focused on facts and don't let them distract with appeals to emotions or what their "gut" tells them. Don't be a dick does *not* mean "handle with kid gloves". It simply means focus your attacks on what matters, the truth of their claims and nothing else, like their character.
*Homicide.... \n
Definitely go here. (wtf downmodders?) A lot of work was put into compiling r/UAP's  information; it's a great resource if you are seriously interested in this subject.
I think the profound sense of detachment from reality should give you a clue to what's happening.\n\nAnd also a clue when no one is interesting in studying nonsense it's probably really big nonsense.
Wow, thats crazy. Im glad we didnt lose any electronics during our sighting.
Funny thing is if you read the original post op made you can see how absolutely demolished he was by some of the top commenters. Why he insists on this is beyond me
Also from the FBI... http://vault.fbi.gov/hottel_guy/Guy%20Hottel%20Part%201%20of%201/view\n\nWeird stuff\n\nMore here: http://vault.fbi.gov/unexplained-phenomenon
Houstonian here, good luck getting anything to happen.  Houston has the highest population of Nigerians outside of Nigeria so anyone going to see her probably has a decent idea of what's going on.
blarrghblrblargblaha\n\ndamn.
What happens to the surviving half? Are they euthanized?
[](/lyra "Well aren't you sweet?")
We're not on r/atheism - haven't you noticed the severe lack of "flying spaghetti monster" being mentioned? :P\n\n-\n\nActually, I consider that trick relatively mild compared to some of Brown's other stuff:\n\n[NLP trick with Simon Pegg](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=befugtgikMg)\n\n[Race track misdirection](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=II_-QcW4Q4I)\n\n[Zombie video game re-enactment](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjRAcajFte0).\n\n[Hypnotizing people on a train](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4aB6vvVliE)
I wish this would happen around here. For some obscure reason, homoeopathy is very big in France *and* reimbursed by social security (which irritates me to no end).
What was that stuff we used to eat back in the day? Oh yeah, pussy.
What did he mean by, "...the ability to turn skepticism inward"? To be skeptical of our own beliefs? If that's what he meant, I agree. He's amazing
Motherships require a significant amount of power.
There is no problem with lying and fabricating things as long as you are doing it for jesus.
thank you so much!
Yep. We were shipped out to the regional center for tests, spinal tap, etc and that's what we were told.
I've learned that the "science" channel is about as reputable as the "history" channel
So your response to this woman screaming innocent is try relentlessly insult her like a child would? I was under the impression that the Skeptic community based it's arguments of facts. Indeed, facts are *the* point of the skeptic community. It's the entire central idea of it. Arguing degrades it, not helps it.
That's not surprising, they don't even agree with themselves: http://www.skepticalscience.com/plimervsplimer.php
Same to you.
Not that I'd ever be *against* more negative publicity for the fraudulent quackery that is homeopathy, but I'm not sure what else needs to be said that hasn't already been explained beautifully in, say, Richard Dawkins' The Enemies of Reason.\n\nThe only real problem is getting people to *watch* it or any other documentary on the subject, and to do so with a rational mind uncluttered with New Age bunk.  I mean, Dawkins may explain how it's physically *impossible* for homeopathy to work, but if he doesn't simultaneously debunk Chopra-esque quantum theory and a dozen other ridiculous bullshit mechanisms, you're going to have flower-brained idiots crying, "Ah-ha!  See!  He doesn't truly understand how homeopathy works!"
You get immunized for it when you're young (supposed to). I got pertussis it in 2005 and my doctor said that the immunizations were wearing off and that there were a lot of cases popping up in southern california. Sucks, because after you get rid of the sickness, your throat is all fucked up so it causes you to cough even more.
i was gonna respond with something about how tilling results in lost top-soil which is a major problem in just about every agricultural region, but you got to the heart of things in your post.
Fully agreed. The improvement in taste with raw milk is just amazing. I'm sorry these people got sick, and I understand that there's a legitimate health concern for health and safety officials, but if I had the opportunity to drink fresh milk again I'd take it in an instant.
I would tend to agree.  I think where we differ and where I think a lot of men and women disagree is that things like "not taking a person seriously" isn't a gender issue.  Men do that to men all the time.  Men pay some men more then others who do the same job and it's not based on their gender.  Men feel that in order to be equal one must perform at the task in question in an equal manner before equal respect is given.  They also understand that this may never happen even with other men in some aspects.    \n\nBecause this issue is between two genders the question of when is "attraction" appropriate will never be settled.  When would it be appropriate for a male and female counterpart to flirt, date, have sex, or engage in other activities?  There are two sides to this issue and neither side can dictate all the answers.  \n\nKarsh
Atheist, here. Working in the "alternative" (naturopathic) community drove me to this.
"OHMIFUCKINGGOD HE'S BLEEDING FROM THE AORTA!"\n\n"Ok, everybody CALM DOWN! I am a trained homeopathic EMT. First, never move the victim! Address the Feng Shui of the room by rearranging the throw pillows *based* off the victim's position. Does anyone have any candles? Thank god I've got my healing crystals in the back of my Prius."\n\nEDIT: Ok, I just realized that a trained homeopathic EMT would probably say "Thank Mother Gaia" or "Thank the Tree Elder Spirits." Don't know what I was thinking.
Trust is based on evidence, faith is not.\n\nYou cannot trust somebody until they have given you evidence that they are reliable. However you can have faith in a complete stranger.
You and I both know there are large gaps in science. They believe that God fills some of those gaps. I don't think that it should be taught in High School science classes but it's not an unreasonable thing to believe or be taught privately.
I think its bullshit. What? Did I do something wrong?
I don't want you to feel bad. Just do better math.\n\n2,300,000,000,000 / 365 days / 100 years = $63,013,699 or $63M dollars.\n\nOf course that's still a ton of money. You don't need to exaggerate.\n\nAlso: 2,300,000,000,000 / $100,000,000 / 365 days = 63 years\n\nSo you could alternatively say that this would be spending 100 million dollars every day for 63 years - or just say 60, because it gets the point across with a more-rounded number and is still tons o' money.
I wonder why all UFO and paranormal sightings only happen near Mexico now...
Doesn't really look like a person to me =/ My first thought, with my initial reaction being "Debunk this", is that there is an object there. I immediately thought it might be a wooden post, with some kind of finish on it, but I am not sure why there would be one there in that shape.\n\nIt does look to me, however, that where the 'hair' is on the right is actually just where the sun is putting a glare on the object. I would want to see a picture of the objects in the room before I would start saying that this is paranormal...\n\nTL;DR - I think there might be an object there.
High tech sky art.  The end result looked like a gray, with the third eye activated.Pretty, pretty awesome..
Wine connoisseurs can tell, perhaps, but can you? (or any other layperson)
I'll agree with that.  My point was that OP seems to have an unquestioning faith in science and the competence of government testing and regulation that can be just as dangerous as the 'woo' he was arguing against.  I wanted to illustrate that a bit of skepticism about the process used to approve things like aspartame is a good thing to have.  Thalidomide was just the first and most recognizable example to come to mind.
Funny that no one is bringing up the fact that two of the five children had vaccinations. If you look up percentages you would see that vaccinated children get the diseases as well. There are no such things as immunizations, only vaccinations that 'help' prevent, not prevent. \n\nIn fact the pertussis is being reintroduced to the older generations through the tetanus shots nowadays because they discovered it wasn't even working.\n\n  Only non-vaccinated children who get the diseases come up in the news. No one even knows the circumstances of the children who got the HiB Really strong hygene is really important to prevent these things. America is just getting lazy.\n\n   That is to say that there are cases where all and all the disease was just unpreventable.\n\n   Most importantly though. If you decide to not get the vaccinations for your children remember that if they get one of the diseases that you will take the full headon blame for it so be prepared.
Thanks, "reddit is fun" force closed on me the first time I tried to post so I wasn't sure if it went through.
Yes. I had a family with three children, and everyone but the father had whooping cough. They were poor, and hippy-ish. The mother had not had vaccinations, and thought keeping her kids from having them would prevent a myriad of health issues, including autism. This is back when the themerisol argument was everywhere. (Before they moved the goalposts on vacc's.) Her youngest was something like 18 months, I think? \n\nThey were being crippled with the costs of medical care for this. The antibiotics alone were going to take the grocery money, and rent. I know, because I had her crying on the phone about it. \n\nDespite all this (no complications, thankfully) she still maintained that her family was healthy, and this was a small price to pay to avoid something worse. \n\nThere is no arguing with folks. You can have strong evidence, and facts, but in the end, idiots believe what they want. She could have ended up with severe complications with any of them. \n\nI wish she was the only one. The patients like this usually come out swinging if you try to argue with them. They "know" the truth, and as a nurse, I was just part of big pharma trying to harm them and their kids.
Snoo is returning to the mother ship.
SO not doing the footwork for any of you. Google this yourselves. Simple "Governments that have disclosed ufos"\nthere are a hell of a lot of documents and many are on the disclosure project.
Damn, I keep hearing how religious Romania is lately. It's sad, I always thought of Romania (my birth country) as a main contender for where I'd want to live once I leave Israel. \n\nI guess I'll keep dreaming of Scotland then.
I think the issue with HFCS isn't that it acts differently, just that it's **much** easier to sneak into everything, and put in large doses.
It is called cold reading. The oldest trick in the book. You just start saying stuff that may apply, people forget the misses and remember the hits.
I wish I could remember his name :-\\  \n\nBut yea, definitely wasn't going to the interview expecting ANYTHING like this, or even a comment about that sketch.
I get this immediately after I wake up. When I look at the radio the sound slowly fades in.
The main problem is you're conflating gun ownership with the strength of the gun control laws.\n\n> They have dangerous, mankiller fully automatic rifles in every home.\n\nNo they don't. All young men serve in the militia, but not all as soldiers and not all choose to keep the rifle afterwards. In either case the ownership is registered, and heavily regulated in how and when you can use the weapon. If you like, they're the epitome of the "well regulated militia" the US constitution mentions, and an ample demonstration of how to have one without hysteria about gun control laws leading to weak and ineffective gun control.\n\n> I would argue that they lower the level of crime, since criminals will always commit crime with whatever tools available, but people can't defend themselves from criminals unless properly armed.\n\nI would argue the opposite. Very few people become a criminal because of a rational judgement that they can obtain money easily that way. It's mostly a poverty thing, with other factors thrown in as well. The main effect of guns is to add a dose of brinkmanship to any encounters, and to add an arms race between the three main groups involved. You don't reduce crime, you just make crime deadlier.
Not really, this is /r/skeptic so we are mindful that all evidence is imperfect and we have to be careful not to stretch data further than it will let us. Dismissing stuff because it was on TV isn't right. It's more complicated than  that.
Unfortunately, a lot of those trials have failed...
They are NOT the same chemical makeup. HFCS is, as the name suggests, high in fructose - 55% fructose to 42% glucose. Cane sugar has an even balance.\n\nGlucose is processed in the intestine, fructose is processed by the liver - having a higher level of fructose creates a higher strain on the liver. Whether or not this feeds into weight problems or not, "They're basically the same thing" is not a good foundation for your argument.
[Relevant](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eB5Vvs2cdqY&feature=related)
the shaman says "your not supposed to eat your spirit animsal!!!" that is all, now go learn about your spirit animal and stop eating it! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_animal
Why are all of these pseudo-science (if you can call them that) theories popping up on r/skeptics recently?
well, i'm a lifelong nader voter. he isn't running this year, obviously. the only point upon which we disagree is nuclear power. since i'm not able to vote for him anymore, i want to prioritize voting for an atheist. because, seriously, religion shouldn't play ANY part in government, but it always does anyway. if a person is capable of believing the superstitious madness of a religion, then it is totally a factor because it underscores their reasoning at least and will affect policy at worst.\n\nEDIT: spelling
i doubt Megan fox was around back then.
When I was in college in Arizona, I took a job as a bouncer for a \nbar/hotel, this was around 2006 or so.  My job would end around 2 or 3am  when the bar was cleaned and everything was put back in its place for the night, Thats when Bruce took over.  Bruce was a little old man who had been working as night watchman for the hotel for 20 or so years.  His job was to clean up, repair issues, and see to guests who had problems in the night.  The hotel was made in 1897, and was a big deal at the time.. its also near the Grand Canyon, so it has alot of guests.  The building has had a couple of deaths, one being a young married couple.  The story goes that the couple got married and had their honeymoon in one of the rooms in the early 1900's. A man broke into their room and stole some stuff and in the process shot the couple and fled. As a bouncer, you hear all of these stories and such from other staff and people in the town.  The story also goes that the room where they got shot is haunted.  At the time I started, I never believed the haunted portion of the story, but the strange thing is, they no longer rent out that room.  Its been converted to a storage room for liquor and other stuff.  \n\nOne slow night, Bruce came in and we started to chat, since he had been working there for so long and always at night by himself, I thought I would ask him about the room and hotel and see if he had any interesting stories.  Bruce is a nice quite man, and very sharp so when he told me this story, I had no reason to doubt him.  \n\nBruce told me that when he first started working as night watchman, the room upstairs where the couple where killed was still being rented out.  And one night a man came down the stairs to the front desk and said he needed to check out as soon as possible and where he could find another hotel to check into for the night.  Bruce complied, and asked the man if something was wrong with the room.  The man replied that he was sleeping and awoke to find a woman sitting at the end of his bed in a 19th centry white gown, and looked to be crying. The strange thing is that he could see through her.  Bruce said that he could tell the man was visibly shaken, so he checked him out and called him a cab to take him to the nearest hotel with vacancy.  Bruce said it was strange and kinda gave him the chills.. but went up stairs to check it out and everything seemed to be fine.  5 or 6 years later the same thing happens.  A man comes downstairs in the middle of the night, from the same room and gives the exact same story and description. Bruce added that there was no way these two people could have known each other and that he had never told the story of the first incident to anyone other than the manager when, he asked why the room was checked out early.  \n\nI personally went in and out of that room 20 - 40 times a night, grabbing things, never saw anything strange or had anything happen to me. The Hotel is on the Haunted Arizona Tour and we have even had "Paranormal Investigators" come and take pictures and such.. nothing ever came from it except some "orbs" which looked like dust to me.\nHowever, I have never read or heard the story that Bruce told me from any other source.  The only thing I have heard people say about the room is its "Haunted", but nothing descriptive.\n\n
AMA Request: Someone who has made a fake crop circle
This appears to be a graph of the difference between "raw" and "final" data (whatever that means) not a graph of temperature change.
What frequencies make up our aura? I have access to an anechoic chamber and some high gain broadband antennas so I can easily verify if we or do not have one.
Thank god I'm not the only one!
Homeopathic cancer cure!\n\n1. Surgically resect the tumor.\n\n2. Cut it up into little pieces.\n\n3. Dilute it with water.\n\n4. Drink it!\n\n5. There is no "???"\n\n6. Profit!!!
Look at the standard deviations between acupunture and sham. While the difference is significant it is not very much... when scientists or statisticians say significant it means statistically reliabe and says nothing about the strength of a correlation or effect. This analysis looks legit judging from the abstract but really just shows acupuncture to be only slightly better than placebo... which is quite plausible, many pharmaceuticals get approved with this level of efficacy.\n
After reading the article, I don't understand what she is defining as "natural". \n\nMy guess is that she is trying to say that there is some mythical ancestor in our evolutionary past somewhere between 10 million and 10 thousand years ago who was a strict vegetarian, and the fact that humans now eat meat is mainly due to the convenience of modern agriculture.\n\nWell, modern humans (homo sapiens) have been around for the last 150 thousand years or so, and I am unaware of any fossil (or other) evidence that at any stage homo sapiens has been anything other than an omnivore.\n\nIf you go back further, homo erectus and homo habilius were pretty clearly omnivores, so that takes you back about 2.5 million years.\n\nGoing back further, there are question marks around the diets of Australopicines. Studies of fossil teeth suggest that their diet was mainly fruit and insects, but recent studies based on presence of particular radioactive isotopes suggest that animal foods were almost certainly part of their diet.  So that takes you back about 4.5 million years.\n\nBefore that, the evidence gets a little thinner on the ground. Without doubt, if you keep looking back along our ancestral line, one of our ancestors would not have eaten meat. But that is so far in the past that the creature we are talking about is nothing like a modern human.\n\nSo, it is a pretty strange argument to me that we have been omnivores for the past 4.5 million years, but that is not our "natural" state.\n\nSeems a lot more likely that the author is trying to rationalize her own diet and lifestyle decisions. The thing is though, she doesn't have to. We live in the 21st century, and if you want to live a long and healthy life as vegetarian you can. You don't have to eat meat if you don't want to, and nobody is going to make you. You don't need to justify it with half-baked claims about our evolutionary history.
He deserved to get hit a lot harder than he did. I thought it was funny when he got clocked the first time and acted like he'd never been punched before, so full of win!
>There are many experts, astronomers, astronauts, military officers, etc.\n\nAstronomers? Which of those people were astronomers? And even if they are astronomers, you still have the possibility that they are lying.\n\n>they have radar to back up there eyewitness testimony,\n\nWhile possibly interesting, I've never seen these radar readings available for review, nor is it proof that the craft are alien.\n\n>and in cases like Rendlesham Forest, there is trace evidence available. You have clearly not even bothered researching the subject seriously, so you are not qualified enough to debunk anything. Did you bother reading my post?\n\nThe Rendlesham forest incident was a lighthouse and meteor. The "trace evidence" was rabbit dens and trees marked by loggers.\n\n>Are you telling me that Air Force Commanders, Generals, Colonels, and the like, are no more qualified than the average person when it comes to identifying aircraft?\n\nWe're not talking about aircraft though are we?\n\n>Your naked bias betrays your supposed scientific approach to the subject. Maybe you should do just enough research to at least become a layperson on the subject.\n\nI used to be head over heels for this shit. I've done tons of research into it, and eventually I kept noticing a pattern: wild stories that don't add up, fuzzy or faked photos, and easy alternate explanations. Don't project your bias issues onto me.
...and then into my butt. Eurghhh!
Exactly. That's why I said, "serious injury." If acupuncture (IE: placebos) can work just as well for treating soldiers with headaches or whatnot, more power to them. Hell, INCREASE acupuncture for BS ailments. Less cost on the taxpayer, and Joe Rifleman will still be able to shoot brown people.\n\nEdit: Don't thank me. You're paying for my college education if you're a US Citizen.
I've had some weird things happen to me, only to have an explanation afterwards, but it was exciting when it happened, however there is one thing that I could never explain away.\n\nMy pregnant wife(at the time) and I were staying with a couple in Texas in a newly developed mobile home park.  I would typically go to sleep early because I was in the Army and had to get up at the crack of dawn.  One night I awoke to my bed vibrating, almost violently.  This immediately woke me up.  I was pretty lucid when I woke up and the shaking continued for about 20 seconds, but felt like forever.  Almost immediately I thought earth-quake.... but in Texas?  After the shaking stopped and left the room and found my wife and our roommate in the computer room bullshitting.  I asked them if they felt that shaking and they looked at me all crazy.\n\nThe lady roommate is Mexican and the next day walked through the house burning sage or something to expel spirits.  But I really didn't think it was a ghost because it was a newly developed area.  Weirded me out though.\n\nI recently looked it up and read that this isn't too uncommon.  Some claim its a ghost, some claim its the start of an astral projection, and some claim its a mechanic of sleep.
At the risk of being a downer, just a bit of pragmatic advice.  If at some point you do not feel that you can do it, don't do it.  There will be many times in life you have similar confrontations; choose your battles.  \n\nAlso, if he is bio prof and doesn't know the science, a student correcting him in class is not going to change his mind.  So think about what you hope to achieve from this.  If you are primary concern is that your classmates will get the wrong information, you can talk to them later separately.  You can also talk to some of them prior to the class.  There might be others who feel just like you do, and they might want to join in so that you are not the only one carrying the burden.  Keep us posted how it goes.
What?  Not to be a dick but nothing was proven.  She didn't respond, that isn't proof that she couldn't have done it.  I'm not on her side but it's an extreme logical fallacy to think anything was proven from this.\n\nedit
[Relevant?](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdbzHJNoO5o)
He might've meant the various "miraculous healings" attributed to her/her presence.\n\n>They were drawn too because they believed Edwarda had miracle healing powers: A woman with an inoperable brain tumor was cancer-free months after she touched Edwarda. Two girls with cystic fibrosis were apparently healed in the months after visiting her room. Even skeptics said they felt a strange aura when they walked into the North Miami home.\n\nOfcourse, without any documentation to back it up, it means nothing. I can claim a man was cured of cancer after laying in the same hospitalroom as my grandfather and you'd have as much reason to believe me. (As far as I'm aware, no one was ever cured of cancer due to being near anyone of my family)\n\n
> Fluoridation is both safe and effective.\n\nI'd agree that it falls within acceptable bounds of safety, and that it does have a measurable positive effect, but would disagree with the implication that I'm sensing from you that it's 100% free of negative side effects.  There is evidence, for example, that rates of low to moderate dental fluorosis increase with water fluoridation...  Not by any means saying that that's a huge problem (or that I have any qualifications that would give me any authority to speak to the hazards associated with dental fluorosis, for that matter), but it's not accurate to imply that there are no negative effects of fluoridation.
Life on Mars is 99% certain...but of what?  So it's sentient?
Ok, you have a pleasant evening.
So 20+ Hitler documentaries a day it is then!
>Not so much unfair as just pointlessly restrictive. 'What we don't know' is still a part of the 'real' world.\n\nI'm with you. I just want to avoid the approach of [argument from ignorance](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance), where fantastic claims are made, shoved into gaps in our knowledge, and then talked about as if they are true. You find this a lot in the new age circles with quantum physics. "How does Reiki work?" "Well, on a quantum level, the energy..." and so on. You also find it within UFOlogy, if we're going to be fair, and I just don't know that there's any value is debating over speculations fueled by arguments from ignorance. I'd rather we all just say "I don't know" when we don't know. You know?\n\n>You seem to assume that we have all of the knowledge needed to understand the nature of reality itself and the problem of space travel within it.\n\nI do not assume this, I assure you! Why did you think I assumed this, by the way? That's the exact opposite of where I'm coming from. If I communicated so poorly, I'm sorry.
It's simple: we give the doctor some DMT.
"Ok, let's look at the whole picture in relation to shootings like the one in Newtown."\n\nNo, not just in relation to shootings like in Newton. Mass shootings represent a very very small percentage in relation to all violent crimes. Why on earth would you focus solely on such a small portion of violent crimes?\n\n"Blame is attached to a society of crime, but crime rates are the same as in comparable countries."\n\nThis pretty much sums up my point, even with countries that have significantly more gun control than the US they still have similar crime rates. This shows that gun control isn't an absolute solution.\n\n"Blame is attached to media coverage, but when massacres happen in other countries they make just as much, if not more news, and yet they don't have a culture of mass killings."\n\nWhat about Europe? When you combine a bunch of countries in Europe that equals the population and mass of the US there are just as many mass shooting over the past 10 years or so and most of Europe has very strict gun control laws.\n\n"Blame is attached to mental illness, which is just as prevalent in the US as it is anywhere else, and the country has typically been one of the better in addressing mental health problems."\n\nSee my comment about Europe above.\n\n"Blame is attached to violent media, which is present in all first world countries, equally in Canada where there are less deaths, and especially in Japan where there are almost none."\n\nI don't believe violent media is much of an issue if at all.
My point exactly.  Science tells us *how* to achieve things, but not *what* we should be achieving.
If people learned about N-Rays in school, they might not.  But do you know any school that teaches about such things?\n
Because most people don't buy fluoride rinse.
>, is it totally weird for me to support this woman and give her my business?\n\nnot if you're just paying for massages.
Here's one I have the link for on hand: http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/PP17863/description.html\n\nIt's also amazing just how much more radiation resistant plants are, 50 greys is a frightening amount of radiation.
Awesome to see a local story. I've been there, never with a camera. Theres security during the day but people go up there all the time. Theres also an awesome rope swing into the river very close by
**WARNING: LONG STORY**\n\nI moved to a new apartment a few weeks back and every night there would be four knocks coming from my bedroom door. Thing is, they sound  *exactly* like a person knocking on a door, as if they were knocking with a sense of urgency. This would occur throughout the entire night in 5 minute intervals. Sometimes the knocks would be loud, and sometimes they would be softer. \n\nFor the past several years, I'd regularly wake up in the middle of the night with [sleep paralysis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis), coupled with some pretty intense and terrifying [hypnopompic hallucinations](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnopompic).\n\nSo a every so often in the new apartment, I'd hear the eerie knocks on the wall, and I'd wake up with my body entirely paralyzed. I'd try to scream, but my mouth won't open. I then notice a small African boy sitting in the corner of the room. I can only make out a vauge outline of his features because of his black skin obscured against the darkness of the room. The only thing I can make out are the whites of his eyes; brilliantly bright, staring at me. He slowly climbs onto the bed and moves over to strangle me. Then he suddenly disappears and I gain control over my body again.\n\nThis happens about once every fortnight. Usually, I'm certain that I'm awake when it happens, but I know enough about sleep paralysis and hypnopompic states that I can write these experiences off as nightmares. I almost sympathize with people that have experiences like this and attribute them as being supernatural, as they just don't understand what is going on. \n\nTL;DR: If I was a little more credulous, I'd certainly claim my new apartment was haunted, or that a little African boy ghost has been following me for my entire life.
Radium Bromatum is probably harmless, it's used by Boiron who are a massive producer of placebos, they wouldn't allow anything dangerous in their products because they'd get sued for massive amounts of money.\n\nIt's probably because the dog's condition is getting worse on its own, rather than the water causing anything.\n\nGet some real medicine.
According to a recent thread in r/askscience, there's absolutely no proof that stress causes your hair to become grey or white.
Isn't the implication here that this is a jab at all the women who didn't feel safe. If so, please allow me to be the first person who will argue in defense of those people, though I can't claim to speak on their behalf. \n\nPlease let me know if you have any questions or you want to discuss/argue key points. I'm not an expert on the topic and always want to learn more about it.
Without scientific analysis, how would we possibly know these two sources suck?
I should start drinking more before writing xD
It seems impossible indeed, as I mentioned in OP it seems really far-fetched, but these stories still make me think- what if? Do things like this really happen? There's no way to prove it unfortunately.\n\nI really like the theory of your conciousness traveling to different realities existing at the same time. I think I might have even read another article about it once, which was quite interesting, If I find it i'll provide a link. Excuse my English btw, I'm Dutch.\n\nEDIT: Couldn't find it, but here's a [very interesting forum post](http://www.tenthdimension.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2016) I found
OK, you got me there. I made an offhanded comment about the expense that you've latched on to and missed the point.  Sure, having the disease can be more expensive than getting vaccinated.
> how can I believe in something that's not immediately provable and often ridiculed by the scientific community\n\nI think it's kind of laughable to be thinking of yourself as a "skeptic" when you say things like this.\n\nHalf a century or so ago, the "scientific community" was perfectly fine with trans-orbital lobotomies(as one minute example of the scientific establishment completely missing the ball). You need to do *your own* investigation, and use *your own* mind to come to *your own* conclusion.\n\nBelieving or disbelieving something on reflex based on majority opinion, or dismissing an idea out of contempt//accepting it because some perceived authority tells you to, prior to investigation, MEANS YOU ARE THE OPPOSITE OF SKEPTICAL.\n\nComing to this subreddit with this conditioned response to the acronym "UFO" of 'her her must be full of the aliens kidnapped elvis crowd her her' makes a person about as skeptical as your typical FoxNews viewer - that is to say, not at all skeptical, but firm in the misguided belief that they are.
Moonlight Sonata?
That was the most laughably stupid thing I have seen in a *long* time. Seriously. Implausible and absurd doesn't even begin to describe that so-called "revelation". "It looks like something, therefore it *is* something!" is **not** a revelation or even vaguely scientific or factual; it's just another masturbatory geek fantasy. \n\nI believe in UFOs. I have seen them and read a **lot** on the subject. In my opinion mindless crap like this does more damage to the UFO phenomenon's credibility than closed-minded skeptics who flat-out deny that *any* part of it is real.\n\nSo: downmodded to hell. Come here with something concrete or some valid discussion of the topic or please just GTFO. JPEG artifacts are the realm of idiots like Richard Hoagland, and will be downmodded  accordingly.
Did you get a picture with him?
why would huffington run with something like this? i kinda thought they were... better.
> Cupping\n\nProbably not what I imagine it to be.
http://sifter.org/~brandyn/Democracy3.gif
You were shot in the head and lived? That alone is a glitch in the matrix.
So let me get this straight, this man gets abducted by aliens and placed on an examination table. The aliens conveniently forgot to strap him in, so he jumps up, grabs a glass rod and proceeds to fight off the aliens, who run away and let Travis run amok inside their space ship.\n\nThe case reads like bad 1970's science fiction with glass rods and glassy helmets and space ships being operated by leavers.\n\nBesides that, Travis seems to have failed the polygraph test.\n\nAs for why, the company he worked for, which was owned by his friend and future brother-in-law, had a contract with the US Forest Service, a contract which they could not fulfill. This "UFO abduction" was an attempt by them to dissolve the contract under the "[act of God](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act_of_God)" clause.
You had better try explaining it again. I just read the whole article and it does NOT say that. The whole idea behind the article is using his self healing catalyst design to facilitate the conversion of dirty water (as opposed to perfectly clean distilled water) to H and O.\n\nThe H would then be used to store the power from the solar cells for use when solar radiation is not present.\n\nThe cool part is his self healing catalyst. Hope it works.\n
Wind/door naturally closes/bounced off spring etc
Were you wearing glasses?  Maybe it was a reflection.
The song was released 15 or 16 years ago, so by the time you remember having an opinion about it, it was already 5 or 6 years old, and it was all over the place, like commercials, movies, etc.
Like perfectly intelligent and highly educated Koreans who still believe in 'Fan Death'. It's emotional, not rational.
It already takes 3 weeks to get a non-emergency appointment with my dentist he seems too busy already.
This isn't going to be helpful, but I would be freaking out. Have a great weekend :)
I was amazed the first time someone showed me "proof" of demonic possession. With claims that the voices were so real, and horrifyingly inhuman that no one could ever doubt that they were the result of supernatural forces. And then, some of the most ridiculous playacting I've seen since the "lightning bolt" guy.
MIND BLOWING CGI
>Well, it's more like overdose of aspirin can cause liver poisoning; evidence actually suggest that long-term use of aspirin at a reasonable does can actually prevent liver damage.\n\nThat's actually interesting. Do you have a source for that? I generally avoid taking aspirin/Ibuprofen/Tylenol when I have a headache because of fear of casual use causing long term liver damage.\n\n>Also, you'd have to take about $500 worth of homeopathic remedies to deal with dehydration.\n\nI know, I'm just giving you a hard time. :P
Agreed.
Because the rest of reddit does not think about /r/Skeptic.
It's more accurate to say that /r/skeptic doesn't like medical claims which aren't backed up by good science and good evidence.  Since chiropractic has neither good science nor good evidence to back it up, it is generally discounted as a viable healing modality.  \n\nIf you go to a doctor with an infection, you will not get two different medical recommendations on how to deal with it - you will not be told by one doctor to take a course of antibiotics, and told by another to find out what energies are negatively effecting your body's natural healing ability.  Depending on the chiropractor you go to, your back pain could be caused by a pinched nerve, or by blocked energy pathways.  These two explanations are mutually exclusive, as they're based on two completely contradictory understandings of human physiology - and basic physics.  This should make anyone suspicious of their broader claims; if two chiropractors can disagree on exactly how their 'healing' works, this might be indicative of a larger problem with the chiropractic field.
Just a thought. Maybe you teleported. That'd be cool
i always want to send these kind of videos to friends who "believe," but then i know their rationalizations kick in and they'll explain it away with "oh you can't use psychic powers where there's so much lack of faith in the room/negative vibrations/bad energy, etc.  That's why they fail in front of him."\n\nsigh.
Yep. 20 hours a day. She eats and shits at her desk.
The models actually have been fairly accurate. A quick googling found [this brief list of successfully predicted phenomena](http://www.grist.org/article/climate-models-are-unproven/).\n\nI found that because I looked for it. Does your climatology research disagree?
I know. You're probably right, "the simplest explanation is most likely the correct one." \n\nBut the thing that seems totally out of the ordinary for this story, even as a phenomenal genius, was the fact that he did it beginning at 2 years of age! That's what blows me away and makes me question. Developmental norms for a 2 year old are usually thumb sucking, beginning to use a utensil while eating, potty training, obeying simple commands. I find it hard to believe his blank slate of a developing brain could know all of this or pick it up from a commercial. \n\nEdit: And according to his parents, not only do they both not play any stringed instruments, they had not introduced him to them, or had any in the home. Maybe I just don't understand the mind of a baby genius yet. I don't know. I read a couple books about [Ian Stevenson's](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Stevenson) research a few years back and I've been super fascinated with children who know and remember things that they should have no way of knowing.\n\n
I'm from the middle east, I never hear stories of people being abducted here. Maybe because people here have so much problems to care about that they don't even consider aliens and so. Thats one of the reasons why I'm so skeptical about abduction it only happens to Americans lol.
lol same thought here
Well, it's completely out of focus for the entire video, so it could be damn near anything. Are other people seeing out-of-focus shit in the sky?
Nobody will read this anymore, but this obvious hoax has been irrefutably exposed as another piece of poor CGI. Here's the original footage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9Qsdxye6Yc
nope\n
Only time... and SCIENCE!, will tell.
Holy shit! That's my blog. What a supremely weird coincidence.  \n\nI can't take credit for the pic though. I think it was the Australian Skeptics who made it.
At least you admit it.
oh shit man... Good luck.
I actually had to explain this to one of my roommates. She was all up in arms about how medical researchers don't take alternative medicines seriously.\n\nIt took a while for her to realize that any advantage is seized in healthcare. If alternative medicines *did* work, they'd be right at the front of testing; if these medicines can produce an actual improvement, then it can be quantifiable and measurable and testable.
"Followers believe that turning the prayer wheel has the same effect as reading the mantras it contains, and the more mantras a wheel holds, the more powerful its effect."\n\nLazy cheating bastards.
So, your god was wrong or lying when he told Muhammad to write (or preach) those things that contradict science?\n\nThe other thing, about the soul, why would you think that you *do* have a soul?  I mean, there seems to be a wealth of evidence that the body is responsible for its own actions, and that cognition resides in the nervous system, if it weren't for religion, is there any reason to believe otherwise?
My sister and I went there on our last road trip, but we didn't stay overnight. I would also recommend going to the cemetery where they are all buried. It is a beautiful cemetery. \n\nFrankly, we didn't stay very long or even attempt to do any sort of "hunting". When we walked through and saw the children's rooms, we were sad and ashamed of ourselves for treating this as some sort of entertainment.
I'll try to explain, but don't take that to mean I agree with the number.\n\nFirstly, the machines he went through had to be identified, isolated, examined, wiped and rebuilt (in the software sense). If he connected to one desktop PC, he could have gone through or potentially gone through hundreds of other machines. Everything from PC's to servers to routers and switches is a potential to be ID'd and examined.\n\nSecondly, whatever service these machines were providing can no longer be provided while they are isolated, examined, wiped and rebuilt. So new machines probably had to be specced, bought, built and deployed.\n\nNo nations military or govt likes to take chances, so they probably hired some contractors at gigantic daily rates to do this identification and examination.\n\nSo if you take all that into account, the cost could easily have been in the hundreds of thousands range. That is real money that came from a real budget.\n\nBut ... I would not be surprised if there is a flat figure for every machine he went through, and that is used for the purpose of legally assessing damage. That is not real money that came from a real budget. It's just a number that may or may not be close to the truth.
I have a dressing mirror in my bedroom, I cannot see my reflection from my bed.
Ya don't think he's, you know, with *them* do ya?
aside from games, listening to music/podcasts/audiobooks, watching videos, reading offline email/rss feeds, composing emails, whatever other apps you've got installed that don't need the internet to work\n\n60-70% of the stuff I use my android phone for doesn't require a network connection (as opposed to a feature phone)
You don't want to know where the third one was.
looks like a street lamp.  they are very common on roads.
...and except for the fact that they think they have to carry Kachera, Kara, Kirpan, Kanga and Kesh with them at all times.
Never in my life, only in that room, and the beds were twin beds so, yes they were small. I do understand the logic behind that if It happened and I expected it to happen then my brain made it happen. But if it's just that why did Tucker have the same thing happen.
I'm not. But the adrenaline you get from being afraid is fun.
I believe the Scientology connection comes from Werner Erhard being a former, high-ranking Scientology member that left under bad terms.  At least this is what a Landmark Instructor told me not too long ago.
There are no transitional forms, and chickens aren't done evolving. There was no "first true chicken". Any chicken along the path would be the same species as its immediate parent, even if it could not produce genetically viable offspring with its great-grandparents generation. \n\nThe transition you are describing is far more gradual than you are giving it credit for. Whatever egg encased the hypothetical "first true chicken", it was a chicken egg, just like the egg that the following generation would produce, and with effectively the same thing inside.
Source:\n\nImagine you go see a movie which costs $10 for a ticket. When you open your wallet or purse you realize you’ve lost a $10 bill. Would you still buy a ticket? You probably would. Only 12 percent of subjects said they wouldn’t. Now, imagine you go to see the movie and pay $10 for a ticket, but right before you hand it over to get inside you realize you’ve lost it. Would you go back and buy another ticket? Maybe, but it would hurt a lot more. In the experiment, 54 percent of people said they would not. The situation is the exact same. You lose $10 and then must pay $10 to see the movie, but the second scenario feels different. It seems as if the money was assigned to a specific purpose and then lost, and loss sucks. This is why Farmville is so addictive people have lost their jobs over it.\n\n[ - The Sunk Cost Fallacy](http://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/03/25/the-sunk-cost-fallacy/)
I've always believed that the Soviets had the same level of understanding/interaction as the US did, and that in fact the Space Race and Cold War were a direct result of this knowledge, either as a distraction or a dispute over how to proceed.\n\nAlso,\n>January, 1950: Josef Stalin, then leader of the Soviet Union, allegedly met with extraterrestrial beings in a secure military base in the outskirts of Stalingrad. \n\nThere is no reference cited for this.\n\nIt's purely speculation without a source.\n\n\n\n
To be fair, I doubt if there are many people who *enjoy* paying taxes, rich or otherwise. For me, his statement shows a certain lack of introspection along with an unwillingness to recognize that the people he was talking to are equally lacking introspection-wise (not to mention compassion-wise).\n\nI think that Ted Danson's character in Damages is a perfect example of such people except that Danson's character at least had *some* experience with lack, unlike, apparently, Romney and the people he was talking to.\n\nTo those who object that I am bringing political philosophy into this discussion, I'd like to point out that there is increasing scientific evidence that people who have extreme wealth actually have brains that measurably function differently than the average person's.
The "detox" products used for masking drugs are in fact not detoxing anything.  Most are made to coat the lining of your digestive tract so nothing new passes into your urine for 4-6 hours.  They are called detox kits for the same reason bongs are called water pipes.
LOL, did she say "go learn something" to him?
EVERYTHING!!
I don't know if the high heat capacity of water (and what heat capacity does) is common knowledge, but I feel it should as it's so useful to know in the cold.
I think it must. I read a lot when I was younger. Now I read a lot but less books and more articles and blogs online. Other people I know with large working vocabularies (not that I'd call my own large) tend to be major readers as well.
Thanks a lot.  What other super fruit fads are going on?  Is acai one, or are its effects fairly legitimate
Do you really want to touch that plump sticky boy?\n\nActually, don't answer.
Two black helicopters over New Jersey yesterday. Def Military. However, I live right next to NYC and they were probably surveying damage, transporting something, etc. I see air traffic all of the time living here, since Newark Airport is 10 min from me, and NYC is about 10min as well. We also have some small airports nearby. I see air traffic all day, these choppers were black, military, and much different than what I usually see. Just my two pennies.
It's well known that skin changes its conductivity under stress. The polygraph simply measures that conductivity. That doesn't mean that a polygraph will go off when someone is lying, but when the mind is worried about something. Polygraphs are a tool, and all tools can be misused. That doesn't mean they are complete hogwash.
I can honestly say that I am responsible for several of my friends thinking that there is something valid about a ouija board.\n\nThere's not. It was me.
That is understandable, and it is good to be humble about such matters.  I used to paint a lot in the 90's and sold several of my paintings. I too used to ask a very meager price for my artwork. I learned a lot about the business of selling your artwork during that time in my life. One thing I learned is that the majority of people who buy art are wealthy and willing to pay really good money for art. It doesn't matter if it is ridiculously minimalist.  The trick is to catch the eye of one of these people. I know you may not feel like your artwork may be worth a huge sum of money, but believe me when I say there is somebody out there willing to pay a large sum of money for it. Don't let the fear that somebody might think you are being greedy hold you back. Be willing to go just a few steps beyond what you think is fair. It's not being greedy. It is being good to yourself.  As far as fixing computers goes, just because you think it is easy doesn't make it less valuable.
Morons and cretins have a tendency to mistake one thing for another, it's a byproduct of being an imbecile.
Or that consciousness and sentience isn't as special as we think it is.
The website looks like crap, but the information in it is great: http://www.csulb.edu/~tstevens/my-peek.htm\n\nThe whole book is online for free, but I ended up buying the actual book.\n\nAlso you may want to check out positive psychology: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_psychology
ive had a pretty boring couple of months and i haven't seen any glitches or anything. Wierd things happen to me at the height of whatever emotion im feeling. Like im giving fuel to my awesome time control abilities.
That text reads like a parody. :(\n\nI suppose the previous batches of graduates proved to be neither obedient nor gullible enough.\n
Do not want.\n\nI disagree with most of what modern feminists have to say, and this reaffirms my beliefs.\n\nHumans have always been more polygynous than polyandrous.  Thus, men are evolutionarily predisposed to be hunters, pioneers, inventors, scientists, and other kinds of risk takers in the hopes that they'll do something friggin sweet so they'll get mad pussy.
It makes me feel as though Nat Geo is going the way of the History Channel.
Good synopsis.
I've found it to be more effective, and, as an added bonus, no ammonia - which is awesome for aquarium use.
I have.\n\nBut it was a unicorn, so it's cool.
Two possible reasons. Thanks for a response.
| They're coming my friend.\n\nThat gave me both hope and the creeps. Excellent choice of music, BTW.
Very interesting. The unfortunate thing is that it is so far away and blurry that nothing conclusive can be said about it.
Nice excuse...\n\nI love to see people try defending their hypocrisy...
I want to see pictures.
It was a stale attempt at light humor. Basically when a dog barks or growls for no apparent reason it's because the cricket farted.
No, we didn't get out because my fiance was driving and he noticed me jump and gasp but it took me a few minutes to actually say anything to him and ask if he saw it too. He said he didn't really see it but he has seen the shadows on the road before. I didn't hear a sound just that feeling that we hit something and the sudden jump of the shadow hitting our windshield.
i hear that a lot, and that happens to me. its the specific strains that cause that. strains that are primarily indica dominant, cause side effects such as those.\n\nbut sativa strains have much much less of a paranoia factor
WTF did I just watch.  That was awful.
After a while, it ends up being confirmation bias. No one notices when the cat *isn't* there, so those misses get overlooked. \nIt's the same flaw that causes people to think that emergency rooms and psych wards are busier on full moons.
Barley, as in the grain used to make beer?
More money needs to be pumped into education.
The US also has a higher rate of overweight or obese mothers, which is associated with all kinds of problems during pregnancy and birth.
So you walked all the way into a room, and then, upon realising that you were standing on not-very-solid-feeling ground, you fell 6 feet directly downwards? I have to say... this sounds pretty made up.
Readjustments are very dangerous as they're mostly performed be people with no formal medical training. There are instances of people dying after readjustments. Young, healthy people, where the death has been directly attributed to the chiropractic procedure. \n\nFor those for whom readjustments do alleviate pain, it's always a temporary relief and doesn't address the root cause. Sports therapists will diagnose the actual problem and put a physiotherapy plan in place for you. \n\nThe problem with back issues is that there's very rarely a simple solution. It often takes months of therapy to help. People like quick fixes, even when they're no really fixes.
Gotta love the guy, "Oh noo, the three of knive in the face".
It wasn't generated by the government.
Wait until it pushes in on him at about 2:31, on the table plain as can be right off his left shoulder. This is what happens when you don't have someone on continuity, though I would imagine they thought nobody would notice something like that, oops.
I actually wish the exact opposite: That core science would be covered a great deal more in school, that the scientific method would get a much larger share of the core school curriculum, and that schools would do that kind of education with a minimum of focus on math, as it's not needed at that point (it does turn some people off before they get a chance to understand that science is just a way of asking questions and getting useful answers).
kinda like the self fulfilling prophechy
Three of those are already true, wow.
Tommy Chong was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer, and he used cannabis oil, now his cancer is 99% gone.\n\nMind you, he also completely cleaned up his diet, started exercising more and generally taking better care of himself.\n\nThere are dozens of stories about Tommy using hemp oil to treat his cancer, but I can't find one mainstream source about him now being cancer free.\n\nhttp://www.cnn.com/2012/06/09/showbiz/chong-prostate-cancer/index.html\n\nhttp://room101radio.net/2012/07/28/tommy-chong-is-99-cancer-free/\n\n\nThe problem is, it's treated as a joke.  The media portrayal of marijuana is still some cutesy shit that makes you giggle a bit.  Anyone that has gone deep with serious marijuana use knows it can make you cripplingly introspective and terrified.\n\nAccording to Tommy, the "hemp" oil as it's been called will put you on your ass if you don't have a strong tolerance.\n\nPsychedelic drugs are an untapped medical resource.  MDMA has shown some potential in treating PTSD, psilocybin has been shown to make people happier and more content with their lives for a year after taking a dose.  Iowaska, which is legal in some parts of south america, is used in clinics to get people off of opiate addictions.\n\nThe fact is, we don't really know, and we can't have any good volume of studies because of the idiotic anti-drug laws.\n\nThere are a lot of adults who want to be able to have controlled psychedelic experiences to give them a different perspective on their lives, to help them move on with something in their life, to see into what they might think is another world.  Instead, we have world governments that want to throw you in prison and use you as slave labour if you're caught with a certain species of mushroom in your pocket, or god forbid you try to sell that mushroom to someone, then you're just evil.
This informative article taught me that even though you may be a skeptic and the author of over 70 books, you can still be a total cunt.
Here's [one for CEOs](http://www.theyrule.net/).  Kinda scary.\n
I've never done that.
Not to mention that every wealthy Chinese family has a little garden hut out back where their dead ancestors can all argue with each other.*\n\n*Disney films used exclusively for research.
This. When I read the title, I immediately thought "you should feel like an asshole." but when I read the post i changed my mind. Selling woo is not your primary job, so I'd say your not an ass. So, look for a new job while you work this one, and donate to Skeptoid or the SGU, or Hrab or... well, you get the point.
Oh yeah big time. I just watched an episode the other day where he was awkwardly suggesting he marry one of the old ladies taking them on the tour of the haunted ranch and then he does this weird clumsy proposal. \n\nAnd the fake "ooo im possessed now" is really awkward as well. Like the time he was pretending to be the dead matron in the haunted Juvenal prison.
Well, Bob Lazar's story would have been ignored if it wasn't for his story being substantiated by some very serious source, at just the right time, and the fact Lazar himself consistently proving his technical expertise of cutting edge technology.  \n\nA read a good theory is that Lazar was *hired* by the government to spread interest of technological clout in Area 51.  If every scientist in the world thinks that area 51 is "the edge of the universe", then it could go a long way in advancing the facility's agenda.  \n\nOtherwise, his "disclosure" would have been ignored, and he would have disappeared like everyone else.
alakazam
Do they do drills on the weekends? If not its 1 in 66.
At the tops of their respective professions.\n\nAnd yes, very cool people indeed. :)
In this country, people are entitled to their opinions. What people don't understand is that others have the equal right to disregard their opinion; this expresses that very well.
Being religious opens the doors for such silly beliefs.
No.  We can not.  \n\nWe do not know if they are.
Apply directly to the gullible idiot!
> I think there is a difference between saying that because a claim is not supported by good evidence, I find no reason to believe it and saying that because a claim is not supported by good evidence, it is false.\n\nAbsolutely true.\n\n> Whether one "feels safe" or not is irrelevant.\n\n...I wasn't trying to push the idea of "feeling safe" so much as point out that we can make rationally safe assumptions about how realistic proposed scenarios are.  Feelings can often betray us as much as the fear of monsters under our bed as little children.
Yea, meridians, life forces, energy flow, all that stuff is bunk.
> they don't believe that there should be a barrier between your soul and the divine, or what the fuck ever.\n\nThe fuck does that even mean? I've never heard such a thing.\n\nAt any rate, I can sympathize with this. Being correct for incorrect reasons doesn't mean much to me.
Amateurs CAN do science. It's been very successful in fields of astronomy, palaeontology, bird counts (Audubon does these surveys with backyard birders) and various individuals finding something unique and taking it to people who are qualified to look at it. The problem with amateur cryptozoologists (paranormal investigators and ufologists) is that they have their own insular community that is shut off from science. There are many skeptics and scientists who would help them understand the "evidence" they are collecting but various roadblocks exist to cooperation. \n\n(I am the author of the linked piece, BTW. There is a longer piece on amateurs doing sciencey things in the Mar/Apr issue of Skeptical Inquirer.)
Sorry but I find this argument invalid. Dr. Greer stated once, that he has a free energy device. Now why wouldn't he release it? No one (as far as I can see) is endangered by just releasing the machine OR even better: a blue print which he or his sources developed and which would not give away his sources.
[They did](http://www.reddit.com/r/Denver/comments/13da3k/this_is_the_denver_ufo_meeting_followup_post/)\n\nYou know all you had to do was search for "Denver" in this sub and you would have seen it in 2 seconds.
It is highly unlikely that our government could keep something of that magnitude a secret, especially with wikileaks around. \n\n Did they twist it to fit their political agenda, and bring our nation into a war? Perhaps.  Could you come with plausible reasons as to how they were indirectly responsible (i.e. inciting the terrorists to attack us, failing to do absolutely everything in their power to guard against such attacks)? Possibly.  But it flies in the face of so much evidence to the contrary to say that our government emptied the planes, then flew drones into the towers that were primed with explosives.\n\nA lot of the conspiracies look at unanswered or poorly answered questions or inconsistencies then say that since the government can't or won't answer them, it must have been cruise missiles and elite black ops illuminati agents.  That is like saying that since we don't fully understand the big bang, creationism is true and evolution is false.  \n\nMaybe we have some detail wrong, maybe some things are not adequately understood, it doesn't mean that the real answer must be the opposite of what we've been told.
Hammer, \n\nMaybe my "gish gosh" got to you let's start slowly ok?\n\n\nDr. Herbert Benson of Harvard Medical \n\n\nhttp://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v295/n5846/pdf/295234a0.pdf\n\nFrom the journal: Nature.\n\nBody temperature changes during the practice of g Tum-mo yoga\n\n\n\n\n\nSince meditative practices are associated with changes that are consistent with decreased activity of the sympathetic nervous system1–7, it is conceivable that measurable body temperature changes accompany advanced meditative states. With the help of H.H. the Dalai Lama, we have investigated such a possibility on three practitioners of the advanced Tibetan Buddhist meditational practice known as g Tum-mo (heat) yoga living in Upper Dharamsala, India. We report here that in a study performed there in February 1981, we found that these subjects exhibited the capacity to increase the temperature of their fingers and toes by as much as 8.3°C.
It could also be a rotational artifact of the satellite itself.  Many satellites rotate in their orbits at regular rates.
I think I have been trolled... he knew I'd post to /r/skeptic and get him all sorts of new business.
Without going too meta, it seems like those images existed for the filmer and co, to be able to be seen. They saw it and it showed up on camera. Certainly an visual anomaly in 3d space.
Soy actually is genetically modified to make it as resistant to pesticides and other crap as possible. Some 90% of it is GM.
You win, your workplaces proxy has a much more skeptical mind than mine:\n>Tru-View has categorised this page as Drugs
While there are times where a fully fleshed answer; that takes long turns of exposition to detail all the characters, plots and subplots; is commendable, using a single exemplar, such as Jerry Falwell, is a shortcut to an idea. No, Falwell was just one man, who's reach may have been limited, but he is a standard bearer for the political evangelical christian movement. \n\nAs part of a terse summation of significant contributors to the ascendency of ignorant ideas in the US, referencing the entire Christian Conservative movement with Jerry Falwell is succinct, evocative and sufficient.
You're thinking of omniscience. Also see my other comment. Why should the future be any different from the past in regards to free will?
Because Prince Charles is a fucking tool.
Sounds simple enough:\n\n*A psychonaut is a person who experiences intentionally induced altered states of consciousness and claims to use the experience to investigate his or her mind, and possibly address spiritual questions, through direct experience.*\n\nTake drugs, report experiences. \n\nAlthough these people seem to take it a step further and think that through their drug induced hallucinations are somehow enabling them to learn something about the real world..
Ever seen a small child get a little tiny paper cut and start bawling?\nSo what happens when you put a bandaid on the cut?\nThey immediately stop crying.\nIt's not about the pain.\n\nSame principle. It's a placebo effect.
Or treat anything that is in the favor with belief and treat everything else with skepticism, especially when its in that order.
Hmm, let's see. Joe Rogan's arguments:\n\n* Nuclear waste lasts 100,000 years.\n* Calling anti-nuclear people "pro-coal" is disingenuous.\n\nZach Weiner's arguments:\n\n* We'll be able to reprocess nuclear waste within 1,000 years.\n* Coal is currently the only viable large-scale alternative to nuclear.\n* Far more deaths per watt happen from coal than from nuclear.\n* Coal is a major contributor to global warming.\n\nLooks to me like Zach won by a good country mile. And all while being consistently polite, compared to Rogan who generally came off as a dick.
Don Cherry gets legitimately angry when he's questioned about Cold F/X.\n\n"It works for me" is good enough science for him.
I get these 'dream predictions' too, it's always fun because I rarely dream (or, probably more accurately, remember my dreams) but when I do I can be almost assured it's a prediction of some sort.\n\nA personal example: I predicted the layout of a room (rectangular, absolutely stuffed with chairs), the shoes the person next to me was wearing (You couldn't see the actual shoe underneath all the long snow white fake fur), and, most strikingly, the fancy exit signs (red light projected through glass with EXIT etched into it). \n\nAll of this in a building that was still under construction at the time of my dream! The fancy signs and the weird shoes made me think it was just a sci-fi dream of some sort, nope, just a girl with weird fashion sense and a new building.
Whoah.  Is it still 2011?
Why not an osteopath?\n\nWhy not a physical therapist?
Do you know how this wave of storms that passed through tonight impacted the fires yet? The west side of FTW got two giant supercell storms. I hope they got as far as you.
Fuck me...  I just watched that at 3:11 AM lol.
Wish I had another upvote to give this comment.\n
Well they're not like the ghosts we usually think of though. They're more skittish and they look like shadows. They're both ghosts, but they're in two different categories. If you categorize anything that has to do with ghosts, say paranormal was the family, ghosts are the genus, and the different types are ghosts like apparitions, orbs, vortexes, etc are the species. Well shadow ghosts would fall under the category species.
First of all, the fact that it was recorded using a smart phone camera makes it inadmissible in my eyes. You'll find if you attempt to slow it down and zoom in, the resolution is too poor to be able to identify whatever it is that moves in the video. Do you have any other reason to believe that there's something paranormal happening at this location?
I'm already immunized, but that level of stupidity still shocked me.\n\nYes, there is something to it: the number of followers, of course!\n\n/facepalm
Our nephew (his sisters son) experiences night terrors.  It never occurred to me that it could happen to my husband as an adult, but now that you mention it, it could be possible because he is an Iraq veteran.  It just seems a little strange because its been 2 years since he got back from Iraq.
Interesting, and it counters their "Everything we do is fluffy and nice!" way that they like to present themselves.
My friends and I went to Vermont with the kids for the weekend to stay at my friends cabin. The first night we drank and played the ouija board. Nothing too spooky happened the ouija board always spells the same shit every time we play. The next day we were in the kitchen cooking dinner when my friends three year old starts yelling at the other kids to get in the house. The kids come inside and the three year old closes and locks the front door, starts closing the drapes and yells at us to close the back door and windows. We were so confused...her mom asks her what is going on and in a serious creepy way says "the darkness is coming". We nearly shit our pants! Needless to say we did not play the ouija that night!
Neat.  I actually didn't know that. According to the [big internet brain](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_of_Asclepius) the Rod of Asclepius is associated with astrology as well as medicine and healing. The brain also lists many medical organizations that utilize the symbol.  Thankfully, some American agencies do have it right.  \n\nThe brain has a [whole entry](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caduceus#Misuse_as_Symbol_of_medicine) on the misuse of the caduceus though.  \n\nPS: Thanks for helping me waste a few minutes while waiting for something at work.
your right it could be that.  the ones I saw last week popped in and out of existence.
I'm closely connected with several NASA scientists (including an astrobiologist whose job is analyzing Mars strata for fossilized life).  I can honesty tell you that they don't know anything definitive about extraterrestrial life or UFO's.\n\n They are desperately budgeting every dollar they have to try and answer the question of whether there is extraterrestrial life and where it is at. I cannot say the same for the Department of Defense or the CIA, but NASA at least isn't covering anything up - they just don't know yet what is going on and they are budget-starved while trying to figure it out.
To be fair, they appear to average out as independent events but there can be made very compelling arguments as to why that might not have been the case. If the data showed that yes indeed players are streaky, I can't see anyone being shocked by that.\n\nIt would be fun to try this with various games and sports. Although fiercely aware of my own biases, I still find it difficult to imagine that prior successes (or failures) don't influence player performance.\n\nSurely confidence has some influence on athletic performance? We've had many studies on that in the past and I can't think of any that didn't correlate positive mental states to improved performance.
I'm listening to a creationist talk show host and he's saying the same thing - carbon dating is inaccurate and it's probably a hoax.
Torchwood exists!
You could consider that maybe your mind is more open at these times too. This happens to me as well and I have no idea what it is.
He's right.  Also, if the GOP's justification for repealing HCR is that it's "the will of the people," why aren't they behind ending the Bush tax cuts & oil subsidies?  Seems like the GOP only care about the will of the people when the people agree with them.
Wrong Reddit, but the point remains the same.
It's 28mm 1.8, not the new one. (doesn't have IS)\n\nThe shot is hand held, but stack the two pictures aligned, you can see better that it it moves.
That would be unusual. Most bars look unfavourably on anything which reflects badly on the profession. I don't know much about the Texas Bar, but according to [wikipedia](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Bar_of_Texas) their statements of purpose include:\n\n>to foster and maintain, on the part of those engaged in the practice of law, high ideals and integrity, learning, competence in public service, and high standards of conduct;\n\n\nIt would seem to be covered by high standards of conduct.
That may be so, but this specific publication is deliberate fun-poking of homeopathy.
Whole foods.... http://www.skepticmoney.com/whole-foods-homeopathy/
I love the videos where u see these fakes getting pulverized by a stock mma fighter.
I started reading that earlier... then I stopped at the fear-mongering.
Every time you enlighten a child, an angel loses its wings.  We need more teachers like this.
Yeah, I've heard flares are lighter than air.
http://i.imgur.com/fU040.jpg
Mission accomplished.
On my phone so apologies for not checking the studies.\n\nDid these sample sizes have comparable pregnancy complications? For example, I'm curious as to how a midwife could perform an emergency Caesarean to save a mothers/childs life?
Spent too much money on "cupping"?
Listen to her. Ask her exactly what's wrong with vaccines and what she thinks is a better option. Ask her why she doesn't trust the medical community and instead trusts people with no medical credentials whatsoever. See if you can get her to understand that the reason she's making this decision is out of some self-serving "I'm a mother and know what's best for my kids" mentality as opposed to actually knowing what's best for them. Not in those words, of course.\n\nIf you can get her to realize that she's being selfish, arrogant, too proud, and too stubborn, then perhaps you'll persuade her. I'll leave the specifics up to you.\n\nHope that helped, I'm not really sure how I'd deal with it. Probably just get them vaccinated anyway and wait for the shitstorm, haha.
She probably predicted that she would fail the test, so she didn't bother to take it.
I see my goddess the Invisible Pink Unicorn everywhere I go.
Indeed. One of the most important, and most enjoyable, parts of being a skeptic is being happy to admit that you're wrong.\n\nI asked a post-modernist that I work with how he goes about figuring out which of his beliefs are wrong, and he simply repiled "why would I want to do that?".
Oops you are right..I did mis read the article and there are mistaken comments as well..
Interesting idea. So, following on from this, perhaps he chose Spain over the Netherlands for the final because the Spanish flag bears more resemblance to the German flag (horizontal stripes including red and yellow, both with a coat of arms positioned roughly in the middle) than does the flag of the Netherlands (horizontal stripes again, but only red in common and no coat of arms)?\n\nETA: I just checked the pic -- they used the civil flag of Germany, i.e. no coat of arms. But still red and yellow stripes in common with Spain.
i caught a few more things in that comment as you finally decided to reduce the amount of words and quotes you used.\n\nlet me respond in a precise manner. i love reading, i do it everyday for fun and to learn. and i dont believe i am an ass. i believe WE are asses. big difference. but you might be skeptical of that fact so ill let you ponder how much of an ass we are while i go read something interesting.
Lamps. Yeah. They have a tendency to flicker or go bust exactly in sync with what I'm doing at the moment. You can only say "Oh, that's a nice coincidence" so many times. \n\nAmorphous blobs, well the most noticeable one wasn't really amorphous. I once had a super bright white sheet moving in front of my window outside as if it was dancing in the wind. The brightness was really as if the sun was reflecting in the snow bright. Naturally I was like, oh the neighbours laundry fell off the line. Only to go outside and find a perfectly sunny wind free summer day, no sheets in sight. It was so surreal and angelic.\n\nI've seen other 'blobs' but those were more like a streak of light and often to fast to really look at. Almost see-through or like a flash, gone before you can really process it with your brain. But the sheet, it was there. I could look at it and had time to think what it could be. It still didn't last long, it moved away within 2 maybe 3 seconds. It looked exactly like someone pulled a white bed sheet away and up from my window.\n\n
I bought a bottle of it and, man, it was a really sub-par vodka for the price.  I'm ok with it, though, since the bottle is damn cool (and probably accounts for the majority of the price).
Just out of curiosity, why did you post your comment? I don't mean to say you shouldn't have posted it or anything, please don't read that wrongly.
Sounds familiar, the mob then refutes all evidence as further proof of conspiracy. John Kerry and Obama and Lee should all have a drink together.
> ask why though ghosts disappear when the house is knocked down?\n\nAll the ghost go to the garbage dump, duh. Except for the ones that get recycled, then they go into the sprite you drank last week.\n\nI love ghost sprite.
Maybe quantum entanglement?\nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lOWZ0Wv218
When Isay things like that and get upset, I can't help but laugh hysterically and take any asshole-of-the-party title that gets thrown my way. Being an asshole isn't a bad thing.
maybe so, but that doesn't disqualify alternatives
As soon as I saw "16:00" I started reading in a British accent
Some of those cloud formations are downright surreal. Thanks for the good reading!
I emailed Brian about 10 months ago and asked to start a Skeptoid subreddit. He had too much going on but he told me to go for it.\n\nI started /r/Skeptoid but then I did somthing bad and got banned and Ive never gone back to start it up.\n\nI dont want to just make links to his stuff - I want to generate good content.\n\nNeed help and volunteers.
How did our plans get out?  Who has she told and where do they live?  Remain where you are, a squad of freemasons will be there shortly to "assist" you.
OK. I don't get it, but if you say so :)
Do a google search for "black knight satellite"
>The idea that an organism will have a fixed response to a set stimulus would refute learning theory. It would be good evidence that the nativist approach is probably correct. \n\nIt's sounding to me like you've got a strawman conception of the nativist approach.\n\n>When we think about it, grammar is simply a way of streamlining communication right?\n\nNo. that's far too simplified.\n\n>This approach would explain how creole languages develop grammar though, as obviously people have a natural tendency to make things easier and systematise them. This is supported by research in artificial grammars where subjects will standardise the language they're learning, and this explains why grammars change over time.\n\nYou have been making some claims that as far as I know go against the mainstream, directly against it.\n\nI'm also fascinated by your claim that Chomsky and Pinker aren't in the mainstream when it comes to language research... What model is mainstream then? Because everywhere I've read about linguistics Chomsky is mentioned. His specific model of grammar (and he has had many over the years) are certainly disputed, but that we have a universal grammar is as far as I know accepted by all mainstream linguists.
Where can we get these wonderful stickers?
>but its no different from what I said.\n\nIt seems the yellow bunny can't count. This is what he said:\n\n>In the past 2000 years, the water levels have increased only 6 inches. During the past 200 years, almost nothing.\n\nThis is what NASA says:\n\n>Global sea level rose about 17 centimeters (6.7 inches) in the last century.\n\nNo different? I beg to differ!\n\nTROLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
am i the only one here who noticed that an article debunking this was listed on the linked page? to the right? where there is a picture of a guy wearing the suit, shot from the front? really? bueller?
>Deaths per kilowatt\n\nWhat a beautiful way of looking at energy. I love it.
Here's the thing that gets me with that, though:\n\nBefore that point, it requires external support to survive.  But there are many humans who require various kinds of external support in order to survive.  While these machines and medical treatments are indeed human contrivances, I really don't see a fundamental difference between them and a womb.
A study by the "Family Research Institute"? Something tells me this study may not have been conducted in a totally objective manner.\n\nAnd I've never heard of examining obituaries as a valid research method in a longevity study before, it seems highly unscientific to me. What's wrong with census data?\n\n>Homosexuals were 116 times more apt to be murdered\n\nClearly, it's their fault they got murdered because they are gay. Obviously, the cause of death is the homosexual acts, not the person who murdered them.\n\nDoes anyone have an actual link to the study?
a birthday banner? Now thats random haha. I wish mine are as friendly as was yours
That was the intention. Not saying I buy into it. But it is an interesting theory none the less. \n\nAlso, not my vids. Agreed, some are less convincing than others.
Hmmm... I dunno, I'm a bit skeptical of that statement...
Never ending hate for those people. I heard the plane go by on it's way to the pentagon, which is right up the road from me.
If you are serious, you are retarded. \n\nYou can't possibly put the blame for drunk driving or murder on anyone but the drunk driver or the murderer.
I don't think saying that there's "no reason to suspect that mining or fracking had any impact" is the same as dismissing the possibility.  \n\nThe fact is that if you have no evidence, then you have no evidence.  And if you have no evidence, then there's no reason for any kind of suspicion.\n\nThat doesn't dismiss the possibility that evidence will show up in the future, but as it stands saying that there's no reason for suspicion is a correct statement.
You can take free courses on [Coursera.org](https://www.coursera.org/) from anywhere in the world. Here are a few other links.\n\n[Massachusetts Institute of Technology](https://www.youtube.com/user/MIT)\n\n[Udacity](http://www.udacity.com/) \n\n[edX](http://www.edxonline.org/) (Opens in the fall)\n\nAlso if you don't have good libraries you can pirate almost any book these days and if you need help learning to do that I'm a mod over at /r/freekindle and you can post any question or request.
And how would these "experts" do that? Supposing an intentional or obvious signal detected independently with telescopes throughout the world, the evidence would undeniable unlike all the bullshit lights in the sky posts in this forum.
Wrote a long, detailed response, and accidentally deleted it.  Will be quick here, therefore.\n\nNo "huge logical jump" is being made when one considers the connection that many ancient cultures have been proven to have w/ETs and have written and drawn about.\n\n> In the end, here's my point: if you want to point at skull binding and cry "aliens," then logically, you must do the same when taking about foot binding, neck elongation, and penis piercing.\n\nThis is blatantly bad thinking.  There is no "logical reason" one necessarily has to do anything of the like.\n\n> And it seems that you indeed are willing to cry "aliens" as a possibility to all of them.\n\nIrrespective of your unnecessary adjectives, it is very apparent that you don't understand what the word "possibility" means.  Not only that, but irrespective of even *that*, I actually wasn't even saying what you think I was saying from the get go.\n\nAdditionally, I hate to burst your bubble and pop your wet dream, but Carl Sagan was actually a shill - the unspoken successor to J. Allen Hynek as "the official scientist debunker" that TPTB used to sedate the masses with disinformation.  Hynek finally came to his senses, eventually realized the monumental error of his previously complicit ways, publicly stated the very thing, and ended up becoming one of the biggest proponents for the reality of ET existence on this planet.  Carl Sagan, shamefully, never did and simply remained a paid buffoon until his death.\n\nI bet with nearly 100% certainty that all this will be lost on *very* deaf ears.  It will go in one and out the other - if it goes in at all.  Your conclusions actually *begin* with false premises that you're not even aware are false.
i can tell by the pixels
I'm looking to see if anyone here can find better reports on this study. I was only able to locate [this from the Center for Reiki Research](http://www.centerforreikiresearch.org/RRdownloads/RRSample.pdf) (one would have to think it's biased...)\n\nI have a vested interest in this topic, as I've grown up within the Reiki community, but always struggled with being shunned by family and "friends" for my non-belief. A family member recently posted this to facebook; I'm not about to start a public debate on there, but I would like to have some good facts in hand for when I inevitably have to defend my position on this.\n\nThanks Skeptic!
Yes, really. She's acting like a twat.
I acknowledge that my world s not so concrete, and actually enjoy the experiences... I really had some unusual things happen to me all my life ... But at least it keeps me out of the box of what's consider normal and makes life so much more interesting to experience.
I definitely noticed this as well, though I'm not sure I'd call it a common theme through the season, as it only really stands out in a couple episodes. \n\nMy favorite scene by far in this season (or any other) was when Mac, Dennis and Charlie go to church to pray for Charlie's mother, and Charlie realizes it's just another scam and basically loses it in church. I've unsuccessfully been trying to find a clip of it online for posterity, hopefully someone will upload it in the future.
The stupidity involved in this assumption is incredible. If there are 5 or 3 different days of the week every July, and only 7 different days of the week, how could he even believe this only happens every 823 years?!
> Again, I'm totally paraphrasing because I have no idea where I saw the interview.\n\nI couldn't find any interview in which Spielberg said anything like this. But in trying to find one, I happened upon [this interview in which he says that he does "believe in aliens"](http://youtu.be/eorq6FeQZBA?t=1m22s).
Yeah did you? Also, with a fist or bat?
An it appears I didn't actually mean major cases, precisely. Like. The cases the movement was most passionate about.
Thanks I will post there,
machines, maybe?
And is called Karma, I guess I'm set. \n\nFor any of you about to die, I am willing to make a loan of some Karma for a modest interest rate.
If the aliens do exist and do visit our planet, the fact that they are much more advanced than us would probably mean that they don't even consider us intelligent enough to contact, let alone "slowly reveal themselves."\n\nChimpanzees, dolphins, whales, elephants are some of the most intelligent animals on the planet but we don't treat them as equals because despite their intelligence, we are so much more advanced than they are.\n\nNow imagine a species capable of interstellar travel. The basic everyday concepts of such a species would be so foreign to us that it would be virtually impossible to communicate with each other. Assuming that they would even want to communicate and not simply study us like we do with "lesser" animals.
you are awesome dude
Well, you could prove it if you found *actual* evidence.  Like Stargate that had been buried since the time the ancient Egypt.\n\nBut, just the same, I was just making a joke.
Please refer me to where I said I was dismissing the study.\n\nI've read this and hundreds of others like it.\n\nIf you're somehow lacking the intellect to see the inherent flaws and woo in this particular study, to the point where you actually feel it's necessary to ask the opinion of others, that's fine.\n\nIf you have some issues with cognition, that's one thing. However, this sub-reddit is rapidly becoming a repository of people asking question about patently fallacious, allegedly scientific studies, that they could easily debunk themselves, by spending a few minutes on Google.
I've been to Fort Barrancas a few times actually. Never experience anything like that, but it definitely felt erie. Like history was "trapped" there.
If you had a "haunted house," you'd only have unexplained phenomena you're writing off as "haunted," not evidence.
structure on mars equal life elsewhere
That's hardly reasonable. We have personal, naturalistic busts of many Romans modeled from life. Coins throughout the realm depicted the Caesars and were at least accepted as images of a real person at the time.\n\nWe have independent records of how the Egyptians interacted with cultures around them written by those cultures. We have the diaries of Samuel Pepys and the diaries of people who tacked with him and birth and death records for hundreds of thousands of  people from before 1850. Many people can be identified on the basis of mitochondrial DNA.\n\nIt's reasonable to suggest that some people, like Herodotus, might not have been real people. Homer almost certainly wasn't a person. The non-personhood of Homer isn't as emotionally significant as the possible non-personhood of the disciples.\n\n
I revel in my asshole reputation on these matters. I'm a bit more...reserved when it comes to religion, just to avoid really alienating a few of my friends, but when it comes to homeopathy and such, I am not above blowing up the entire notion in their face. Sometimes they ignore me or just write me off as a self-important know-it-all, but sometimes it sinks in.
I really shouldn't have read this...
Your point is - what? Are you countering with the fact that homeopathy works? Is totally harmless so why care about it?
I can't say I've had many close encounters with bears, but I agree with you, I am not seeing anything in that video to make me think it is anything other than a bear.  Sounds like the people who filmed it are mainly thinking it is not a bear because of it's size, but black bears can get quite large, right?
Check out the Diary of Robert Byrd
An interesting paper with a very limited scope. \n\n>[W]e found no evidence of consistent, system-wide decline in coral cover since 1995. Instead, fluctuations in coral cover at subregional scales (10–100 km), driven mostly by changes in fast-growing Acroporidae, occurred as a result of localized disturbance events and subsequent recovery.\n\nPrevious papers (you can see them cited in the study) have shown that the activities of humans can be very harmful to coral reefs.  Systematic climate change is just one of the many factors listed, which also include commercial fishing and water pollution.  This paper shows that many reefs have the ability to "bounce back" form these "disturbance events" which is good news for the overall health of the Great Barrier Reef.\n\nThis paper only concerns a 15 year period.  Other studies speculate on the health of the reef over thousands of years at varying degrees of carbon dioxide levels.\n\nIf you're trying to use this paper to say "SEE, there's no such thing as global warming" then you have sadly exceeded its scope.\n\nEdit: typos
Howdy! :D\n\nWhat person would you like to see on the SGU the most as a guest?
I live in an area of London called enfield. There are documentaries on it and it is very well documented. I'm on my phone now so I can't link anything, but just look up enfield poltergeist and you should get all the main stuff. My grandad lives around a 15 second walk from the house it all happened in. Some really scary stuff happened in that house, I believe the discovery channel even did a documentary on it.
[This one makes a lot more sense.](http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h208/charmaine_learnard/idiocracy_foodpyramid_big.jpg)
Where can we get these Placebos? Maybe there's some in this truck!
As I said above, I prefer (as a rule) not to share much relevant personal information on the internet. Sorry :S
well its a work in progress. Its not that I'm trying to steal thunder or anything, I just thought hey I like r/skeptic, having a go to list of debunked things would be helpful. \n\nedit: D: why are people down voting you, that doesn't seem fair.
Indeed, but I think it's easy to see what's going on here and the one individual covered in the story made it plain enough:\n\n> “Fix my water,” he says, “or make me an offer I can’t refuse.”\n\nHe knows they can't go back in time and show pre-fracking contamination levels so the longer he raises a fuss the more likely he's going to get "an offer [he] can't refuse." [Reading his statement in conjunction with the story you posted provides details that are contradictory and assertions that are post-hoc.](http://worc.org/userfiles/file/Oil%20Gas%20Coalbed%20Methane/Hydraulic%20Fracturing/LMeeks_statement.pdf)\n\nI'm not saying Encana is blameless, but to think that this guy lacks monetary motivation would be naive.
It's all good in the UFO hood Glimpse!  Thanks for posting!
I understand - you're right about that. I was just making a clarification I thought was necessary.
Which, if you look close, has a piece of metal going out the back of it and behind the bricks, which conveniently hide that shoulder...\n
Funny how one of the best UFO cases of all time had it's files mysteriously disappear.  Glad we have the report of the cat aliens meowing at the russian air force all over the place though :eyeroll:
Stick in wheel hitting fork then breaking?
I'm a woozle.
I clicked play.\n\nPerhaps you should check out [Reddit Enhancement Suite](http://redditenhancementsuite.com).
Well of course they're not True Sceptics if they have an idea that conflicts with yours. That's just common sense.
>The technology involved in created a seamless aluminum bottle vs. a seamless aircraft 30+ feet in diameter is much different, as I'm sure you know.\n\nThe technology is exactly the same, it's just the scale that is different.\n\nYou don't seem to fully understand your own position here, you're all over the place. Have a sit down, think about it then come back when you have decided what exactly it is you're arguing for  - because one minute you're saying that the craft aren't made from metal, only from something that looks like metal, then you're saying the assertion that advanced aliens would use a material other than metal is clutching at straws on the grounds that it's an abundant material.\n\nAre they metal or not? if they are, why are they? And if they're not, why do they look like metal? You seem to just be trying to give yourself excuses to opt out of answering the question while insisting on participating in the discussion.
Holy mackeral Lon - sounds like the Georgia Bigfoot all over again. Indeed, I made the same comments that we would have `ufo in my barn' in one of my blog posts at the time.
Thank you for posting this. It's a refreshing change of pace for the sub...
We should play a game. It's called "which one of these two is the judgmental asshole?"
Anyone else read the part where one of the girlfriends had their underwear removed WHILE wearing pants?\n\nGhost is a pimp.
You know, as an unemployed person living with their parents, every day I think about whether or not I should develop a similar legal scam like homeopathy.
I put the milk in with the water then boil the tea in over an open fire while chanting druidic verse.
If so, the cure is to stop giving the body nicotine.
I'm not a truther but I do not like the negative connotations to conspiracy because once people claim others are conspiring(FBI agents trying to make a case) they're shot down because they're loony. \n\n
When it happened to me, it was so real that my mind totally dismissed any possibility that it hadn't happened. So I don't know WHAT to think when this kind of stuff happens. It makes my brain hurt.
I couldn't do that it's a fold up chair and it was old so it hung kind of low.
And this has to do with what exactly about UFOs?
They do. They "lock" in all the normal senses of the word: the dog can close its jaws and neither human strength nor another dog can force it back open. It can only be done with a tool, and with difficulty. Therefore, that satisfies a good definition of "lock".\n\nSee "breaking stick".
I dont know. I am not a physic. I cant read people or see past/future events.
Yep, you win.  Clearly the manufacturer of that plane was concerned about the level of moisture in the sky, and added those water nozzles to offset it.  They use special water, too.  Water that doesn't disperse.
I didn't know I could just have DMT trips naturally!?? If only I'd known all I needed was to only drink distilled water :P\n\nEdit: Might as well make my comment useful, reading the article here: http://www.skepdic.com/fluoridation
I don't think anyone ever became less gay in a *chaiselounge*.
That is an insect.
Shouldn't that read: Homeopathic "Doctor" gives "proof" that homeopathy "works"?
What is called "EFT" in the links appears to be an elaboration of a technique for relieving the symptoms of a PTSD-related panic attack that was developed by a therpaist treating Rwandan massacre survivors and is now widely taught as a coping mechanism for American combat veterans.  \n\nAs an American combat veteran with PTSD who has been taught the technique (I learnt it simply as "a technique" not by the name of EFT), it's my understanding that the original intent was to help relieve the panic symptoms by causing 1) the distraction of performing the steps, and 2) activation in different parts of the brain, thus relieving the attack by interrupting the patient's focus on the panic (by 1) and the brainwave patterns associated with PTSD panic attacks (by 2).  \n\nApparently the use of accupressure / accupuncture points was the result of some other training possessed by the person who invented this technique - it was not intentionally scientifically done that way.  So I would personally be very skeptical of anyone claiming that EFT was designed for therapeutic gain - it is simply a relief technique, not a treatment.\n\nHope that helps!
You know there are many theories of evolution right?\n\nYou know that abiogenesis and biological evolution although related by some theories of evolution, are two separate things, right?\n\nYou know that Ron Paul has a Bachelors degree in Biology, right?
Photoshop
A friend of my boyfriend is a lobbyist, who used to (and maybe still does) lobby against the fluoridation of water. He was exhausting to listen to.\n\nThe [CDC website](http://www.cdc.gov/fluoridation/benefits.htm#4) has some good data.
I thought it looked like a person before I even looked at the zoom
Wow...I have been doing paranormal investigation and research for about 4 years now and have never had a "scary" experience.  I am sure for most people that sort of expience is terrifying, but I am waiting for it to happen to me.\n\nWhen you would see or when your son sees these shadow people are you still wide awake or was it as you're going to sleep or waking up?
Did you take note of how long it took you going there and back?
A local healthfood store that also sells a lot of dubious remedies (homeopathics and the like) sent out a notice that, for $30, a certified microscopist with 20 years of experience will be offering 30 minute appointments for live blood cell analysis. During the appointment he will take sample of blood and put it under the microscope. This microscope which is connected to a monitor allows you to view your blood cells along with this man as he discusses supplement deficiencies, solutions for long range health goals and other dietary concerns.\n\nReading this gave me such a tingling in my woo-meter that I looked up the subject in Quackwatch.\n
I don't believe in aliens visiting earth.  Just sayin.
Right you are. It was on the "bullshit" episode on organic food (probably find it online, I just have the dvd's though) and [skeptoid](http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4019) has done a few episodes on this problem, and they cite their sources at the end of every article... in fact, it argues that organic food and their pesticides are even worse because they often use more because they are not as good as their synthetic counterparts... But did you honestly not think organic food used pesticides...? how did you think they warded off insects and disease? magic?
It's common etiquette to wait a while before taking the screenshot to give the other person a chance to respond. You can take one immediately in case they delete your comment, in which case you state that your comment was deleted when you post the picture. If they don't delete it, you take another screenshot so we can see how long you waited.
It should rightly have been titled a Post-Modernist Apology.  At no point does she address her use of PoMo gibberish in Just a few post preceeding this one, the ad hominem/personal experience cobmo called "privelege", or the agree with me or you're evil "misogynist" name calling, and she threw in the "partriarchy" (I'm never sure if it is supposed to be a vast conspiracy or a mystical cosmic force.) for good measure.\n\nShe rightly claims that skepticism involves critical examining our own position, yet she's doing it wrong.
    Putting on tinfoil hat and awaiting release.\n
Straw man, maritime, admiralty law... Oh nice. Anyone who starts out with the Sovereign Citizen stuff is bound to go upwards from there.
https://www.facebook.com/avn.living.wisdom/posts/298081276973172
I'm just appealing within my own field (well, close enough to as I'm in psychology). I cannot argue about the flu, although as far as I'm aware with certain kinds of the flu (or maybe it was colds) treating their symptoms using medication prolongs how long the illness lasts. I'm not the person to ask though.
I actually upvoted this because the top comment immediately takes down the claim. I actually was unaware of exactly how to respond to this claim (which I have heard before) as I am thoroughly a layman. \n\nI agree that the content of the post is disconcerting, but the subsequent discussion is very information. Just my humble opinion.
> Warning - website requires you to wear sunglasses\n\nRidiculous, how can a website requirOMG MY EYES ARE BLEEDING
Actually I was pretty skeptical about his desire to actually think, so I didn't bother asking.
Upvote for voting.  I really, really, really hope it will do something but I know it is pointless.
I think pictures and video could ~~absolutely be proof~~ be compelling evidence, so long as there were multiple angles.
I disagree, people who have imaginary friends are already a bit off balance. Add some violent tendencies and you should be at the very least concerned.\n\nNothing wrong with feeling intimidated when a person is off balance and threatening you.
TIL my work doesnt block the pirate bay :)
This is the third story I've seen posted about this letter, and by far the most sensationalist. TEDx aren't taking a hard line, they are providing guidelines to help organisers vet potential speakers. I imagine the only people who's license would be revoked would be those who intentionally promote talks that are sketchy (for example anti-vax).
Many animals including primates use smells to signal things like sexual receptiveness.  Underarm and public hair trap sweat, pheromones and secretions and make us smell of them more, increasing the effectiveness of the signal.\n\nThese days we have language and sexy outfits and buying each other drinks in clubs, and we've evolved beyond the need to stink at each other.  In fact these days the idea of a festering, secretion-encrusted minge or sweaty, smelly gorilla salad are actually turn-*offs*.\n\nHence, we've evolved beyond the need for underarm sweating.
What makes me angrier is when someone is trying to convince me that a band is great or something along those lines and I keep insisting that it is all opinion.  Then they continue to fight and argue with me trying to explain why said band is the best.  Fucking annoying.
Your theory lacks probing. Aliens probe. Why do you not mention probing?
> Most mass murders aren't committed by people with mental illnesses\n\nI am confused by this statement. Killing large numbers of people, outside of dropping bombs in war, is *always* the act of someone who has mental problems of some sort.\n\nIf they didn't have any psychological issues, they wouldn't have gone on a shooting spree....
Gotcha.  Yeah, lucky for the kids it doesn't require dual parental consent for vaccinations.
Uh, no?
Did you read the article?  It is about David Icke who claims that there is an actual Alien Lizard Conspiracy using vaccines as a population control method.  \n\nPeople who are skeptical about the safety of vaccines would be better off if they did not publish articles that are this type of crazy and actually do stick to the consideration of evidence.\n
...but why the picture of Steven Gerrard?
You could also be a member of the percentage where even though you were vaccinated, the vaccine didn't work in your case. Not a problem if most/all of the population is on board, but if there is enough of a pool to sustain the virus, you're in danger.
Special effects look cool, but plot looks stale.
>one trolls...[racial epithets]\n\nYeah, I read one troll's post about the racial purity of eastern europe, and it wasn't on /pol/. It was right here on reddit.
Never done drugs and I want to try mushrooms now.
Absolutely! People often trend towards an 'easy' explanation when really things should be left to ambuiguity without strong evidence. By saying what it should be rather than what it is, we are proving ourselves ignorant. It is better to not know than to be wrong.\n\nThat being said, if you still feel strongly it is activity on a mountain, more power to ya brother!
Oxygen is also poisonous to us (if it's pure).
That entire article was a conspiracy to mislead unwitting sheeple to further the cause of the NWO. It's obvious Michael Shermer (the author of the article) is an agent of the government spreading misinformation.
TLDR - Position paper claims that, "Implementation of WiFi technology in schools will produce unprecedented exposure to microwave radiation of approximately 6 hours each school day, 5 days a week, for 40 weeks each year. This will be without any studies being done to determine the effects of either the short-term or long-term effects of this microwave exposure on adults as well as children."
Simple-living? You're on the internet dude.
Thank you for that link. Fuck this nonsensical garbage, I'm outta here. This subreddit is starting to remind me of [the asshole of the internet](http://www.abovetopsecret.com/Aliens_and_UFOs.php).
The 11th finger?
If this were true would that mean people of the past would see us (the present) also? This would lead for the said person in the past to pass along this story to I don't know a family member or close friend and (if still living) You could follow up on if they ever described a looking into the future type deal.
i had an implant in my sinus cavity. it was removed during my ceremonial middleschool to highschool nosejob.
I enjoy horror films and realize they are fictional...most people don't seem to realize that this isn't something that could happen it seems like.\n\nI definitely  see your point.
No. [Project Mogul](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Mogul) happened in Roswell. However, generally when people refer to "Roswell" they are implying a crashed alien spaceship.
Given fewer benefits.
That's an awesome visual. I like the Flying Salad Monster already.
>The study says there is no befitting nutrition wise (vitamin and mineral contents) to organic foods. \n\nYeah, and that's one of the main reasons why I question the results of the study (which, I should emphasize, is both a literature review [meaning no original research] AND has not yet gone through peer review).  The reason is that there are ACTUAL studies (not just lit reviews) that *have* been peer reviewed that show that (at least some) organically produced foods do have higher nutritional contents.  See [this one about kiwis done by a team at University of California](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070326095806.htm), for example.
No matter who you are or what you believe being in a crowd of people who are getting really crazy and emotional can have an effect on you.  The mob effect is real and you can find yourself doing some pretty weird things or things you would have never even considered when put in a group of very enthusiastic people.
A good example of this misconception that "any human modification is bad" would be the orange carrots we are accustomed to eating today and consider as "healthy." These orange carrots really didn't appear till the 17th century in the Netherlands.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrot#History\n\nAlso the Cavendish banana is also a good example of a modified food that very few people would consider as being "Franken Food" or "Fake Food." These didn't exist till 1836 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana#Cavendish\n\nI typically use these two examples to demonstrate to people that human modification of food isn't always necessarily bad and that they should consider things on a case-by-case basis. \n\nFrom my personal experience, these two examples work well in convincing people that their preconceived notions might not necessarily be as true as they thought. It's not so much that people don't want to hear this message, I've noticed it's more about the delivery of the message. If I use a soft approach with someone they generally accept the message. As soon as the conversation turns into a "you idiot" type they immediately become defensive and stop listening to the argument.
I in fact do not believe, while I believe aliens exist I don't believe they've ever visited earth, I like to believe that one day they will, but as of now I don't think they have.
Pretty sure there are idiots everywhere.  I'm not even surprised to see this covered in our media... I AM surprised to see it covered by the CBC, though.  I can't think of an American counterpart, but they're the public media company, and usually pretty non-sensationalist (*as compared to other national news companies*, guys please be gentle).\n\nIt made me laugh though.  This is a lot like like "poltergeists" being "attracted" to houses with teenagers.  *You don't say*.
We're not performing scientific analysis on reddit, we're looking for previous evidence to answer the question. The better question is, "Is this real or not?"\n\nIf we come across something that's never been seen before, then we can start with "Can it be tested."
This would be funnier (by being more believable) if it weren't for the avocados and marijuana.  I think everyone knows about cultivating weed.
Stein's gate!
Did the person down voting *this* post also agree a link to buy a book is a worthy post?\nMakes me think even more this was posted to promote a questionable book as a scholarly work.\n\n
My old chiropractor neighbor had a well because of his fluoride fears. I didn't have the heart to tell him that the well water that percolates through our granite bedrock has a natural fluoride content about five times higher than what the EPA allows in drinking water. :\\
My apologies. I had heard that her footage has been dismissed by MUFON as planes and her claims [disproved](http://youtu.be/LzHmsYGvQ1o?t=1m59s) by many [others](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b15zP9BPSbo) but that she continued to post her footage with increasingly silly theories in the face of this, even shining lasers at these planes, which is dangerous and illegal. I had only ever heard her name connected with the word 'hoax' and assumed that to be true, which was wrong of me.
Why bother asking the question if you're just going to go ahead and answer it yourself?
Yeah I have to say I really doubt it. Oh well, I guess this settles it then.
Agreed.
I took this about June last year, finally found it again.  I was at Gettysburg Pa, In a basement of a civil war house and the only light in the room was that small area near the top center, was very dim.  I did not have the flash on either.  Camera was a Droid 1, I know phone cameras are not a very good tool to take pictures with but was there a reflect of light, dust? or something?  Figured I would ask people who would know more about decrypting these pics and seeing what really was taken.
He's just trying to stir up controversy for ratings.
There are perfectly rational moral, economic, and philosophical reasons to support the existence of a state.
What's wrong with melatonin?
Good find, although I would rather listen to knives scratching into glass than read Orac's writing.  That kind of arrogance doesn't belong anywhere in science writing IMO, and I doubt his strategy does anything except drive people further into their current beliefs regardless of their current opinion on the matter.\n\nAnyway, that aside, I have isolated the study we were looking for: (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3057555/) which is definitely valuable.\n\n>And of course we can never prove that the refusal movement is directly responsible, but... is it really that much of an intuitive leap? \n\nPersonally, I don't like "intuitive leaps" when dealing with a topic where some are kicking around the idea of removing informed consent. I would rather know with the greatest amount of certainty possible.\n\n
I think "news" is the word in contention, not "popular".
He is getting treated for sex addiction in my hometown. O_o
I just dropped in to give props to the OP for the X-files reference
This interests me too.\nI so, so badly want to believe it. But there have been so many crop circle hoaxes over the years that it makes it hard to give it complete credibility.\n\nIf there are aliens using high intensity lasers or something to do these things from afar, then I'll start believing it when we see ice sheets that are thermally engraved with designs that stretch hundreds of metres below the surface... Until that point, or we see something equally spectacular and implausible, I'll still have to call it a hoax :-/
There aren't. Don't panic!
You could have had a seizure and should definitely see a doctor.   That is exactly how mine started.
You could say that about literally any single one of the thousands of possible exoplanets that have been discovered. A multiple sun system is potentially *less* likely to harbour advanced life than other systems. \n\nIt's still pretty cool though!
To be fair, the Reddit, richarddawkins.net and Guardian headlines say "Simon Singh threatened with legal action for criticising health magazine"
That says a lot, coming from Xenu.
>But it would be a pretty cheap study (potentially, the researcher did it for free in his own time), and the results can be used to indicate whether there is something there worth investigating further (and thus worth spending lots of money on). The results are preliminary, and obviously very weak, but I don't think this is a reason not to do exploratory research.\n\nThat is a good point that I hadn't really considered.\n\n>but just "meeting in person" and asking the same questions as you would over the phone wouldn't be any better. \n\nWell according to the article\n\n>Spitzer had conducted studies that evaluated the efficacy of self-reporting as a tool to assess a variety of personality disorders and depression. He was a noted expert on the development of diagnostic questionnaires and other assessment measures, and his work was influential in determining whether an assessment method was valuable or should be discarded.\n\nand\n\n>By phone, researchers aren’t able to evaluate essential non-verbal cues that might cast doubts on verbal responses. Phone interviews, along with written interviews, carry too much guesswork baggage to be valuable in a scientific study, and Spitzer certainly knew that.
I suffered from severe sciatica pain for the past three months from a herniated disc at L5. The Pigeon pose gave me nearly instant relief, and from the stretching my pain was mitigated for about 5-10 minutes. Anecdotal, but stretching the gleuteus muscle group certainly took some of the heat off my pain.
>I haven't seen anything discussing the issues of children being allergic to the mediums the vaccines are grown on and thus needing NOT to be vaccinated.\n\nYes, we're all aware of this.  It's exactly why it's important for everyone who can get vaccinated to get vaccinated.  It protects the people who can't get vaccinations.\n\n>I also haven't seen anything discussing the fact that North America has an accelerated vaccination schedule for infants that other countries in the world have rejected as being too dangerous to expose infants to until the blood/brain barrier is well established.\n\nUm, what?  Citation needed.\n\n>I also suggest discussing the concept of herd immunity with a vet (which is where the term originated and is now applied to humans) to see another perspective it.\n\nAgain, um, what?  Whether or not vets were the origin of the term (which I wouldn't bet on.  It seems more likely that epidemiologists would have coined it or something), that has no bearing on the fact that infectious diseases in general spread the same ways in populations of organisms.  This is a trivial difference at best.\n\n>Knowledge is power. :)\n\nIndeed.
I hope there *is* a next time.
Well, here are some used ones, the lowest price being $47.15.\n\nhttp://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0137307136/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&condition=used\n\nYou should get it.
How does that change anything?
You can't treat the working man this way! One of these days we'll form a union, and get the fair and equitable treatment we deserve! Then we'll go too far, and become corrupt and shiftless, and the Japanese will eat us alive!
Ok, I have a serious problem with the "unintentional support" because it makes it someone's fault that they're unconsciously doing something wrong and gives you a tool to blame them for the wrongdoing.\n\nWhen you're dealing with someone going "hey, if you didn't want the guys to flirt with you, why'd you wear that skirt," I agree that it's sexist and needs to be swiftly reprimanded.\n\nWhen someone says "can we not levy accusations of how unnamed skeptics are harassing women and actually evaluate the anecdotes on their merits," I have trouble seeing that as sexist.
Yeah but that studio is within earshot/next to other sets, right? Some of those don't sound like whispers, gut noises, birds. They sound like garbled voices. Let's just say that OP is telling the truth, that they were being quiet and they were in a house away from other houses (can OP confirm? Were you in an apartment?) how else could these voices be recorded? The vitctrola sounds like a cat to me, but the "backwards one" and the..er.."pussy" one are kind of nuts.
That's why it's more likely to be debris.
He was up for reelection this past month. /r/TestPac tried to unseat him and failed. They put up billboards in his district and everything.
I'll just leave this here: http://www.xkcd.com/210/
They should just admit it and change their name to "THC."
[Only an expert?](http://www.wowwiki.com/Alchemy) You have a long, costly, road ahead of you my friend!
He has a point of view. Truth is a slippery ideal. He is an unapologetic leftist critical of many of our institutions. He is intelligent and well informed but he tends to be too opinionated for me not to take his utterances with a grain of salt. I consider myself a progressive and expect government to make the lives of all citizens better. I tend toward the left but would not consider myself a socialist.
This was surprisingly tilted in favor of skepticism. Banachek and Randi were both great, they were given a lot of air time, and the reporters (one reporter and the host anyway) were skeptical. A win for the good guys.
Neat, thanx!
If I remember right, Socrates's theory of knowledge was that we already know everything, and all it takes is skillful questioning to reveal it.  So he's on the opposite side of the fence from me, since I believe that we know only a minuscule amount out of the possible body of knowledge, and every bit of it is hard won.  When you don't know much, it doesn't seem like there's that much to know, but as you learn more, you begin to realize how much there is, and how much more there could be if we manage to make the effort.
History Channel is owned partly by Comcast and disney, I would not trust them. But thanks for the tips, I shall consume them :D
I know how ridiculous and potentially harmful homeopathy can be, but in this case I think the title you chose is extremely misleading.  Both of the injections given appear to be modern pharmaceutical drugs for treating indigestion, not homeopathic remedies.  The death may have been a result of the doctors incompetence, but from the brief story in The Times of India it's not clear what happened yet.\n\nPlease don't give these people any more ammo than they already have regarding unfair bias in the media.
To be fair, complaining that they call climate change a theory is silly -- a theory in science is about as good as it gets.  Theories in science are fully supported by evidence, useful in making predictions, and well understood.  It's just that non-scientifically-literate folks don't understand that's what the word theory means.  \n\nAs the article indicates current standards do not mention climate change at all, requiring it to be taught seems like a step up, to me.  As for the "evidence that supports and refutes" it, there is some evidence that can be misinterpreted to refute it (like certain specific ice sheets increasing in size), and I believe in getting kids to think critically about how well given evidence supports a theory.  \n\nI guess I can see how the poor wording leaves it open for abuse by deniers, but I don't see this as nefarious as the article suggests.
Can I borrow your dad's powers? I'm willing someone to call me but it's not happening.
These petitions need to stop assuming 'ET' \n\nThats making the assumption that these 'beings' are in the 3rd dimension, but just physically far from us. There is no evidence of that.\n\nFor all we know these 'beings' could be intra-terrestrial, inter-dimensional, or something that you can summon through your own mind, which was documented by a shaman who was able to summon a UFO. \n\nNot a debunker, just trying to make these petitions less specific in order to garner an actual response.
Two different things. There's her raging against the dying of the light and there's her going on TV and telling other people with cancer about the specific way she's doing that. The first is entirely her call but the second is a horrible move which is shown to reduce the number of people with the same condition who seek genuine medical treatment.
Wind requires atmosphere. There is [generally no atmosphere once you hit 100,000 feet.](http://www.allstar.fiu.edu/aero/oxygen.htm)
The expert has responded: \n\n>"Meteors (or more accurately, the meteoroids that produce meteors) can change their path,"\n\n[See here.](http://www.allexperts.com/user.cgi?m=6&catID=1360&expID=103947&qID=4852167)\n
I was being serious. As a contributor and fan of GITM I posted that comment in sincerity. There was just not much else to be said. I am sorry you misunderstood the tone of my response and would gladly remove it if I felt that that OP was offended. He is not and replied personally saying thanks. I was pleased he did not jump to the conclusion that I was being sarcastic, as I am not a sarcastic person Ryan. My name on the other hand is what it is simply for the reason that it *can* be. No harm is meant, sometimes a spoon is just a spoon Ryan. I'm sorry that by this juncture you have most assuredly retired to your parent's basement to cry and masturbate into kleenex because of how much my original three word post hurt you, I can never give you that time back, what I can do is offer a piece of valuable advice, not me, nor anyone of any importance in your or my life gives any shred or likeness of a relevant fuck. So next time you want to give your opinion, just leave your computer and skip right to the masturbating in basement scene. It will save me, or someone else like me from wasting our time with a long-winded but entirely emotionally devoid retort. Once again, sorry about the confusion...
There is definitely something (or a couple of somethings) flying around up there but it's just too damn shaky to make out what they are.  I also don't doubt the sincerity of the shooter.
LOL
I grew up in a redneck town here in Michigan. They taught us evolution but they did also tell us that there is this other theory called creationism that people believe too but never went into the details. \n\nThat was middle school and I never realized how wrong it was at the time. I am not shocked at all about these statistics.
Chris Mooney is a fellow of the Templeton Foundation. The Templeton Foundation donated $450,000 to NOMA. NOMA is the religious based hate organization behind Prop 8. Since this news has come to light I have not heard Mooney address it. I therefore feel it is safe to say that Chris Mooney is a bad human being who cannot be trusted. As such, I believe he has nothing valuable to contribute to the planet Earth.
It doesn't help. This kind of thing just reinforces the beliefs being challenged though.
Even if there is a GMO conspiracy, the list of points against the study seem pretty damning.  Can anyone explain their reasoning for not releasing their data?
There's always cross-posting.  If you think it's r/skeptic worthy, bring it on over.  We could use the content.
Right, don't even *dare* think about medical marijuana.
>OK, just bear with me for a second here....what if it not wasn't impossible, but actually existed?\n\nThe "what-ifs" don't matter. We have a [very good idea of how planets form](http://www.astro.ex.ac.uk/people/gennaro/projects/planets/) and we [know that the Earth isn't hollow](http://www.space.com/54-earth-history-composition-and-atmosphere.html), so speculating whether or not it is hollow doesn't add anything of value. It isn't hollow.
This also seems like a good debunk resource:\n\nhttp://www.jfk-online.com/jfk100cher.html\n\n
It seems to me that George has lost his passion or touch for the show. If you listen for it, you'll notice that for the last few years he'll ask almost every guest the same questions, really with no regard to what they were talking about previously. There are so many guests where I know I would ask a million different follow up questions, but George will go on to ask some completely un-related and unanswerable question like "Very true, very true, so tell me how did all of this begin?" Seriously, what the hell is a guest going to say about how the f*cking universe began?\nOr another one he asks ALL THE TIME... "Is there an existence after we die?" \nIt seems to me he kinda stopped caring and zones out during his guests.\nArt on the other hand always asked really intelligent questions and great follow up questions. I miss him.
dude i saw the same exact thing... except i took it has something shooting out of his 3rd eye...yea...i need to stop looking at this shit.
You must not be aware of what has been happening in Norway\n\nhttp://topdocumentaryfilms.com/portal-hessdalen-lights-phenomenon/
I disagree with liberal politics. I've heard plenty of reasons behind agreeing with liberalism; they have all failed to satisfy me. I don't have time in my life to consider the reasons of literally everyone on the planet.
Something like that happened to me when I went to see Avatar. I couldve sworn I'd already seen it except it starred Kevin Costner.
Never heard the phrase before (UK). Scary.
agreed. You post this photograph.\n
>From a few nuclear ***reactors*** I looked at, heat generation of up to 2,000 MW was easily possible, with an efficiency to electrical power of around 30%. So 22 GW is pretty reasonable for 20 nuclear ***facilities***.\n\nI feel this isn't stressed often enough and leads to errors such as in this image. One nuclear power plant can have multiple reactors.
My first thought was this was fake. But [this](http://fotoforensics.com/analysis.php?id=36214c9ff2db09228e14b531f5cfa3c6272a4fc6.47468) doesn't indicate it's been edited. Interesting!
I live on the other side of the world and no-one has heard from her in over a month.  I was hoping someone in their locale would be able to help\n\nhttp://anatheistviewpoint.blogspot.com/2011/04/brandy-cienkowski.html
> Surely, if you had real proof, you would publish it for all to see (and evaluate),  \n\nClick the link, it explains things about the headline.  They uploaded their proof to youtube, where it is revealed that they are idiots.
I see the ghost of my cat flouncing around my house every once in a while, and once in a blue moon I can hear her meow.
But the messages OP is receiving are apparently coming from Derek.  Even if this is from a psychopath who has a way to spoof phone numbers, he'd still need to know Derek's phone number.
Fate Magazine, Summer 1948 Cover of orb coming out of ocean. \n\nhttp://img21.imageshack.us/img21/2512/08171947012.jpg
Fake as shit. I love the ambient music though. Anyone know the name?
Tell your boss it probably impacts their injury liability insurance.
> Certainly they were never ever saying that the human brain was anything like the computers that you and I are using right now. Though I understand that that absurd notion did exist in the general populace.\n\nIt's true that the metaphor is more centred around Turing-like computational abilities, rather than as a computer per se, but the researchers in this area do certainly draw from our knowledge of computers to make claims about the brain. For example, in the area of memory they introduced very specific ways of thinking about it; encoding, storage, retrieval.. This kind of thinking, whilst seemingly reasonable, has been quite problematic in that it leads us to close off valid lines of inquiry, or chase ghosts down other paths, due to entirely linguistic constraints. That is, it's inaccurate to think of the brain as "storing" memories as it's not like you can just pop out a section of someone's brain and remove a specific memory. \n\nThere's a good article on the issue [here](http://scienceblogs.com/developingintelligence/2007/03/why_the_brain_is_not_like_a_co.php) and, importantly, there is a discussion in the comments which I think might address the concerns you might have whilst reading the entry. A commenter brings up that the metaphor is not supposed to compare brains to current computers, and instead he proposes that advanced future computers would theoretically process information in ways more similar to human brains. However, the author points out that he's mainly highlighting the current problems with the way the metaphor is used, but also that it's necessarily true that when computers are more like brains, they will become a more accurate analogue for brains.
This is a legit appraisal of these kinds of shows.\n\nI know I'm referencing yet another fictional story, but if you watch, "Grave Encounters," there's a scene where the producer/host character is asked if he thinks they'll see something real. His reaction is like, "No, I mean, whatever. As long as we get a few good scares in, we're fine."\n\nI don't mind that general attitude. I know what it is. I still watch because it's just entertaining fiction. I really like 'found footage' horror flicks - and paranormal reality tv shows kind of kicked that whole thing off (although maybe it was Blair Witch Project, actually; whatever). :)
So you'are saying its unlikely the jets (or whatever else participates in air shows) would be out in the night sky doing maneuvers or formations? Very interesting if so. Might just shut me up :)
I was going to make a post on subway unrelated twins, but it's just a minor glitch. I see them occasionally, two people together that, while not identical, would fit exactly the same description. I assume they're relatives or something, but then the train stops and one of them gets out without talking to the other.\n\nIt's like the matrix has a limited set of characters so it just randomizes a little the features of some people. You wouldn't notice unless they're side by side.
Sorry to be blunt, but that shitty attitude of yours deserves to be judged. Harshly. \n\nWhile the fundies don't get themselves and/or their children vaccinated out of (stupid and dangerous) conviction, you don't do it because of your laziness and ignorance. I consider this to be even *worse*, since you seem actually know about the risks and benefits, and yet you still refuse to act on that knowledge, thus risking the well-being of the people around you.\n\nJust do the right thing, look up a doc and get yourself vaccinated. You'll feel better afterwards, I am sure of that.
By the end of it it's obvious which cult it is. The point of changing the details is so readers don't go into it with preconceived notions.
Those are also in my bag of far-fetched remedies to try. I've done yoga before with some friends and not really benefited, but I wasn't sick then.
Marble Hornets!\nhttp://www.youtube.com/user/MarbleHornets
I get that this is /r/skeptic, but let's take a look at what *one* of the men said before single-handedly dismissing all of this expert witness [testimony.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testimony)\n\n[Patrick McDonough](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtmpaM0PqyI&feature=player_detailpage#t=1169s)\n\n> A UFO came form the North and  stopped right over us. I would say it was probably at an altitude of 300 feet or so. It was a little hard to tell in the dark. It was round .. I would estimate it's diameter at 50ft ... about the wingspan of a B-52. Something in that range, it was about that large. It seemed to have pulsating lights going around it, and it had a white light from the center looking down into the silo. There was no wind, there was no noise. It stayed there for 20-30 seconds ... and then, from a dead stop, it just shoots off to the east. Kind of like, now you see it, now you don't. \n\nI'm sorry, but that's hardly a description of someone who misidentified a known aircraft. \n\n
Oh harsh. That sucks. I feel your pain through the monitor, seriously. I've done that too many times. It's a pit in your stomach. Like watching a whale at sea world eat your sony walkman. You know, the cool, old, yellow, water-proof kind from 1990 that you just got for your birthday...wait, what are we talking about? \n\nThe response you've provided is more than thorough in its own right. Wow! Thank you for taking the (double) time! I still can't quite go over on the "inconclusive" thing. I'd bet good money that if those objects were melted down and analyzed they'd be of terrestrial origins. If you ask a Doc they could tell you about all the stuff that ends up jammed into peoples bodies. Pretty sure there's a website about that somewhere. Not that I really want to look, lol. \n\nI tend to agree with you about the volume of credible witnesses coming out. I've been into this stuff since I was a kid and it seems like the advent of the 'net and ye olde YouTubes especially, has ushered in a new era of documentation of expert testimony. It's hard to ignore so many experts saying so much of the same thing :) It's exciting all right. \n\nCan't agree with you at all about Astronomy, but I respect our difference of opinion. My background in in English and theatre, (and corporate management, booooooo), so I'm probably the least qualified person to stand up for the scientific method. I do feel however, that the inference you describe in Astronomy is based largely on previous sets of testable data. The inference that stuff is ending up in our bodies because aliens are messing with us is not the same as the inference that a star wobbles because there's a planet out there causing it, in my opinion. You can create testable models for a wobbling star and a planet. (Hey, related note, why HASN'T someone melted down one of those suspicious metal things and figured out what its made of? That should have been happening yesterday!) \n\nMaybe it's more like luck. Luck has been described as when preparation meets opportunity yes? There's a lot of preparation meeting opportunity  in Astronomy. I don't think the nebulous waters you describe are so uncertain as undiscovered. I think the added aspect of discovery implies a certain methodology will be used in pursuit of knowledge; we've taken the sea serpents off our maps and go forth boldly! (Shoot. I'm taking that. That's going in my notes right now...) Also, ask any string theorist about the nature of unquestioning seriousness and respect in an acknowledged field of science ;p. That might be more like quantum physics though. Point being that theories have to stand up to scrutiny, and that includes mathematical scrutiny. \n\nI think the reason why ET/UFO theories aren't treated with the same respect as say, astrophysics, is because there is math backing up the theories in astrophysics. They may be totally wrong at times, totally theoretical, but they are at least testable. As far as I can tell, mainstream science has nothing substantial enough yet to test the ET theory. There's nothing substantial enough to test UFO theory beyond "there's something up there but we don't know what it is yet". So the untestable theories are pushed out onto the fringe and dismissed as BS, or marginalized and left largely ignored.\n\nI need to go to bed, but I want to tell you that I really appreciate your time m'friend. I'll check out those sources you provided. Thank you again for the intelligent discourse and kind words. I don't think you're incorrect as much as passionate in your belief. I just caution that passion can blind us sometimes. We want to believe so badly we let go of good judgement. I'm sure I'm not telling you something you don't already know. I'm just trying to play Devil's Advocate a little bit. By the way, I may be a discerning mind, but I most certainly am a "believer". Something's out there all right...have a good one!
>Hopefully this doesn't seem like sock-puppetry\n\nHard to make that charge, 5 months plenty of posts.\n\n>Now, I'd say about 95%+ Doctors of Osteopathic Medicine are really just doctors.\n\nIn the US this certainly seems to be the case.\n\n>they haven't really used anything close to OMT since they left school.\n\nThis is the great unanswered question of mine that the others are brilliantly ignoring.  Why even bother teaching this stuff if it's pseudoscientific?  You could just drop the bullshit and be a real doctor.\n\n>Those 95% may have certain feelings about OMM but most just see it as a nice chiropractic/massage therapist type thing that's good to get girls\n\nIt gives a license to the genuine quacks though who do use it as a bogus treatment (example, cerebral palsy).  These people are also fully qualified D.O.s, do you think they are perhaps bringing shame to the profession by doing what it teaches?\n\n>I'm all about double bind everything, but the problem with is inherently in the technique.\n\nThe same defense is used by acupuncturists.\n\n>Double bind studies can only really be done with things like medicine.\n\nA statement that's wiser than you first imagined I suspect.\n\n>There is some merit to certain things\n\nNo doubt.  Keep the stuff that works (by testing it), get rid of the rest and come down harsh on those who would seek to bring shame on the profession by practicing bogus medicine.
Said all the doubters in the world to everyone. :P\n\nbut im not here to appease you or convince you :D So... Nothing to see here, move along
Your colleague should back up her claim that calcium causes cancer.  If you have these "reports" you can look them up and see how valid they are.\n\nAlso these claims that your body will make up for a lack of calcium, and that the aging process will be slowed need some scientific evidence behind them.\n\nThe burden of proof is on you colleague, not on you.
jesus christ.\n\nAlthough I'm an athiest, I always say "jesus christ" whenever someone tells me they do something incredibly stupid and insipid.
Take it back.  It's a defective product.
The first study only refers to spinal manipulation, which is not limited to chiropractic treatments so can't be used to support chiropractic as a treatment (and the evidence for its effectiveness is still limited despite a large amount of studies being done on the topic). And, as you state, the second two studies are just case studies so they are interesting but ultimately not much better than anecdote.\n\n\n
>I find PZ to be an arsehole, having read a post of his where he gloated about his bullying of a young creationist teen who to my mind just appeared to be trying to understanding the other side.\n\nHave a link?\n\nPZ definitely does have an edge to him, and he seems to promote a sort of 'insults are fine if the recipient deserves them and they're based on fact' philosophy, which may or may not be wise and fair.\n\nHowever, considering his progressive ideologies and his drive for a more just world (insofar that a blogger and professor can push for that), i'm willing to overlook his at times likely over-animated conduct.
Lame psychic failed to see that one coming.
More is a very, very relative term. 2 is more than one, but is still a small number.
You don't understand evolution very well.\n\nHe died at 44, which was the average lifespan of human beings before Louis Pasteur did his work. He is past his prime childbearing age, though men can produce children their entire lives, it becomes more difficult as they get older. The article doesn't say so, but I believe its safe to assume that he had an above average amount of children\n\nHis snake handling probably helped him find a mate, so he is included in the "fittest" meant to survive and pass on their genes. \n\nSo indeed, you can say in a way that Darwin was mocked, he does not appear to be very fit for survival because he engages in unnecessary and dangerous behavior, but it turns out he was fit, this is funny so you could say they was some mocking.
Haven't you heard? The whole global warming edifice is crumbling down, brick by brick. Don't believe the hype.
roman catholic born and raised. on the playground is where i spent most of my days.
No he's anti-woo.  He makes it clear it is all about illusion & misdirection towards entertainment for the untrained/suggestible audience.
Thanks strangers! I'll fill you in on the evidence when I get it!
it sucks, but that's what hollywood does...
Yeah, that makes *all* the difference in the world.
I have 2: The first experience took place several years ago with my dad as we were walking outside around 11:30. We turned around a corner, where there was a large house with trees around the back, when we first saw it. Behind the trees, a large circle of multicolor lights rose upward until they started to rotate around and towards up. It came closer, and closer, and finally hovered away, making virtually no sound at all. To this day, no plausible explanation has come up, for the thing came to low and large to be electric or a model. Next, in May of last year, I went on a ghost hunt in Gettysburg, again, with my dad. During the last 10 minutes of the investigation, a woman standing in front of some stairs suddenly started to feel a queer prodding on her hair, but she stopped after a while, believing it was her overactive imagination. Just a minute later, a friend and I spotted what appeared to be children's hands above the very spot she had just stood in. A second later the child disappeared into nothingness...
That's part of the story. Staying alive is an important part of being able to reproduce, granted, but there are other factors, such as sexual selection.  Gecko99 said "It only requires some individuals to reproduce more effectively than others" and that really is the best description of it, it includes the ability to stay alive more effectively than others as well as the ability to beat other alive candidates in reproducing.\n
Well, the guy was known for being an uncompromising personality who followed his plans tirelessly, but could admit defeat and move onto a different plan eventually.  \n\nFor all of the legitimate criticism one can throw at Mr. Jobs, it seems hypocrisy between this aspect of his private and corporate philosophies is not one of them.\n
there's only 7 copies of Plato? I...I HAVE THEM ALL!!!
No, a trivial amount won't influence them, but a significant amount would - that's the whole point of boycotts. Companies like money, and care about their reputations - if either of these are under threat it's possible that they would take action to remedy the situation.\n\nNobody participating in a boycott believes that their action *alone* will have an impact, it's a minor contribution to a larger worthwhile cause (which may or may not have any effect, depending on the circumstance and the number of boycotters). Same concept as voting - your one vote doesn't elect someone directly, but it can contribute.\n\nIn this case, the argument for boycott is perfectly valid. The person they have chosen to market one of their games champions a cause that *kills and injures children*.
Most of the side effects (~90%) were feeling of warmth and slight redness around the place of vaccination. So it is not that bad. And when a new vaccine comes along with reduced side effects, it's put to use.
yes we can know. Logic, just like mathematics, is universal. the only way a species can survive its self suicide point (which we are in right now), they MUST become peaceful. We are not, yet if we were to discover a planet with life on it, we would NEVER even have the idea to attack. The logic that ''they could be hostile you dont know'' is faulty and dumb. A species evolved enough, sheds its warlike behaviour. Its just how it works in order to survive.
I don't see where it says "free". I see where it says "affordable", though, and it's right on the front page.\n\n"Affordable" generally implies it's not free.
There's one thing that keept bringing me back to not trust the official version. WTC7. And it's not adressed at all.\nHow did the twin towers fall? Videos of the south tower shows how it tips over at the start (and there's some failed demolition compilation videos that show a lot of buildings tipping over). \n\nExpert: When a building begins to fall, it never ever tipps over. [when the colums have no support anymore] they have to go straight down. \n\nWhy does the top of the building has to go straght down _through_ the remaining 3/4 or so the building, as opposed to the _air_ all around?\n\nDoesn't really answer any of the interresting questions.
Sorry, what's a PC state? I don't think you've defined it.\n\n>I believe in TM as a "technique" and that there's pretty good evidence, at least to me, that learning to meditate from a teacher trained by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi generally leads to measurably different results than learning from some joe off the street or from a book or video\n\nYou haven't really said anything here. You believe in TM as a technique for what?
Yeah they're great. You can watch the rest of the show that it comes from (or at least a lot of it I'm not sure if thats all of  it) on Netflix.
We start our responses very similarly. Look at my intro statement. :) you beat me by 5 minutes though. Rough. Still an awesome coincidence. :)
Shit, aliens are real. Obviously.
I have the traits that he describes but I am not at all convinced that it is a disorder.  I have been diagnosed with PTSD and Adult ADHD.  I do not have any time to deal with people that want a disorder to explain the reason that they do not want to deal with life.
AFAIK, colloidal silver is one of those things that can work as a topical antimicrobial, but there's no advantage to drinking it. And yes, it turns you blue.\n\n
Without knowing the history behind it: That seems exceedingly silly.\n\nReason has cropped up on it's own all over the place, maybe you are taking "developed and spread" to mean "did not suppress".
Best line: "If the Asian press starts using the word ‘yeti’ for every unidentified animal it’s going to muddy the waters of cryptozoology.”
please refer to the NIH's and Hopkin's most recent studies involving acupuncture and pain relief, fertility, mental and emotional health...etc.  also, be aware that the education some of us receive includes more allopathic medical training in the first two years than the majority of RNs.  we spend more time in clinical settings in the US and abroad than a Hopkins student.  we are mastering not only the utilization of herbal remedies (where all pharmaceuticals are originally based), manual manipulation of joints and muscle, trigger point massage (used in allopathic medicine based on chinese medicine), psychological counseling, and dietary training.  Now, I fully agree that there are frauds and fakes out there but i do what i do because after being offered a full ride to Hopkins, I decided to pursue a more wholistic approach.  afterall, something that has withstood the test of 4000 years must have some validity.  and while i know it is anecdotal, without chinese medicine I would not be alive...fortunately, i have helped several hundred people around the country with the skills i have gleaned.  please do some research before you bag it completely. although i understand the skeptic mind, I'd like to remind you that any good skeptic and scientist is beholden to at least test the hypothesis they pose.
> only works around believers\n\nThat's... convenient?
I dont find this very convincing.
The planet will fix itself if nuclear war were to happen.  We won't live.  I'm sure that extra terrestrials would be happy to have us wiped off this planet because of how poorly we take care of it.
I've often times said that most of the UFO stuff is probably government experimentation. Aliens would be the perfect most explosive and probably easiest way to cover all of the secret work up. Those who believe are "crack pots" and those who don't probably dont think much about the topic.\n\nAlso, this was done a long time ago. People in this thread are talking about how they never got it to do more than hover or that the project was scrapped. Well yeah, that project was- but it's been 50+ years since. Considering all the technologies this is absolutely feasible by today's standards and if it was finally brought together you better believe they wouldn't tell anyone about it because the implications are something quite special.
I've been wondering the same thing, but have yet to take the plunge.
nurse here.  I was interested in reading this article and I got through half of #1 and was thinking, "ok wait... this isn't right... what are other people saying about this?"  I'm glad you're the top comment.  There's an increasing rate of arthritis and cancer because we're LIVING LONGER because of technological advances.  WTF!?
why aren't there 5 days of imaging errors? you would think that it would be much more constant if it was something as simple as that.
I'm roughly halfway through reading this, and its been quite an interesting read. The cases that he presents from the pre-flight era are especially cool to read. I think half the reason I'm enjoying it so much is because he isn't straight up saying "They're real! They're here!" and trying to be maintain a professional skepticism about it. \n\nAs for others' comments, they may still be reading it!
I don't know if this applies to wine, but I find the difference quite noticeable with beer. Specifically, I have glasses with different lips that direct the beer onto different parts of your tongue. So you choose the glass based on the style of beer and the part of your tongue best suited to taste those flavors.
Warning: The TSA does *not* approve of excessive buttocks manipulation.\n\nhttp://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/tsa-bans-bikini-woman-buttocks/
I'm taking the "mere hours" claim with MANY grains of salt.  I suggest you do too, CONSIDERING THE HOAXER ADMITTED TO THE HOAX.
he entered the lane where vehicles can be when they are broke... collision should've happen...
Most do not, unless the are exploiting for capitalization... c'mon buddy!
I can't stand it when I see awesome videos like this and *the cameraman never goes any closer*. Come the hell on man! Get thy ass out there and tape some mufuggin ghosts!\n\nThat's a great video, I wish the cameraman had been a little ballsier.
Craked?
We don't live "whole" lives anymore. That's why. We're not really alive like they used to be in the stone age :P
AFAIK this is a common interview technique.  Having another camera increases the cost substantially and is awkward to carry around when doing interviews 'in the field'.  \n\n[Noddies](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noddy_%28TV_interview_technique%29)
>To be entirely fair to homoeopaths, if they notice anything that could be even slightly harmful, they tell you to go to a regular doctor.\n\nNot all, unfortunately. Check out [What's The Harm - Homeopathy](http://whatstheharm.net/homeopathy.html).
On her blog she claims that people come back to the clinics fully healed or in much better condition. Not just of aids, but of numbness, lesions, aches, and so on. She also mentions that at the clinics they give out free food.\n\nIf I had a suspicious mind I would wonder if those things-- the free food, and the patient's claims of efficacy-- are somehow related. \n\nOnly if I had a suspicious mind, you understand.
there was one with a stick-like figure crossing a park or street at night from the top left corner of the screen to the bottom right, is that the one? i believe it was shown to be a trick of light/shadows.\n\nthe one video which i thought was creepy and convincing was that of a woman who filmed herself sleeping and disappearing from the under the sheets, then promptly re-appearing under them, in a way that showed either a very elaborate stunt or the real thing.
Nope. If its paranormal then the video will show that as well.
i too discovered those rips a few months ago\njolly good!
> Watch over time as it gets angrier and larger. \n\nThis is fascinating. I am well aware of time cube, but you are totally correct- back in 1998 it was almost a rational, polite argument. \n\nWow. Just wow.
> The "Dr. Oz Show's" apple juice alert may be fruitless\n\nHa.
Mr Gray type of alien are obviously terrestrial in nature (they are even anthropomorphic) which suggest they have the same common ancestors as humans.\nThey evolved underwater (possibly in caves) and most of the UFO phenomena involving Mr Gray type of beings are not from outer space but from earth.\nThey've evolved unobstructed by environmental problems (remember that humans were almost wiped out from earth at least once) and they have superior technology.\nThey wouldn't normally bother trying to understand us but when they started to detect the shakes we were making with our atomic explosions they got interested.\nMost governments around the world are aware of these amphibian "animals" (we call everything that is not human an animal) and their superior intellectual abilities.  They are the source of the myth of Atlantis, and they are even investors in both Bahamas Atlantis and Dubai Atlantis, which they regard with the same sympathy we regard bonobos begging for cookies on multi-million research projects supported by the highest institutions of high learning. Do you see the pattern?
You might wanna put a /s tag at the end of your comment.
Do an AMA while you're dying?
Of course not. Allow me to clarify. The original post stated:\n\n> We're part of nature. Killing things and eating them is part of nature. It's what we do. We're animals.\n\nAll of these statements are indeed true, and there are no fallacies if we take the statements at face value. *However*, there's a **strong** implication, or perhaps even a tacit assertion contained within that string of facts.\n\nNamely, that the *natural tendency* for animals to eat other animals therefore makes the action *morally justifiable*. This is where that statement of facts devolves into the naturalistic fallacy.\n\nI realize that claim was never explicitly made, but it certainly was implied. Otherwise, the statement would have been a redundant collection of well known facts. I'm fairly confident that the original poster wrote that statement with the goal of illustrating why it's moral for humans to eat animals. If it's reasonable for me to draw that implication, the statement stands as a perfect example of the naturalistic fallacy.
Humans are a virus, Mr. Anderson.
Fish are not cute. Fish are for eating.
Mrsamsa, how's it going?\n\nWhat's your take on the study? It seems you're leaning towards a less skeptical view?
Finally a little honesty in the homeopathic industry.
It might be a time span thing. People who are fat but starve to death can't get their bodies to metabolize their fat stores fast enough to keep them alive. Those in concentration camps might be fed enough to keep them alive, so they'll lose substantial amounts of weight before they eventually die.
> Gigawatts per hour is a legitimate unit to express the acceleration of power.\n\nTechnically, it expresses acceleration of *energy*.
That a Chinese lantern?
so there was an earthquake? hahaha
That's his contrived rationalisation and he's sticking to it.
As he was reading it off I thought he was describing Stephen Fry perfectly.  But then it turned out to be Hugh Laurie.  So, obviously this was a bit more of a set-up than usual.  I don't think it's fair to call it a debunking in this case because it was all based around the opinions of Fry and Laurie who were already non-believers.  It was entertaining, but this wasn't a real debunking like when Randi hands everyone the same horoscope or randomizes horoscopes for people and then let them rate how well it describes them.
Anybody else have anymore information on these boxes? Maybe part of a research program by some research group?
Most groups try to stick with "paranormal investigation"  I use that term for my group. It helps people trust us more in my experience.
Is this a joke or not, because either way it's the best comment I've seen all day.
I've got a better question for you.\n\nDoes it work or not?
It's Will Smith saving the world. Balloon boy's father is watching with envy in his eyes.
There needs to be a new word created.  "Conspiracy" implies a knowing, complicit, identifiable, perpetrator.  Most people in the world just do shit without even thinking about the downstream consequences.  That's not conspiracy, it's human nature.\n\nI'd bet that there isn't a person in the western hemisphere who has not at one moment tried to do a good thing and in the next thought about how a new pair of cool looking sneakers would be.  It's just the way we are, and probably why we have been so successful (if you can call it that) as a species.\n\nThe best thing about these Zeitgeist films is that they advance thought about very real issues and attempt to raise awareness in the general population.  As far as solutions, well that's another matter.\n\nI wasn't your down-voter btw.
>Fine. You still have said anything negative about the 2500+ architects and engineers. So there's that.\n\n1500 assorted engineers and architects hardly constitutes consensus.\n\n>And assuming the planes took-out the center columns (though unlikely an aluminum tube could pulverize concrete-reenforced center columns of the World Trade Towers, so as to create the opportunity for a near-free-fall event), the floors beneath (all 90+) offer nothing but resistance.\n\nThe center columns, the elevator shafts don't need to be destroyed for this sort of collapse. The floors fall on top of each other while forcing outward the perimeter steel frame. With the steel frame forced outwards there is no surprise that the building collapse at the rate it did. The floors beneath don't offer resistance that outweighs the growing momentum of the falling mass, they only contribute.\n\n>That said, the footage clearly demonstrates how the top floors eventually slow and stop due to the maintained structural integrity of the bottom floors:\n\nThat's great, but that is a building of very different construction in a controlled demolition. The WTC buildings have a relatively rare frame + truss construction that is very much prone to the sort of failure we see. You can't assume the lower flaws have structural integrity when the outer shell is warped and forced outward. With the shell in that state the lower flaws just don't provide resistance as the trusses on each floor are meant to sit on top of the frame. With the frame warped and expanded, the trusses simply fall down.\n\n>Under no circumstances will the top floors gain momentum after the "trigger" event:\n\nYou're simply wrong, they can gain momentum, and they DO gain momentum. Both in velocity and in mass.\n\n>that, unlike WTC1 and WTC2, where the buildings' collapsed maintained a highly-unexpected steady rate as the top 15 floors collapsed through the bottom 85 floors.\n\nWho told you it is unexpected? It is very much expected considering the design of the building for reasons i've pointed out several times.\n\nGo look at the building cross section, do some research on the buildings construction, it's simple enough for a first year engineering student to understand. I'll bother with you when I feel like you actually understand what the frame's purpose is, and how the trusses sit on the frame.
I was under the impression that his particularly rare form of pancreatic cancer has a 5% mortality rate if caught early and treated under normal medical conditions.
Oh. Why is that?
Gah it makes me MAD!! \n\nHow to do something wrong, wrong!\n\n\n\nEdit: for more information on bashar: http://www.bashar.org/contact.html\n\nAnd the research: http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/05/16/everything-energy/\n\nEdit 2: spelling
Dear Landlord,\n\nYou're NEVER going to fucking believe this but ....\n\n
[Matt Dillahunty vs Matt Slick](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rb1mfKJU6bo)\n\nDillahunty sorted him out pretty good.\n\nAs far as understand it, this argument fails because they try to bind their own God's hands to make it work.\n\nThe omnipotence paradox ultimately undermines it.
in a tornado things dont stand still.
Ufo Hunters did an episode on this. I'm not too fond of their way of making this show, but I felt it should be added here. \n\nI see /u/LAT3LY know about this personally, can you tell me if their location of the grave is correct? \n\n[Here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDmDIk75ITc) is the episode.
It turned out, it was!\n\n>There are some very good reasons for belief in extraterrestrial intelligence, but Roswell isn't one of them. It is my opinion that Roswell did not involve the retrieval of an extraterrestrial craft. This does not mean that I have ruled out the possibility that something real is occurring, either in the skies or in the human psyche.\n\nMy vote is on the latter. There is something very interesting going on in the author's psyche.
The blessing of the golden shower is known far and wide.
If, by "much higher order of woo,' you mean using long words appropriated incorrectly from scientific fields, then yes.
1. Mooslimb terrorists crashed highjacked planes into the buildings.\n\n2. They are credulous idiots.\n
I am not saying they must remain secret,  I am saying you'd be an idiot to give up the option of ever living a normal life again for 700k. \n\nThat is assuming you weren't whisked away to be studying in some military lab somewhere. \n\n\nThere is an end goal, and it isn't accumulating material wealth before you die.
Yeah, it's a great quote but I don't think we *had* to give advertising views to the dailyfail.
I read naked as nuked, made it far more interesting....
>That doesn't jive with the inverse square law at all. \n\nYou are assuming omnidirectional radio broadcasts.  That maybe too simple.  Anyone wishing to facilitate contact with another star system would certainly use beam confinement of some sort.
> Even if the rapture was coming, Matthew 25:13 "Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.\n\nStop it.  Just stop it.\n\nHarold Camping's doomsday prediction is wrong because it's bat-shit crazy, *not* because he misunderstands the magic book.\n\nSo don't stoop to citing scripture like Fox News.
>Globalization is not the same thing as one-world government\n\nThanks captain obvious.  Globalization is the means; global government, or at least global money and tracking, is the goal.
I was hoping to gain insight into the creationist thought process by identifying details of the opponents they consider themself to be up against.\n\nI'm sure some creationists things all scientists are conspiring against them. A larger amount probably think *some* scientists are. More still may take the 'physics is not immutable' approach and so on.\n\nAre all the factions pretty much crazy and irrational? Yes? Do they all believe they are up against exactly the same opponents? I'm pretty sure they do not, and identifying their arbitrary selections of opponents can be the key to combating their victim mentality IMO.
What is a plebe anyway?
I agree with you, I used to listen all the time but I listen to maybe 1 show/week these days.. often *less*.
The infection...it spreads...
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Alan_Yurko
Okay, I made it to the chemtrails part. Wouldn't it make more sense if the chemtrails dissipated more quickly? Meaning they, instead of staying localized to a small region of the sky, would spread out and fall to the ground. Granted, I don't know what her conspiracy concerning them entails so her argument could be that they are used to seed clouds.
While that stuff seems funny it does not change the fact that most of the things decried there are actually today in a far worse situation than in 1970 without a lot of hope to get better ...
You're not supposed to put it on steak.
But like i explained, they were bb shaped, not exactly bbs..\n\nIve came to the conclusion someone shrunk bats with a shrink ray and they shat their destructive shit on me.
Who took the images of the that region though? Remember, photoshop can take objects out, aswell as putting them there.
Aka exploratory analysis, data mining, fishing expedition.\n\nI'm particularly a fan of [Distilled Sensing](http://videolectures.net/smls09_castro_dsasf/) as an approach to this problem. It basically says, instead of doing one test, keeping the lowest p-values, and praying that your threshold is too low for them to be accidents, you instead perform repeated tests, throwing out the most insignificant variables at each iteration. That way you can still have high confidence even when you have weak signals.
Well, your housemate is an idiot!\n\n***IF*** chlorinated drinking water caused cancer ***EVERYONE IN NORTH AMERICA AND EUROPE WOULD BE DEAD RIGHT NOW***...
I'm no scientist by any stretch of the imagination but the first thing that comes to mind is [electrogravitics](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrogravitics). Maybe someone else who has more knowledge can speak to the concept's validity.
Just from the brief page (IANAL) I would say it's much more aligned with negligent manslaughter. In the shower case, there was kind of both A) an act of holding a child in a scaling shower and B) neglecting to do anything about the effects thereof. In the OPs case, it seems more like they *only* neglected to do something - their child was sick, they knew (or could reasonably extrapolate) not getting proper medical care would result in death and then didn't.\n\nThere isn't really a "level" to this morally, even if it may feel like it. If I suddenly decided to not feed my children, ignoring advice that non-eating humans eventually die, that would be absurd, evil and deadly but still a matter of neglecting to do something anyone sane would (thus resulting in death) as opposed to doing something resulting in death.
I am giving this 100% of my upvotes as well.
>Powering an LED with bioenergy,\n\nNot sure what you're talking about.\n\n>raising the temps of your fingers 15 degrees\n\nWho cares?\n\n> being packed in ice water for 2 hours and emerging steaming hot\n\n"Steaming hot" is disingenuous. The water wasn't boiling. And still, I don't see how this supports your claims.\n\n>controlling the immune system under medical observation\n\nHas not been shown. Read that article more carefully.\n\n>demonstrating thought impossible biomagnetic field strengths in meditation. \n\nBullshit, for reasons already discussed.\n\n>You want it to become a commonly known and a widely observed phenomenon. You want something with the entire scientific community's endorsement and seal of approval, something everyone can agree on is real.\n\n>We have a handful of people on earth who would be able to provide this for you, not thousands and not the tens of thousands it would take to provide that for you. \n\nIt would only take one person to demonstrate your claims.\n\n>99.99999% of the spiritual community is made of frauds. \n\nSince there is no such thing as a spirit, I'd say it's 100%.
> how many of those are qualified to assess the collapse of a skyscraper?    \n    \nNone, because a skyscraper has never collapsed before, even under fires of greater intensity. Three in one day, as a result of two plane impacts, is an astonishing outcome.
That's gotta be crazy to be experiencing.  You should go to the apartment you had in the future, just to see what it is like currently.
So absolutely nothing then?
And that's a lot.
*and technicians. \n\nAlso, these people aren't managing a McDonald's - they're operating huge fleets of scientific equipment that scans the universe for signals then they're filtering all the data. More than likely everyone on that team would be getting paid far more than that if they worked for a privatized company that did the same work.
I love that, "get in that helicopter and take pictures of it!".  Make sure and not go directly over top and get photo's, nope, make sure you come  at it from REEEEEAAALLY far away and at a horrible angle!  That way no one will be able to get any real detail from it!  Makes perfect sense.
Honestly, the arguments against the conspiracy is almost as bad as the arguments for it.
This is conjecture, but nuclear weaponry and atomic fission supposedly have massive metaphysical repercussions.
Assuming they evolved from apes, either like us, or like the pre Christian world.
Oh you think everything posted here is a glitch?
http://irs.sagepub.com/content/17/1/99.short\n\nhttp://www.athleticinsight.com/Vol8Iss2/Superstition.htm\n\n
This idiocy has just been through the news in Germany a couple of months ago, when our government implemented this directive, or rather, when the implementation of this several year old stuff finally took effect.\n\nThe directive itself asks all medicine including herbal or other alternative medicine to proof that it works and has no unknown side-effects. Which would mean if you want to sell herbs as medicine, you have to go through the same process all other medicine has to go through. (Selling as food supplement or more or less anything else then medicine isn't restricted at all.)\n\nIn addition, there are several clauses in the directive, that actually make exceptions for already proven natural ingredients. That means if herbs have already been proven to have a certain effect, you won't have to do that again. You won't have to proof that camomile can work as an anti-inflammatory every time you make a new cream with it.\n\nIn Germany the whole debate was started and trumped up by the conspiracy theory morons. All the rest, including all the major alternative health groups and organizations actually are in favor of this.\n\n\nCan't really say anything about the possibility of other countries "gold-plating" it though.
Reader beware: **there are a couple "screamers" (but without the screaming of course)**
You had angry sex with a rampant Chopra fan?
So these studies are single-blind, not double-blind?\n\nAlso; no single study can show the efficacy or non-efficacy of a treatment.  We do not question the validity of pharmaceuticals just because one (or thousands) of studies show that one particular pharmaceutical doesn't work for a particular condition.\n\nStatistical analysis of acupuncture is in its infancy; I suggest we wait to draw complete conclusions until a lot more research is done.
I remember back in the day when 50% of their programming was Nazi/WW2-related.  I think I preferred the Hitlery Channel to its current iteration.
They must have been next to the tomatoes.
see - here's my point - you just assume i believe a certain way from a single interaction with me.  why?  what did i say that makes you so certain that you can so easily classify me?  what makes you think i fit into the mold you've made for me?
I never almost drowned, but my Dad did save someone FROM drowning...which would probably be considered a hit by a psychic.
No offense. But it just sounds like your case of sleep paralysis is combining with your sexual frustration.\n\nThe succubus was originally an invention by the Catholic Church back in the middle ages to explain men's wet dreams. The male version of the demon, incubus, was the church's explanation of pregnant or otherwise non-virgin "virgins."
really? I did this one time and I think it made the inflamation worse...
yeah ive had it happen before - are they compact flourescent lightbulbs?\n\nfirgured it was bad wiring
NMD = Not Medical Doctor.
I had this problem -- started drinking diet sodas in HS and about six months later started having massive migraines.  About a year later my grandmother told me about aspartame and whatnot and so I stopped.  I didn't realize that the migraines had stopped at the same time, but they did.
thank you so much. i am not the only one.
That can't be! She proves (**proves, I say!**) her testimonials are real with screen-grabs of her mail client!
Can someone offer a better translation?
Not when it comes to patriarchy theory, apparently. They believe it with the zeal of true fanatics.\n\nHonestly, it is *hard* to be a true skeptic. You need foundations in your life, and can't question **everything** all the time, or you'd never do anything. \n\nBut being a skeptic means that you're at least *willing* to hear the other side, and neither of them have been willing to do that when it comes to critiques of feminism.\n\nThey have fallen short of their own ideals, which is sad but not exactly surprising. True skeptics are generally hated, while these two do it for the popularity it brings them. So they'll only doubt things which are safe to attack, like religion and conservative ideas. Turn them against their own left-wing ideology, and they are as dogmatic as anyone else.
But I've never gotten a migrane in my life...
i would say any camera with night vision - otherwise you are kind of screwed i guess
A few years ago I started getting seasonal allergy attack symptoms after taking NSAIDs. Stuffy, runny nose, itchy face and eyes, uncontrollable sneezing. Turns out some people are allergic to NSAIDs and it comes out as a respiratory attack. These effects listed in the article don't say anything I haven't read on the warning label or heard from a doctor.
> No offense, but fuck continuing this conversation.\n\nFine with me.  You don't provide proof either.  At least while we were chatting, I was bothering to try and find studies on fat only or protein only diets, or at least some research on inuit blubber only diets to see if there were any fat eskimos prior to the introduction of western diets.\n\nIn any case, I have a life and have to run (literally).  I was hoping to pick up later, but I'll accept your lack of proof with the same disdain.
that's disappointing if true.
Please, before you do an AMA, think about how you would advise a layman to impress his or her friends or point out to his or her friends how this is all B/S.\n\nI think this will be an important question if not the most upvoted one.\n\nI for one have friends who are not persuaded by the kind of thinking or evidence that would persuade me, but would take notice if they were fooled by a magician/psychic/whatever.\n\nIt would go a long way if you could just provide a trick or two or point us to some very beginner tricks that we could perform.\n\nCould people respond with posts indicating whether or not they thought this would lead to positive results or people using this information to rip others off?\n
Hey, now, a few of those are still alive!
After reading this blog, I can only assume that what he really wanted to say with his title was "Why I am a fan of sweeping generalizations and confirmation bias".  \n\n"All skeptics are Neoliberal"?  Really?  You must have some compelling evidence for that, right?  Oh, you don't seem to have any, just a tired collection of what you feel are sound logical arguments (that really aren't). The blogger uses terms like 'Western thought' as some kind of criticism, but doesn't bother to tell us precisely what that term means.\n\nSkepticism is Sexist/Islamaphobic?  Uh, yeah, that might be true if the whole 'elevatorgate' issue had been composed of sexists and islamaphobes on one side (the skeptical side), and the champions of diversity and tolerance on the other.  It wasn't.  The debate was occuring within the skeptical movment, proving that skeptics possess the same wide-ranging philosophical/ethical/political beliefs as the rest of society.  By using 'elevatorgate' as an example of skeptic == Sexist/Islamaphobe, the blogger only really succeeded in showing that he is guilty of selectively choosing which parts of a debate to apply to skeptics.  \n\nThis guy is no longer a skeptic because he's decided that it's easier to not think skeptically.
He's still a child. Make your arguments in a non-confrontational way and let him grow up a little. How many of us were atheist or agnostic at that age? \nYou can encourage and model rational thought and a skeptic's world view. Try to avoid making it an issue. He is nearing an age where many children are differentiating themselves and are learning to separate from their parents' beliefs. He may react to your pushing by holding on to these beliefs even more tightly.  Trust that you raised a good kid, and let him grow into a more realistic view of the world.  \n
Post*
>and believes that "homeopathic remedies" can still affect the soul in a way that science can't explain\n\nHas science explained everything?  I'm not sure it has.\n\nThe term homeopathy has multiple uses, and you don't want to end up debating semantics.  There are eardrops you can by from Walgreens labeled as homeopathy; they won't cure an infection, but they do very much numb your ears, and you wouldn't want to use too much of it.  So, there is stuff labeled as homeopathy that is very much active.
 Dumbledore using the the Deluminator?
Descartes determined that the pineal gland was the seat of the soul... So maybe flouride interferes with the ability of the incorporeal soul to interface with the body...\n\nI'm actually kind of surprised I haven't read that- I mean, it's really not any more ridiculous than most of the other crap.
>I love her, but she doesn't make it easy.\n\nYou must have the patience of a saint.
Not very convincing, since we don't have the guy's actual testimony, we have a claim from a second party. It's hearsay.
There is a thread on [this same article](http://www.reddit.com/r/Health/comments/8gwy7/quackery_or_good_honest_advice_colloidal_silver/) over in /r/Health/ that could use a dose of skeptical thinking, too.
No he doesn't.  \n
That doesn't respond to the point. 3 gallons of water in under 15 minutes is impossible to drink, vaccines on the other hand can get a relatively large amount of a chemical into your bloodstream in no time at all.\n\nIt's a silly answer to a serious question.
Link? I've heard of the architect before but not that.
You probably want a doctor to tell you what to do regardless.
I know that. But it was a real interview with a real PHD, which is something to consider.\n\nIs it not normal to procrastinate things that are difficult? To get quickly bored of a game?
Could also work, although I'd worry about them feeling like they were tricked, and that the test was unfair.
Maybe you should do a little more research then the two links I found in 5 seconds with a google search. Some sounds might be real from factories or strange equipment. But most of the viral stuff is just fraud.
It sounds awfully similar to ADHD. What's the difference?
http://imgur.com/hvYaH
^^ This. As a sufferer from a number of great sleep disorders, the "Shadow People" seem to be a common hallucination. When I was younger it was terrifying. Now I've come to recognize when I'm in a sleep paralysis state and the evil shadowy dark figures in the sides of the room are a hallucination. \n\nNotice from here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis \n\n>In addition, the paralysis may be accompanied by terrifying hallucinations (hypnopompic or hypnagogic) and an acute sense of danger.[9] Sleep paralysis is particularly frightening to the individual because of the vividness of such hallucinations.[8] The hallucinatory element to sleep paralysis makes it even more likely that someone will interpret the experience as a dream, since completely fanciful or dream-like objects may appear in the room alongside one's normal vision. Some scientists have proposed this condition as an explanation for reports of alien abductions and ghostly encounters.[10]\n\nand...\n\n>Some reports read that various factors increase the likelihood of both paralysis and hallucinations. These include:\nIncreased stress, Sudden environmental or lifestyle changes \n\nIncreased stress is key here, this is when I tend to have my episodes, when I'm stressed. Note from "Shadow People" article: \n\n>Hollis believes that shadow people have always existed, that they feed upon emotions of fear, and that they can be repelled by thinking positively \n\nHey, what do you know? Reduce your stress, shadow people disappear! \n\nSorry guys, as much as I think the story of a fear eating Khai'min demons is kind of cool (that no cameras has ever picked up: home, security, street, nor cell phone). The far simpler explanation is a common sleep disorder.
>However I'm pretty sure that NATO wouldn't have lifted a finger were it not for the oil deals/profits involved.\n\nwhile i agree i think there was more than altruism involved, i do not think oil was a major motivation. The west had a good thing going with mr gaddafi. same prices and a stable government is better than a good democracy for oil.\n\nThe other factors, apart from altruism, i think that where important.\n\n1)The amount of migration to italy and spain if shit hit the fan   \n2)President sarkozy having a very very difficult time at home, so needing to show his power.   \n3)The big swinging dick argument, Nato had shown nothing since the Bosnian wars and where scared about a repetition of rwanadan genocide (a lot of the rhetoric gaddaffi used was similar)   \n4) The arab spring was a very important factor.   \n\n
Hey, they have documentation of Illuminati mind control plots!\n\nThe more you know . . . the more you can bend the masses to your will.
OH! That's [Gulu-Gulu Cafe](http://www.gulugulucafe.com/) and that's a Boston Terrier head :)\n\n\n*Edit* Actually it's Harrison's comics, probably still giant art though.
>now if willful ignorance could become punishable in non-medical matters...\n\nFTFY
The image overlay text says:\n"COMBINES THE MOST POWERFUL FORCES OF HEAVEN AND EARTH"\n\n:D\n\nI also love the fact that they talk about Jesus' penetrating power.
Well, if theism has satisfied your personal burden of proof, I suppose you can.\n\nThis will probably be unlikely, however.
There's nothing that makes these objects necessarily aliens, is there?\n\nI would, personally, need to be convinced that aliens lived close enough to make it here. Owing to that nasty problem of going faster than c, they would have to be right in our celestial back yard.\n\nIf they can't avoid showing up on radar or being seen, don't tell me we wouldn't be able to see their radio communications.
I make my claim based on accounts of abductees and individuals who talk of these beings. \n\nCredo Mutwa seems to be the most trust worthy based on his personality. Seeming, he would have no reason to bullshit. He is very old, and considered a Zulu Healer. \n\nThis is just what I have summed up, if, in fact, Grey's and Reptilian are truly real and engaging our species as some claim. \n\nFrom what Credo speaks of, the Grey's are actually in a suit, and the big black eyes we know are actually goggles. Behind their mask is a pinkish being, with smaller round eyes.\n\nThese species are what he describes "one of the most horrible smells." They smell almost like a retched metallic, chemical like smell. \n\nFrom other eye witness accounts these Grey's have been said to "get inside your head." They are telepathic. \n\nI definitely do suggest watching Credo speak of his life and his experiences growing up in Africa, as Christianity was being forced on his people. He has many interesting stories of deceit and tactics the white man has used on his native peoples to divide them. \n\nHe does not accuse anyone or make claims or force views. He is a wise man who just speaks of stories passed down to him through the Zulu people. He also speaks of his life.
Its fake. Look at the zoom out, dead giveaway.
For some reason, the believers never put this theory to test. I wonder why!
Came here to say just this. Thanks for beating me to it.\n
With regard to global warming, According to [this wikipedia article](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change) "An increasing body of observations gives a collective picture of a warming world and other changes in the climate system... There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities."\n\nThe article goes on to say:\n\n"No scientific body of national or international standing has maintained a dissenting opinion"\n\nThis means that not a single scientific organization with any legitimate credentials claims that the current global warming trend is not largely human caused.\n\nAsk your acquaintance what reasons he has for saying it's "liberal." An intergovernmental (read: outside any one political party) [committee](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Climate_Change) has come out with several studies that have massive amounts of data and considerable scientific oversight.\n\nAlso, weather doesn't equal climate. Weather is the day-to-day stuff. Climate is the average over a long period of time. Even if runaway global warming occurs, it'll still snow in Antarctica for the foreseeable future.
> It's unfalsifiable\n\nIt was falsifiable from my own perspective.  I remember reading some of them in grade school.  They seemed kind of vague and could apply to anyone.  I read some of the others and most seemed like they could equally apply to me.  And then, when they did make some somewhat specific predictions, I noticed that they didn't seem to come true (or were pretty much impossible for me).  And then the thought that crossed my mind is that it would be absolutely ridiculous for some of these predictions to apply to 1/12th of the population.
I was adducted.  The aliens have one of those anti theft alarms like at JC Penny and they call rental cops when you get busted.\n\nAlso, I totally was grinding this alien broad.  When I penetrated her blue ink squirted all over my hospital gown and her boyfriend kicked my ass and dumps the craft's sewage contents on my house whenever he flies over, which is total bullshit because my neighbor always accuses me of pissng on her porch when I don't even drink, much less get drunk.\n\nHis girl still cybers with me though, which is kinda cool.  By the way, while I was in the UFO jail I got raped by a guard, but they have cocks the size of nipples so it was like a dog humping your leg.  Kind of amusing.
>weird findings in behavioral neuroscience.\n\nAhh... You and mrsamsa have spoken before it would seem.\n\nInteresting conversation, thanks for the read.
Yes, that's exactly what I am saying. Have you read huwat's post? And the link he provided? Both explain quite well how this works and how you can change the meaning of a word. Which at the same time changes how people approach reality.\n\nI would also recommend reading 1984, which also addresses this issue with newspeak.\n\nAnd yes, using these words in a "colorful" way is extremely problematic for exactly these reasons. You call it clueless or socially mal-adjusted, but that's exactly what this is about. It's not someone who would never commit rape suddenly being turned around. It is about pushing or blurring boundaries just that little bit too far. It's not about direct causation like "he jokes about rape, therefor he rapes." But it is about having a general environment, where many little things like this contribute to a shift in boundaries, which can result in rape.\n\nJust to give an example, you know the unfortunately still common idea, that men have to conquer women? That even when a women say no, men should keep trying and going for it? Now imagine someone telling a story about how he had to do exactly this with his girlfriend. First she was shy, but his persistence made her change her mind.\n\nNobody did anything wrong in this case and yet, it can contribute to a general culture, which promotes the idea, that when you get told no by a woman, you just ahev to try harder. It's not anybodies fault, it's just how a society works.
Capsicum/Capsaicin is a natural blood thinner, much like aspirin/willow bark, and thus should allow the blood to flow easier.\n\nIt's also a natural anti-inflammation, so that may help a little with cold/flu like symptoms too.\n\nIt's *also* a natural analgesic, so will help with aches and pains.\n\nSo yeah, I can't see how eating it when you've got a cold or flu wouldn't help, except for people that get 'intestinal hurry' from spicy foods.\n\nOf course, you could just take an aspirin, it does pretty much the same sort of things and in a more regulated way, but then a good curry tastes nice too :D
I think that's only a problem if you use water when brushing your teeth. As long as they use paint thinner instead they should be okay.
What exactly do you need help with? The RDA stuff will be on the side of the package. If you need any water specific info, I can try to help (I'm a hydrogeologist/geochemist)
Thanks, I watched the video but I just missed that part. Probably shouldn't be doing homework at the same time.
They're all fake.  It surprises me how many people think crop circles are real evidence of aliens.
Just checked it.  Is this mod 12 or something?
I disagree. This is a true story, and deserves attention in r/nosleep. \n\nI personally do not enjoy how r/nosleep has recently turned into some kind of English Lit class. Don't get me wrong, I think good horror writers should be celebrated and there are many on r/nosleep. However, I really miss the days when most of the content on r/nosleep was straight up "true stories." I think that r/nosleep should return to its roots. \n\nJust my 2 cents.
That's very interesting. Before I cut the dairy, I was also having asthma attacks at least twice a week (It was lung damage from having pneumonia) and now, 2.5 years later, I can't remember the last time I had one.
Wow, what an insight! So the only thing we have to do against this is to say that it doesn't work? Why didn't you tell us earlier?
Meh. No worse than Sunday school or other religious indoctrination. As someone else pointed out, in this benighted age, "psychic" skills are not bad professional skills to have career-wise.
It was filmed on the mountain behind my house. I swore to never go out there at night.
> The original statement contained ambiguity *[that correctly reflected the article]*. My correction did not *[inaccurately, given that the research in the article does not conclusively establish it either way\\*]*.\n\n(\\*From TFA: "*I have not been able to establish* whether or not Mr. Stephens is a lawyer; certainly he does not appear to be a member of the California Bar nor the Texas Bar").
Was trying to find how he died. Wonder if it was something he could prevented with a proven treatment that he preached against.
Not much skepticism here, moving on...
coast to coast is awesome awesomeness!!! True, its much better when there are serious scientists and experts on as guests for the actual information and a nice dose of reality. But the other shows with crazy bastards ranting about doomsday, lizard people, nazis on the moon, ghosts hauntings and other wacky topics is just good ol' fun... & there's the slim possibility that these conspiracy theories are somewhat true, Which is horrifying.
Please stop insulting people.  Make your points in a civil fashion.  You're bringing down the quality of discussion.
Ok, so next up electromagnetic anomalies rather than body heat.
Was she that misandrous woman who tried to claim a question in an elevator made her feel like she was about to be the victim of sexual assault? No one should associate themselves with someone like that, irrationality like that does no good.
I'm sorry, did I stumble into some strange corner of the universe where preventing some bad outcome means the warning about that outcome was bogus?\n\nWith some exception, if we hadn't reduced our pollution levels most of those predictions very likely would have come true.
Yeah, he didn't even need something that important to mesmerize people.
Sounds like the idea that mathematics is discovered, not invented. It's one that I agree with. I think that if there are other highly intelligent beings elsewhere in the universe that they'll have discovered the same mathematical laws.\n\nBut it seems to me that without observation mathematics can not tell us what is true about reality.\n\nPhysics seems to me at least, to be the combination of mathematics and observation/experiment.\n\nEsoteric mathematics though has I think helped us to understand things in nature that we didn't before though. I think that Grassmann numbers might be an example of that, but I'm not sure.
And FWIW, it looks like he did his [math](http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=17.5+m%2Fs+in+mph) wrong.
That would be a win/win.
Sounds like a mirage to me. Also, check out that film, it's really good.
I got as far as "internal imbalance (cause)" and couldn't go on. The stupid...burned me
New hero.
evidence .. ha.. you are new to these subjects ? :p\n\nI don't recall exactly where i have read the details of the atlantis demise ..  could be the readings from edgar cayce or something the pledians might have said\n
I've always been annoyed at articles using the Aztec calendar to illustrate Mayan doomsday shit, but this\n\n>With the Aztec Mayan calendar, pictured\n\nreally goes full retard.
Neat!
I respectfully disagree.  Inefficiency doesn't hurt anyone but those who are involved in the process; environmental ramifications affect everyone to varying degrees.
A lot of folks in the Tarot crowd use the same rationalization. "Sure, the (snake oil) is crap, but I'm using it to tap into *real subconscious powers!*"
The problem with this list is that: Eating less processed food, Getting more Exercise, Not Watching TV, and Meditating probably will make you feel a lot better.  And they'll do it through scientifically understood and documented mechanisms.  Unfortunately all the credit will go to your now clarified, or detoxified, or whatever-the-fuckified pineal gland.  Woo is crazy making!!
It's not a diet in the quickly losing weight sense. It's more the "The kinds of food that a person, animal, or community habitually eats" sense. Although a good number of people end up losing weight. The only restrictions are that you don't eat certain things like grains, legumes or sugar and no processed crap. It still allows for you to eat quite a lot of different foods.
thats really sweet. :)
r/ freedomearth
occams?
best part:  "risk[s]...in very rare cases, drowning can occur"
Omnivores are species that eat both plants and animals as their primary food source, not just one or the other. We need both meat and plants for a healthy diet.
I've done a great deal of sky watching, but I haven't seen a satellite yet so I can't comment.\n\nConsider, however, that the Lyrid meteor shower peaked last night and tonight. Too cloudy to see anything where I am this weekend.
I've had this happen a few times. As soon as I close my eyes I wake the next morning. It's annoying, I like my sleep.
The vast majority of skeptic issues are all isolated cases except that they are things with little to no to negative evidence. Religion is no special case.
> permanent recording device that captures in crystalline detail the events and other histories in a person's life\n\nDamn it, how did you find out about that?! ;)
I don't disagree that everything on this chart is completely made up, which it is, *but* distilled water exposed to air does have a slightly acidic pH, since it takes up CO2, which forms carbonic acid in solution.  Citation [here](https://srac.tamu.edu/index.cfm/event/getFactSheet/whichfactsheet/205/), word search "pure water".  The pH of "pure water" on earth is closer to 5.6.
Yes, they'd all rather have been British colonial subjects like the Australian aborigines.  That was _much_ better.
Well, a huge solar flare was supposed to engulf the earth, fying our electronics and leaving us without electricity for several years. Nothing happened, I didn't even see the northern lights here in UK.\n\nI'm quite sure that the same will happen in a year.
err why are you asking me?
Still waiting...
He/she was bound to find out eventually. Better to hear it from you than from some internet stranger he/she never even met.
I could theorize that they have normal names, but then again, maybe they like asian names and mine is named Huayang Nyguyen.
> We can't bring down large prey with only our bodies like apex predators.\n\nNot through raw power, sure. But humans have rather incredible endurance, and can thus chase down prey until exhaustion. Surely that counts as being able to bring down large prey with only our bodies?
I found the complains of youngearthevolution a bit too harsh (matter of taste probably) but I have to agree on this one.\n\nI remember the worst example of this when they had one of their live shows, Bob started talking about something Physics related and Rebecca said something like "well that doesn't sound boring at all *giggle*".\n\nBob struggled for words a bit which I can't fault him for and I actually respect that he managed to get back on track quickly but this thing really lowered my view of Rebecca.\n\nDoing this selfish ("I don't like Astronomy, let's talk about my stuff istead!"), backstabbing thing just for a quick laugh isn't something Steve or even Jay would dream of doing (who I think sometimes has a tongue that is quicker than his brain). She just wanted a bit of sympathy from the audience at the expense of Bob... and it was a fucking live event.\n\nThis also wasn't the only instance of that. I always want to send a telepathic message to Bob "Ignore her! I love your physics and tech stuff!". It's also worth mentioning that she's the only one on the cast who does this.
That'd be awesome. Also, totally ridiculous.\n\nIt reminded me of this Onion skit:\n\n[Should The Nation's Unemployed Be Buying New Apple Computers?](http://www.theonion.com/video/in-the-know-should-the-nations-unemployed-be-buyin,20083/)\n
Not a fucking chance!
Is there any reason to believe that this was actually a pilot and not just some randomer calling in? Did they confirm their identity with the news company at all? These pilot reports are always pretty exciting but the fact that it's completely anonymous makes me a bit skeptical...
WHY THE YELLING?\n\n*Children* on Facebook, too.  You'd think children have diplomatic immunity to skepticism what with their imaginations.
I quoted these 'possible explanations' as a joke as they have been put forward in the past by various authorities to explain away UFO sightings. Personally, even if I was a die hard sceptic, I would be offended by the suggestion that someone could mistake a tiny spec of light like that emitted from Jupiter for a UFO.
If any religious figures even remotely suggest that this is the wrath of God, I'll wish for them to be drowned in a pool of a rational word vomit. I'm talking a no punches pulled, no tolerance for bullshit, feisty rebuttal.\n\n*When* some religious leader makes that comment (because you know one of them will), they need to be **raked over the fucking coals** for even suggesting it. Pat Robertson, the mic is yours.
Then how do you explain the Bermuda Triangle? ooooOOOOoooooo...
...believed by idiots...
You could take the "skeptics" to the moon and show them the base of the LEM, the flag, and the footprints, and they still wouldn't believe it.
Probably a Catholic priest.
[Videos](http://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/cybm5/this_demonstration_of_chi_has_me_stumped/c0w7cz6) of the tricks performed with product names.
What about the videos on Youtube of people actually making some elaborate circles?
And to be fair, Admiral Motti was right; Vader's powers were useless. What does Vader do in response? He proves how powerful he is by doing something that hands can easily do. But get this...from four feet away! Power! Unlimited power!
The precedent that this ruling might set is absolutely terrifying.
No. You hold it, I dial.
No, I figured you knew, but the submitter's title seemed ambiguous on that point to me, so I thought it was worth being explicit
Gotta love that she's so fucking sue happy that this couldn't get published and that disclaimer had to be placed at the top. I know I don't have much risk as some anonymous commenter on Reddit, so this is hardly a grand gesture, but whatever.   \n   \nSally Morgan, you are a sickening human being. You are consciously defrauding the grief-stricken and hopeless for the sole purpose of monetary gain. Everything you do, from your deceitful 'performances' to your enthusiastic use of the legal system to silence your critics should be offensive to anyone with even a partially functioning moral compass.
Ancient Aliens? [No!](http://s3.amazonaws.com/kym-assets/entries/icons/original/000/007/423/untitle.JPG?1320093494)\n\nDan Aykroyd: Unplugged on UFOs? [Me Gusta!](http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lfi03wHdlo1qbvc38o1_500.png)
Fucking Dr. Phil.
While I do appreciate you actually taking the time to read through the article I sent you, I should warn you that I am not the person to debate this with, as I have no insight in the field of psychology whatsoever. I simply saw the to preceding posts and linked an article that I thought seemed relevant and interesting.\n\nIf you do want to start a debate, however, I would recommend that you send the very same thing you wrote here to the author himself, and maybe read through the already published feedback. As for the required reading part, an example of that can be seen [here](http://arachnoid.com/psychology/feedback1.html#Required_Reading_I) where it's more than anything else used to simply open debate.
No one ever has a microchip implanted in them, if you really believed it was as simple as being in your hand under a scar, you would have cut your hand open years ago.
Yay, confirmation that I'm not actually crazy! And no it wasn't on Nov. 5th, it happened a while ago. I would estimate between Dec 2010-Feb 2011.
>I'm curious as to the other things we might find in those Form 990 statements...\n\nProbably more of the same paltry sums which are dwarfed by things like Greenpeace's annual budget ($250,000,000) or Al Gore's energy bill.
my experience of what i thought was a ufo.\nIt was me my brother and my cousin, who was visiting from mexico at my grandmas house when we were on vacation and use too spend alot of time at my grandmothers house when my brother and i were younger. She lived in a small town in cushing, oklahoma, and it was around 10-11 at night not much light other then here backyard light and the light inside the pool. we were swimming having a good time when out of no where this thing came slowly flying over my grandmas house till it was right over us. we look up stunned didnt say anything too each other just stood in the pool till it slowly past her backyard and went several houses over and looked like it landed. in somebody back yard. i was so amazed i wanted too go chase after it but there were no alleys that i could run through. i would of had too jump over the neighbors yards to get to it but i wasnt going to do that. so after i knew i wasnt going to be able to get any closer i just let it go.
Vaccines aren't 100% effective.  In addition there are some people that can't be vaccinated(e.g. people with allergies to certain ingredients in the vaccine or that have weakened immune systems).  The people that can't be vaccinated rely upon everybody else getting vaccinated to prevent them getting sick.
All those times I've gotten the flu man... I'm probably *riddled* with cancer
Because his target audience is young kids. And I think he's doing a bang-up job of teaching critical thinking to them!
I'm thinking someone else is showing confirmation bias here...
That's not really that much ammo when you think about it. One million rounds of hollowpoint .223 translates to letting them arm 1,000 "soldiers" with 1,000 rounds. Not really going to take over a country like that.
WTF! What about rape, incest and medical conditions where bring the baby to term will endanger the life of the mother... I believe its the mothers right to choose what to do...not some jesus freak with too much free time.
What the actual fuck.
You could clearly see stars between the three lights so it was not a solid object.
Good :)
The tithers start the indoctrination process early. My wife is a recovering baptist ... I am very proud of the intellectual leaps she has made in the last 2 1/2 decades.
I am a medical doctor as well and I agree with my colleague Dr. Grox. The thought behind consuming bovine colostrum isn't bad, really. Antibodies are important in fighting many infections, so it would appear that consuming more antibodies from a cow would help to clear your boyfriend's infection.\n\nI'm skeptical of this for a few reasons though. First, though we do sometimes administer immune globulin (antibodies) to patients (though usually human or humanized) for a variety of conditions, these are usually autoimmune diseases. I am not aware of an indication for giving even human antibodies to patients for most bacterial infections, much less cow antibodies. (Tetanus would be an exception, but that is probably not the issue at hand.)\n\nSecond, I think that it is very unlikely that a healthy adult human would include cow antibodies consumed in colostrum in the bloodstream. Antibodies are proteins, and proteins are broken down pretty efficiently in the gut. And even if a cow antibody managed to translocate to the bloodstream intact, it would be recognized as a foreign object and you would start to form antibodies against cow antibodies.\n\nThird, while I'm not sure how colostrum is processed by the company, I bet you're not either. I would think that pasteurization would be a difficulty, as heat would tend to inactivate any antibodies. If the colostrum is not pasteurized, on the other hand, you would risk infection with organisms like E. coli and Listeria by consuming it.\n\nSo, in short, I don't think that your boyfriend would receive any benefit, and may be at some risk, from colostrum. If he needed exogenous antibodies there are ways of providing these that have proven benefit, but I seriously doubt that's indicated in any case. If he were my friend, I would moderately strongly recommend against using bovine colostrum.\n\nAs for the nurse, it does sound to me that her behavior is inappropriate. Don't get me wrong, nurses are great and really do the vast majority of what benefits patients in the hospital. They're our eyes and ears and frequently give doctors great advice about patients. I trust a lot of what my nurses tell me. But, they're not physicians and they don't have the training to prescribe medications appropriately. My first guess would be that colostrum actually may pose some health risk, and that being the case she should not be suggesting it to a patient without consulting a doctor to weigh these in light of the patient's whole condition. I would mention this to your doctor. I'd hate for her to recommend a potentially dangerous supplement to a patient with a compromised immune system who could be severely harmed by an infection.
Not as good an argument as it looks at first.\n\nImagine for a moment that relativity was nonsense and dowsing worked great. GPS devices would look the same - they just wouldn't have to compensate for relativistic effects. Oil prospecting would look the same too - no-one would publicize their use of dowsing since it'd be a competitive advantage.
Jesus christ the downvote brigade came down in full on rugtoad. \n\nI for one would like to thank you and the others who contributed to an interesting debate.
You're a selfish arse, but that doesn't make you a worse person for doing it.  I think the good in us is that we have been socialized, or were born (or whatever) with an instinct to make others happy.  You had many other options in that situation, and you chose one that increased your happiness, his happiness, and inspired other people.  \n\nGood nuf for me.
The "paralellism" image on this wikipedia site.
He had the surgery in 2004.
It always reminds me of a common statement I make while debugging:\n\nThe good news is that I've proven the bug doesn't exist. The bad news is that the bug doesn't agree with me.\n\nIf you've eliminated everything impossible, then whatever's left might be the case. Or you might have just fucked up and made a mistake.
> But it's been shown in just the brief time that atheism+ has existed that there are a lot of people hostile to their message. People that don't think they should exist\n\nPerhaps that has something to do with how 'atheism+' came about? Perhaps the reason so many people don't like them is that people are already familiar with them doing this same shutting out of dissent and accusing dissenters of bigotry?\n\nIf they simply wanted a circlejerk, make a circlejerk. Allegedly, that's not what this is supposed to be for, though.\n\n> If open criticism were allowed, the entire board would be flooded by debate/discussion posts, many (most?) of which will have already been addressed, and legitimate discussion would be choked out.\n\nHas it already been addressed, though? "You're a bigot, goodbye" isn't discussion. And that's pretty much what I've seen from atheism+, including its 'leading lights'. No attempt to consider that maybe they're misunderstanding others, no attempt at understanding what their perspective actually is, just accusations of bigotry, and dismissal. It's not skepticism - not even when PZ Myers or Phil Plait does it. Perhaps it's that refusal to *actually* have that discussion in an honest manner that has *caused* so much strife and criticism?\n\n> People that are running a downvote brigade on the sub right now.\n\nCould this perhaps be related to them claiming to be in favor of skeptical inquiry and critical thinking and against bigotry, but then banning all dissent and labeling everyone who disagrees a 'bigot'? People usually don't like to be called bigots, *especially* if they aren't bigots.\n\n> The other boards don't need to worry about this sort of thing because they aren't vehemently opposed by subreddits as vocal (or direct) in their opposition as MensRights.\n\nHAHAHAHAHA what? With all the right-wing libertarian crap that gets posted to reddit, you don't think /r/socialism has dealt with subreddits that are as vocal and direct in their opposition? Over 6% of /r/shitstatistssay showed up in an /r/enoughpaulspam thread to argue and downvote every post they disagreed with in just *twelve hours*; Ron Paul supporters have been spamming reddit off and on for *over four years*, and have regularly engaged in voting brigades (there was even the 'liberty bot' set up to autodownvote people they disagreed with politically). You don't think they also go after /r/socialism? Of course they do. They've organized invasions in the past.\n\nHave you been a member of any atheism board other than on reddit? I was a member of one of the (at the time) more prominent ones, the Internet Infidels Discussion Board (hell, PZ Myers used to be a poster there, too), for about six years, and let me tell you, we were *constantly* getting creationists, biblical literalists, and vocal disagreement of all stripes. Vocal and direct disagreement isn't something unique to radical feminists.\n\n> This has already happened to /r/feminism to an extent.\n\nReally? I just looked through some threads, and I didn't see any sign of this. I know MRAs show up there once in a while, but it doesn't seem to have stifled discussion in the least. If anything, the only 'stifling' I have seen was the constant fights between SRS-leaning radfems and *everyone else ever*.\n\n> I am very much in favor of a board that allows for criticism and discussion for /r/atheismplus\n\nMaybe one that is about "critical thinking and skepticism"? No, I think /r/atheismplus is basically just an offshoot of SRS already; it seems to entail all of the same beliefs that predominate throughout the 'fempire', just with the addition of atheism and skepticism (in name, anyhow).
He goes to great pains in a later question to politely reprimand someone for effectively saying it wouldn't be such a bad thing if creationists were bred out of the gene pool, adding "Everyone is entitled to an education"
They're all fads. Just need to be healthy and whatnot. \n\nThat said, I still regularly eat a bunch of those just cause I like em. A sandwich with bacon, egg, and some aged cheddar, with mashed avocado with a dash of lime juice and a pinch of sea salt, spread over the bread. \nSOO GOOD. \n\nAnd asparagus, lightly coated with some sea salt and olive oil, throw that shit on the grill and my god it is awesome. \n\n\nShit, I think it's lunch time.
The guy called back on another date and said he was acting..  Its on youtube..
Mauve_Cubedweller already made all the points I would have, and more; still, I wasn't advocating the government or anything else you implied.\n\nI was saying that her statement was really fucked-up, regardless of your stance on vaccines (or, the Tuskegee experiments... I guess.)
Damn.  Really bummed to see that this was made in software.  I think these hoaxers really do a huge disservice to everybody, as no one believes anything anymore.  Ships could land and aliens could walk out, and everyone would think it was viral marketing or something.
I like how so many people here believe they could easily outsmart the woo machine yet have zero experience with a polygraph. \n\nI am not here to support their use but I dislike people talking without knowing.
You can't be bothered to read it but find enough effort to ask for a TL;DR\n\nThis world amazes me continually
Remember that I am not contesting whether or not it is him.  I am fairly certain that it is, but to this point it makes no difference if it was him or not.  My question is why the military, or whoever made the call, decided to bury his body in the ocean before independent agencies had a change to look at it.  If you say a cost benefit analysis was used I would have to counter that the amount of money spent and the amount of blood spilled to kill him makes the frugality argument unconvincing at best.  Why would they start worrying about the cost of it now?
meant for OP
Just the good old instincts kicking in.
I got to "I would say I'm a lover not a fighter" and closed the window with the cry of "Shut up you hippy twat!"
No, the geometric patterns on the (hull) obviously point to something manufactured, not naturally occurring. The drag marks are also a little hard to explain away.
I'm pretty sure she never called it anything close to sexual assault, just that it was a bit creepy.
maybe we are their project and its all about creating a race of being using mainly dna from the planets natural inhabitants and then over a very long time they make an almost prefect species.  Maybe this is what type  5 civilizations do when they have mastered everything else. Biologic technology.\nMaybe they have a planet of super heroes  and right now its in the build phase and soon it will be time for each alien race to fight their projects against one another.
the answer to why any commercial enterprise does anything is always money
> So what, exactly, are we supposed to talk about in /r/skeptic, if we're not supposed to mention any ignorant bullshit?\n\nBut she's simply an idiot spouting idiotic statements that almost no one in their right mind would believe. People like her are popular because of the "OMG WTF did she say??"-factor. We play into their hands and further serve their agendas by spreading their bullshit around.\n\nBut to make a distinction, Jenny McCarthy is also an idiot, but she's an idiot who spreads dangerous lies that people believe, so it's important to counter her publicly. The whale sperm bullshit is simply a moronic urban legend. The value in countering that urban legend is not worth the cost of exposing more people to Snooki's ignorant bullshit.
TEDx had Anita Sarkeesian speak.\n\nThat's all someone really needs to know about the trustworthiness of their speakers.
>it's all still just theories based off evidence\n\nThose "just theories" have provided you with the computer that you're typing your comments from. Along with everything else like satellites and cellphones and so on. So you can call them "just theories," but it seems obvious to me that science has given us very accurate understandings of reality, as it makes things *work*. \n\n>it's the most simple route in life to take.\n\nNo, the hardest route to take is constantly questioning all information that you believe you know. Not all self-proclaimed skeptics live up to the label because they just want to engage in a circle-jerk and deride others as stupid, when they haven't done any critical thinking themselves. Furthermore, there's plenty of non-obvious things that science has uncovered that cannot be observed by everyday humans, such as relativity.\n\n>there is no evidence that God does or does not exist\n\nThe parent comment already addressed this, but so what? There is no evidence that God/Flying Spaghetti Monster/unicorns/etc exist or doesn't exist. We prefer living in a reality that doesn't have to posit such things outside the scope of knowability. Science is not capable of **proving** the non-existence of things.\n\n>they believe (in faith) that our brains are naturally wired for faith\n\nActually, that's untrue. It is evolutionarily advantageous to be paranoid and gullible and believe certain behaviors will ensure survival, whether it's prayer or a rain dance. Far better to engage in non-effectual behavior rather than being skeptical and unwilling to act upon anything unproven.\n\nLastly, why are you in the skeptic subreddit?\n\nEdit: Accidentally a few words
He provided no evidence, AKA he did not give you a means to test out the idea or hypothesis to come to similar conclusions.\n\nThe concept of a united unconsciousness has been - at least in my experience - beaten into hash. There is a large air gap in between me and the next man or women near my location. Nothing can connect us or even transmit data as there is no connection on any measurable level. If it can't be demonstrated, it can be dismissed without question.
Sad that this submission didn't take off:\n\nhttp://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/pa1aa/the_fireplace_analogy/?already_submitted=true\n\n4 upvotes. r/atheism should give it more love, or someone should resubmit it. If it wasn't already a resubmission.
you think it was a warning shot lets be crazy and say its a ufo for real im sure the orders were to engage target. I dont think bullets can penetrate a ufo armor the thing has to travel space with all kinds of micro meteorites way more destructive then anything a helicopter can fire. \n\nedit where are the stars and no muzzle flash\n\nfake anyway whys it only 1:29
When I was little I did a fair bit (nothing crazy... just wandering around a bit, and I often halfway remembered it), but in my adulthood, no, not that I know of. Roommates and/or live-in/overnight girlfriends have never mentioned any incidents beyond just talking in my sleep. Go figure.
To identify themselves with all of the countless other intelligent races who also have built craft.\n\nSimon Says:  Vega Pattern.
Let me tell you something right here, there is not a spec of truth in "Ask Reddit" the ridiculousness of the bull shit they pass off as truth is laughable. And the morons in that sub gobble it up, if you call bull shit you are going to have a bad time. I could go on for pages on the BS they pull off as real, but what is the point?
It's only talking about correlation and the opinion provided by rawstory is less than exemplary as usual. Next time I'd recommend linking directly to a source rather than an opinion article. No causal evidence has been provided.
I don't like this actually.  I think if there is a market for something, it should be allowed, no matter how ridiculous it may be.  Ebay exists to connect potential sellers with potential buyers, not to regulate what is bought and sold (disregarding illicit goods/services).\n\nEdit - Wow, I am completely unimpressed.  I would expect this community to be quite reasonable.  There is absolutely no reason a single person should downvote a thoughtful comment in this subreddit.
>She seems to have done no real scientific research, and instead, has relied on organic food blog talking points.\n\nThat I'm fine with. This I am not, nor your title:\n\n>I should have been more accurate and said that she had no degree that mattered.\n\nThere's a point where you've educated yourself to a point where you can do scholarly research without doing low-level work to satisfy a different degree. That is why post-grad programs evaluate people who have been working on things like aptitude and life experience. \n\nFor an example: my wife only finished 3yr CEGEP degrees in biology and acupuncture, but worked in banking for many years. She was accepted into an MBA program at SFU. So, even without the academic background for finance, she had enough life experience to be accepted into an MBA program.\n\nIf someone has a University education, I would say they should have some ability to research. If they have an Masters or Doctorate, I would absolutely expect them to be able to do research. If you have a post-grad degree, you don't go back and do undergrad studies.\n\nTo your point as to whether she is unprepared or not, you've undone your entire argument. Understanding this issue is one of being prepared, doing research by reading scholarly articles and synthesising the information. You don't need a relevant degree to do that and to suggest she go back and study botany or ag as an undergrad is ridiculous. It borders on bigotry. If she's failed to do this, it's because of lack of intellect, not certification.
...the hell did I just watch?
>Fucking Tory scum.\n\nYeah...it was **much** better under Labour, wasn't it....just like the last time they were in and fucked the country over...\n\nHow soon people forget.
zander pls
Okay now I understand. The picture is so blurry I just assumed that was part of your clothes.
i gave you reasons. "They kept forming in a symmetrical pattern. Wind no matter how many it is affecting at once, does not do that. They kept lining themselves up."\nHere are more. They were just sitting there, They were moving independently from each other incredibly close. This has happened all over the world. I gave you my reasons, you decided to skip over them.
Do you think ordinary citizens should be allowed to store, keep and use:\n- anthrax, botulism, leprosy and similar bacterial strains?\n- uranium, polonium and other radioactive material?\n- TNT and other explosives? \n- cyanide?\n
He handled it very well - the whole presentation.  I was encouraged by the folks able to laugh at themselves.
A&E stands for Arts & Entertainment, right? I'm pretty sure Psychic Kids falls within those boundaries.
thats just sad.
Good job finding this. Did you read it too? It is the same old nonsense I'm railing against. This is not a rebuttal of the evidence, or anything resembling the sort. I mean, it starts off, and continues with ad hominem attacks agaisnt the Huffington Post and the author.  \n\nThere are so many ridiculous statements here, but I can't sit here and write a 2 page counter. \n\nA taste though: What authorities? Has this guy seen Leslie Kean's sources! They totally ignore the fact that this was captured by **multiple** cameras. This one is great: the data measurements of the object's speed and size, taken and scrutinized by Chilean scientists is dismissed with this comment: \n\n>Perhaps it made no sonic boom or shock waves because it was a bug. I do agree that the object was under intelligent control – if you include bug intelligence. (Apparently, however, the Huff Po is not under intelligent control.)\n\nAn ad hominem attack, a shitty joke, and the absolute dismissal of the Chilean scientists findings, presumably because of their nationality....\n\n\nThis is NOT skepticism. This is dogma.
Whoaaa, that is a lot of text for something I am hardly curious about.    \nHave an up-vote!
Oh, I am just trying to get into the blast radius of your knowledge.
I think there is a good chance the WOW signal was actually sent by an intelligent source. It was probably not meant for us (anyone listening), but I think there is at least an even chance it was not natural.\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal\n_______\nI also once saw a video captured by a NORAD satellite over southern Africa in the 1970s showing an object enter the atmosphere, stop, then return to deep space. The resolution did not allow for determination of shape. Obviously, unless this was a camera glitch, it was an internally powered device which came from and returned to deep space. Assuming the video wasn't fabricated (shown in a documentary, before the fall of the documentary channels) it really makes one wonder. I guess it could have been a satellite being repositioned, but I don't think they have the thrust to save themselves once they're actually in the atmosphere. \n\nSadly, I cannot find it again, as it must be buried in hundreds of pages of fluff about NORAD UFO coverups. :(
He's right though.\n\nIt usually takes a few billion just for prokaryotes.
Ok, now whos gonna clean up this coffee I just spurted down the front of my shirt,...?\n\n\nTry r/UAP,...now with our new proprietary Pre-banning tech!
My vote for comment of 2012 so far.
[Nope](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_Flat_Earth)
Oh, it's founded - on a foundation of quicksand and peat moss, but it's founded none the less.
This could be very useful in the future, thanks :-)
I have always been discouraged by my mom to playing with one and we never had one in the house growing up so to this day I haven't dabbled with it. I've always been curious though of what people's experiences have been
I'm a media specialist for a public school district. Texas "standards" have driven textbook content for awhile now. Fortunately, 1:1 computing initiatives have allowed school districts across the country to rewrite curricula and allow departments (or individual teachers) to create their own educational media. One-size-fits-all paper textbooks are quickly becoming a relic of the past. And good riddance, considering the costs, financially, pedagogically, and ethically.
Did you try exercising your right not to use the thing and moving on with your life?
I think you are confused by what "medicine" means.  All doctors practice medicine.  Medicine does not imply pharmaceuticals are used. "Medicine" means the practice of healing.\n\n"Addiction medicine specialist" is what he has called himself for over a decade on Loveline.  He is certified by both the American Board of Addiction Medicine and American Society of Addiction Medicine as a specialist in addiction medicine.
Since when is Snooki a myth?
Monsanto is a giant, evil corporation.  Monsanto does work in genetic engineering.  Genetic engineering is a scary, new technology.\n\nErgo genetic engineering is evil.\n\nNot so much.  This line of flawed logic illustrates the problematic thinking that comes in with this stuff.  Simply, anti-corporatism getting confused with a fear of new technologies.\n\nThere was an episode of [Penn & Teller's Bullshit on the topic](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Do1zXalB2qg) which sums things up nicely.\n\nBasically, there isn't any real threat to health from GE crops proper as far as evidence we have so far.  More than likely, thanks to people like Norman Borlaug, until people decide to start reproducing sustainably we can attempt to have it so that people don't starve.\n\nMonsanto being a litigious dick and attempting to patent genes, on the other hand, is an entirely separate issue that should be dealt with as such.
I just finished reading this, which is quite long, but good. It takes a look at the claims about pesticides. http://www.skepdic.com/organic.html\n\nIt seems that lots of people are now claiming they're pro-organic because it's better for the environment (which seems to be false) and not because it's healthier. To me this seems like religious people redefining god. The organic proponents just change what they're claiming when one of their claims gets shot down.\n\nThis article was also good, and is much shorter than the above one. http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4019?popular=true
Let me set this straight, I never said crop circles are bullshit. They happen and we can measure the evidence. I think most are man-made, but some, like UFOs are difficult to explain.\n\nI was disappointed with this podcast because I thought I was going to listen to someone who measures and catalogues these events professionally, and perhaps had some unique insight.\n\nBut instead I get a guy who uses crystal skulls to detect "energy" and prattles on about 2012. Can you please tell me how or why these skulls work? If you can, then hey, I'll accept the fact that they can do some incredible stuff.\n\nAll of the people receiving down votes for pointing out poor science remind me of this [scene](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-xiFI6SldM) from Peep Show
what article it's two paragraphs\n\nThis is a dead issue...\n\nyou can't deal with my excellence lol ಠ\\_ಠ
well-more than 1 in 400 have this ability according to the test?  That doesn't seem that amazing to me.
That little Christopher stuff was pretty legit looking and sounding, with the multiple cameras on the wheel chair and picture of the kid and voice recordings.  Didn't watch any of the other ones though.
Appears someone made up a stupid claim just so they could make fun of "it".
"Those windmills will keep us cool."\n"WINDMILLS DO NOT WORK LIKE THAT!"
Okay, let's make a summary of this story.\n\nSomeone (that I don't know) linked my blog that was about my personal feelings on reddit.\n\nSomeone else (who I don't know) made a rude and dismissive comment (see above, 'derp semantics' was the jist of it, which is funny, because the argument could clearly be made that semantics is an important thing to argue about). I replied to that. You jumped in and said "That's exactly what he said! Great rebuttal!" That was it. I replied with "Did you seriously create an account to just say that?" because if you are too slow to read the subtext of his comment, then I don't know what else to say to you.\n\nThen you edited your original comment and added: "Subtext: If your blog entry was only about what you identify as and you're not making a general statement/criticism about the community then it is not only trivial but also a complete **waste of our time to read.**"  (Emphasis mine.)\n\nSo you were complaining that I "wasted your time." Never mind the fact that 1) you're on the internet, for fuck's sake, the greatest time waster ever invented, 2) no one forced you to read the blog (certainly not me), and 3) it was a blog I wrote where I emphasize that it was *my personal thoughts on the subject.* You know, on my personal blog, that I don't claim to be anything other than...a place where I write my thoughts. Who gives a shit if it's trivial? Am I not allowed to make trivial facebook statuses now? Are you the fucking Cyberpolice? \n\nSo, I responded to that in a hyperbolic and sarcastic way, pointing out that I did not, in fact, force you to read this and that your complaints were unfounded. I could just as easily complain that your comments are a waste of my time, but I won't, because I'm not a scumbag who thinks interacting with other people and hearing their thoughts is a "waste of time."\n\nThat is what you said, and that is what I responded to. Maybe you think you made a great and convincing argument against my blog, but really, you just whined about how much I "wasted your time." Then you pulled that thing you do where you claim I don't understand what other people are saying, and I responded by calling you an asshole (because you are behaving like one). \n\nThen you went into this whole diatribe about how you read the "logical fallacies" page on Wikipedia so you think you are an Ordained Skeptic Minister, allowed to determine who is and is not a True Skeptic (TM). While claiming that I am a Truly Horrible Person for making unrelated personal attacks, you make several personal attacks on me.\n\nSo, please, forgive me for not responding to every single wonderful point you've made. I'm just simply not skeptical enough, clearly.\n\n*Edit: This is even funnier given the fact that I agreed with you and said, "yes, you're right, this is not a commentary on the community as a whole, and I did not think it should be posted here."\n
Rule of thumb is to just keep your eyes focused on the clip until it ends and then close the tab quickly. DO NOT STARE IN THE EYES OF THE RELATED MEDUSA VIDEOS!
Watched this a long time ago. From what I remember someone asked him, if we weren't aware of quantum physics and someone demonstrated it to him, would they have been up for the prize?\n\nAgain from what I can remember, Randi didn't really answer the question. A good answer would have been "yes, definitely, because finding out about quantum physics would make our view of nature more amazing and expand science".
Thanks for that. TED's player works for me, but for some reason I can never rip the stream for saving.
Infrared camera! why would ufos only be present in the visible spectrum?!\n
And please... get the WHOLE door in frame.\n\nDon't leave part of it out of frame so that we'll always wonder if there were wires, or things, etc.\n\nAnd ideally set something up on the door, like paper, or a string, so that if it opens it will drop and we'll know one camera wasn't turned off to manipulate things when the other camera couldn't see it.\n\nI know I'm being nit picky there, but seriously, if you're going to do this, do it better than what we've seen.  Please.
I say "Stop".
[omfg](http://imgur.com/yAJhV.jpg)
Gummy multivitamins treat vitamin deficiencies just as effectively as hard multivitamins.
Also the fact that it's a month old...\n\nI actually replied to his comment before I noticed that.
Did you know that you have literal blind spots in your peripheral?  Your brain fills in the blank spots with information from the panorama.  Your brain probably wants to see UFOs so badly that it is injecting them into your blind spots.\n\nIf I may offer an experiment for you: trying wanting to see naked girls as badly as you want to see UFOs.  Report back your results.
I find them both passionate and genuine about defending science and the scientific method.  You are right that they may have ulterior motives, but it's obvious that we all have some less public motivations for our actions.  Are you implying these other possible viewpoints diminish their defenses of science?  Are they being illogical in their arguments?  These matter—if you answered yes to them (and have some evidence), then I'll hear you out.  I fail to see how the two having a 'secret gay agenda' could weaken their consistent, decades-long work opposing pseudoscience, let alone how you even connect it all.  Is it a conspiracy?
I did some googling. According to [wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singh) there was a religious rule issued in 1699 that all males baptised into the Sikh faith were required to take on Singh as a last name.
Columbus was exploring his environment. When he found new life that he could exploit for his own gain, he did. He had superior technology and far more resources. \n\nOther aliens could *certainly* do the same to us, as they may just be exploring their environment, figure out that they have superior technology and for more resources, and exploit *us* for their own gain.
I called it first.\n\nhttp://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/10picz/multiple_ufo_sighting_over_cincinnati_ohio/c6finky
Nobody has this coming, jackass.
True. Though changing your diet to stop putting toxic processed shit into your body in the first place *is* a good idea.
Better to help people than not.
Might be one of [these](http://www.dsm5.org/proposedrevision/Pages/SchizophreniaSpectrumandOtherPsychoticDisorders.aspx)
yeah i think he made it all up to get wealthy and live in a giant mansion and have a personal jet. hate guys that do that! oh wait he didnt have any of that.....hmmm well whatever...
Interesting vid. Alien spacecraft? Probably not. Rocket/Missile test? Probably. We shall see... hopefully! :)
I love Ben Goldacre, but this article is somewhat disingenuous. Children are, generally, much more malleable and gullible than adults, which is how and why so many children grow up to believe in pseudoscientific bullshit. It is disingenuous to 'cherry pick' a few kids who no doubt have skeptical, intelligent parents that have taught them how to think critically, and present this with the implication that 'kids can see through bullshit'.\n\nAge is no barrier to ignorance nor intelligence.
Come join Canada!  California can be our 11th Province!  We'll drink beer & wine together!
Eye gouging and the likes are easily avoided and honestly, I have been in a fight where I got bit in the arm while applying a RNC on someone. You know what I did? I smashed his skull into the concrete. Those kinds of things don't really do anything if the person is willing or wanting to actually hurt you. I've been kicked in the balls in a fight and I didn't do a comical nut grab with my eyes wide open and mouth agape. Instead, I single legged the guy and took mount and just punched him repeatedly in the face. The problem with a lot of hand to hand self-defense is that the majority of schools are teaching you that if you just stick with them, you'll become invincible. Nobody wants to be told that they're weak fleshy flesh bags and no matter how much training you have, you probably just don't have the drive or efficacy to be strong enough to actually fight of an attacker who is larger or more determined than you. Most people want to avoid confrontation and when the situation presents itself, they end up freezing and become victims. Most people just don't fight back naturally. That has to be trained into the person.
I've read every word you wrote. You've not provided me with an example of a science-based naturopath. At best, you provided me with a suggestion that there might be one, perhaps a few, naturopaths that avoid the most obviously ridiculous treatments. However I can't evaluate this in a rigorous way, because you didn't link to any websites.\n\nBriefly, science-based medicine is distinguished from evidence-based medicine by its consideration of prior plausibility and a commitment to using the best methods to determine what works. See more [here](http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/about-science-based-medicine/).\n\nTo be clear, I'm not writing naturopathy off because there's a lack of evidence; I'm demanding that they provide good evidence for their claims before they be allowed to treat patient one. That's the only way that I, or anyone else, can establish whether they know what they're doing or not. \n\nThis situation reminds me of Elvis sightings. Plenty of people claim to have had a sighting, yet no one can provide any evidence.
This isn't the first time this has been posted.  Pure Craziness.
She would have, if she hadn't left her apartment by the 2nd story window on the way to the parlor.
A teacher in a public school classroom does not expect privacy, and students often take notes with tape recorders.\n\nIANAL, but I don't see much legal difficulty.
The portrayal of what an abduction is really like terrifies the shit out of me.  If they are here to help, why they do some so emotionally scarring?
If it gets to just one person, then my job is done. Upvote for you as well sir
Very true about the use of the word cure. You can cure a bacterial infection with antibiotics (or if you're using vancomycin, I would use the term "nuking" a bacterial infection.) As with almost all medicine, magic bullets are few and far between. Beware those claiming otherwise.
these noises? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfvLn8MBjws&feature=youtu.be\n\nthey've been heard all over the world apparently oO kinda weird
Just because it's powerful doesn't mean it can't be safe. I work at a vet clinic where we have both a 3B and a 4A therapeutic laser. Though we do take care to protect our eyes, I find it difficult to believe one could burn skin unless they were EXTREMELY misused. When used at the settings recommended for therapeutic use, it just feels mildly warm on the skin.\n\nYou're probably correct in saying a class IV laser could do such things without proper safety measures, but this person is also correct in calling it a "Class IV"-- that designation comes directly from the manufacturer and is not unusual.
>To say that humans have been genetically altering crops THE SAME WAY AS GMO crops is disingenuous at the very least, and a lie at the worst! There is a huge difference between selective breeding (historical instances) and inserting mouse genes into a tomato (genetic manipulation), something that would NEVER happen in the real world.\n\nOkay, so get back to what I said. They insert a mouse gene into a tomato. Why is that a health issue? What gene could a mouse possibly have that's dangerous when inserted into a tomato? They don't just randomly stick genes in to see what happens. They know exactly which gene they're going for in order to achieve a very specific goal. If it's from another plant, odds are good that it's just as easily digestible as the plant of origin. If it's from an animal, same thing. Genes don't magically turn toxic or dangerous just because they're in a different species. They do one thing and one thing only. They produce a string of amino acids that perform a very specific function. That's it. \n\n>Roundup Ready crops are detrimental to the wildlife that try to inhabit their traditional territories by poisoning them. Pesticides, herbicides, and the like, also poison us. I will not use them and avoid them at all costs in the foods I choose to buy. Why do you think cancer rates have skyrocketed?? It's not because humans are inherently weaker; it's because we are being slowly poisoned.\n\nBack to my point. This is a red herring argument. This has nothing to do with the safety of GM crops. This is about agricultural practices. Whether or not a crop is genetically modified has nothing to do with what types of poisons the farmers choose to spray on their fields. They don't *have* to use Roundup on their Roundup-ready crops. \n\nDon't use the farmer's choice of poison as an argument against GM crops. It's an unrelated issue. The crop itself is still safe to eat. It's the farmer's actions that poison make the crop toxic.
Unfortunately, since Texas is so large, like California, what Texas decides in terms of what they put in their textbooks affects many other states.
And there's the difference.  Which one instills a sense of fear?  Neither is OK, and that's something that needs to be addressed too, but you're never alone with a woman thinking "This could go horribly wrong."
Yes I have. Garbage. Again, http://www.2012hoax.org/nibiru says plenty.\n
You bet! Feel free to get in touch with me if you want once you have some entries in the log. We can discuss them and see if we come up with any answers. :-)
The sun sets in the west, so.... diagram:\n\n         +\n       /   \\\n      O~~~~~&\n\nO = sun, + = airplane, & = observer, and ~ = miles of ocean.\n\nHaven't seen the video (I'm at work), but seems plausible?  \n\nEdit: never mind, some other comments make this pretty implausible.
What does that have to do with the UFO?
yeah. I found out about him when during my psych class when we were learning about sleep disorders. you should show this to your gf to ease her mind. if anything else happens out of the ordinary, let us know.
SCIENCE\n\nI just got really pissed off when the first google result for "bleach" was to some manga called Bleach.  What the fucks.
1) Who are you?\n\n2) Can I please go home now?
Family and friends have referenced Ancient Aliens as evidence, and so have people on /r/UFOs, so I posted about it in /r/UFOs, and my audience was those who watch Ancient Aliens and consider it evidence and browse /r/UFOs. That's all, man. I never meant to imply that the majority of this subreddit subscribes to ancient alien theories. I've been browsing here awhile, and have contributed at times, including [my own UFO experience](http://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/x1lh6/ufo_experience_from_one_of_your_resident/). I wouldn't have shared it if I thought I was typing to a bunch of goofballs! Promise.\n\n>your argument somehow made the dinosaur-ET theory *more* legitimate.\n\nI triple dog bet(*) that you don't actually mean that.\n\n(*) Am I allowed to do that? Change a triple dog dare to a triple dog bet?
By the same token, r/books thinks they're at the height of sophistication because they don't read Nora Roberts and James Patterson.
I'm starting to take a look at it as well, but using AIR for iOS/Android. I'll come back in a day or two and say hello again.
I'm pretty sure that already happened.
This is exactly my point. Should we live in naturally formed caves only?
obviously. it's either that or they refrain from making a critical selection : they don't mind sharing  dishonest, schizoid hot garbage alongside films that actually document reality   if it means they can maximize their profits.
The script might even work if you got rid of the talking pie.
What, exactly, is wrong with someone saying "this sounds like bullshit" without knowing something about it. There are always logically fallacious flags when hearing someone spout bunk psudoscience. What you are essentially saying is "if you do not know 100% everything about something, then don't challenge it." If you start talking about some miracle cure-all treatment for cancer, I don't have to know everything about cancer, cancer treatment, or your snake oil to be able to call bullshit.\n\nMay I ask you to define "skeptic"?
I get it. So basically I can say whatever I want about other people online so long as I stick a smiley face at the end. I must remember that.
Except in the last little bit, apparrently artificial plants confer the same results, and there is no caveat saying that you will lose the air freshing and "detoxifying" component.\n\nAlso "detoxifying"....
I found it fairly bothersome as well.
A moment of inertia?  Sorry. I'll show myself out.
Is there anything bad with having excess vitamin c?
See, even skeptics are not immune to biases. It was pretty stupid to make that assumption and later I apologized to Op for jumping on him like that. \n\nA word of advice, if I may, try to refrain from calling people _idiots_. I was offended by professionals so my skin is harden but not everyone on the Internet, who made a mistake, can and should be named _idiot_.
I doubt you're going to get an answer. \n\nBut I think it's obvious that a lot of people have been left with a bad taste in their mouth after all the dust as settled.  \n\nRW's dismissive glib attitude whenever anyone raised a criticism against her. Coupled with her censoring, banning, or just painting people as misogynists who disagree with her and her fan-club have definitely drawn lines in the skeptical/atheists/secular humanism community online.
Citations help. And hopefully it stops the propagation of misinformation. Apokalypsecow, for example, was under the impression that an A+ person was going emotionally overboard over nothing but a t-shirt when in actual fact the issue had arisen before A+ even came into being.
You never saw it, only in the picture?
that would make a lot of sense, to be honest...
I was thinking this, i'm like why would i believe anything that doesn't even look credible. ya know? It just shines everything on a bad light. I never actually take in account things i read online especially things from sources like that.
Ask someone who works in that section for aspirin or Tylenol.  They'll look at you like a crazy person, then probably suggest flax oil or some such.
> I know it's anecdotal\n\nQuite. So why mention it? You know people have done actual research into this and found no link. Anecdotes can be an indicator something should be looked into, but are useful for little more.\n\n> Quakers and Amish ... have an almost 0% rate of autism among their children\n\nI couldn't find anything that supported that number at all. Is there a study showing it?
You're making a false distinction between metaphysical and paranormal.  In this context, they are essentially the same thing.  We're not discussing philosophy here!  We are both talking about unexplainable phenomena.  This isn't the definition of unexplainable which means we know there's a rational explanation but we just can't arrive at it because we lack key information.  This means that it falls so far outside of our scientific framework that we have no way to scrutinize it.  Our scientific framework is, of course, in a constant state of growth, but computers are based solidly upon what we presently know.  We've never observed them to do truly unpredictable things, *ever*.  *That's exactly why they work!*\n\nIn all cases, paranormal explanations should be a last resort: one must exhaust all other explanations first.  I'm asking specific questions to see if there's something you may have accidentally glossed over.  It's easy to forget; as humans, we all do it often!\n\nI'm not stuck on ghosts.  I only used ghosts as an example because you talk of having a history with "spirits" in your original post!  However, the misunderstanding seems to be based on you interpreting metaphysical to mean ghosts.  I mean what you mean by paranormal.  We're on the same page here!\n\nRegarding the last paragraph, sorry to confuse you, I should have been more blunt.  I don't think ghosts exist.  But maybe they do, and maybe they're smart enough to manipulate computers and they just don't do it... who knows?  There's never been a need for a ghost explanation with computers.  *That's because there's never, so far, been a need for *any* paranormal/metaphysical (unable to be explained or understood in terms of scientific knowledge) explanation for a computer's behavior in the entire history of computers.*\n\nA few more thoughts:\n\nDid anyone else ever have access to your computer?\n\nWere any of the games pirated or hacked in any way?  Were they installed from a store-bought CD-ROM?\n\nDid you ever use the computer to complete a homework assignment (for example) where you typed your full name?  Maybe one time you visited a website that prompted you to enter a date of birth or an age for whatever reason, and you entered something sort of close to the truth?  Anything like this could result in this information existing on your hard drive, and someone or some program being able to find it.\n\n*Edit*\nUltimately, we're looking for a way a malicious script could have gotten onto your computer, and how it could have gotten your personal information.  That is the nature of the questions I'm asking you.\n\nSince you admit you had been on the internet prior to the incident, then a script definitely could have gotten on your computer that way, but then activated at a later time.  It could have found fragments of personal information that you didn't even realize could be on your computer, or used a key logger and captured everything you ever typed!\n\n
So you're saying you're incapable of being a *polite* rational thinker? I would call that a... semi-rational thinker.\n\nSee, I personally would rather be neither of those things you mentioned.
Actually, I don't understand the difference.  The scientific method is a very basic, but important, formula.  When I refer to science, the scientific method is assumed.  The two are inclusive.  \n\nBasically, what I am getting out of your...problem?  Is that some trolls on the internet are upsetting you because they fly the flag of skepticism while not actually being true skeptics.  They use it as nothing more than a badge of superiority to gain an edge on people and say they are correct.  The problem is that this happens in pretty much every group ever.  So why the huge problem with what seems like a minority?\n\nAlso, even if people are just parroting back what they hear, that doesn't mean they are wrong.  The statement I used in my first comment, no matter where it comes from, is true.  Even if I was the largest douche bag troll on the JREF forums.\n\nThere are more important issues to deal with than people who misuse power on the internet, and when I say more important I mean 'actual'.
Isn't it the CRU/IPCC that is refusing to release their evidence lol....
I will note: that ad makes absolutely no claims on what that bracelet will do.
American Coca-Cola is the worst, because of this (*&(*&(*( syrup.\nYou know it is junk food whe n it has corn inside.\n
Alex values your friendship, and she has a good time when she goes out with you, but it's exhausting.  Deal with it.\n\nYou are insisting you know your friends better than they know themselves. Maybe shit like that is why people tell you that you don't have a fucking clue. The worst part is that will always be someone else's fault. You'll never see it in yourself.\n\nAs for your own story, I'm unimpressed. I'm an introvert and it still feels weird spending Saturday night at home.
Mmm yes, he truly is a poopface.
They're likely pieces that have fallen off the rocket and are tumbling, giving the appearance of flashing lights ... in my opinion.
Wow. This is Russia's CNN, basically. I wonder why they let her spill the whole story out..
And the word "not" is in ALL CAPS. And when something is in caps, you know it's SERIOUS.
Can you enlighten me as to how assuming the non-existence of god is _counterproductive_ to critical thinking?
to be fair aslan was a metaphor for god
I don't blame them. Those Hollywood celebrities get on my nerves too.
Holy crap this is crazy how many people experience this.
I am actually a little scared of the Sun though...
I don't like using ad block, I think most of the sites are free because of the ads they put there, so I shouldn't block them. Most of the times I just ignore them - this one just struck a nerve.
[YouTube link](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0Z7KeNCi7g). I don't know about you, but TED's player never worked for me.
Upboat EVERYTHING!!!fapfapfapfapfapfapfapfap.
Looks like Chinese lantern tied in a shape.
No, I removed him. He's just here to rub others wrong and that needs to stop. Not censorship either, just killing the hate.
The burden lies on a person making a claim regardless of whether the claim is positive or negative. You claim a god exists you have a burden you claim a god does not exist you have a burden because your making a claim about reality. Atheism is not (always) a claim position though its a reaction or response to the specific assertion that a god exists and in the definition "rejection of the assertion that a god exists" no claim has been made and so no burden of proof.
Now it does. Thanks.
The UK monitoring web and email is too close to call right now...
you're funny.\n\nall religions that believe in a mythical, invisible, omnipotent, omniscient being are so obviously wrong.\n\noh well.
Oh, I must have misread the story.
But wont they scan you on the return trip, and take the gizmo away?
In and of themselves, no, they won't cause diabetes if you're getting a balanced diet.  IF you're eating nothing but high carb foods like the ones in the picture, yah, you're going to have problems.
Can we take the test? I want to see what scores I get!
Scientology is a personality cult.\n\nTom Cruise likes being worshiped.
I echo the other two comments about it being nothing. You heard the sound and were looking for words (I think). Either that or the ghost doesn't really like your singing. hence the screams for help. :) \nseriously I wouldn't worry.
That sounds chilling. A black line? I dont know why but i just get an evil feeling from thinking about such a thing.
I guess my only question is how can someone send an email backward in time?
I am Norwegian and can't tell you how embarrased I am over this!\n\nFrom out of nowhere came this retarded psychosis and neo-spiritualism, and now celebrities here seems to be competing on who is the biggest idiot..
There are two of them. One has kangaroos, the other has ostriches. I can't remember which one is which.
The non-existence of Qi, and achieving worse results than sham acupuncture in double blind trials doesn't help either.
Hmm, that's an interesting claim, let me just check the citation. \n\nOh...
Seriously. I felt so strongly about this promo that I got up from the sofa, found it on the web, and posted it. Sometimes my wife calls me in the bedroom and I don't get up off the sofa. That's how strongly I felt about this stupid promo.
You just realized that ***today***?!?!??\n\nBoy are you in for some fun in the near future!  Just a few of the groups you are going to find that also have no idea what they're talking about:\n\n- Religious people\n- Conservatives\n- People who believe in ghosts\n- Psychics\n- Mind readers\n- Reiki practicioners\n- Most alternative medicine\n- The press\n- Etc...
Perhaps as a scientist you would like to tell everybody why anecdotes are not evidence. You do understand why anecdotes are not evidence don't you? You know, being a scientist and all....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_phenomenon\n\n
Did you ever look up anything? For nth time. You can expect clinical effects from cupping, i.e. nonplacebo, affecting immune system, as it is irritating skin, and there is a mechanism (release of lymphokines in response to irritation and some cell damage, which i really recommend you to look up before repeating exact same thing again). It is not clear to me that the effect would be good for you, but there will almost certainly be a clinical effect involving immune system even if the patient is unconscious. Irritating skin can frigging raise your body temperature.\n\nYou can't be a skeptic for shit without some knowledge of relevant biology.
Holy crap, that burger looks awesome.
woo'ey isn't a word, or even a contraction.  btw, you haven't cited anything.  just pissed and moaned about about me not doing it so fuck off hypocrite.
Now that's pretty funny. "Face North, sweety, the tides are gonna suck the baby back in!"
Like I said, you "haven't looked into the issue enough."
Epidemiology is a murky science when exposure has a such widespread and relatively gradual onset to the point of ubiquity.  In other words, controls is tough, analysis: bananas.
It's all wishful thinking. I really wish we get basic psychology and critical thinking into primary education curriculum.
In Canada you learn about evolution at the same time you learn about Dinosaurs, Grade 2.
Brilliant!!!
Ghosts use Chrome, not Firefox.
Actually, that's not true. Trenberth's calculations are base on satellite observations, *not* based on a high-sensitivity climate model.\n\nHere's a link from your favorite site:\n\nhttp://www.skepticalscience.com/Understanding-Trenberths-travesty.html\n\nHere's a relevant excerpt:\n\n>If you read the full email, you learn that Trenberth is actually informing fellow climate scientists about a paper he'd recently published, An imperative for climate change planning: tracking Earth's global energy (Trenberth 2009). The paper discusses the planet's energy budget - how much net energy is flowing into our climate and where it's going. It also discusses the systems we have in place to track energy flow in and out of our climate system.\n\n>Trenberth states unequivocally that our planet is continually heating due to increasing carbon dioxide. This energy imbalance was very small 40 years ago but has steadily increased to around 0.9 W/m2 over the 2000 to 2005 period, as observed by satellites. Preliminary satellite data indicates the energy imbalance has continued to increase from 2006 to 2008. The net result is that the planet is continuously accumulating heat. Global warming is still happening.\n\n[...]\n\n>The following list gives the amount of energy going into various parts of the climate over the 2004 to 2008 period:\n\n>* Land:   2 x  1020 joules per year\n* Arctic sea Ice:   1 x 1020 joules per year\n* Ice sheets:   1.4 x 1020 joules per year\n* Total land ice:   between 2 to 3 x 1020 joules per year\n* Ocean:   between 20 to 95 x 1020 joules per year\n *Sun:   16 x 1020 joules per year (eg - the sun has been cooling from 2004 to 2008)\n\n>These various contributions total between 45 to 115 x 1020 joules per year. This falls well short of the total 145 x 1020 joules per year (although the error bars do overlap). Trenberth expresses frustration that observation systems are inadequate to track the flow of energy. It's not that global warming has stopped. We know global warming has continued because satellites find an energy imbalance. It's that our observation systems need to be more accurate in tracking the energy flows through our climate and closing the energy budget.
I've downmodded myself for being a dick. Sorry guys.
First you said:\n\n>Because what I gather is that they gave mice casein (a protein found in milk) and then gave them carcinogenic compounds and counted the number of tumors.\n\nand then I said, "so you're suggesting they were fraudulent"\n\n>Wow. You are in way over your head. That's how they did the study! That was the methodology.\n\nSo, let me get this straight: you're telling me they gave them a protein found in milk and *then* gave them a totally different (and cancerous) protein?  Seriously, I'm not getting it.  You can make fun, but I admit I'm a layman - and that text is not written for common consumption. I'm willing to concede on that point, if you're willing to decently spell out exactly what you mean, based on quotes from the link you cited.\n
This is awesome. But it would be more awesome if you did it for a 200C dilution.
If they'd been gay, I'd have put gaytheist. I'm not sure how this is relevant.
........ are you ..... downvoting me? Over what  though ? replying to your humour with more humour ? I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, that it isn't you. \n\nSo then, do I have a reddit stalker? \n\nFuck, time to make a new account and start again.
I wonder. Using your point of view stated above can anyone involved in any behavior ever be considered "stupid"? It sounds as if you have rationalized away the condition of stupidity.
Gotta love potholer54. One of my favorites on youtube.
Sounds like when I had poison ivy on my whole body (dick n balls included) and got stuck in traffic for hours in a heat wave.\n\nEdit: Without air conditioning as well. It was I Shouldn't be Alive material.
I don't buy most of the claims. But I do personally avoid it, because of observed effects on my mood, headaches, etc. \n\nI did see one theory that the excess phenylalanine competes for absorption with tryptophan (a serotonin precursor), leading to depressive symptoms in susceptible individuals. Given my personal experiences, I'm more inclined to entertain this idea, though I am far from convinced.
I never stated that the government proved the phenomenon exists purely by investigating it. I said the fact that they've conducted multiple, official investigations lends credibility to the possibility they exist. It makes the phenomenon harder to dismiss.
Never intended to imply that it did. The only reason I brought up the MD was to demonstrate that the man did have advanced knowledge of medicine. As the University of Manitoba does not teach chiropractic medicine, the only explanation is that he received a medical degree in another specialty, then branched into chiropractics. All I'm stating is that this one time, for this one very specific condition, the treatment appears to have been effective. I have no doubt a vast majority of practitioners are complete phonies. I'm just trying to say that I find it totally believable that spinal adjustments can be affective at treating conditions caused directly by spinal misalignment due to injury.\n\nI'm not trying to start arguments here, I'm on the same side as most everyone else on this subreddit. The only difference is that I'm suggesting that rather than being 100% ineffective, chiropractics does have certain limited applications in which it can be a viable method of treatment, so it's more like 95% ineffective.
>As for rituals/methods, in my experience, depends mostly on the person's belief system/religion. Our faith feeds into the belief system/religion, and that conduit amplifies our positive energy which can be channeled to banish whatever manner of spiritual presence we desire.\n\nThis is true; however, Christianity doesn't give its' worshipers the proper tools to deal with the paranormal. The only way to get a banishment/exorcism is to go higher up the chain of command and hope they take you seriously.\n\nLuckily, universal rules apply! A christian can use their deity with time tested rituals. Smudging works wonders, as does prayer, but the two must be combined.\n\nTo absolutely remove ANY influence, and create YOUR space, it's as simple as burning some herbs and chanting a prayer.\n\nGrind up separately and mix in the following order:\n\n* 1 Part angelica (to remove unwanted entities)\n* 1/3 Part White sage (to cleanse the area)\n* 1 part Hyssop (to purify the area)\n* 1 Part Red Rose (to introduce your good energy to the area)\n* 1/3 part Mandrake (to protect the area from new entities and to protect you during the smudging process).\n\nIn a ceramic bowl, place a hookah coal and lite it. Once it's nice and gray all the way through, place a pinch of the herbs on top. Start at a north facing window or door, run the smoking bowl around COUNTER CLOCK WISE, and say a chant/prayer for the entity to leave and to seal the area. Continue to every doorway and window in your home, going counter clockwise around the house. \n\nViola. Done. The herbs I mentioned should be available at any neo pagan or new age shop, or online. They're Super Effective! I've used them half a dozen times with absolute success. You can use this mix as often as you like, especially if you have a high-stress lifestyle. It smells pretty awesome, too.
Isn't it unfair to expect these guys to undergo peer review like everyone else? Then their arguments would have to be robust, and they couldn't just coast on ideology.
A bit of a silly article, but what are some other ailments that seem to exist only in the mind that are common in other parts of the world?
There are many in the "paleo" diet world who want a different label as well.
Asking does not an idiot make. [Woo.](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/woo)\n\nMaybe it comes from quacks wooing you to buy their snake oil. But i don't know really.
If there were ANY regulations on what constitutes "free range " concerning eggs, you may have a point, but there are not. And a single window, of any size in a chicken coop fills the fda requiremebt for "free range". It is defined as "having access to the outdoors". You are being duped if you think your whole foods chickens are running freely in a pasture.
The trajectory of the poop doesn't seem right though.
Because it's fake.
I experience similar things. Mine seem to run in clusters. There will be one month where I will meet 4-5 people that think they know me, usually there will be 1-3 incidences in the same day. Then, after that month, everything will be normal for a year or two before it happens again. Strangely, the incidences seem to occur when I've had numerous dreams about doppelgangers prior to the experience.
Please, don't turn /r/skeptic into /r/atheism.
Totally agree. Especially for me. I found myself rambling on and on and forgetting what the hell point I was trying to make. Regardless, though, I wasn't in a defense position at all. I was just relaxed and explaining things calmly while he was getting more and more defensive and heated. I actually feel bad about how confused he must be feeling.\n\nAnd he really, really wanted to talk about this. I couldn't *not* humor him.
Skeptic, n.\n\nA) Person who exhibits slavish tendencies in thought, behavior, and speech, especially concerning unpopular concepts such as logic and empiricism. \n\nB) An uncaring individual who shows blatant disregard for the delusion of others. \n\nC) A meddlesome individual who, against their best interpersonal interests, places a screen over their open mind, and seeks to do so in others.\n\nD) A spoilsport.\n\nE) An unreasonable man or woman, characterized by demands of reasonable evidence in response to unreasonable claims.\n\nF) One who prefers being considered wrong if proven right to being considered right when demonstrably wrong.
AFAIK the original was never released. I've been wanting to hear it myself for years.
That's **exactly** the problem with people choosing not to vaccinate their children. Most likely, if someone chooses not to vaccinate, *their* child won't suffer... getting whooping cough is usually not a huge deal if you have a reasonably healthy immune system. The whole point of vaccination programs is to reduce the incidence of the disease so that people without fully functioning immune systems who *can't* get vaccinated (like infants < 8 weeks old) don't get exposed and die (see DannyKeithJames1953's link to the concept of herd immunity). \n\nThat's what's so selfish about the anti-vac movement. They are choosing to place *other* people's babies (and elderly people, and pregnant women and their fetuses, and sick people) at risk.
 If I just downvoted, you wouldn't know why.  I let you know why to help prevent you from repeating being a fucktard in the future.  Welcome to the internet.  Maybe you should lurk for a while if you're that sensitive.
The Fighting Spuds!
If and when actual extraterrestrial contact from beings outside of this solar system truly does occur, i daresay that it will require little "authenticating" and "confirming". I think itll be clear and very apparent. If the UFOs in videos we see on the internet had the crafts doing anything other than just zooming around aimlessly, we might have something to talk about. Where are the videos or documentation of alien craft landing, seeing creatures come out, etc. When you really look at the "evidence" this man is refering to, it is all pretty weak and derivative of each other. In my opinion, nothing spectactular to explain a spectacular claim
I've only gotten the flu once or twice in my almost 4 decades of life and have not had flu shots.  That's not any kind of proof but it does cast serious doubt in my mind as to their usefulness.
What do you just click on videos and not read the titles?
Oh wait... Do you honestly believe.. now, let me get this right.. that there is not a God, because "he" does not >reveal the truth to us on a day to day basis for all to see and clearly interpret. [?]\n\nWow.\n\nIf that were the case, none of us would grow as spirits. But that is something that is wayyy too much for your closed minded, little brain to grasp.
Copulation for children?\n\nYou crazy.
Agreed, although people need something to focus on. Perhaps a sugar pill just is a reminder to feel good, like a string on your finger or a reminder in your agenda.
TimBravo seems to be a blogspam presence of some sort.  He posts the same links to multiple subs and doesn't seem to be getting much traction.
Coast to Coast podcast and radio show.
my jimmies have been russled
Then spends millions on rebuilding with disaster recovery funds.
it's because you were moving it.
Mitchell and Web\n\nI show that particular clip to almost everyone I meet.\n\n
This may have nothing to do with the downvotes you're seeing in this case, but unless they've changed their policy since this was written, Reddit fudges the numbers on some [comments](http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/dnp69/reddit_has_a_huge_bot_problem_deaf_redditor/c11kw1c) and [submissions](http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/eaqnf/pardon_me_but_5000_downvotes_wtf_is_worldnews_for/).  The point totals are correct, but the up/down numbers may be wrong.  This is done for anti-spam reasons, apparently.  Also, there could be some bots mucking with the works.  So it's quite possible that no human actually downvoted this comment.
If you just want to *feel better* maybe you should just overdose on heroin.\n\nI think most people just want to be healthy, that does almost without exception making sacrifices of our *feel good* tendencies.
wait what .. there is a guard who patrols every day ? \n\nmaybe you should try and hear him out, maybe he saw smth too
My opinion on gin has always been that it tastes like vodka with a spice cabinet in it. I prefer the straight vodka.
No.  Your description does not match any recent events, and certainly does not describe Rebecca Watson.
Apparently this guy hasn't heard of skin cancer.
Paul McCartney did Clint Eastwood? I thought that was only in fanfic.
Either way, general variation between black and white races exists. The study stated there were differences between different black ethncities too but not bigger than the differences between the black and white races examined.
good luck retard.  aliums arent real.  the ufos are government not aliums.  deal with it fatnerd
Could it be done something like mass relays. I mean that something accelerates the spacecraft to the speed and the craft only needs to maintain it during the trip.
Does anybody here know what the hell Pellumination Vapors are?\n\nTried Googling it, got nothing.
I agree entirely, but a further irony is that the phrase "lingua franca" isn't even French. It's Italian.
I was in that thread. I wrote something like 8 pages about the whole shebang. I wouldn't be opposed to treating such people with placebos as long as it didn't line the pockets of snake-oil salesmen, especially at the expense of the public's coin.
The "paralellism" image on this wikipedia site.
I love it when original comments get deleted and stuff out of context sounds awesome.
And I say to that idiot, "How many more earthquakes in a row will it take you to realise that earthquakes happen ALL THE FUCKING TIME?"
^ really? that sounds delusional. I guess my point is stop opening your mouths and accusing with no evidence and just idiocy. here's another view. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nN6mhnD7E0&feature=related. herp derp was he also pointing it down to add legitimacy?
It sounds like Ad ignorantiam, "The argument from ignorance basically states that a specific belief is true because we don’t know that it isn’t true."\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance
I don't know if there are more sightings these days, but there are definitely more people with digital cameras and computers sharing their stories about them. Unfortunately there are also far more tools available now to fake these sightings as well. Most of it is probably bullshit.
Seems like it would be a better idea to just make yourself eat regularly and healthily whether you feel like it or not. That said, yes, vitamins are good for unhealthy people with vitamin deficiencies. They were originally designed only for people with (or at risk for) deficiencies such as scurvy. I don't know much about the pissing it out thing but it seems like it would depend on where the vitamin came from and which vitamin it is etc. \n\nEDIT: It is possible to overdose on vitamins so don't do that.
Changing our foods??  what the hell does that mean??\n\nDo people really think corn,wheat or any other crop existed in rows and in its present form in the wild?\n\nHumans have been manipulating food and crops since the dawn of agrarian societies. GM is just doing the manipulation in the lab based on thousands of years of scientific knowledge and extensive testing!.\n\n
Yes, I agree completely. However, while the placebo effect can be quite beneficial I do not condone these "Faith Healers" to one, overcharge their patients to what is in the end obtainable by other means and two, take them away from modern medicine which could in the end cure them from their ailments. What most bothered me about it however was how quick everyone seemed to accept it as a real form of medicine when one person (out of thousands!) responded positively to the treatment. As a result we are all suppose to view it as some sort of godly miracle. Just my pennies worth.
No, I mean like a link to find the workshop, since I'm spending so much time and effort advertising it.
I'm one of the people who are utterly flummoxed by your behavior. "Do they not see that [the little red man](http://www.paladium.net/00g/police2010May_Red-pedestrian-crossing-light1388.jpg) has already been summoned?! What do they hope to achieve other than frustrating him?!"\n\nBut seriously you shouldn't do that because the more public objects you touch the more you expose yourself to pathogens. There's actually a downside.
The facepalms were my least favorite part of the video.\n\nOtherwise, Grade A trolling.
Then license, manage, regulate and identify them as such. Not as naturopaths.
About 15 to 20 min in, you can see the slides are titled "Evolutionary Psychology". If Watson tried to make this about a few studies, or the media, or the pop science books, she could have used any heading on her slides. But she didn't.\n\nAlso, admitting there might be a "few good studies" as a kind of an after though in the QnA kind of demonstrates that she didn't really tried to make this an honest, or balanced critic.\n\nOn the other hand, we all know that people can be biased when it comes to science, simply because they want the certain conclusion or hypotheses to be false. To be honest, it looks as if Watson made that mistake as well.
I saw the same type of object over my high school in central Florida, last year. It popped up in the sky multiple times, shifted colors, and made seemingly impossible maneuvers. Everyone chalked it up to an RC 'copter; which, was bullshit. \n\n**EDIT**: Here's what I was seeing, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ES9ArxfCaWc. I didn't take the video, but it's identical to the object I was seeing.
Absolutely. And that is excactly why I post this here first, instead of digg.com. Building the back bone of the community with people of the right mindset and then letting more people in will hopefully help with this.\n\nI don't have dislikes, which will hopefully diminish the rage-voting against topics or comments which people disagree with. \n\nAnd I will rely heavily on moderation of course. I plan to enforce different rules in different comment threads for example. Certain threads will be restricted to only posting certain information etc.
Who is talking about untrained people?  I'm specifically saying that trained physicians will not go near placebo treatments because they cannot give informed consent.\n\nAnd mentioning the 'bad old days' was not meant to imply that it was a direct possibility, rather to emphasize how we got to the point at which informed consent is required -- because in the past when it wasn't, bad things happened.
This video is ridiculous, but I have to give the guy credit for leaving commenting on and responding to his many, many critics.
Who wouldn't want to argue when you questioned their beliefs?
My personal favorite is from Tayla08\n\n" I don't have an answer for you, but a friend of a friend just had a miscarriage 2-3 days after getting the shot. "\n\n
Don't worry. I'm building it now. It won't be pretty, but it'll do the trick. I'm piggybacking off of a testing domain I have.
Awesome, best glitch in the matrix post I've read yet
I can't wait for this graph to somehow find itself in an email titled\n>FW: FW: FW: FW: FW: FW: FW: DON'T EAT ORGANIC FOODS!!!
The behavior of the Tall Whites reminds me of a combination of American Indians (speed, ability to track), Russians (love of children), and the Mongols (warlike qualities.)
Until he makes an appearance on The Today Show, no.
Of course they can back this up by showing statistically significant correlations between divorce rates and your birth date?\n
I just got home for work, and most of the guys are out drinking.  But we're throwing a party this weekend so I'll ask them all then!\n\nI'll keep you posted.
Had a pretty nasty dream last week....at least I hope it was a dream. I was going to sleep early in advance of waking up at 2AM for work, didn't have any caffeine or sugar during the day, so I wasn't antsy or anything...\n\nI'm closing my eyes to go to sleep, around 9PM, then as I begin falling asleep around 930PM, i feel beginning of what I hope is sleep paralysis, but with my eyes closed, see two bright bluish-white flashes in a half-second timespan. I also get the overwhelming feeling someone is watching me. I wake up, see that it's still around 930PM, feeling....scared and disturbed. ಠ\\_ಠ \n\nNothing was on in my room that could have flashed. All power was off, as was my mobile phone. It's not like I had watched any UFO stuff on tv, lol. phone. It's not like I had watched any UFO stuff on tv, lol.
Thank you. My bad.\n\n My point stands entirely intact.
Better yet, low frequency sound. http://meta-religion.com/Paranormale/Ghost/ghosts_created_by_low_frequency.htm
Sleep paralysis doesn't explain being immediately taken back down into the paralysis after continuing to pop out of it several times over.
haha, no crap? That's pretty cool. We live pretty close then. I did the same couldn't find anything either.
If telepathy worked, how could it not be studied by science?? This statement seems incredibly ignorant.
I KNEW those psychics were lying to us!
> The priests still have that superiority complex, in that quiet way it takes to feel that way and yet still not be an arse about it. It's paradoxical.\n\nThat's just extended the definition of superiority complex to everyone on the planet. Everyone has something they "know" about and feel a little smug that they know and others don't.
You're refering to the failed test on the game show he entered. He took 6 tests before entering this game show years before hand, & passed them all. It's strongly assumed that this game show had the questions bugged. If you do a little research, nobody had ever won on this show, & it's always at the last question. & most of the time, the question mirrors that of a pervious question they already passed during the show.\n\nI believe the payout on winning is 100,000.? It's more likely the producers of the show don't allow people to win, & the polygraph was false.\n\nThe question that he failed on was , 'do you believe you were abducted by aliens', he answered yes, & they said he got it wrong. I believe him more then this silly show that has never had a winner.
I thought this was a joke myself, but my girlfriend is from Mexico and I just showed her the video and she recognized the guy in the red shirt in the beginning.  Everyone in Mexico knows who he is.  he is the UFO expert.  This leads me to believe this may not be so fake
George Bernard Shaw?
But he's right. If you use a microwave too close to Chernobyl or Fukusima =)
church of what the fuck? you've got to be shitting me.
Whoa that is pretty crazy. My Dad has spoken of feeling a comforting hand on his shoulder sometimes, even his shirt being tucked in for him once after he lost some close relatives. It is fun to speculate, but things can start to get really weird, like you seeing your grandpa before actually knowing of his death...If you had to try and assess it, what would be your explanation for occurrences such as these out of curiosity?
It's kind of sad you need a reason to change your name, you should be able to change it for any reason. I have to assume the fact you require a reason means they can reject the name change for a reason they don't find legitimate.
There is some promising research into the cancer killing ability of cannabis.\n\n[Surely](http://www.nature.com/nrc/journal/v3/n10/abs/nrc1188.html)\n\nhttp://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2011/08/pbs-documentary-sheds-light-on-marijuanas-cancer-killing-properties/\n\nhttp://health.usnews.com/health-news/family-health/cancer/articles/2009/04/01/active-ingredient-in-marijuana-kills-brain-cancer\n\nhttp://blog.norml.org/2009/08/18/reuters-pot-kills-cancer-but-dont-even-think-about-using-it/
I was sad to find that out after I had replied to this post. Would'nt have been the first time reddit has fooled me....
No problem. I've seen it my whole life and had no idea that other people didn't. About a year ago at work I was messing around on Wikipedia and stumbled across that article. Since then I've only met one other person who sees it...
We're starting to see a lot of these 'dropping sparklers' UFOs lately. This is the 3rd or 4th one now. No signs of independent control so I'm not getting too excited, but still interesting nonetheless.\n\nIf these are lanterns, are we seeing sparklers on time-delay fuses, with some sort of remote controlled release mechanism? Or maybe some sort of timed mechanical release?\n\n
I wish we could hear the opinions of said elevator man. Granted it may not help much, but I'm curious as to his throught process through this event that started so much discussion on this matter.
wait, that looks a lot like what I saw
I think you hit the nail on the head. Fear is the motivation behind attaching to these beliefs. I think another big problem is that mothers trust anecdotes from their mother, sister, friend, co-worker, ect over data.
People are going to commit violent crime. Why do you think it's better to give them access to weapons that greatly increase the chance they can kill the person they attack, especially when the statistics back up the fact that they don't act as a tool of prevention?
This!\n\nI can't believe it took 50 comments to mention talk.origins.
>*Do the people that visit you know that they need to visit you or are they drawn to you (or your energy)?*\n\n*>I find them, wherever it may be, I try to help them. But they Do NOT seek me out, flock to my home, search for me and cross states/countries/continents. A lot of people get confused and think I have some sort of beacon that just attracts them. Haha.
Someone watched [Battleship](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1440129/) recently.\n\nI'm not going to comment on the authenticity of that article, as I have no way of knowing if it's true or not it is but it reads exactly like the movie I linked above, except that in the movie it was the Japanese and Americans warships fighting off the aliens in the Pacific ocean.
It was a star, your head was moving up and down.
The final season ended in 2008
>I've never, ever heard this question asked to any straight person.\n\nIf it makes you feel better my friends and I talk about this all the time. \n\n>I'm going to guess nobody has ever mistaken you for wanting to transition into being a woman.\n\nNot genuinely, no. But to be honest, I'm not effeminate either. If I was more effeminate in general, then it would be a valid question imo.\n\nBut I have seen a female friend of mine asked if she would like to be a man, just because she's a bit of a tom boy, even though she's stragiht.
He isn't "asking honest questions." He asks questions about things that sound scary to people unfamiliar with them, but that most medical professionals would recognize as nothing to worry about. His goal is to scare people away from vaccines, not ask questions. He's like the Glenn Beck of alternative medicine.\n\nAnd he's a quack because he promotes all sorts of pseudoscientific bullshit.
When I was at school (UK) anyone who walked under one of those got punched by everyone else.\n\nEdit: Also, some superstitions I've heard of do have a small basis in reality, like don't walk over 3 drains (Because the middle ones used to be unstable and liable to break) + walking under ladders (in case someone fell on you).
I'm aware of the fairly weak evidence, that's why I said "replicate, with mixed results". \n\nFrom my personal experience, however, I did feel a difference. Easier to remember multiple things (shopping lists are a thing of the past), and improved mood are the main benefits.
BUT SOMEBODY IS WRONG ON THE INTERNET!
Sure we can. Controlled demolition from the base of the towers would have caused them to fall from the bottom up. I remember watching them fall, it was definitely top down.
Splitting hairs... but 99.99999999999999999% is still not 100%, and as a 'scientific skeptic' one is relegated to evidence/falsifiable experimentation, for which none exists to settle this matter once and for all. It's all fucking scientology to me too, but a 100% claim still seems less than scientifically skeptical since it still entails 0.000000000000000001% faith to assert. This position by no means puts theistic bullshit on equal footing however, and should not be allowed to lead to a 'teach the controversy' dichotomy.
Dr. Oz makes my blood boil. That was a well written letter that, sadly, may fall on deaf ears.
I read his book Denialism. Great read.
I worked for Dell Tech Support many years ago when things like a 500 meg hard drive was freakin' sweet.\n\nIBM had a run of drives that suffered an early version of the "clickdeath" where the drive heads would get going really good and over enthusiastically knock themselves past the outer edge of the drive.  It usually meant the drive was very, very close to not working at all.\n\nWhen we informed the customer, there was usually "But all my ~~asian bukkakke porn~~documents are on that drive!" protests.  So we had them take the drive out, lay it on its side, "with the cable plug facing you and the side with the circuits on the left and now, in the very middle of the top of the drive, hit it once with the handle of your screwdriver.\n\nUsually got the thing working for another couple hours, so they could backup their shit.
I often get strange particles in my vision, either vibrating, packed together, covering all of my vision, or individual particles, "bouncing" and "flying" around very quickly, in straight lines. Every time they are 2D. When I was little, I thought they were atoms. Now I'm slightly concerned/curious as to what they are. Are they related to the condition?\n\n*EDIT*: I checked the wikipedia article and now know that I definitely have visual snow.
Shit like this, that makes this subreddit less appealing...
Walked through a Dollar General, and I just had to take a picture of this. The fact that some people actually believe this crap astounds me.
I'm really interested in the response to this. What sort of complications could you expect if you had all those shots over a very short period of time?
HOLY FUCK!\nhttp://projectavalon.net/forum/showthread.php?t=15824
Who are these "skeptics" you refer to? Just some dudes, right?
People like that have *issues*, they need more help than others.
Obviously fake. The last is especially obvious. Convenient that the craft stopped directly in front of the cameraman to do an utterly pointless 360 before flying off. Why would it do that?
That last paragraph is pretty key here. Fucking radio waves. Why come all the way over here and bend some grass in a way that could be so easily misinterpreted when you could just get in contact in the same way that you were contacted, from where you received the message in the first place?!! When you receive a text, do you walk all the way over to your mate's house to write the reply in the grass in his garden?
I dislike skeptics that either believe nothing, and demand proof that the sky is blue or water is wet, or believe everything another skeptic tells them, even if it's loony bullshit.\n\n
I'm no expert here but have had interest in UFO's for years. I have always had this theory in the back of my mind for a while. I it was refreshing to see someone have similar views. \n
Voodoo perhaps? They have spells related to "zombies" but not the flesh eating ones you might be thinking of, But actually raising people from the dead into a living state. I might look further into this.
Can I call something bogus just by the layout of their website? All it's missing is a "get your free webpage from Angelfire" bump at the bottom of the page.
Not really a mystery, is it? Neat phenomenon though.
How, uh... could you miss it?
I unsubbed because it's the same sht over and over.
Why does she remind me of Vera Cosgrove in DEAD ALIVE!?
Well, I am saying just some random Joe off the street. Everybody who hasn't gotten into the paranormal stuff, or aliens, or UFOs always would think they want to "dominate."
torsion field.  angular momentum that may have created a field around your arms and somehow perfectly cancelled out because of your velocities matching
America has the best air force in the world.  We don't need to reveal our secret weapons yet.  Like when we revealed the nuclear bomb on Japan.  We don't have a reason to use UFOs yet so why blow our cover.
I believe there are scientific explanations for most supernatural things, we just haven't figured them out yet. From religious experiences (magnetism) to ghosts (infrasound) there is most likely a perfectly logical explanation for things skeptics believe to be pure fiction.\n\nhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2003/godonbrain.shtml\n\nhttp://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3077192/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/infrasound-linked-spooky-effects/#.T5Mdea55mK0\n
Any update on that Garden Grove "pursuit"?
"You eat pieces of shit for breakfast?"
As a zoology student that was just painful to read. My Intro to Bio class hammered all of those facts into my head. Hell we had test questions on the conservation of matter. I find it really hard to believe that students who understand trophic pyramids don't think that you lose energy though. I've learned that just because someone studies science doesn't mean they are any good at reasoning (physics minor and a CS major friend) but geeze that was just depressing.
I think we're probably talking about Dow PlantSciences, not just the parent company. BASF also does biotech stuff.\n\n\nFor some reason they don't heavily advertise themselves to the world :p
Did the same on my old Ford with a rusty tank.
Not according to Stephen Fry on one of this season's episodes of Qi.
I only think it's a good thing if the person's career is based on preaching those same values he was caught breaking.
> I'm just as much of a skeptic as anyone else here, but this is a strawman. Who says psychic phenomena has to work the way it does in books or movies?\n\nIt doesn't have to work the same way as it does in the movies.  All it has to do is to behave the way he says it does in his experiments.  They have a ~53% tenancy to select the right window.  If I should buy stock 'X' I will show the group the perky pictures on the right hand window.  If I should sell stock 'X' I will show the group the perky pictures on the left hand side.  All I have to do is after the fact, determine buy or sell and show them the correct picture.  I now have a human engine for predicting the future.
> Well, they do contain radioactive isotopes\n\nI know, that's the kernel of truth that makes it a decent conspiracy theory.  Radioactivity is *spooky* and *sinister* and poorly understood.  If I started a story that radiation from smoke detectors caused autism, someone is bound to believe it.
If it makes you feel better, if she was about to run out of milk and wasn't pumping at least once an hour every day, calories weren't going to help her. Also, a baby might suck on anything put in its' mouth, but it isn't born instinctively knowing the most effective way to milk the breast. A breast is not like a straw, it really depends on the technique to how much you're getting out. In fact, I wouldn't even call a proper breastfeeding latch sucking.  \n To imply there is no learning curve for anyone is.. ahem, yeah, is incorrect.
I didn't say I don't understand what special pleading is; I implied you were using the term incorrectly. Furthermore, comparing my example to that of a "sentient deity [would there be such a thing as a non-sentient deity?!] made of pasta..." is disingenuous and an unfair comparison. I can show you examples of organisms that live for thousands of years. Can you show me god? No. Do you see the logical fallacy in that? To make it simple for you:\n\n* A giant tortoise in a nuclear powered ship gets to alpha centauri in 100 years. The tortoise then lives for another 100 years. This particular species of giant tortoise is clever and, what's more, has a low metabolic rate (doesn't eat much; might go to sleep for a lot of the journey). If you have problems stretching to that when inviting speculative reasoning, I think you should carefully consider how you phrase your posts and, again, beware anthropomorphism.
The issue you have there is the likelihood that the plaintiff doesn't have the financial where-with-all to come up with the money, even if he were required to pay for the defense of the school district.  Once the school gets a judgment (and before they execute a lien), the guy files for bankruptcy protection, and the debt likely gets discharged.  This is because of the preferential order of creditor recovery in bankruptcy - taxes first, then secured creditors, then unsecured creditors.  Since most people in the US in this day and age really have no assets other than their house (which goes to the bank if the bank accelerates the note), there is no recovery for the school.
Agreed.
Here's the essential question: does your body processes fructose and glucose differently? I believe yes. And, if so, eating something that has an artificially enhanced ratio of fructose to glucose should be different from eating something that has a natural (nearly 1:1) ratio.\n\nSome analysis indicating how we process glucose and fructose differently, and why something like HFCS is bad for us:\nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM&feature=youtu.be\n\nOf course, I have no idea what your resources are that indicate that HFCS is no better or worse, but you've got to be super cautious about who funded the research, given the money in the HFCS industry.
That's just a bloated way of saying "I don't understand it, so it is not happening." - and it's padded out with a lot of bullshit presented as fact. You're a denier because you're in denial over established science. You've constructed your own half baked climate science 'theory' and built your case on that..\n\n> ...flat-out denial of natural warming.\n\nWhat natural warming? What natural mechanism is warming the planet? Also, the mountain of evidence for CO2-induced warming compares to the total absence of evidence for any natural cause of warming. That's not "denial" - that is reality.\n\n> What if the concept of consensus is pointless to me?\n\nThen you'd be pretty stupid. The planet's experts are in total agreement - but you think you know better! That is incredibly arrogant and stupid.\n\nThis seems to be what a lot of deniers struggle with. The total consensus of the planet's climate scientists isn't good enough for them - they want people to listen to *their* opinion and they're angry that no one does. But that's the way it goes: idiots with opinions are usually not listened to in matters of science.
once I was memorized too :)
I was about to ask the same thing
i'll just leave this here:\nhttp://fairgamestop.org/scientology-child-slavery-issues.html
He's trying to pop your head open with the power of his MIND.
The difference is that cold medications can help relieve symptoms. Even if they don't actually fight the cold, you can benefit from using them.
Do you also enjoy crypto-zoology and "lost civilizations"?\n\nI'm sure you probably know about this but, there's a radio show called Coast to Coast AM that is heavily anchored in fringe topics. They sometimes have fascinating discussions although many of them get completely discredited - like the whole Mel's Hole thing. It's often a great source of entertainment.
Then, I would assume, you're working with something closer to [Spinoza's  god](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinozism), which is a far more abstract concept than that of [Deism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism) (which still asserts some sort of supreme being).
Nate Silver has forever changed the way people cover elections. As long as there is an electoral college, his system will dominate. There's got to be a movie in this story somewhere. Moneypoll perhaps?
Your sarcasm wasn't easily detectable.  Thus the downvotes.  People thought you were serious
Talk to people who were on the base at the time and you'll find that Halt, Burrough and Penniston are a laughing stock (and for good reason).\n\nThere are a lot of mundane details that believers in the UFO story apparently seem to choose to ignore.
The universe isn't perpetual. Merely incomprehensibly large.
Yeah, I think we call this capture theory.
About 5 years ago I was up on vacation at my family cabin with friends and family.  During the day at bout 430pm two of my friends and I decided it would be fun to build a ouija board and see if we could conjure up some fun.  Prior to this there had been a bit of strange activity over the years, witnessed by me and my father.  Anyways, we set up candles and started to mess around with the board calling out to the spirit.  After about 30 minutes nothing had happened, we were about to give up but I gave it one last chance to show itself.  Right after that the room went dead silent, there was a loud eery voice that muttered something directly in my ear.  I opened my eyes and looked at my friends only to realise I wasnt crazy and they heard it too.. we all screamed and ran out of the house as soon as we could.  I get chills thinking about it now :s
>1,700 Architects & Engineers\n\nFirst, that's not a very big number "700 scientists ... (out of a total of 480,000 U.S. earth and life scientists) ... give credence to creation-science".^[source](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_of_support_for_evolution#cite_note-Newsweek_1987_Martz_McDaniel-26). With a large enough sample size, finding a couple thousand to support any given claim is easy. 700 out of 500,000 isn't a great ratio, but taken out of the context of how many or these professionals exist, and whether it's reasonable to expect them to be skilled in forensic architecture or engineering, well that statistic doesn't do a whole lot for me. It's also an example of an [argument from authority](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority), which by itself isn't an outright fallacy, but can only provide very week evidence at best. You do happen to be using it in a fallacious manner however.\n\n>So your casting judgement on something you have not researched and dismissing because it is a 'truther' video.\n\nI'm dismissing it for a couple of reasons. The most prominent is that the truthers fall into the same particular set of fallacies I see in a lot of conspiracy theories. It's a huge indicator that the claim is incorrect. I'm also presuming that someone sane (in the lesswrong sense of the word) has gone over the research, and found similar problems.\n\nThe simple fact is that if I were to take the truther claim seriously on the evidence I've been given, I'd have to start looking more seriously at chemtrails and the like. None of us have that kind of time.\n\nIf I can make a suggestion for you, instead of linking to a huge hour long movie about it, link to an individual argument. The time investment is small enough that one of us is likely to take a good look at it. If that's debunked, link another one, and someone else will take a look. Split up the burden of time between a whole bunch of us, instead of expecting us to watch your entire video.
For all that person knew, there could be more than one person in your household. They would assume it was your girlfriend, wife, mom or sister. Hardly any reason to be afraid.
So do you think influential people in the US (and other countries around the world) don't take advantage of disasters like the Thailand tsunami to leverage influence and make money? You don't have to cause the disaster, just be able to exploit the aftermath to your advantage.
holy shit, i remember seeing that back in the day.
Nevertheless, it's irresponsible to wildly extrapolate from outliers like the [Tuskegee syphilis experiment](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_syphilis_experiment). And the idea of brain-washing is mostly bunk. After all, it usually takes a lifetime of indoctrination to achieve even a modest effect like religious belief.
Email me the minutes from yesterday's discussion and your request to resurrect argument form, and I'll consider approving it after I review it.
Yeah videos like [this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLhPXbhSe8M) are what inspired me. It's pretty unbelievable how people fall for this stuff.
And you, a man of (so many shitty) words
I don't know how this sort of thing passes for reporting, but I'm always disappointed when the BBC runs stories like this.  I'm not sure much can be done about it though.
Nonononono don't do that! The brain-eating amoebas will get you. aaaahhhhhhhh
Fuck. That's terrible.
That article only goes up to 2005, The complete CRU dataset as of 2011 does reveal a flattening of the trend. www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/
Yeah, maybe it was a slip of the tongue, and he meant that there was no media coverage of the *first* tower falling until the day after.  That I could believe.\n\nEdit:  Or maybe not.  According to the transcript, he seems to repeat it again near the end of his talk...
This actually looks similar to [this](http://www.ufocasebook.com/2012/budapestlondon.jpg).  A while ago on in /ufo someone posted this picture...which I blew up and enhanced...there is some weird detail in that pic that is similar to the Tres Pontas if you look closely.
I am thinking that this type of treatment for demonic posession is very similar to the orgasm treatment that was given for hysteria back in the day.\n\nFrom Wikipedia:\n> Typical treatment was massage of the patient's genitalia by the physician and, later, by vibrators or water sprays to cause orgasm.\n\nHysteria = freaking out  \nDemonic possession = freaking out\n\nIt all makes sense now.  \nAm I rite guys?\n
You're bang on about the flash - I noticed that as well. It seems to have come from above a cluster of buildings much closer to the balcony... but yea, i am still looking for clues as to whats going on here...
what are the facts you have collected on building 7?
Err... Advil is temporary relief that is totally worth the money.
Great!  So why do I have to pay out of my pocket and potentially a day or two of minor symptoms for society's benefit?  Oh wait, self-pay medicine.
That's what I think it was. They should make him a permanent part of the show.
There's also Houdini.
I guess it's ok to watch this kind of things with kids: take it as a good chance to work on her analytical skills after the movie. Kids will eventually be exposed to irrational stuff, and it's for the best if they do it when you are there with them.
The poster presents a false dichotomy. If a person has some faith in alternative medicine, that does not mean they are opposed to the use of actual medicine.
Transportation of goods is a BIG factor to consider. If your choice of organic food is produced close to you and not shipped very far it doesn't need as much treatment to stay fresh and is considerably better re. CO^2 emissions.
If they had written radiometric dating (or even which radiometric dating was used), many people wouldn't have understood. On the other side they could have explained it.
Also, as a skeptic, if there ever was actual proof that an large floating Omnipotent creature created the earth -and us- with the intent purpose to worship it (as in the game Black and White); we would no longer hold the thought of being atheist as valid, as it would be violating the principle of rationality. \nI say this as an atheist and a rational thinker; although I would have a real problem with being a ~~slave~~ worshiper to another creature and would still wonder where the god-like creature came from.
It's not impossible that life evolved just once in our solar system and was seeded...
Sorry people have this sort of sovreignty over themselves and themselves alone.  It is slavery to presume that the privileged class should  rule over what everyone else is allowed to know.  You obviously think you are more mentally equipped to deal with this news than most, but honestly I think your reaction tells us more of the opposite.  You have mainly fear in your heart and you actively push for the worst in humanity.  You are no one's master and it's not your fucking business reign over everyone.  No one wants or needs your bullshit, thanks!  The reason we don't know the full extent of the truth is more because of people like you than people you surmise to be 'unable to handle it' .  It's obviously you that can't handle it and all you are doing now is projecting.
Isnt REM sleep the stage where your mind begins to wake up before your body, thus making you remember the weirdest thoughts when you wake up?\n\nI had a similar occurence when i was younger. I would have the same dream, or nightmare really, of me running from monsters in a dark forest (Im afraid of the dark to this day.. Im 19) and Im running in circles around a huge tree with huge roots (think the fabled Yggdrasil just half the size). In ALL the times I dreamt this, I would eventually trip on a root, and fall on my back. Each time, one of the things chasing me would hit me. Be it knife stabs, jaguars jumping on my chest or getting bit by ice bears, I always woke up in the normal nightmareish rush, with MAJOR pain in whatever part of the body I was hit in. The feeling would linger for like a minute, probably the feeling of tons of chemicals being dumped by my body, like adrenaline and what not.\n\nHowever, I never thougt of this as something weird, but just a really really bad dream that made my mind make up pain.
/r/askscience would be better suited for this.
I assume it's safe to say that's no lightning storm?
Psh, that's not nearly as clever as [offering rapture-proof pet care](http://eternal-earthbound-pets.com/).
Using Tineye and some fancy googling, this description keeps popping up:\n> Shi'ite cleric Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim before he is greeted on arrival at the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution of Iraq (SCIRI) in Najaf, May 13, 2003. Hakim, who returned to Iraq after a 23-year exile in Iran, said on Monday that Iraq men must kiss many young boys before selecting it's government REUTERS/Kieran Doherty \n\nIt does appear to be [Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Baqir_al-Hakim), also note the ring with the black inset stone on his right hand little finger.\n\nI couldn't find the image on Reuters.com itself, but that doesn't say much I think.\n\nIf anyone is proficient with some sort of wayback machine we may yet find the source.
Assuming UFO are interstellar or inter-dimensional travelers, we can safely make the assumption that their knowledge and technology and experience and foresight and planning ALL exceed ours. So if we have an Alien visitation happening on our planet, and only a few know about it, what could that mean. Think about who believes and who doesn't. I assume that everyone that believes in UFOs and is curious about the subject will search for more evidence through whatever sources he has. Within said information he will piece together the truth. Why? Because he can handle it, he sought it out. Now look at those who refuse to believe, and don't go looking for evidence. I assume that they refuse to believe and say NO NO NO, because something on that level could shatter their minds and grasp on reality, with a chance of permanently damaging themselves mentally.\n\nThe visitors understand completely the human situation. They want to be known, but they do not want to harm anyone. So if being discreet and making occasional grainy cameos, and leaving love letters in the wheat fields is the safest way to spread the idea of life not from Earth, then that is what they should do. That is what I would do. I cannot be selfish and want to know something so badly, but in knowing it I hurt those around me. That sounds like a very human and greedy thought plan.\n\nSo I say, trust in what is happening around you, and that if you truly believe in these UFO's, you should realize their experience, and trust in their plan.\n\nAll will be revealed soon, trust.
It provided testimonial from government workers and eyewitnesses. In a criminal case the eye witness testimony is a big part, obviously not 100% but it's a big part. Now I just have to go around and find government documents, which do exist, and quote them. This is just the beginning of this paper though, so it will change by the time it's finished.
la-a\n\nThe dash is not silent
>I'm not a nuclear physicist, so I don't know if 200 miles is enough of a buffer zone to be certain that your home wouldn't be contaminated.\n\nNeither am I, and the distance doesn't really matter for the example.  Let's say 20 miles.  2 miles.  1,000 yards.\n\nDetonation of nuclear weapons IS a known source of radiation.  Methane in rock IS a known source of methane in well water.\n\nScratching of noses is NOT a known source of heart attacks. \n\nYour example is not valid.
he wonders...  ?
No. Don't be fucking disrespectful.
It's the same birthday, not same birthday and birth year. It's a famous probability question. And it's only required to have 57 people in the group to attain a 99% chance that 2 people in the room share the same birthday. 23 people for a 50% chance.
If you think you might have had abduction experiences, then try to find a hypnotherapist who can see if you've had any abduction experiences. And yes ideally you'd want to find someone credible and experienced. Some work on these cases for free. You don't really need to worry too much about being hijacked by someone's agenda or tricked into believing you've had an experience when you haven't. The vast majority of experiences have very similar characteristics. One study tried to hypnotize people into describing abduction experiences, and they succeeded! Except that basically everybody described wildly different experiences that didn't match the typical abduction experience. \n\nAnd I think that is basically how you will know if your experience is sleep paralysis or abduction (and this is also the problem with dismissing abductions as sleep paralysis). Maybe in your sleep paralysis you did imagine alien contact (though note that most of the people here with sleep paralysis report regular bizarre hallucinations, whereas OP only had the hallucination one time in all these years). But if the hypnosis leads you to report alien contact that doesn't closely resemble common abduction experiences (or perhaps no contact at all), then you're good and you can start tapping into it and having fun with lucid dreaming/astral projections and what not. If your experiences match typical abduction, then, well probably a support group would be a good way to try to come to terms with that. Or you could also try to contact Derrel Sims who might be able to help you 'fight back.' At the very least he should be able to give you info about your metallic sliver (if you still have it). But none of this will work if you start reading about abductions now, because that could give you a good sense already of what a typical abduction involves, which *could* cloud  your recall under hypnotic regression. Afterwards, I recommend reading David Jacob's and Budd Hopkin's books on the topic of abductions. Very careful sober-minded compared to a lot of the abduction stuff out there (I'm looking at you, Mack and Strieber). I recommend their books to everybody on this thread, starting with Jacob's [Secret Life] (http://www.scribd.com/doc/60244191/David-M-Jacobs-Secret-Life-Firsthand-Accounts-of-Ufo-Abductions). He has a very nice discussion at the end responding to methodological critiques/alternative explanations. And then also in The Threat he has more to say to answer critiques about hypnosis and other things. \n\nBut again OP, DON'T read their stuff before you do the regression yourself. \n\nIf you do decide to undergo hypnosis, please report back to us to tell us what you found!
What do you mean?  What about what was written above - or any place where I have written for that matter - would make someone like you think that what I wrote was a "stream of consciousness of fluff-words"?\n\nExplain what you mean exactly.
It doesn't matter that ignorant people use the term incorrectly, the fact is that they are still wrong. If I murder somebody, but claim that I thought that murder wasn't a crime, that doesn't excuse me.
Weren't they supposed to be trolling humanity for all these years?
So I needed money and this opportunity came along one day, too good to pass up.  A fellow student came to me inquiring why my grades were always so much better than his. "Smart pills" I told him with the confidence of one accustomed to such questions.  \n\n"Smart pills?" he replied and that is when I conjured my tale. Smart pills were diet supplements made locally, and of all natural ingredients. They can be hard to come by, but I have a supplier and would be ok with sharing my supply of smart pills for 5 dollars a day. \n\nExcited to increase his cognition, he began the expensive regiment of daily ingesting the all natural pills I provided for the process.  After the first week had ended, he confided that he still didn't feel any increase in cognitive or comprehensive ability, I assured him that for the powerful ingredients to have lasting effect, he'd need to build up a reserve of the substances in his body, which would likely happen in the second week, or what I had begun referring to as phase 2.\n\nA week after phase 2 had commenced, my friend (let's call him Mark) my mark, came up to me with a the look of someone who had had an epiphany "You know something?" he said to me as he fished a five dollar bill out of his pocket. "I don't think these are smart pills, in fact I think you have been feeding me rabbit turds." \n\n"Go on.." I said.  "Yeah, they are little and brown, about the right size and they taste like shit, I don't think you have been selling me smart pills, I think you have been ripping me off from the start!!"\n\n"Mark, I assure you -- You are showing signs of getting smarter already!"\n
Myth #11: Stating the myth and then debunking it is an effective way for people to remember that the myth is false.\n\nFact: Minds often conserve memory space by just focusing on the header, not the explanation.  Stating the myth will only serve to reinforce the myth.  (Which means I should have formatted this comment differently, but I wanted to emulate their format).\n\nState it as facts: Every part of the brain serves its own unique purpose.  Releasing anger makes you only angrier.  Psychological problems are as varied as the causes.  Human memory is often inaccurate.  Hypnosis offers more freedom of actions by allowing people to claim they weren't in charge of their actions.  Polygraph tests are very frequently wrong, sometimes you might as well guess.  Similarities attract.  Schizophrenics hear voices and imagine odd things.  Crimes happen most often on[whichever days?]/crimes happen about as frequently on each day of the month.  An "insane" criminal defense is worse than a regular sentence.
Yes, and I've seen it since but haven't been too freaked out based on my past experience. Though it does make me wonder why it's there.
Am I the only one who sees it strange that he says about the unreliability of statistics, and then goes on to use statistics as the crux of his argument? Anyway...\n\nFirst thing - deaths from these diseases are only part of the story. What about polio, which causes deformities? And the other life-long complications of having these diseases, such as infertility from mumps (as an aside, while I was researching the below, I found a pretty horrifying picture from someone who probably survived diphtheria - if you're of a stern constitution, it's [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:A_diphtheria_skin_lesion_on_the_leg._PHIL_1941_lores.jpg))?\n\nOn to the actual vaccines (just a couple of them though - this is pretty time consuming to research properly)...\n\n* Diphtheria - An anti-toxin was developed in the 1890s and was developed into a serum. A proper vaccine was developed in 1913, and a vaccination campaign started in the 1920s. So it's not lying to say it was in widespread use in the 1940s, but it's not exactly accurate either, since it doesn't tell you when it started...\n\n* Smallpox - vaccinations were offered free to the poor from 1840 (this seems to have escaped his notice, and isn't graphed - previously, it wasn't free to the poor), but they were distrusted by some, which led to compulsory vaccination in 1858 (and the birth of the anti-vax movement...). He mentions that, later, there were more deaths from the vaccine than from smallpox - that may be true, but if no-one was vaccinated, then the deaths from smallpox would increase again...\n\nSo, that's two of them, I didn't cherry-pick, I just chose two and looked into them - I didn't know the facts until afterwards. I have no doubt that the others are baloney as well.
I believe is was the Cuyahoga which actually caught on fire from pullution?
Where is your god now?
That word is irrelevant. Criticizing Ron Paul for being pro-homeopathy is not criticizing everything he supports. How thick are you?\n\nEdit: For the record, are we certain Ron Paul's anti-war? We know he's against the wars we're currently involved in, but he doesn't seem to be a pacifist.
que creepy music ...now!
I see what you did there
I don't know, he seems to be talking to someone who has had her genitals mutilated (I could be wrong, I'm having a very hard time with the context of his comment!) etc. In my opinion, let her "whine" all she wants. If she wants people to be aware of a practice that is carried out *to this day*, it isn't "whining". I sincerely hope it isn't him, I'm reading "The Ancestor's Tale" right now and if he's saying what I think he's saying, I'm going to toss it aside and read something equally informative (not that hard to find) by an author who isn't a fucking douche.
Vote it up, folkee-O's!
How is deliberately not getting your children vaccinated different from a Unibomber type wingnut cooking up biological weapons in a backwoods shed? These parents consciously know their children could end up being disease vectors, yet still feel that their own agitated mental states outweigh the safety of society as a whole.
Maybe impressive, certainly not surprising. The brain certainly does have power over physiological regulations and perceptions. I mean, look at [that](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%ADch_Qu%E1%BA%A3ng_%C4%90%E1%BB%A9c) ! Looks like conscient effort like Meditation can have some control over pain-perception. So why not other things.\n\nMy guess would be that this is also, why we find something like a placebo effect is possible.
> The method of death is natural\n\nOk at least I know you are talking out of your ass now.
I was messing around with my friends at a local so called paranormal hotspot named strauss cabin. Apparently some murder sucicide, murder happened there, and its a popular spot for teens to go get a fright. So we go there, with our flashlights out, and my friend and I decide to start cussing the shit out of this place, seeing if something would happen. Well as we left, my friend threw something at the house, and we got a response, like a bunch of knocking noises. we booked it.\n\nive always felt prone to paranormal experiences as a kid and before this story. I would hear things, and on paranormal trips I would always be the one the spirits were attracted to. Now, I guess what I said and my lack of spirit behind this lead to a demonic take over in my house. in fact, it followed me. the first sign was a light in the storage room that I kept off. it would turn on by itself and I would always turn it off. \nthe second clue was certain things like my shampoo bottles, combs, hell my weed pipe all ended up in the storage room. this creeped the fuck out of me and with weird noises in the house of walking, I did a oujia board with my friends. long story short, it said it was a demon, named my middle name when none of my friends knew it without my finger on the marker, and said it wont leave me alone. it also said it liked dubstep, but that's besides the point. this was at my friends house, and it followed me over. It said it was afraid of the dark, and the light needed to be on. it said some personal secrets of mine, how I was afraid about my girlfriend leaving me. it got cold in the basement and the coldest spot, by at least 10 degrees was behind me. this creeped all of us out, and we stopped, needless to say it didn't for me.\nfor the next 6 to 8 months, it escalated, with noises of walking, to disappearing objects to breathing on my neck and dark shadows outside my bedroom door. at this point I had a bible, and not a very religious person I tried to pray. it wasn't working very well, for It disappeared one night, and shocker it was in the basement in the storage room.\none of the worst experiences Ive had is with my catholic friend who came over. we went upstairs, from my basement, where my xbox and a large tiv is to go out. once I got back home with matt to play some mw2, the tv turned on right in front of us, before we got to the end of the stairs, and footsteps chased up the stairs, with knockings on the wall. Needless to say, shadow figures became a daily occurance and my life went to shit, lost my gf, friends and I almost killed myself
n=1 only. We need more volunteers. \n\nActually no, that'd introduce a selection bias. We need to pick 100 people at random and force durian+beer down their throat. Only then will we know.
Mmmmmm....I love Documentos....the fresh makers......
A good example of this is evolution. Many Christians believe it is not true despite the scientific evidence because the bible tells them it isn't.     \nObviously you can not falsify a god, but you can falsify other details of their beliefs.
Any other account videos news reports? They are pretty bright lights and a lot of them, sombody else must of seen them. Also the light that fades in/out and shoots out green light is pretty cool, but the way it does it looks like an animation thats been looped a few times.\n\nIt sounds like it was recored off a laptop webcam (The clicking noise when it zooms sounds like a key press), but pretty nice footage.\n\nNice video, more like this please.
I fucking hate my state. I really do.
Exactly
They tend to carry clipboards, wear white lab coats and sometimes a stethoscope.
Yes i did :p sorry! I'll try to remember next time.
My understanding is that the interest rate paid to the investors in the Fed is fixed, and that the investments cannot be freely traded.
I'm pretty sure this is satirical.
You do know this story is from 2006 right? \nIt's just been recycled. \nhttp://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/ufo-sighting-in-himachal-lahaul-spiti-district-remains-a-mystery/1/181923.html
> It's mainly about money. Chiropractors do have one thing in common with doctors and pharmaceutical companies: there's more money to be made in treating people than curing them. "Oh, you have the flu? Come in a few times this week."\n\nDo you have a source for this?
I've told my story here before. As a child I met a young girl in my church and didn't think anything of her. It wasn't until later that I found out she was a girl who died in a church fire some time in the early 70s. She disappeared and I never saw her again. Then as a teenager I noticed she'd come back once I started going on dates with girls. She never came back in a physical form, but as a spirit. She would terrorize my dates. During college she haunted the girls at my university. Eventually I think she got bored and went away.
I don't think it would be physically possible. \n\nWTC 7 was totally protected from the south by WTC 1 & WTC 2.\n\nOn the west, east and north sides the neighbouring buildings which would make it difficult to hit the WTC 7. For example on the west side is the Verizon building, which is 500 ft tall, leaving only 71 ft of the WTC 7 building exposed, a very small target to hit. \n\nThe north and east sides would mean flying over all of Manhattan, which would mean avoiding hitting many other tall buildings before reaching the site.\n\n\nSomeone might pop up here and say that the Pentagon is 77ft tall and therefore it couldn't have been hit by a plane. If anyone does, then I'll just refer them to [this page](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_effect_\\(aircraft\\)). This wouldn't apply to a plane at 500-570ft\n\n
Multiple accounts of full apparitions, noises, footsteps, "the lost tour" (where the sounds of tours are heard when no one is there), voices, whispers, etc.
I used to think that excuse was bullshit- people couldn't handle it and they'd freak out. I still think *the people* can handle it actually. Now the media is so out of control, you'd think the world almost came to a halt because a black man was elected president.
Chiropractors are also MDs?  Pics or it didn't happen.
There are many reports of UFOs dropping lights or flare like objects onto the ground below.
Real men don't sew anything ( joke! )\n\nBut a serious question - at what point did I give my consent to allow myself to be hypersexualized in this manner? You wouldn't blame a female for the state of opinion that her culture holds about her, if it was negative. So why is it my own fault? Why not give me the same benefit of the doubt that you would give a woman, as a person who is not directly able to control cultural norms?\n\nWhy are normal men so quick to blame themselves, and speak for other men, assuming that we are willing to accept the mantle of shame that so many people seem to think is rightfully ours?
i don't think it's [clear yet](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acupuncture#Scientific_basis) excactly what is going on. but there's obviously a tendency to overestimate the possible effects of it. add to that [placebo](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo) and you've got yourself a tricky field to investigate.
Fucking shit, I will never find it.
r/fitness, r/loseit, r/paleo
State atheism started before and ended after Stalin but you decided to mention him and now you are doing what I didn't want but sadly knew what was coming.
Wikipedia is not trustworthy and I know that from personal experience. That is not a cop-out, that is the truth. I was involved with an organization that has a page on Wik. (No, I'm not going to provide the link because doing so would negate my anonymity.) That page was first authored by political opponents and was little more than a pack of lies. A couple of us set the record straight in an edit but saw that changed back by the original authors. We tried again to edit but were blocked. Eventually we had to submit copies of court documents to Wik in order to win the right to submit our edit that agreed with the court records. Vandalism is anyone changing content away from the original intent of the authors. Nothing prevents the original authors from taking any view they please and calling corrections vandalism. Wikipedia calls itself reliable but so do many of the sites that you and I have argued over. Wik is authoritative yes, but authority is not always accurate and is most often biased. We know that it’s possible to make any argument sound convincing if only one point of view is presented. That’s been the driver behind the AGW debate from the beginning, as well as JFK, 9/11 and so on. \n\nThe BB is supported by evidence, but so is the plasma hypothesis. The PH was developed from work in laboratories and then extended by observation. The BB was developed on a black-board with little experimental work. Results from PH lab work are confirmed by observation. Observation drives BB to invent unseen forces in order to make observation fit the model. PH is scalable where the physical properties of plasma are consistent from small lab models up to galactic scales. BB requires that physical properties change according to scale or location. For instance, dark matter can not exist in large quantities on Earth, nor in the solar system, nor inside the galaxy. But, it can exist outside the galaxy as an unseen halo. Dark energy has the property of being able to hide for a while until needed in order to accelerate expansion. The BB is incomplete, relies on unseen forces, yet claims to the last word. In previous ages the invocation of unseen forces was called sorcery. PH relies on the same principles that operate electric motors, that produce aurora, and are known to all electrical engineers. It's internally and externally consistent which is more than BB can claim.  \n\nSuperclusters can only be explained by the BB by invoking unseen forces. In a universe of only 14.7 billion years there is no way for superclusters to have formed if the only active force is gravity. Gravity is the weakest of the fundamental forces so there is no way for it to have overcome the trend to dispersal of material from the initial expansion. BB theory then has to posit unknown forces in order to account for this clumping. PH recognizes that EMF is 10>39 times more powerful than gravity. The structures of superclusters are reproducible in the lab. Those same structures are not reproducible on the blackboard unless a fudge factor is introduced – dark energy.\n\nHoles in evolutionary theory have been numerous and the most contentious has been the mechanism. That is not a political issue at all but part of the on-going process of forming ideas and criticism. We can see evolution in action in single celled organisms where the process is very straight-forward. In a bacteria colony high reproductive rates means that errors in DNA transcription are not fatal to the colony. If an error occurs then that new cell dies while the parent cell goes on making perfect copies. When environmental conditions change the number of mutations increases. While most of the mutations are unfit a few will be successful in the new conditions. This is the mechanism behind drug resistance. Animals that reproduce sexually however are more of a problem because mutation is fatal. A calf may be born with 2 heads but that is not mutation but a developmental defect. That’s a nut-shell of the problem and there are competing ideas as to the mechanism of evolution. Personally I’m leaning towards retro-viruses as the means of making new genetic material available, which is then expressed due to environmental pressure. Any day now I’m expecting a new breakthrough making my present idea look ridiculous.\n\n>Was phrenology ever a reasonable alternative for psychology?\n\nYes it was. Given the state of understanding at the time phrenology was a strong candidate as a reliable indicator. I think what you’re trying to get at is refuted by this example. Wide-spread ideas are not necessarily accurate or complete. It’s true that few people are working in PH today. That is more a case of the current paradigm being more familiar and the natural tendency of people to cling to and support the familiar. Resistance to new ideas is the norm as a psychological phenomenon. People involved in cosmology are not immune.\n\nI don’t bookmark every web page and I prefer not to dog-ear my books. I will attempt to find the reference to Alfen’s work.   \n
I'm just saying, dude, if it rained that day it makes it all that more likely that a stray drop fell on the camera. If you want to try to prove something, you've got to eliminate every other possibility, not just say "Eh, probably not.".
Ah, yes - but he also remains clear about the difference. A psychic is believed to know certain things, through supernatural means, and be able to tell people things about themselves or the future that they do not know..\n\nA "psychic" i.e. someone in the real world, uses only educated guesses. The spooky thing being the accuracy of the guesswork done automatically.
No Problem.\n\nYou probably fast forwarded before I mentioned this, but the interesting thing is that SimJames2k had a change of heart:\n\n> After finishing the podcast, I realized it actually adds something to \n> it. Makes the whole thing feel more like a conversation, or listening \n> to a friend. That makes for a good ambiance while I’m working.\n\nBut I don't hold it against anybody if they want to skip ahead :)
Challenging and skeptical? Yes. I'm a huge skeptic. Is that a bad thing though?\n\nAs for demanding, I think that's where the communication breakdown occurred. I wasn't telling you that you have to do it, I said you should do it, because it'd be interesting. You don't want to use any lame "THIS IS PROOF" titles, but more a "what does /r/paranormal think?" sort of approach.\n\nI then suggested that if you did do it, that you shouldn't tell anyone what is being said until a few days later because the moment you suggest what is being said, you've created bias. Sort of like if we were sitting there looking at clouds and I said "what does that cloud look like?" and at first you might not have any clue, but then when I say "It looks like a dolphin, see! there's the dorsal fin, and the tail, etc" the act of making a suggestion regarding the phenomena causes the other party to immediately "see" or "hear" what is intended due to the power of suggestion.\n\nThat was not me being demanding, that was me being thorough, because it would be interesting to seee what other people hear, relative to what you and the people who made the recording heard. But I do apologize if you took that as me attacking you. \n\n(As a follow up example to the above point, I'm sure at some point you've watched a ghost show. When they do an evp recording, 99% of the time they say something like "wait, did you hear that!" and of course nobody else does at first. But then they say "the recording is a voice saying bla bla bla" and suddenly it is much more seemingly apparent to the listener. It's a very similar phenomenon to when bands get accused of 'back masking' hidden messages into their songs. Again, this isn't an attack, this is simply a point. If you get to this point in the message and it still seems hostile for some reason, please reread it but this time with the voice in your head sounding like Lenard Nimoy. )
Very good suggestion! I hadn't thought of those things. This is what I'll do.
This is a textbook case of journalistic self-censoring on the topic of UFOs - but self-censoring to the point of self-ridicule. It was stated that a police report was made of the object, yet no attempt was made to speak with police. It seems the easiest way to report on a UFO event is to begin by associating it with science fiction, then conclude that "this will just have to remain a mystery." So lame.
I clicked on this to hear transmissions from UFOS themselves ... Pretty optimistic, I now see
>This is obviously a product they didn't want to get out and so how good could that be.\n\n"Pink Slime" isn't an industry term. The guy who made a fuss about it came up with that term. At the time, they probably thought you were talking about some crazy shit, so they said no.
I'm unclear what you are asking here.  Astrology would be considered low hanging fruit in the skeptical world, it's been debunked enough times that it's hard to believe anyone still puts any kind of stock in it.
The point, and I know everyone will disagree with me, because reddit has a hard on for cycling, is that they shouldn't be on the road or the sidewalk. They aren't fast enough to be on the road, and they are too fast for the sidewalk. Cyclists don't deserve to be abused, but outside of cities that have been specifically designed around them, they are a complete anachronism that forces everyone around them into a more dangerous position.
Here we go again. Arguing science over asymmetrical information.
That sounds a bit terrifying, to be honest. People will ask them for advice.
On rereading, I was unclear. I was referring to the languages, not the coin.
Well, theoretically an organic dye could be large enough to serve as an antigen, but yeah, that isn't very likely at all, and even if it was the case it would not have a major impact (unless it happened to trigger an allergic response).\n\nThere are immune system responses to cancer, but they aren't all very regular or reliable, which is one of the reasons why we tend to go with chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy instead, despite the fact that both of these kill a wide variety of fast-multiplying cells, which includes much of the immune system.
You've fallen prey to relative perspective. You're assuming the laws of physics that you are currently bound by, are normal. There is nothing in the way of assuming that you ARE living in a fucking absurd fantasy land.\n\nWhat if the "author" lives in a 2 dimensional universe? Or a 4? How could you ever know or comprehend what their existence was. Blargh I hate this kind mental masturbatory bullshit. It just feels so juvenile.
Seems to be a valid explanation actually.
Thermate, Not 'nano-thermite', uses additional tools, has to rerun to get it to work. Where did the therma/ite get on the beams, how was it rigged to detonate, why does an incidiery makes things 'explode'; why is this video more valid than the top one and what exactly does it prove?\n\nYou need to be careful of who and what you're accusing. It was hardly a factual rebuttal was it?
Here is some relevant information about the "pull it" issue. Remember, they were literally pulling a damaged building down with cables. http://www.911myths.com/html/wtc7_pulled.html
Sure looks like a plane to me.  I think I even see it's landing gear.
I'd say maybe, condescending in a cheesy (though not unentertaining) way.
Is moving an option? I am not suggesting you can't evict the entity, but it will require cooperation among all of you and an energetic shift. It may be easier just to move.
That's only barely in question, at this point. We're pretty certain the answer is "a lot", it's mostly debated about whether it's "most" or "almost all".
Here is a good one: [Archeologist Watches Ancient Aliens](http://badarchaeology.wordpress.com/2011/09/17/i-remember-why-i%E2%80%99ve-never-wanted-satellite-television/)\n\nAlso, here is a piece by piece examination of every claim made on the show:\n\n[Dumbass Guide to Knowledge](http://www.dumbassguide.info/blog.php?bid=92)
There is no debunking needed. Faucets turning on and toilet paper unravelling shows absolutly nothing.\n\nAs somebody mentioned, faucets can turn on by themselves for a variety of reasons. Toilet paper can unravel itself due to this bizarre and mystical energy force, called 'gravity', especially when it is placed on the roller improperly.\n\nI'll just leave this here\nhttp://www.youtube.com/user/QualiaSoup#p/u/17/NPqerbz8KDc
I know a Holistic Healer who encourages people to go off their diabetes and high blood pressure medicine and take herbs and other natural "medicines" and all I can think about is hearing that Steve Jobs had a very curable cancer and decided to treat it naturally. We know how it ended for him. He was asked if he could go back and do it again would he. I'm at a loss for what he said....
Yeah, I come from a few miles up from the 'henge, and it's a well worn trope. We usually let stuff like this build up for the tourists, same with crop-circles and formations. "They can't be done by human beings!" Yeah right, I know the human beings who do loads of them, and they're half pissed-up while they do it. Fucking funny!
just posted one of my dreams-come-to-be. its fucking freaky. i wonder what the 'real' connection is between dream reality and waking life. seems like if there's a way we can interact with the possible futures and our fears and our hopes maybe dreaming is it... makes me want to pursue Carlos Casteneda's Dreaming stuff a little more seriously...
Aside from everything else, two of his purported four alignments are very likely incorrect, because he's using a non-scale diagram of the solar system.  The orbits of the planets are not evenly spaced.
Intelligence and gullibility are not mutually exclusive.  She is highly educated and well-read.
Now, that looks interesting.  Thanks for sharing.\n\n**WARNING:** The article has spoilers for any readers of the Harry Potter series.  If you haven't completed the series and intend to read it, don't read the article!
as scientists have not determined the physical/chemical mechanism of consciousness, that is not true.
Fair point about the fats.\n\nI think that it's a rather sweeping statement to include all processed foods in one category.  Its more genuine to see high salt and fat foods.\n\nMind you, the diet is okay with high salt and fats.  Which means they object to processed foods for some other reason.\n\n
Why submit anything from wattsupwiththat? Do you want it debunked or are you under the unfortunately mistaken impression that he's a skeptic?
Thank you for clarifying. Good question, but I highly doubt it. As much as I dislike the guy, I think he has honesty.\nEDIT: changed "integrity" to "honesty." I don't think he is a liar. Integrity encompasses more than that.
Just about any that matters: IQ, judgment, criminality (where women are superior), etc.
After a lifetime of wearing shoes, the bottoms of my feet seem *fragile*. I would be uncomfortable with the idea of walking any real distance barefoot.
Why would aliens regardless of their origins be so interested in farm animals?  Unless.  The aliens are demons and they ritually sacrifice the ...  NAH.
Directives are laws.  It has rules about how it has to be implemented (it says more than 'nothing').  There are legal consequences for non-compliance.\n\nMy mistake is in using the word 'regulations' above, as that has a distinct legal meaning.\n\nThis is coming up because the deadline to implement the directive is expiring.  It's ridiculous that people waited until now to get into a huff about it, and that some member states waited this long to implement necessary measures.\n\n> the only thing that will be regulated are herbs\n\nAgain, this isn't true.\n\nIt's not about labeling but the context in which herbs are sold, not just marketing but whether an herb can be kept and given by a practitioner, and whether a practitioner can practice at all.\n\nDrugs can't be put into food or whatever else; herbs are qualitatively different things that don't deserve an analogous treatment in regulation.  OTOH, the actual problem at hand, the false claims and people forgoing real treatment for unproven conjectures, that needs to be addressed.\n\nThe way to address it is not to disallow practitioners from practicing, but in forcing compliance in correctly contextualizing the use: *this claim* has been studied, *this other claim* has not.\n\nYou're trying hard to make this black and white.  This can be seen as a bad thing because it prohibits perfectly legal things under perfectly legal contexts in order to kill problematic labeling and marketing: *a sledgehammer to crack a nut*.
>Which is the best kind of correct.\n\n[Thank you number 1.0.](http://theinfosphere.org/Number_1.0)
>If someone were to use a parabolic dish and point it at a steady hovering light not far away, what would you hear?\n\nWUBBA WUBBA WUBBA
He'd still be very wrong, though. Ozyorsk, the city where that happened, has a population of 91,000 today. It's pretty habitable.\n\nPretty habitable for Russia, anyway.
Or if you're bored, roll until you get multiple 1s in a row, because according to statistics, they shouldn't do it again.\n\nI know it's random, but. . .
I fear - given the language of the document - that the authors are not so interested in impartiality, as you admitted yourself. I just want to see the research this is based on so I and others can see if it stands up. I may tweet the author to ask if they will publish it. \n\n
Not sure I agree that all skeptics ought to be atheists.\n\nSure, theism should not be exempt from skeptic scrutiny, yet the value any skeptic organisation has from including theists cannot be overstated.\n\nWhen Lawrence Krauss tells the clergy that the Big Bang theory does not suppose a divine creator, that does very little to convince a theist, when Georges Lemaître (catholic priest and the first person to propose the theory of cosmic expansion) did the same thing almost a century ago, it hit right home.\n\nThe same thing when it comes to how much persuasion Myers holds versus how persuasive father Coyne is - both may present equally sound arguments opposing creationism, yet in the minds of the religous, Coyne holds more authority and should therefore be lent more weight.\n\nTheistic skeptics ought to be welcomed, not because they have religious superstitions, but because they have the power to change their communities from within.
I feel the exact same way especially with any conspiracy theory. Once someone starts saying antichrist this, demons that, i immediately know they are  full of shit.\n\nan example i found recently was the conspiracy theory of operation blue beam and when i went to research it i found that it was all religious and about the coming of the antichrist and how it was against gods works or whatever. immediately lost any shred of credibility. maybe someone else explains it in a more scientific way but i didnt bother researching more into it.
I'm sorry, but did that ghost trip at the end? Ha!
My favorite part: "She is the real deal!"
This was news a few months ago, it has mostly been ignored due to fundamental errors in the way Bem analysed the data. When re-analysed with other techniques, the evidence for psi was [weak to non-existant](http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/100/3/426?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:%20apa-journals-psp%20%28Journal%20of%20Personality%20and%20Social%20Psychology%29)\n\nUnfortunatly the link is not free, Bem's response however, [is](http://dbem.ws/ResponsetoWagenmakers.pdf).\n\nCurrently, this study has been replicated at least 3 times, with none apparently showing any significant results in line with the original study. (Though I can only find information on [one](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1699970) of them).
It's probably just a joke, seeing as it comes from his friend, so I *would* do it, just don't lincude the friend that's sending it, obviously.
They do. So do vegetarians.
I'm a big fan of Michael Pollan. \n\nWe worry too much about nutrition. The big problem that we have in the west is over eating. So his advice is "Eat food, not too much, mainly plants".
Gotcha.  Yeah, GBS can sometimes result from auto-immune responses to a vaccine.  I always find it curious that it so often gets brought up in the context of vaccination but almost never elsewhere.  GBS is a haywire response of the immune system and it also occurs when people actually get sick, including when people get the flu!\n\nI suppose it is more dramatic when a healthy person gets GBS after a vaccination.  But it's also valid to point out that flu sufferers can see GBS after being sick.
He presented something as fact, *possibly* for the sake of amusing his audience. He claimed she accused the Elevator Guy as perpetrating a form of rape. He claimed that her stance was wanting everyone to be physically and emotionally asexual.\n\nThat's not humorous commentary on events. That's outright lying about someone.\n\nIs there any reason for her to ignore him that cannot equally be applied to people's reaction to Watson?
I hope Steven Novella is enjoying his paychecks from Big Pharma!
Aw, cool.... I mean, not cool but cool.
I like how this guy is allegedly a filmmaker but still thinks it's ok to stick a video camera in front of his tv to film a film.\n\nAnd um, the lady was shielding her eyes from the sun and talking to someone out-of-frame, you can plainly see that there is nothing in her hand when she lowers it.  What a fucking moron.
What kind of feelings were involved? From what I've been told the feelings range from intense fear to insane strength, what can you tell me about this?\nMy main goal isn't to be all atheist and shut them down at every turn, its to go and see how such events work. So naturally, I'm going to be as polite as possible!\nThanks for the help!
And Internet trolls do?
you had me at "want to believe"
Why thank you sir.
Here is the actual [text of the declaration](http://www.cornwallalliance.org/articles/read/an-evangelical-declaration-on-global-warming/).
first test subjects died from vaccination experiments... Fuck you and your supposed Herd Immunity\n\nhttp://www.vaccinationcouncil.org/2012/07/05/herd-immunity-the-flawed-science-and-failures-of-mass-vaccination-suzanne-humphries-md-3/
It's light therapy. It's used to treat [seasonal affective disorder.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasonal_affective_disorder). It's a real thing.
No, it's genuinely a tabloid. Tits on page 3 and everything. It's not that they have a viewpoint and distort the facts to fit it, they literally make things up.
And what is the reference point in this photo... what are we looking at? Could be a overhead projector with a staple on it for all we know.  @ <--- LOOK! A UFO!
Uh Oh. Meningitis can be fatal.
Spoke to my biologist wife about this very subject a little while back, and she mentioned that one area of concern/investigation regarding HFCS revolves around mycoestrogens.  Apparently certain corn-born fungi produce estrogen analogues that may be getting concentrated enough to cause long term problems in humans by the HFCS refining process.\n\nRemember that she was talking about studies she is aware of that are in progress now; they are unpublished and the results are not in, so this is no more than a second-hand (now third-hand) report of some scientists' educated suspicions.
>a short video where the camera was shaking around like crazy and it was hard to see anything clearly\n\nSums up just about every ghost video on the internet.
25 percent of Republicans think Obama is the Antichrist.
Uggg. So many problems with this study, it is hard to know where to begin. Ultimately it falls down on the opening assumption: That humans are monogamous. There is really no evidence for monogamy in humans, and MUCH evidence against it.\n\nBut that aside, let me bring up some basic objections:\n>he proposed that monogamy was already in place in a 4.4-million-year-old member of the human family, Ardipithecus ramidus, based on such features as a lack of large, slicing canine teeth that would signify a lot of male competition as well as an upright skeleton that would leave arms free to carry food.\n\nWell, lets look at our closest relative, the [Bonobo](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonobo). They don't have virtually any male competition either. Maybe humans are more like Bonobos than any other great ape? (humans being equi-distant from Bonobos as from Chimpanzees) Maybe we lack male competition because like Bonobos we are (in a natural state) a promiscuous species that uses sex as a social system, rather than fighting?\n\nThe biological evidence for this is actually very very strong, not just the similarity in body masses between males and females (unlike gorillas, who are huge males in order to protect their harem of females), but also in the penis size and structure (an organ shaped to displace sperm out of the vagina during intercourse - not something a genuinely monogamous species would ever bother evolving)\n\n\nUnfortunately, society has trained us all so thoroughly that we are monogamous, that we are all convinced it is true, and so live it. In spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary (people ruining their lives for a mistress, divorce rates, cheating, serial monogamy, prostitution, thousands of years of barbaric laws trying to stop humans from engaging in sex...) people believe they are monogamous right up and THROUGH the moment they act completely non-monogamous.\n\nIt is sort of like Ted Haggard being convinced that he isn't Gay - despite being caught having regular sex with a gay prostitute. "I'm monogamous" we all tell ourselves.... I was just weak that one time.... etc\n\nNo, studies like this are part of the problem. They start at the assumption of monogamy, and then work backwards to justify it. Try starting from the evidence without assumptions, and see what you end up with.\n\nHere is a great book to get you started: http://www.sexatdawn.com/
I was at Skepticon last year but don't remember anything I'd describe as a "fiasco".  There was a panel discussion that was ultimately pointless, with people talking past each other (which I assume you're referring to), but I thought the conference on the whole was spectacular.
You know what they use to treat angina pain, don't you? Or what they inject to remove unwanted surface lines on the wrinkled foreheads of vain women (and John Kerry)?\n\nIt's a well-known fact that many toxic substances have medical effects in low doses.  You've probably already taken a few things in your life that would have killed out outright if incorrectly prepared at full concentration.\n\nYou also imply bellandonna (belladonna) has no pharmaceutical use.  [A quick Google search](http://www.drugs.com/mtm/belladonna.html) might have shown you otherwise.\n\nLastly, you imply a homeopathic manufacturer is highly likely to make mistakes in dosage, possibly because you assume all are 'dumbfuck' quacks -- but you provide no evidence or citation for this, or show they are at all *more* likely than a traditional pharmaceutical manufacturer to make these mistakes.  Before making such bold assertions you might check on quality control standards at these places, and point out they are no less protected from liability, whereas drug companies are frequently sued for such things.\n\nAgain, as above, I'm not defending homeopathics. I'm just skeptical of your logic.
Post proof or retract.\n\nYou can't, because there isn't. You have a faith, like a religious belief, and there's nothing to back it up except wishful thinking.\n\nIf there was proof, you'd provide a cite.\n\nIt's this kind of thinking which is the absolute bane of UFO research.
[I'll just leave this here.](http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/the-trouble-with-dr-oz/)
[Architects and Engineers for 9/11 truth](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZEvA8BCoBw) on WTC7.  \n\nThis [video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuC_4mGTs98) covers everything that happened on 9/11 in 5 minutes, I found it more on the entertainment side but just throwing it out there.
You didn't see the look on her face? I thought the rather firm "Off!" (possibly with a silent "Fuck") was pretty evident.
So fucking glad I learned this at a young age.
Noun:\t\nAn intense and widely shared enthusiasm for something, esp. one that is short-lived; a craze.\n\n10,000 years is not short lived
Holy cow, this guy is incredible. The amount of misogyny, homophobia, and general bigotry he manages to pack into this ridiculous rant is just incredible. Really, I'm not normally a violent guy, but people like this really should just go jump off a cliff for the betterment of humanity.\n\nI hope he doesn't think he's going to win any converts to his deluded (as well as diluted) cause with this approach....
These are the same people who think monkey genes are injected into bananas to make them tastier.
Gates should publicly call out Trump for pushing the ASD bullshit.
and now the video is gone :(
Not only is rubella waaaaay wore than mumps or the measles when children are young. (Helen Keller had rubella, thats why she was blind and deaf) Meaning the kids has like a fever over 102 for more than a week, keeping him/her at home. The milder form is hard to distinguish from measles because they come form the same family of diseases. So unless tests are run to distinguish the two you cant tell the difference. Furthermore, although the measles part of the vaccine works 95%  of the time, the rubella part works closer to 97-98% of the time. Making it waaaay less common for vaccinated children to spread the disease. add that to the fact there is no treatment for rubella  and most kids who get it are sent home thinking they have the measles and to rest for a week or two until the rash disappears and the are not feverish. \n\nI understand your need for skeptisim, but the mmr vaccine has been proven time and again, whats you basis for questioning it?? If its just that there are more cases of measles then rubella, I suggest you look at other reasons why that might be, before  jumping to the causation-correlation (or correlation- causation)  with reference to the MMR vaccination.\n
Sounds similar to the Hopkinsville encounter :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly%E2%80%93Hopkinsville_encounter
They also don't work when you look at them, O.o \n\nUltimate security though. As soon as you try at look at it [the information], it ceases to exist. (well in lay mans terms that what happens. But conservation of information is a very significant law. up there in the heights with Conservation of Matter-Energy)
Well, thats obviously what happened!\n
Yep.  You sure do.  You own me, big boy.  I'm so pathetic.  So pathetic for you, I am. lol.  Does that make you feel good?  I'm sure it does there.  :)
Yeah. Deepwater Horizon was an inside job. We threw their British Tea into the ocean, now they dumped oil into ocean.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDEuLXLNGBo#t=0m4s
I cant wait to see it either
There's scientific claims everywhere, unless you agree it's mythological fiction.
I know you want it.
> Alfred Bester\n\nGreat author, but now I can't help but think of Walter Koenig's disturbingly sociopathic character from Babylon 5.
what crazy hole did you jump out of?
probably something like a [hexacopter](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyYujjP5J-k) or similar helicopter drone
Why do I think this is going to end up like Geraldo opening Capone's vault?\n\nOh, let me change my thinking to fit this forum:  *I can't wait to see what ancient alien secrets this production brings forth!!!*\n\nIs fucking Bill Birnes the OP?
Right. So I can't help but point out you typed basically the same thing as myself, in simpler terms, after I did, and you got more upvotes.\n\nWhat is the cause of this?
If all the evidence you require to believe in something is one picture of this quality then I feel bad for your brain.
Do you think they'll have to start claiming it's caused by wi-fi next?
Thanks!\n\nWhat you mentioned is actually a concern we've had from the start. There are plenty of podcasts by skeptics and aimed at skeptics, so we wanted to target an audience outside the immediate community. We try (and hopefully succeed) to mostly stick to subjects that have some bearing on day-to-day life and approach them from the ground up instead of assuming that the listener is a) a skeptic already, and b) knowledgeable about the subject from being a skeptic. There's some overlap in topics (like episodes on homeopathy, vaccines and autism, etc.) but we try not to be too circle-jerky about it.
Sleep paralysis probably combined with the alcohol you consumed.
ding ding ding, winner winner chicken dinner
Now you've matured and know that nobody makes agreements in secret. :)
I don't think there's any truth to this either but I didn't read the whole thing.  Did anyone actually read this?
My response is meant in reference to how the compass behaves not your physical location or direction. It has something to do with explorers getting lost due to the compass misbehaving. your being too literal n not read my response correctly.\n
You are misunderstanding me.\n\nFor an individual, who has no knowledge of a given field, a a reasonable first approximation is accepted fact.\n\nI know nothing of tectonic plates - I will look to facts accepted by geologists as my first approximation.\n\nWill it rain today?  Meteorologists, step forward please and give me the  conclusions drawn from facts accepted in your field of expertise.\n\nThat said, your example is weak.  'The earth is flat' is a damn good approximation.\n================================================================================\n(Edited from Asimov, The Relativity of Wrong, http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm)\n\nAnother way of looking at it is to ask what is the "curvature" of the earth's surface Over a considerable length, how much does the surface deviate (on the average) from perfect flatness. The flat-earth theory would make it seem that the surface doesn't deviate from flatness at all, that its curvature is 0 to the mile.\n\nNowadays, of course, we are taught that the flat-earth theory is wrong; that it is all wrong, terribly wrong, absolutely. But it isn't. The curvature of the earth is nearly 0 per mile, so that although the flat-earth theory is wrong, it happens to be nearly right. \n\nThe curvature is about 0.000126 per mile, a quantity very close to 0 per mile, as you can see, and one not easily measured by the techniques at the disposal of the ancients. The tiny difference between 0 and 0.000126 accounts for the fact that it took so long to pass from the flat earth to the spherical earth..\n================================================================================\n\nFor all of the then possible human activities, 'the earth is flat' is a workable, and reasonable approximation.  Only when boats then aeroplanes then satellites start hurling around are the inaccuracies of assuming a flat world significant.\n\n\nA better example is the first approximation that religion represents.  That truly was a horrible first approximation, as it deviated from observable fact even at the time it was created.
>  Until then, it's just an idea about history from an astronomer. Take it as such.\n\nI don't think most historians are aware that by using relativistic acceleration direct contact between theoretical ETIs is possible. Scholars work within their framework. One recent book I've been able to find on Sumerian mythology uses a feminist perspective, looking at the roles of the godesses and their evolution. That's hardly the right framework to answer the question Sagan posed. \n\nAnyway, I think we've agreed to disagree. Thanks for the conversation.
Yeah, I've had that too but never like this. I agree that we can be blind to stuff but this was something else. I also know that the opposite can be true, that when you look for something and you know the shape and the colour of it, you will spot it easier. I play a lot of "search for items" games [naff I know, sorry] and have noted to find things better once I know the shape. In this mascara instant, I was FULLY aware of the tricks a mind can play and looked for the black shape amongst slim colourful shapes, holding them in my hand and actually looking at them one by one. There was no mascara. Then when I scanned the shelf, I took a mental "photograph" of the bowl and when I looked back something was "added" that wasn't there before. Hence the "shock" and I actually squeeked for a second.
>As I said - when I first joined there my comments were 100% polite and I challenge you to find the crap that you claim in any of my posts from 2 months ago or so.\n\n8 months ago (your very first comment at /r/climateskeptics): "[...]you look like a complete moron!" [...] "you are again a complete moron"\n\nhttp://www.webcitation.org/69c4joUWY\n\n8 months ago: "you look pretty stupid"\n\n http://www.webcitation.org/69c4tpxFS\n\n7 months ago: "internet moron"\n\nhttp://www.webcitation.org/69c55FPIy\n\n
I have read that ring finger length correlates to prenatal testosterone levels (therefore a longer ring finger would indicate increased aggression, sexuality, etc).\n\nCan't remember where I read it though and if it's credible.
I agree, though I see a distinction between respecting _ideas_ and respecting _people_.
Is this Ghost Hunter or Ghost Adventures?
Oh good I was afraid that SyFy might show some scifi.
i don't think this was him and i seriously am starting to think people are creating these hoaxes to destroy the credibility of the real ones. If people start dismissing all of them because of this shitty one, then they are morons too.
Facts are controversial?\nI don't want to live on this planet anymore.
The cats always know.
Definitely Photoshopped. If you zoom in on the bookcase, you can see that the area with the face sticks out a little in the front, instead of being flush with the rest of the bookcase.
Yea, plus aren't they accurate to like 70% based on independent study? Or am I mistaken?
So, if you tell a good that you think she is beautiful to get laid, but you don't really think she is beautiful then you're a rapist?
I don't think you need to be disappointed in r/paranormal since the other subjects you said you were interested in (UFOs, etc) have their own sub-reddits.  I think some people wouldn't consider UFOs to be paranormal either.
I believe this footprint could belong to a Bulbasaur. If not, then I find it to be interesting but nothing else.
While it's only anecdotal evidence, I assure you that there are many scientists who are religious and don't believe in creation, at least in Europe. Creationism is significantly less popular here I'd say.
After reading all these, I'm sure most people have experienced it in one form or another. for some maybe it was gradual for others, like me, one intense realization. I had never heard or read anyone else talking about it, and thought I was alone\n\nIm taking a philosophy of mind class that deals almost exclusively with the mind-body problem. Ill have to grab that book this weekend, after reading all these I'm much more interested.
Sounds like it fits. A friend of mine witnessed something like this pass through his wall into his home and then explode in a flash of light. It's a very rare phenomena and not very well documented.
In case anybody is curious, I went ahead and redid the map with 2008-2009 statistics.  I thought the OP cherry-picked the map to make the south look bad, but, well...  \njust [see for yourself](http://i.imgur.com/ncgmS.png).
As far as interpretations go, there are many instances that could have been described as divine and by God when they could have really just been super technological.  Examples of this could have been the light that guided Moses through the desert, chariots of fire in the sky, Ezekiel being lifted into the heavens, or Moses having a "glow" about him when he came down from Mt. Sanai with the ten commandments which is a characteristic synonymous with radiation exposure.  People of that time had no means of accurately conveying what they might have seen, so it's possible that they chose to call it God because they couldn't understand it.  And for superior technology you can look to ruins in South America, I can't remember the exact name of the city.  These ruins are thousands of years old and have the second strongest element used in building some structures, which means the only thing they could have been cut and shaped with would have been diamond.  The structures (which are no longer standing) had such precise cuts to interlock with other pieces of the structure that it's architecture is like nothing else anyone has ever associated with that time period.  And for genetics, there's a lot of speculation revolving around our existence and it being possibly of ET origin.  Some believe that they are the missing link between us and apes.  Supposedly, we were created through genetic manipulation to serve ETs as miners, harvesting gold.  The reason for gold is because it is the highest electricity conducive metal and is also very maluble, which is supposedly used to repair their own world which had deteriorated through age.  Also, in abduction cases many abductees report sperm and eggs being taken for "hybrid" programs.  My theory on this is that if you take a planet like earth which has dozens of different ethnicities, after enough generations eventually you'll reach one universal race.  If you factor evolution in there with a society's dependence on technology increasing over time, if you start to focus on cloning or artificial life, eventually your ability to sexually reproduce over time would start to diminish.  Once you can't sexually reproduce and run out of materials to create, you must branch out to find compatible genetics of those who can still sexually reproduce.  All of this is just theory but to me it sounds more plausible than many other things I've heard.  What made me research was my own personal first-hand experiences, so I know for a fact that we're not alone.
Subluxation theory is very much alive and well in the chiropractic industry.  Some of them want to distance themselves from the nonsense, but it's still there.\n http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/subluxation-theory-a-belief-system-that-continues-to-define-the-practice-of-chiropractic/#more-18500
Lessen the chance of a urinary tract infection when performing anal without a condom?
So, we know two things about "the greys".\n\nWe know jack and we know shit.\n\nWe don't even know if they exist for sure.  Really.
\nThat would make it the coldest office fire in the world!  It's a fire, not a hot bath.  \n\n1) You can't use thermal imaging cameras to measure temperatures through walls!  You're measuring the temperature of the wall! \n2) Thermal imaging cameras are dependent on calibration.  They have to be adjusted for different materials and circumstances.\n3) You need different thermal imaging cameras to measure different temperature readings.\n\nEssentially there are any number of reasons why a thermal imaging camera might record a surprising temperature.  The coldest office fire ever is not high on the list! \n\n>  And, that doesn't account for the molten concrete found in buildings not hit by airplanes, as shown in the New York Police Museum with the text from this image.\n\nAh yes, the one that's been "verified molten concrete by scientist"!  Yet no name, report or even any other reference to this scientist is provided! As I explain below, it's some molten gunk from a fire.  Without knowing the composition, we can't say what it is and what its melting point is.  Also as I say earlier, lava melts at anywhere from 700 to 1300 degrees. \n\nBut seriously. What the **** are you even talking about here.  One piece of evidence makes it an impossibly cold office fire, so couldn't have possibly been hot enough to melt aluminium.   On the other hand, you decide that the temperature must have been over 4000 degrees celsius so it must have been thermite!  Which is it?  Hot or cold?!?  \n\nIt's the perfect example of what I've been talking about!  Desperate grappling for anything wrong with the official account, so you fail to even notice if your supposed facts contradict both each other and your "alternative" explanation! \n\nLOGIC FAIL!  HANG UP AND TRY AGAIN!
Weird that everyone keeps bringing up the 20th. My bad luck day is December 20th, although nothing bad happened to me on that day last year. Probably be twice as bad this year...
Now you are adding a lot of unsupported ad hoc conditions to your previous argument. Why is the ability to hunt with something the condition that should be used to determine if a tool or substance should be regulated/banned? You did not mention that at all in the first argument, so right off the bat you are admitting that your first argument is flawed, because you are now supporting "taking away the rights of millions of law-abiding, responsible, and sane people for the actions of a select few." \n\nThere are certainly individuals who would benefit a lot from having anthrax spores and bacterial strains available, like private laboratories that work with disease prevention. That you cannot use it to hunt is a big red herring: When you appeal to e.g. shooting ranges that use guns for non-hunting purposes, you are claiming that an object that has the potential to be a weapon should not be restricted when it has other legitimate uses. Why not allow it when it is only dangerous in the hands of a very few? Your argument, not mine. \n\nAs far as radioactive material goes, there are many good reasons for having that available as well. Grad students in particle physics would love to have it available to test the predictions of their work. Inventors would be able to use it to e.g. improve smoke detection systems, which usually need a radioactive source like americium to work. Why not allow it, since radioactive material is only dangerous in the hands of the few? Anything else would be bullshit! Your argument, not mine.  \n\n> merely possessing any of those things other than the explosives is not illegal  \n\nThen you would be wrong. Storing/using biohazardous material and enriched radioactive substances is a felony.
We all have to die sometime, and their heirs can sue for even more. \n\nI'd rather live in a world where people learn from their mistakes. If you legislate to divorce fools from their folly, all you end up doing is creating a nation of fools.
The thing that was "flipping" at the beginning just looks like a rock to me.
That's not a terrible idea, actually. I may have to consider it, really. However there's still [always the classic.](http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/)
This made me throw up in my mouth a little. Please tag sick shit NSFL or keep it to /r/retards
My eyes *always water* and I get the same feeling when I see the lights.
D'oh!\n\nhttp://www.realitywanted.com/call/7800-casting-host-for-discovery-channel-show-about-unexplained-phenomena\n\nThen click on the View And Vote tab. I'm Andrew, the guy with the glasses and the blue cup in his hand...\nThanks!
I heard Rosemary Ellen Guilley talk about this awhile ago on Coast2Coast, here is a link to her site:\nhttp://www.visionaryliving.com/category/djnn/
There's [this](http://www.amazon.com/The-Little-Blue-Reasoning-Book/dp/1897393601/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335750443&sr=1-6), The Little Blue Reasoning Book - no religion involved. \n\nAlso [this](http://www.amazon.com/Nonsense-A-Handbook-Logical-Fallacies/dp/0966190858), Nonsense: A Book of Logical Fallacies. Also no religion involved. \n\n[The Fallacy Detective](http://www.amazon.com/The-Fallacy-Detective-Thirty-Eight-Recognize/dp/0974531537/ref=pd_sim_b_4) actually found a link to it on a Christian website, so you've got an in there. \n\n
>  he's just a totally irresponsible fuck up when it comes to monitoring what comes out of his mouth and reaches the ears of thousands upon thousands of people.\n\nI think he is this a lot.
Nope, I get a 403 too, maybe the server was destroyed by a fictional Sumerian planet!! Paniiiiiiiiic!!!!111
People tend to think of disease as a harmful invader into the body, and in lots of cases, there's truth to that.\n\nBut cancer is different. Cancer is your own body growing out of control, so when attacking it, you need to attack yourself, to some degree.\n\nAmazingly, there seems to be a perception out there that cancer treatment is completely stagnant, and things are just getting worse. The reality is, for many forms of cancer, your odds of survival have skyrocketed, and I'm only talking about over the last 10 or 20 years, it gets astonishingly better if you compare to even further back.\n\nI'd like to find a good source with a concise listing of the changes in survival rates to show people like this. My dad is a cancer researcher, so I'll send him an e-mail and see if he has a good, simple resource.
Goody!  I can adjust my own spine at home?  Great!  How?\n\nSee, I have a dog-induced injury.  My big dog caught me off guard one day and took off after a cat.  Pulled me out of alignment.  I started having muscle spasms and intense shooting pain between my shoulder blades.  Pinched nerve.\n\nHaving it adjusted took care of the problem, though it has recurred a couple of times.  But now you, Random Guy on Internet, say I can manipulate my own spine at home!  Do tell, how?  \n\nSee, I tried yoga, and intensive stretching, and laying flat on the floor, none of those worked.  My hands don't reach between my shoulder blades, so that doesn't work either.  (Curse these normal human-sized arms!)\n\nOh, and I'm a bit nervous about asking a neighbor who has no malpractice insurance to mess with my spine.\n\nSo, how do I adjust my own spine at home?
LOL that's the reason I won't start the thread now.
My mother's advice on the Ouija board is the same advice I give to other people: "It's probably bullshit, but don't mess with it just in case."
Agreed... You don't even have to look at hardcore books like the God Delusion:\n\nWhy People Believe Weird Things, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, Sacred Origins of Profound Things. It would be really strange if his book couldn't be published.
I do indeed. Richard is an actor of great repute, but something of a effusive luvvie, a stereotypical posh actor and quite irritating. \n\nThere's a third Attenborough brother who isn't famous, and no-one's ever heard of him.
Well, thank you for your response.\n\nI haven't been back to the acupuncturist, but my wife really wants me to return.\n\nI typically hit the gym 3-4 times a week and eat an enormous amount to keep my weight up, but in September I didn't eat well or go to the gym, due to a back injury. Since not eating well, and not going to the gym... I have no sleep problems.\n\nNow- what do I take from this change? I think it's a digestion thing. I think I'm constantly fatigued because I'm drinking quarts of milk every few hours, and stuffing my face like mad.\n\nDiet doesn't remove the entire history of my sleep problems, I've slept weird for years, through all kinds of diets and workout regiments. But I sleep like a baby these days. I'm about to hit the gym tomorrow for the first time in a month, so we'll see!
"Metaphysical statements also have to be justified, as it turns out" *~incredulous smile~*
They have also figured out how to get money from nothing, it seems.
I didn't believe the Vitamin D thing until my doctor told me about it.  Works like a charm.
No willow bark?  That's like the classic example of herbal remedy-turned-runaway commercial success.
I honestly haven't heard anything about a DNA shift. Can you post any links? As an amateur biologist I would love to read about it.\n\nI did experience sleep paralysis when I was a teenager and I can tell you that it feels incredibly real. So I can understand how some people may get confused.
There you go again with your classic old standby, herkimer, the ad hominem attack. You can't refute the facts Griffin presents so you attack the source.  And your next step is always to fling personal insults. I've seen it dozens of times.
This title made the video that much more hilarious! XD
It's not a miracle. She's not a genius. She couldn't do it again.
It doesn't appear to be updated anymore.
How so? Dairy eggs aren't even fertilised.
Awesome article, thank you\n
it seems like a curious spirit that just likes to watch you and see your reactions to things hence the be afraid response and the boy in the basement comment but if you or your sis feel threatened by it then get your parents to have the house cleansed.
Just kiss the boo boo and make it all better.  It's cheaper.
Either the Greer zombies are impersonating anon, or this is the "joke on UFO buffs" they talked about last year. \n\nThis vibration new age talk hurts my brain.
Oh I totally agree. However, that's not what the show presented. It showed the stereotypical stage performing magician as the fraud. And the trick that it exposed is not one that is abused by charlatans. The girl condemns Marcos the Magnificent for claiming to be able to make a rabbit disappear, and then goes to show how you can do it at home. That says nothing of the tricks used by psychics and charlatans, but only paints stage magicians as liars.\n\nI get it's not a big deal. It's just that being a magician and a skeptic myself, that bit of the show stung a little.
If you're looking to debunk this, check out page 930.\n\n>This is difficult to interpret in the absence of a known mechanism\nor reproducible experimental support.\n\n-\n\n>Further\nstudies need to be designed to test specific\nhypotheses such as aspects of selection bias or exposure.
It's simple really... If it goes against what they believe it is nothing but lies and those liberal socialist scientists are just making up their "theories". They are not "real scientists"! Because "real scientists" would agree with them!
Definitely an [Ur Quan Dreadnought](http://www.sa-matra.net/sounds/starcontrol/ur-quan.gif)
I don't really have enough knowledge to help debunk the woo being spouted by the homeopaths and their followers. I did toss in some help on the copyright claims. \n\nGreat article by the way.
yeah i noticed that too, but before that, there's no trace of him.
That depends on what you mean by political ads. \n\nYou are allowed to advertise whatever political message (Official or not) you wish in non TV and Radio forms (Posters/Flyers/etc). The ASA can't regulate these because it could be construed as limiting free speech.\n\nOn TV and Radio a kind of hypocritical stance is held. Technically Political broadcasts are banned *however* there is a Communications Act that gives political parties and yes/no orginisations during referendums the right to air time on free to air TV channels and radio stations.\n\nUltimately what happens is Labour/Conservatives/Lib Dems/etc can get a few minutes a year to say their message but McDonalds can't have an ad that endorses anything political.\n\nhttp://www.asa.org.uk/Resource-Centre/Hot-Topics/Political-ads.aspx
>photos of stacked bodies were all propaganda hoaxes\n\nSorry if I'm wrong, but weren't the photos of stacked bodies from Typhus, which was ravaging the camps at the time?..\n\n
the sick man is healed: faith affirmed\n\nthe sick man is not healed: faith affirmed
My doctor told me that only exercise and a good diet could stave off diabetes. I guess he was mistaken.
What reputation?
Pretty sure the church doesn't allow the sale of Holy Water. The vials that they come in, however, is another story.
Yeah. By the way, there is a ton more to this story that will be coming out in the next few days. This GAT/SFT Spiritual Fitness shit is about to go thermonuclear.\n
I wish I could help them, my android isn't compatible with those apps. Lame.
Fake. Go to 1:35 and you can see its just a metal button of some sort on top a sheet of glass. You can even see the reflection of the cameramm
All started when a British research scientist published a paper saying that immunizations caused Autism.  (It's since been proven that not only whas his research wrong; he deliberately falsified results)  \n\nHere is an article explaining a bit about [those against vaccinations](http://blogs.abcnews.com/theworldnewser/2009/01/who-is-at-risk.html)and why it is not wise. Here is an article regarding [doctors who don't treat unvaccinated patients](http://www.king5.com/video/featured-videos/Controversy-over-vaccinating-kids-continues-116690604.html)
Here's a rage-free rational look at the possible causes of recent pertussis outbreaks.\n\nhttp://www.cdc.gov/eid/content/16/2/297.htm\n\nNot that I expect anyone on /r/skeptic to hear this over the roar of the lynch mob headed for Jenny McCarthy, but it's nice to know there are some scientists out there actually looking at the problem rationally.
This the one?\nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4qGfNViVN8
Actually guidos originated in Soviet Russia, the movement being spearheaded by none other than [Leon Trotsky](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/LeonTrotsky1897.jpg).
I'm honored to upvote some REAL science around here. The guy needs a nice water softener if he wants to change the mineral content of his water.\n\nI would suggest the barber stick to his regular consultation of the diagnosis of brain cancer and leave the real science to borge689.
That is pretty poor scientific stuff and if your understanding of science only goes as far I say I am a little disappointed.\n\n1. The similarities could be very well from the fact that two (or more) people are non-native English speaker that come from the same native language and have learned English in a similar way.\n\n2. The similarities could also be from the fact that a number of people choose to share a number of accounts and are posting at various times from those - and it might be that they have picked similar names specifically in order to trigger the conspiratard angle.\n\nI can continue with scenarios for pages but that is missing the main two points:\n\n- multiple accounts are perfectly OK according to reddit - and one of the guys in our group has previously posted (and is now further researching) how kokey - the moderator of /r/climateskeptics - is posting as [ManBearPig](http://www.reddit.com/user/ManBearPigg) all the conspiratard stuff that he is too ashamed to post as himself; his previous identity was probably [gst](http://www.reddit.com/user/gst)\n\n- even if we now sometimes like to "bait" on purpose the deniers, it does not change the fact that **the only common line in that subreddit is the conspiratard angle** - they never admit that they are just ignorant and their fake graphs is just crap-science - they always blame it on somebody else or just move to the next fabricated stuff, the science will **never** convince them since it is all about the giant conspiracy - just like it is with antivaxxers. And of course in the end it will be exactly as it was with the smoking->cancer deniers - they will never admit they were wrong but people will die by the millions!\n\nOf course you can also ask yourself why even they do not post more often here in /r/skeptic or in /r/science, why they have a special downvote-list which results in peer-reviewed submissions from certain names instantly being downvoted here or in /r/science and why you keep seeing posts there angry at other subreddits and organizing downvote cliques toward those - like the original link of this post was all about!\n
Yup, I'll leave it up to JREF to do a nice, polite press release.  I reserve the right to use internet colloquialisms in my titles.
I'm not even sure Fibromyalgia is a real "disease".
Honestly, the movie is easily explained by the OP having generated a false memory, combined with deja vu. Memories are very easily changed or generated in retrieval (in fact, they change a bit every time you retrieve them), and you will note that the OP did not get a chance to fully say the plot of the movie before. I would guess that if you asked her classmates about the little she did say on the "second" viewing, they would describe something different than the actual events of the movie.
It's great that properly defining skepticism as different from refusing to believe something elicits down votes.\n\nSeems like proof of denial to me. Of course the denialists will down vote this too...
Or actually are unaware that a lot of important things they use today wouldn't exist without free licenses.
Ken Swizzle's Time Machine, [It's a real time machine!](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1z3gA6JMzSE)
It was a post on here a few months back
Trust me scallywag, I am no pimp! I detest the notion, and for you to infer such makes you lower than pus on oozing from a whore's crevas!\n\nLets check the facts though, shall we? [History](http://www.reddit.com/user/info2012) disagree's with your statement, you have ONLY EVER linked to one single [source](http://www.ufo-blogger.com/). Not to mention, the caliber of shit you flood to this subreddit is beyond what I could only describe as utter and complete excrement. It is people like you, that makes legit science laugh in the face of the concept of UFOs... Honestly, lets get rid of this crap, stop posting fake half baked ideas, and if you really are interested in the subject PIMP... find a credible source.\n\n\nPS Say hello to you mother for me.\n
You know, I might try hard to talk her some sense but in the end if it's not a financial burden you might just consider it a son's treat. \n\nIf not you might want to look for some articles from Oprah or similar bozo that tout the benefits of tap water.
>We both believed in psychics. In fact, one of my mother's closest friends had this power. Although Grace was elderly and forgetful, **she was truly clairvoyant**. She even adopted a rottweiler for protection because of a premonition she had about being robbed. One day she left the dog at home, and she was held up.\n\nI had a premonition that my car would be stolen. And the one day I left my keys in it, *it was*!
Wow... I need to go get some [eye bleach](http://kidbleach.com/) after watching that video.  How people get so caught up in this shit is so beyond me.
/r/Glitch_in_the_Matrix \n\ngreat story, thanks for sharing it. sounds like you turned into a universe that had been recently raptured. good thing you were able to get out of there
It's priced and sold as a clay facial mask, so who really cares?  It works for that.
Who is gonna believe a guy with the username swingingdick?
This will be of help: [Has man walked on the Moon?](http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/1128/has-man-walked-on-the-moon)
For those who aren't aware, "vaccines contain mercury and mercury is a neurotoxin!" Then you find out that a tuna fish sandwich has 25x more mercury than vaccines. Suddenly its not so bad, as they bite into their tuna salad sandwich.
Is it on youtube?
I just watched the video. I'm not an American and that man is bat shit crazy. What a fraud.
They seem to be objective, as far as I can tell...unfortunately it's a huge money drain when they chase shadows.
That doesn't fit my preconceptions; **DOWNVOTE!**\n\nJust kidding.
You are joking, right?\n\nWhat do you think "side effect, possibly fatal," means?\n\nOr do you never watch TV with all those ads for western medicine?
Are we talking pyramid-building aliens or cow-mangling aliens?
It depends on the women; fear is not something easily controlled from outside. \n\nDownvote me all you want, but that doesn't change the fact the only thing that could would satisfy the insecurity of very fearful women would require a complexity of social control rivaling the fascism you can see in Saudi Arabia and other similar places: no woman goes anywhere outside without a male chaperon/guardian that is a relative and she is not allowed to talk to strangers.  That guarantees a lot of security.  Free societies, however, demand "thick skinned" individuals or the bravery to go out and be vulnerable, and this is both for women and men.\n\nTo put my point simply:  **currently, you can't have a society that holds individual freedom high while also having very deep and efficient  mechanisms of control for ugly speech and other bad behaviors.** \n\nSo,\n\n>Are you really trying to argue, that it is impossible to have a convention without women being afraid of sexual assault? Seriously?\n\nYes, unless it's a small convention where people know each other better and the situation is easier to control.  Don't forget, I'm speaking of the fear, not of actual assaults.
Yeah, you can see the window frame to the right and the lights go out of focus when the trees are in focus. Which would indicate that the source of the lights is much closer to the camera than the trees.
Horse shit. He had enough interest to go to the news about it. He didn't have to tell anyone. If he doesn't have money and actually believes what he is claiming, he'd find the money. The payoff would give him enough money to do what ever he wants for the rest of his life. He doesn't believe it's a ufo. Even if he did believe, he wouldn't have told the press so some other company could pull it up first. The whole thing doesn't make any sort of sense in this reality.\n\nThe whole thing was for him to get free advertising for his business. He can impress people shopping bids because he can refer to his company in the international press.
So *that's* why nobody replies to any of my posts!
I didn't miss that part, and that part has nothing to do with what I said. \n\nThey don't get a 50/50 maybe on unicorns or leprechauns any more than they get one for god or zeus or any other mythical guess. They _could_ be right, in the sense that there could feasibly maybe be evidence that suggests those things which has not been found yet, but it isn't just as likely one way or the other that we'll find it.\n\nTo repeat myself, it's irresponsible to talk about anything as though there is some 50/50 shot that it exists, even if it has never been demonstrated that it could even possibly be true. In other words, the fact that we've never seen a teapot circling wherever Russle's teapot is supposed to be circling isn't an indication that it's a shot in the dark whether it is there or not. It probably isn't there, and people discussing it or believing in it doesn't change that likelihood.\n\nand I give my downvote happily to anyone who would suggest that obviously invented entities have any likelihood of being accurate just because science can't prove a negative.
That's really interesting!  At the current place where I live, which funnily enough is the 13th room in building 137, my roommate and I have noticed that things just keep disappearing and then showing up again days or weeks later in plain sight, sometimes in the middle of the room.  Maybe I'll try asking them to stop and see what happens!
Yup. Looks like sand.
If the car didn't have to be returned until much later does that mean you had at your place? I think it could've been rented with cash rather than on card
No, it's pretty much just her stupid babble, and other babbling from Star Trek clips. Oh, and a couple other guys too.
Usually if someone has a truly complex idea, it isn't fucking idiotic
You should read [this](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_the_Octopus#Potential_biases).
You realize 72% of Americans believe in U.F.O.'s right?\n\nAnd, with all the recent revelations of creatures being found in the depths of the oceans exhibiting behaviors and abilities previously unknown to mankind, the public is becoming more accepting to the notion of U.F.O.'s is much easier to accept. It really seems that the only people who do not believe are either highly religious or people who dismiss the data for whatever reason. :)
From what I've been able to learn, belief that water fluoridation is unequivocally bad is something like a more widespread version of fan death.
Clearly [MS Paint](http://i.imgur.com/NDI1I.png).  Not that anyone has to check as photo generated image would be that black without manipulation.
Executive producer: Chris Carter.
When it comes to crime, intent matters.  Involuntary manslaughter should obviously be treated differently from premeditated murder.  Probably these parents had nothing but the best intentions for this kid.  I fully acknowledge that.\n\nHowever, there comes a point where ignorance of the harm an action or non-action will cause is no longer a valid excuse.  I doubt you'd get much leeway in court if you blew someone's head off with a shotgun even if you had evidence demonstrating that you legitimately believed (for religious reasons or whatever) that your shotgun was blessed and would only destroy the demons inside other people, leaving them physically unharmed.  There's a big gray area here, but I feel like people like these parents are squarely in an area of wrongful ignorance not too far removed from the shotgun-wielding nut in my example above.\n\nI really don't know much about law.  I don't know if my shotgun nut example would result in the nut having a real defense (and not just an insanity plea) much along the lines of these parents.  Anyone have opinions or knowledge about this?
Yeah, because that's what I search when I look into the 2008 Financial Collapse.\n\nDone with you too.
Same place I have been all along, wondering why people waste time with things that are obviously explained instead of concentrating on the more mysterious stuff.
>Citation please. It's not that I don't necessarily believe that, it's just that I've never heard that before outside of the context of the Somalian-style warlords stealing all the food.\n\nIf the price of food artificially drops, local farmers cannot compete. American subsidies have a similar effect. http://lmgtfy.com/?q=food+aid+local+farmers\n\n>The other fundamental difference is that many anti-capitalists disagree that you can sell you labor, and considers that a terrible concept. The notion is rather that you can sell the fruits of your labor. ie I don't sell my labor, I sell the chair I made, or the fifteen widgets I made on the factory line, or the service to fix your drains, or whatever.\n\nThis argument is based on an emotional wording of terms. \n\nImagine if I offered to pay you to come over to assemble my Ikea furniture. It's absurd to think that the furniture becomes yours to sell. Similarly, the factory owner asked you to assemble the raw materials into chairs for him so he can sell them. \n\nIf you merely think of labor as a product itself instead of only thinking of the end product the whole idea becomes trifle. And do I not own my self and therefore am freely able to work for who I please? And who says I want to sell the chair? I incur the risk of nobody wanting to buy the chairs. This way, I can keep my wages even if the chairs don't sell on the market. If I'm more skilled at assembling chairs, it makes sense to build it for someone else so that they can sell it.
Wake up and join the reality club. Are you running your reddit browsing session from this free energy? Doubt it.
>There's no way of knowing. \n\nMy point is proven\n\nThere is no way of knowing.\n\nI have not closed my mind to the possibility of Alien UFO's just that they're not here and more likely we would never even know they were here.
You got anal probed.
I agree, when I watched the videos I felt like the interviewers were supplying a lot of answers for the children. Or prodding them into being dramatic. Not that I don't believe this could happen, it just felt a little sensationalized.
http://www.csicop.org/si/show/ghost-hunting_mistakes_science_and_pseudoscience_in_ghost_investigations\n\nCame across this interesting link....
They are doing a poor job then.
you have to grunt.
QUESTION EVERYTHING!\nTRUST NOTHING!
Well, what they said is that I huntched over with my hands up by my face scurrying down into the hallway. Kinda like I was tip toeing but with a malicious demeanor with the way I, it, was moving.
Interesting.\n\nThe argument this article makes can be summarized as, "Of course people believe lifeforms are designed because they don't look like the result of selected random mutations."\n\nWell, what would lifeforms look like if they did look like the result of selected random mutations?
It's important to realize that most literature is telling you something with just as much self confidence.
Nevertheless, there are still plenty of good reasons to eat organic food.  Just because people can't tell the difference doesn't mean there isn't one.  \n\nJust because placebos work doesn't mean drugs are fake.
Just because something is not the best solution, that doesn't make it not good.\n\nPeople are hungry.  They need food.
What a tease.  Sure would like to see the video.
A few days after I got my picture with Randi, my wife started a psychology class and a picture of Randi was in the first few pages of the text book. She showed her professor my picture who put it up on the projector for all to see in class.
Pretty interesting - reminds me of the Paranormal Activity movies (love 'em). Fake or real, I definitely jumped. Poor puppies, too.
Well it wasn't a [dairy challenge](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enY771qAmvk).
> Is your god just a concept of mind, then? Just a thought experiment? You are presuming it is true.\n\nPresumptions are things that are near or completely self evident. They don't need proving in many circumstances. The god hypothesis does need quite a bit of proving, and is therefor not a presumption. You keep using this word incorrectly, I suggest you look up it's definition.\n\n>Any area that a god could be placed in reality that either already exists a more plausible theory or we have no substantial answer to. Where else would you place one?\n\nStill don't know what you're referring to. Perhaps a specific example could enlighten me.\n\n>That makes it absurdly powerful. It's burden of proof is now magnificently large. So now, there is a being and they were so powerful that they existed prior to the creation of the universe. Then they went for it, they started the universe too!\n\n>Where did this power come from? Why is this being so powerful? Who created it? Did it create itself? Did the god get created by natural forces? The god hypothesis has no explanatory power here. Just a presumption with no physical evidence to rely on for this ridiculous claim.\n\nThe Big Bang Theory doesn't do a better job of answering the question of where all matter and energy came from. It only explains how things became as ordered as they are now, but so does the god hypothesis.\n\n>You want me to entertain this hogwash further?\n\nNot is so many words, but yes. Also I'd appreciate keeping the language civil, even if you think my ideas are absurd.\n\n>>doesn't imply falsehood.\n\n>I'd like to bring up splitting hairs again.\n\nI'm not sure what you are referring to here.
Was this guy a fan of Rebecca? If so would he not know that she is married? Also I would like to know Dawkins response to a large homosexual male asking him back for coffee in a lift. He might not mention it but I am pretty sure he would feel slightly intimidated.
I don't worry about the murderer coming back, since he's sitting on death row in a federal prison. With multiple convictions for first degree murder, the best he can hope for is to have his death sentence commuted to life in prison without parole.\n\nAs far as finding disturbing things around the house, when I bought it, it still had indications of the murder. There were parts of a wall removed as evidence, and the hardwood floor had a bloodstain, which I still have not removed. Of course, it's not red, it's a black mark in the wood, and it's under an area rug and bed so I don't really care. I'll fix it before I rent the place out in the future.
Bovine excreta.
Ghost of a slobbery breed of dog? I have heard disembodied growling in my bedroom that was clearly a dog, though growling isn't quite what you describe. It sounded familiar, and sure enough, a dog I knew had gone missing, being presumed dead.
Except the moon is constantly moving away from the Earth so the apparent numerical coincidence is only temporary.  I'm sure if you started looking at the ratios of all the other bodies in the solar system you might be able to manipulate a few numbers to 'magically' appear the same.
Why are you guys so god dam mad, its ridiculous. So he made a bullshit video about a topic we are interested in, http://i.imgur.com/Y3tYU.gif
Personally, I think anti-vaxxers should be taken to an island. \n\nAssisted Darwinism.
This one I can say 100% was a sighting, the other ones could have been, but, if I'm not 100% about it, then i don't consider it to be a sighting.
Only if he could explain the 87.
Not sure if trolling\n\n\nOr ignorant of the burden of proof
I want to see the weather cam's photo 10 minutes before and ten minutes after (which was conspicuously absent from Jaime's analysis).  The "Ufo" in the cam shot he showed could just as easily be a light from a building in the background, behind the dome.  Flam-flam evidence IMO.
I'd like to see the facts on that 99% figure you quote. I feel the percentage would be far greater if we are talking about those who actually have clearance or credentials to know about this stuff (meaning they would be taken somewhat seriously, as opposed to you or I as random internet strangers). \n\nIf you can show that the incidence is really so low, I will recant my view. However, I don't believe it is at all, and if there IS a study that says that, I would be interested to see who funded it. The truth is that bickering over the validity of this stuff is fruitless, as by its nature the true actions and intent will be obscured as best as possible. That puts us both in a position as purely speculators. Nothing will change the fact that there was a collision causing death, and nothing will change his  speaking out on such a taboo media subject. The existence of the two is going to make for interesting discussion no matter which way you slice it; neither of us can be sure. \n\nI just don't think you should claim statistics that you can't seemingly back up. I understand the point you are making in that there are a LOT of car accidents each year that end in death, but my point is that in such a small industry such as the free energy industry/gov't whistleblowers, it is suspicious when a small community continually faces challenges, threats, and "accidents" seemingly happening all the time. At some point, you wonder why that is. I don't think you should act like you know unless you do.
> But Roman culture wasn't, and they ruled the province.\n\nPoint taken. Cheers.
Nope, most likely, power saving mode.  When battery is below a certain percentage, the automatic setting on most laptops will cut the screen off after a minute or two of no user input.  You moving it around when you plugged the charger into the laptop probably brought the screen back up.  If it had truly died due to a dead battery, you would have had the whole boot up sequence when you plugged in the charger, assuming it was actually plugged in and providing power.
Yes, and it drives me fucking crazy. My favorite is when someone says that I am "closed minded".\n\nEDIT: Grammar. I was in kind of a rush I guess.
You don't have to shout
> The sheer force of many credentialed people making outlandish claims does not make them true.\n\nlol.  They're not outlandish claims.  That truly is a lol moment.  The really, *really* outlandish claim is the one that alleges that we are alone.  [Nothing could *ever* be further from the truth.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCMp9dZQdZA)\n\n> The claim that "off world intelligences" are visiting the earth is massive and world altering.\n\nIt tends to abate the more you think about it, and after you've had some experiences yourself.  Most people seem to be unable to even get to the stage where they can properly even think about it, however, let alone anything else.\n\n> Resting your argument on "the dude is likely not bullshitting" and a plethora of "research" on conspiracy internet sites simply does not cut it.\n\nWhatever.  I'm not.  Either way, doesn't really matter one way or the other who thinks off world entities haven't been to this planet.  Hasn't ever stopped them from being here or visiting one way or the other.  So meh.
And he can talk for most people why?
I'm sorry.\n
Einstein also denied plate tectonics.
Ask her for the studies that support the use of lavender for treating warts and skin cancer.\n\nI'd be surprised if she can find anything, and even if she does it'll most probably be on nonsense sites, rather than a properly conducted study.
Mind explaining how you can be religious and skeptic? Why do you think your religion is more correct then all of the hundreds of others that humans have created?
I have a BA in English with a focus on writing.  I studied poetry...and let me tell you that there aren't a lot of poetry jobs.  I got into software, taught myself everything I know and hoping to go back for my masters soon.
Sorry skeptics, but this one is CONFIRMED.  As Bill O'Reilly would say, a total of 26 metal spikes are similar in both calves, YOU CAN'T EXPLAIN THAT!
I think the bit that works is that if water has a memory of something that is *no longer even in it on a molecular level* then how does it forget all the poop that it's come in contact with (not to mention everything else). So it's not completely misguided.
after he got his money outta ya he passed you along\n\nthe "couple months of treatment" he gave you were a complete sham
I will be waiting....
All Churches are expensive, and costly in more than just money.
Incidentally, monkeys do use tools and so do many other animals. Just not torque wrenches or iPads :)\n\nWhy are you certain bacteria exists on other planets? It's an exciting possibility, and seems increasingly likely due to the sheer number of extrasolar planets we are discovering, but it's foolish to say there is "no doubt" when we haven't observed a single microbe. In another post you went so far as to say they were as close as Mars, which seems improbable, given the harsh conditions there - freezing temperatures, minimal atmosphere and no magnetosphere.\n\nWhy do you believe that alien visitors are plausible, but god, angels and demons are not? As far as I can see, the evidence (or lack thereof) is the same for all these entities. Interestingly, in *The Demon Haunted World* which I mentioned earlier, Sagan suggests that the phenomenon of alien abduction is merely the modern manifestation of what used to be called demonic possession, witchcraft or angelic visions. They can all be explained by a combination of sleep-paralysis and waking nightmares, which occur in a significant percentage of the population.\n\nBy the way, I'm upvoting all your posts in this thread, since you have done the most to stimulate discussion, even if it is just people disagreeing with you.
Did you make it?.
Ze blindfold, it does nothing!
Captain Asshole reporting in.
Ok, so we'll all shut up about any possibility *unless it's blatant*? \n
Thanks, this is also a very useful consideration against the often overused "it's not always black and white". Well, some things just are!
That's not actually Occam's Razor. From wikipedia:\n>The principle is often inaccurately summarized as "the simplest explanation is most likely the correct one." This summary is misleading, however, since the principle is actually focused on shifting the burden of proof in discussions.[3] That is, the razor is a principle that suggests we should tend towards simpler theories (see justifications section below) until we can trade some simplicity for increased explanatory power. Contrary to the popular summary, the simplest available theory is sometimes a less accurate explanation. Philosophers also add that the exact meaning of "simplest" can be nuanced in the first place.[4]\n\nThus a true skeptic will adopt a more complex explanation when it yields more accurate results. Further, there are emminently logical reasons to believe that politicians lie, and in fact tons of empirical evidence that this happens all the time.
I didn't personally know anyone else there other then my girlfriend. I believe I was the only one doing EVP recordings. I did get a few others, mostly breathing though. These are clearly male and you hear them when I'm alone with my girlfriend talking to her. I can't talk and make a big sigh at the same time so it couldn't have been me.
It quite clearly speeds off horiontally, at some speed, look at the clouds. A flare would go up and come back down. I'm guessing you didn't watch to the end.
It would save less than 3000 lives per year at a cost of ($120 * 3 injections) * ~30,000,000 women between the age of 11 & 25 = $10,800,000,000 [edit: my boys were also vaccinated, so I imagine the cost is well over 10 billion]\n\nThat's a cost of only $3,600,000 per life saved with Guradasil, verses a $28 screening with a pap smear. Cervical cancer treatment runs about $7,000 to $24,000 per woman (ranging from simple hysterectomy to full spectrum chemo).\n\n[Screening women once in their lifetime, at the age of 35 years, with a one-visit or two-visit screening strategy involving visual inspection of the cervix with acetic acid or DNA testing for human papillomavirus (HPV) in cervical cell samples, reduced the lifetime risk of cancer by approximately 25 to 36 percent, and cost less than $500 per year of life saved.](http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa044278)\n\n**It would be cheaper to set aside $30,000 cancer treatment * 4000 women with cervical cancer = $120,000,000 and spend 5 billion on free clinics**
whoooooooosh.... \n\nBuddy, you might just want to have some landing lights installed on your forehead. And watch out for low-flying planes.
Good job on that. Arguing anecdotal arguments with facts. The whole historical rebuttal thing left me with a "WTF did I just read" feeling.\n\nThere was a point where s/he said "I rest my case," but then continued arguing. For some reason, that really bothered me. I hate when people are that careless with language. \n
Regardless what you think about fluoride in the water, the benefits seem so infinitesimally small.
...I don't think I can help construct your "baseline of commonalities" because my udders are horribly sore from data milking!!!
I'm surprised to hear Stan Friedman's opinion at 41:42 that the Cash-Landrum UFO was probably a nuclear-powered experimental man-man object.  During the Christmas holidays?  One day after the Rendlesham incident?  Maybe he's changed his mind since then.
And physics.
nah its still 2012 in the UK
Nope.  That's an awesome release.
Previous /r/skeptic coverage of this topic can be found [here](http://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/wsyak/bbc_news_lack_of_evidence_that_popular_sports/).
Anyone able to fiind more info?\n\nhttp://www.plenglish.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=537156&Itemid=1
You are on the wrong board if you want to talk about the vast Monsanto conspiracy.\n
I am remarking to the creator of the article who insists that the whole news phenomenon is a hoax.  The entire post reeks of an attitude that assumes autistic persons just can't do this stuff.  The writer makes it sound as if this were case similar to parents/spouses who think they're helping their comatose loved ones type on laptops when really they're just doing it themselves.
Couldn't possibly have been that they both experienced the same thing, but with different people.\n\nThere are a lot of school kids out there; I image face-pencil-stabbings aren't limited to one a year.
I did not know that. Thank you.
Oh god, my aunt got those for bats.  You know what's a great way to ensure that bats get confused and start running into things?  Plugging in a device that generates a sub-sonic sound.  I spent that week convincing her not to sleep in the car as I carefully caught and removed bats.  Eventually I turned the damned things off and she never noticed.
Eyewitness testimony is the least reliable form of scientific evidence. Forgive me if I don't 'take your word for it'. \n\nYou asked for theories. Based on the evidence (pics only) I presented the most likely and simplest explanation.
I think it's a misguided attempt at trying to eat a healthy diet, and I also feel that way about vegans.  Heh, a few weeks ago one of my FB friends said something about drinking wheat grass shots at the health food store.  I didn't want to be too much of a know-it-all jerk, but I had to slip in a link about why it's a waste of money to drink that stuff because human bodies don't need chloroform and they don't benefit from drinking wheat grass juice.  But even after that, she still maintained that it was awesome for her.  It was a little frustrating.
That was incredibly not amusing.
Enlightenment, first stage, is defined in TM theory as when some aspect of the pure consciousness state shows up outside meditation in a way that is both noticeable by the individual AND measurable by scientists.\n\nThere is published research on that stat and it appears to be a state where the person is extremely low stress AND is able to handle new stress very well. This is the explanation of why TM has such a good effect on veterans with PTSD: they are becoming more "enlightened" as they practice.\n\nThere are allegedly higher states of enlightenment that, according to theory, should be investigateable the same way the first state of enlightenment has been. However, there's not enough people reporting that they are in these higher  states to conduct research, so it is still entirely hypothetical at this point.  According to tradition, one important aspect of those higher states is the perception of "devas."\n\nFrom the perspective of TM theory, this ability to perceive devas isn't some psychic thing, but is simply a change in the way the brain processes the data it is already receiving through the senses. There's plenty of legends about what being in these higher states means as far as abilities go, but no research to prove that it is so.\n\nI'm merely *assuming* that perception of devas is a real result of gaining these higher states  but I'm not claiming anything about it other than it should be based on physiological changes in how the brain operates in these "higher states" and eventually scientific studies will be able to tell what is real and what is merely legend.\n\n
>You know that Ron Paul has a Bachelors degree in Biology, right?\n\nSo what? I know someone who's earning a Bachelor's degree in biology and is nonetheless a young-earth creationist. Religion is such a taboo subject of discussion in the U.S. that you can even earn a PhD in physics without ever having your views challenged. Holding an advanced degree in a scientific discipline doesn't make a person immune to unscientific beliefs.
"How did we get these and know they are real??" "God said so, and magic"
Let's also not forget that WTC 7 was right across the street from both towers when they went down. Much of the debris thrown and blown by the towers, as one of the pictures shown in this video displays, was thrown right into WTC 7 at high speed. Down in the lower floors the building was essentially gutted.  The same is true of several other buildings around the WTC site, but of course they weren't burning down as well, though several did have to be manually demolished or heavily renovated due to the damage they took from the falling towers.
I think most of reddit has this problem. I try to use the words faggot, nigger, spick, as much as I can. Whether I actually have anything against these groups does not matter. I believe that in our society, it is equivalent of insulting the party secretary in a communist country. If someone were to say these words in front of a coworker one has known for years in an informal situation, that person can expect to face some repercussions for their words. Over tolerance can stifle intellectual growth, I am actually really apolitical, and it bothers me that so much aspects of our lives are touched by any sort of correctness. There are a lot of things I am not allowed to say in a purely theoretical level.
Then no, no photos or possessions were different.
If you like following cranky theories, I like this site:  [CrankDotNet](http://www.crank.net/)  (no affiliation).\n\nIf you would like to follow one of the "true believers" of the expanding earth theory you can find them at this forum, [FRDB](http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=287279)... mild shilling for this forum.
"That's not right...It's not even wrong!!!!"\n\nThis guy is so far from reality and is just grabbing random science sounding words and inserting his own assumptions as the foundation for his "discovery". It cannot even be said that this is wrong, it's nothing and that's how it needs to he treated.
You type that statement with such..... certainty!
Also, saying something is "a myth" is shorthand for saying that it's completely untrue, or at least not true enough to be useful.  In the case of the "myths" presented here, while the article points out why they cannot be regarded as absolute truth regardless of context and a nuanced understanding...  He doesn't show why they don't still function as useful, *mostly*-true rules of thumb.
Here is another one!\nhttp://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/uv6r0/baltic_sea_uso_update_61012_from_the_captain_of/\n
because you can never "know" anything.  Everything is just a reasonable assumption based on the available data mixed with intelligent thought.
Are you thinking about food again? Do you have the munchies? Yes, I'm sure everything is better with rich, creamery butter.\n
\n>I'm not saying it doesn't exist, I'm saying I haven't bothered to look because I'd rather read bullshit about how dangerous vaccines are.\n\nFTFY\n
There's been a discussion about this previously? Linkage?\n\nAlso, grats on cakeday, have an upvote. =)
Great article that is compelling in its presentation and then cleverly highlights the forgotten truth for most camera anomalies, but the UFO image is still a mystery, unsolved!
Link to an interesting post with some overlapping territory. http://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/11mth7/doctors_only_treat_symptoms_but_never_the_cause/
GC-MS plane exhaust, show no unexpected additives present, drop mic, walk out.
Also when it comes to historical facts, it tends to take the most interesting or sensationalist accounts and facts which are often apocryphal (the written down 50 years later by someone who wasnt there kind of thing) and present them as what happened. Yet if you look at the sources you couldn't reasonably claimed they happened and no serious historian would claim it happened, they would at best cite the source for the claims and question the validity of it.
I find it telling that many of the enraged yoga supporters site anecdotal evidence and what sounds like a pseudo-religious dogma when it comes to defending their exercise regimen.
I wonder sometimes if they were to 'disguise' the equipment by making it look like cameras would in the era the ghosts were supposed to have been alive, if they wouldn't be more willing to appear to them, as they'd be easier to recognize as cameras rather than the ufo debris looking cameras they have today.
Before language, nothing had a name.  Did all the sub atomic particles just appear when thought of a name for them?  Did the Americas not exist in 1490 because no one had thought of a name for this hunk of land?  That was one of the most fascinatingly stupid things I've ever read.
I subscribe to their magazine (Skeptical Inquirer -- which is fantastic). Only thing that irks me is that, every issue, they have a contest where if you solve a cryptogram, you're put into a raffle to win a prize. Every month I solve it, but every month the prize ends up going to someone else. It's totally a conspiracy if you ask me ;)
There is no controversy about vaccines. There are no logical arguments backed by evidence against them. There was a small chance the worries were legit, a very small one. Experiments were created tests were run, data was examined - they don't cause autisim.
At first it was a good discussion, then all he did in the comments is yell "Nope! Martial arts=bad" and then talk about how much of a badass he is
"Speeding so fast is a challenge even on the surface. But water resistance is much higher. It was like the objects defied the laws of physics."\n\nThis always cracks me up. they are not defying the laws of physics, If alien, they just would understand the laws of physics a hundred times better than we do.
I live near Montauk and have always been intrigued about the weird stories circling it.
>how many of the moronic herd actually qualify?\n\nThe fact that the herd is so moronic that it needs this is, I think, what hopstar was referring to...
Eating steak and eggs will not increase your risk factor.  So incorrect.
sure are a lot of rocket accidents where they spin out of control while venting fuel.
Just print the damn thing!
I watched this one based on your comment. It was really good and had some good info and skeptical, evidence based perspective on the sightings I've heard about before.
I play this one with my son all the time. I make some kind of small silly joke, like "Oh, did you see the elephant out on the street today?" Then if he doesn't call me on it, I up the ante just a tiny but, adding details. "Oh, yeah, I think it was in town for the circus, but they ran out of room..." I keep letting it get more and more outlandish until he confronts me on it. Great way to build skeptical reasoning. He does it back to me sometimes, too. He's five.
Thanks for the input! I just felt like I was going insane in the brain.
im jealous
and if you bothered to keep watching you would clearly see they are outside.
Don't forget that many of them have learned things, which are inherent to their theory, and when you point out that the things that they have learned are wrong then you must be in on the conspiracy too.\n\nExamples of these include:\n\n* WTC 7 fell into it's own footprint without damaging any other buildings\n* The rotor disk found at the Pentagon is too small for a 757.\n* The engines from Flight 93 ended up many miles from the main crash site.\n\nAll of these are totally untrue, and can be disproven by a few minutes research, yet none of them will do the research, and if you do it for them, then they claim that every source is mistaken or in on the conspiracy.
FUCK YES.\nI'd completely forgotten about this until the teaser popped up a few days ago. BRING IT FUCKING ON
While I don't disagree that this is unnerving and negative to say the least, I still would not go as far as to site this as enough reason to give in to a level of uncontrolled fear.  That fear breeds a lack of personal control that I don't feel is warranted or becoming of what we can as a species do to assert ourselves in a positive way on this planet and for the sake of our own development and evolution as beings.
Vampires are really cool, but out of Dracula...Lestat...and Edward...who's your favorite?  Or is your favorite not even on this list?  Let's talk about it here!
The frame you just linked looks like a tumbled version of the other frames. Perhaps this UFO spins around or tumbles unlike an airplane. Think outside the box
This is /r/skeptic. Ideas and claims are meant to be debated here. FunExplosions has done it well without being rude in the slightest.
This is the [New Scientist article](http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7915-most-scientific-papers-are-probably-wrong.html) mentioned by Suzy.  As expected it doesn't really say what she thinks it says.
I'd just like to point out that the Daily Mail is not a newspaper by any normal definition of the word. This story could easily be a complete fabrication.
Just because somthing is published by the Daily Mail doesn't mean its worthless.If somone read the article then goes and learns more about the subject, or at least thinks about it for a minute, then its been sucessful.
Yeah, she's a paranoid American transplant down to Oz, and is seriously crackers.  She's made credulous references to David Icke (reptilians) and other completely off-the-wall conspiracies several times.\n\nDon't feel too bad for Australia though; they retaliated by giving the US Ken Ham, of Creation "Museum" fame. :-)
Start drinking blessed water, might help? Just a thought.
> "Can you provide some more examples of where you feel Dunning "falls down hard" or are you referring to organic farming specifically?"\n\nThis is separate from Organic Farming, but since it's asked, this is where I stopped listening to Brian Dunning:  \n\nhttp://skeptoid.com/episodes/4160\n\nPretty much the whole text there. Subjecting oneself to the will of the masses, does not make you smart, and does not prove you aren't stupid - it just means you bow to mob rule, rightly or wrongly. Further, being elected does not mean you are not stupid - in fact, there is nothing in the transcript whatsoever to contradict the argument that Sarah Palin is stupid.      \n\nAnd then there was this whole row about DDT, which was not only wrong, but even when presented with corrections and evidence, Dunning stubbornly dug in his heals about it. These articles summed things up pretty well:   \n\nhttp://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/11/22/skeptoid-fact-check-part-1/\nhttp://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/11/26/skeptoid-fact-check-part-2/
Agreed.
yes, the Leo Sprinkle segment is great. This is Art Bell C2C program is relevant and disturbing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3VemAG62Bs
As a related point, even when they're motivated by the desire to explain something that the model doesn't already cover, legitimate refinements to scientific theories have to be justified by concrete evidence, and usually by evidence that wasn't available before. Adding an extra loop to a planet's orbit only patches up the model. There's still no evidence that such an orbit exists or that such orbits are ever possible. In contrast, the idea of gene selection not only explains more, it also brings in information about DNA that wasn't available in Darwin's day. It's the difference between finding a missing piece to the puzzle and trying to make one out of play-do.
When you say you're seeing things, do you mean you're seeing ghosts, or just random things in your peripheral vision?
There is a correct way to eat with hands which is equally hygenic. There are many types of foods which you just cannot eat with utensils.
Nope, those are a fools fad.
He hawks his homeopathy services at the end of the video... he's clearly steamed that his revenue stream is being attacked.
No evidence, no confirmation from others in the area, and Teyler has a year old account with very few posts. Something is obviously up. If true, we should see some videos pop up later on in the week.
Just tell them the spraying is to kill off stupid people. Their only hope of survival is to crack a book and learn something new. When the brain is absorbing quality knowledge it becomes immune to the spraying. :)
It's the narrative this person is going for. People are fucking suckers for a narrative, true or not.\n\nYou need to weave a *better* narrative. Tell this person about all the research and all the people involved in the moon landing endeavor. Don't focus on debunking their BS talking points (shadows, flag motion, etc) unless they press the point, and even then do so in a manner that makes it clear how one might get confused.\n\n*DON'T* get confrontational. And *especially* don't get angry. The angrier you get, the easier it will be to dismiss your points entirely. Just take it easy and, point by point, explain why the *true* story of the moon landing is so much more exciting and believable than the "fake landing" hypothesis.
Here is a news article that verifies the legitimacy of this clip from the [Sydney Morning Herald](http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/ufo-theory-on-lights-in-tassie-sky-20110530-1fbtq.html).  This is good footage if it isn't a hoax or lights on a hill.  It will definitely spark investigation.\n\nEdit: The lights are pulsing from left to right as if they are all connected. You can see street lights on the ground at the beginning, so there is a way to get bearings on it and calculate its size. Three witnesses, video, and a steady hand is a rare combination. I want to see the rest of the footage though. You don't stop filming a UFO until it is gone.
If you view it as a religion, it all makes sense: faith in an unknown, impervious to evidence, steeped in dogma, no dissent is tolerated.
Exactly
telling your mom is the right thing to do
Allergic to white shorts!
Awesome. Instant up vote. :D
>Placebo, including expectation, has been covered in this thread. \n\nTalked about is not the same as concluded. \n\n>In EFT, the person is told to focus on the issue during and after the tapping, so focusing thoughts on something else is irrelevant here. \n\nActually it isn't. Our thoughts tend to be all over the place.\n\n>As for meditation, I haven't come across any evidence that shows that meditation can relieve an issue in minutes.\n\nYou like testimonials right? Well, I can resolve issues with meditation in a few seconds. I can solve many issues with three deep breaths and focus.\n\nAnyways, also covered in this thread is the expectation and trust in practitioner. There are many other possible explanations that may do better than what you are proposing. It might not be EFT that "works", but something else. The technique itself might be bogus.
The Dutch system if very different.\n\nDutch midwives don't "trust birth." There is none of the prattle traditionally associated with American homebirth. No babbling about how birth "is not a disease"; that women's bodies are "designed" for birth; that babies are "not library books," due on a certain day.\n\nIn fact, the fundamental premise is exactly opposite: birth is inherently dangerous and great care must be taken to prevent, diagnose and manage complications. Practitioners must adhere to the tenets of modern obstetrics. Consistent with that premise, The Netherlands mandate rigorous education and training of midwives. Midwifery is a university degree; midwives are trained for both hospital and home; and significant education and training is devoted to handling complications. \n\nIn contrast, American homebirth midwives are grossly undereducated and undertrained. The CPM designation (certified professional midwife) is a post high school certificate program, not a college degree. Most courses are not eligible for transfer college credit because they are foolish: homeopathy, flower essences, gem energy, etc. There is no training in managing complications because there is no hospital training. Clinical training is nothing more than an apprenticeship to an older midwife.\n\nThe Netherlands has strict criteria for homebirth eligibility. Virtually anything that raises the risk of potential complications results in disqualification for homebirth: no breech, no twins, no postdates, no pre-existing conditions or conditions arising during pregnancy. These are not considered variations of normal; they are recognized as abnormal and treated accordingly.\n\nAmerican homebirth midwives, in contrast, like to pretend that virtually anything that happens naturally is normal. Postdates pregnancy? That happens naturally, so the baby must "know" when to be born. Labor stalled at 7 cm for 5 hours? No problem, just keep waiting for labor to naturally pick up. American homebirth midwives routinely ignore due date, blood pressure, glucose tolerance, colonization with group B strep, virtually that occurs naturally during pregnancy.\n\nThe dismal mortality statistics of American homebirth midwives reflect their poor understanding of childbirth. Homebirth with American homebirth midwives has approximately triple the neonatal mortality rate of homebirth in The Netherlands. Homebirth with American homebirth midwives has almost triple the neonatal mortality rate for low risk hospital birth in the US.
I don't know. I think it is just as effective without spelling out the exact quackery.
It doesn't offend nor surprise me that some are willfully ignorant. To each their own, but I do feel the need to speak up when armchair skeptics claim something is bunk when the *readily available data* contradicts the assertion.
Came here to say this. Wonder how theists would answer that question.
sorry, i have to agree angelkely, it looks too fake...
Holy complete summary, batman!
I agree with every thing you said, but we do have bio weapons.
Agreed, no person or system is infallible. It was only a couple decades ago that we were lobotomizing people with pickaxes. And the peer-review system for new pharmaceuticals is a fucking joke.
>One that happens more rarely, is this total field of vision disturbance. I will be doing whatever, and suddenly I will see what could only be described as thousands of glowing-white maggots squirming out of space itself. Then they'll wither away just as they had crawled out.\n\nThis sounds like white blood cells, which a lot of people can see, actually. Please refer to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_field_entoptic_phenomenon\n\nWhile they're listed as being most visible in blue, I've definitely seen them against other backdrops as well.
No. This is still the new/controversial meaning of irony. The first meaning of irony is saying something to mean the opposite. I don't see that here.\n\nThis is still the second definition:\n> (colloquial) The quality or state of an event being both coincidental and contradictory in a humorous or poignant and extremely improbable way.\n\nOr am I missing something? Maybe you were being ironic.
I'm 6'2" 175lbs... How many me(s) would it take to equal the gravitational force of yo mamma?
There are serious problems with Dr. Swanks study, so their results at best are inconclusive. http://www.mstrust.org.uk spells out the problem:\n>However, the design of this trial was flawed, in that there was no comparison group and there was no 'dummy' treatment, so the results are of limited significance. People who did not continue with the diet may have perceived no benefit from it because they were deteriorating, so we cannot know whether the good results represent a genuine improvement over other groups of people with MS, or occurred due to chance alone.\n\nFrom [here](http://www.mstrust.org.uk/information/publications/factsheets/diet.jsp) \n\nA review was done on [Dietary interventions for multiple sclerosis](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/o/cochrane/clsysrev/articles/CD004192/frame.html) with the conclusions being "PUFAs  seem to have no major effect on the main clinical outcome in MS" but more study is needed.\n\nCheck with your doctor to confirm this.\n\nIt seems like you are in a difficult position, a position that many people find themselves in today. A family member or friend rejects sound medical advice because they think they can find some easy answers in miracle pills, magic crystals, super foods or some quack who is going to exploit their illness to make money from them.\n\nIn these sorts of situations I have found that logic and reason and all the science in the world is not going to help these people. If I was in your position I might try and contact the local MS group (if there is one). Maybe they can put you in contact with someone who is going through what your mum is going through. Maybe someone who tried these odd diets and in the end had to face up to reality. Advice coming from someone like this would have much more impact that any scientific argument....\n
My mother believes this and is utterly resistant to logic or reason on the subject. What is most bizzarre is her degree was geography and mathematics so in a parallel world she could debunk this with science and logic. I don't think she is mentally ill, it's more like a religion. And you wouldn't call being religious a mental illne- waitaminute
It's not all quacks.  I know kids that have gone from top 50 universities in biochemistry to chiro school.  Some of their material is fishy but I will defend some muscle therapy.\n\nKnowing how muscles are related and which ones to loosen up is a valuable skill set.
UPDATE\n\n[News](http://www.tvbs.com.tw/NEWS/NEWS_LIST.asp?no=yehmin20120103191356\n) has been given that it's an RC plane with LEDs that was part of a marriage proposal.\n\n[And here's the best video yet.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HH5K-XAxMKE).\n\nI'd like to see this guy's plane, but this is a reasonable enough story.\n\nIFO?
A few years ago, I had a dream that I was in school but the teachers had made us take our clothes off and were taking pictures of us. I remember being extremely embarrassed. When I woke up, I went to the living room after getting ready for school and saw that my mom was watching the news. They were talking about how a teacher had gotten arrested for forcing his students to get naked and snapping pictures of them.
Why is this in r/skeptic? Theres nothing to be skeptical about here. Its just a bigot spreading bigotry. Are you saying you are skeptical since its a possibility that demon sex makes you gay? This is by far the dumbest submission Ive seen to this sub. Read the sidebar:\n\n>"If this type of content begins to dominate the subreddit, how would I feel?"\n\nI would feel shitty if this sort of content kept getting to the front page. Its just utter bullshit that this is even here.
Easily the best podcast on my iphone.  I try to spread the word to all open minded individuals who will hear me.
Isn't it weird that most of these experiences mirror popular cinematic depictions and only started appearing at the turn of the last century?
Good steady hands
Read the article again - it sounds like this is about independent typing, not facilitated communication.
I was just fixing to post the exact same sentiment. I am awaiting the inevitable "these new images are all digitally altered to insert the objects."
Who said anything about shocking?  I'm calling you out for being asinine not because your insight surprised me.\n\nDismissing people's unfortunate experiences with a banal statement comes off as cynical.\n\nWould you tell a rape victim "we'll there are rapists in the world lady so walk it off"?\n\nHow would that be helpful?\n\n\n\n\n
Thanks so much this is a great idea! I will definitely try this when I am home in October.
I enjoyed reading those stories! Thanks for posting it!
The next time someone brings up how greedy "big pharma" is, show them how this company is charging $19.99 for their sugar pills.  I can't believe it's legal for them to lie to consumers and put this crap next to real medicine.  The way it's packaged, it's very easy to see how someone who doesn't know anything about homeopathy could be tricked into buying this.
I work in a science/telescope store, and had a customer in a few days ago that must have watched this video and believed it. He told me that he believes in perpetual motion and free energy. When I told him that with our knowledge of physics and its laws, that it is not possible. He then just laughed and said that's not true. I then told him that if he knows of something in which it does work, he needs to demonstrate it and show it to the world, so that way he can win a Nobel prize. His response was, "Yeah, that, or I'll end up in jail." \n\nO.o\n\nThe people I have to deal with... I tell ya!
Did you take any pictures?
The true event is the the Vatican does still train exorcists. As far as I can tell, that is why it is "inspired by" or "based on" true events.
Well, catholic church made good and bad things. No one deny that.
http://www.dcscience.net/?p=1196
I think we'll call that wood a 'wand'. And you can say a few words while you're at it. Something like "abracadabra" or "hocus pocus".
I'd be in favor of you deleting this. I seriously thought I had somehow resubscribed to /r/politics there for a second.
> Even though I really don't believe I was, I play with the idea that my fear stems from some suppressed memory of an abduction.\n\nThis is unhealthy. You should play with your thoughts in this way.
I agree with you, no reason to dismiss, lets look into it. It may be a plane, we cant tell for sure until we have more evidence.
It's fat and protein, why wouldn't it be?
Three words:\ntin\nfoil\nhats\n\nProblem solved!
Fitting that the alien's had very 70's sounding name for themselves. ;)
Have you read [this article](http://www.skepticreport.com/sr/?p=162) on Skeptic Report?\n\nThis is the only critical article I can find on the event, and I haven't seen any responses to it.
From what I understand all you should hear is the ticking of the clock and some chatter from the investigators later on. Those are the only "Real" sounds in the video. The slamming, screaming, moving the microphone, cries for help are all from a paranormal or otherwise unknown source.
A couple of people recommended [KT Tape](http://www.kttape.com/) to me when I had shin splits while building up my distance as part of my marathon training. Sounded like BS to me and I just stuck at it the running and a week later I had run through the problem and it cleared up on its own\n\nImagine if I had put that stuff on? I'd be potentially passing on anecdotal evidence about what an amazing difference it made
Good question. I would say that 'harm' is something that makes it wrong, which has been shown to be the case with the animal testing here on this post.\n\nI don't agree that empathy alone is good enough because that is, by definition, an appeal to emotion. However, I do agree that it is often difficult to draw the line between emotion and reason. This is the idea I was attempting to address with my question.
I think you may have missed part of the point with regard to "clinically proven", it is thrown around so frequently that it lacks meaning today.  That phrase has been slapped on every useless product so it has no value to the less-educated consumer.  That's how AltMed has "ruined" it.\n\nAnd I suspect she intended to make a reference to E. coli contamination on vegetables from the use of organic fertilizers (manure) on veggies.\n\nAnd the Skepchicks are involved in quite a few educational and skeptical pursuits.  They're not just whining.\n\n(Also, you twice typed "your" when you should've use "you're", the contraction for "you are".  You might want to work on that.)
Weird, me to.  You go to Skeptics in the pub?
To be fair some of us 'aviation experts' are video/photography enthusiasts as well.
Cool story, try it and tell me what you experience.  That is again, the best way I can describe it to you with words.
It's the difference between applied science and science. I know some amazingly intelligent, scientist physicians, but for many it's just a trade. Same with engineers.
\nI actually don't have a problem with the inside job theory, however if that's the case it was done by pros and not really observable; the mechanisms that truthers put forward to explain things frequently (as in, close to always) are completely bonkers.
I see your point. It makes me think, and it also raises a question, which is: in your opinion, do other entities exist or not?
 I have a feeling people who say this associate these ions with free radicals. I can't say I know enough of the subject to say if the "free radicals are bad" idea is woo, real or somewhere in between.\n\nHowever, I can think of no reason why you would be exposed to more negative ions on the beach than any other place.
I'll take that $5.\nhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/poll/2012/sep/04/do-you-believe-in-homeopathy-jeremy-hunt
Laughter. Social rejection is an appropriate response to lunacy.
Sheesh. Why post this without comment or discussion?
Another excuse to get wrecked don't you mean.\n\nEdit: Getting drunk on Jesus's Blood (metaphorical blood if your mum is protestant) is where it's at.
Oh god that was difficult to watch.. I really want to believe, I really do.
Poor little guy.  We once found a drowned squirrel in our water trough, and neither my spouse nor I could figure out what it was - it looked so different all wet.
I saw the name... I don't know what I expected when I clicked it...
Yea, I'm in the same boat. All by myself & about to go to bed. NOPE...looks like it'll be an all nighter! I'm not reading anymore of this thread till morning!\n
Wrong number, but they maybe didn't know.
Funny... Pretty much all of what you said is covered in the piece... Just less angrily.
 going to a grocery store and getting fresh green sage leaves is like going to the store to get tallow and lye and ash just to make some soap.  Smudge sticks are made out of  specific kind of sage, and its dried and bundled like [this](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZnP_cFLoAHo/TgjUnB2-dnI/AAAAAAAAACE/sgZh_gtPhfQ/s1600/smudge_sticks_large.jpg).  You are infinitely better off just going to your local hippie shop that sells clove cigarettes and crap like that, they almost always have white sage bundles
Why did he have to get the DNA analysis done by some obscure scientist in a Texas town he almost couldn't find?  Was she the only one who would give him the answers he was looking for?
Rebecca.... I am disappoint.
Then you're blinded by loyalty. I've heard that clip plenty of times. He drops into a really arrogant and stand-offish attitude to chastise the reporter for asking *how* magnets work. The man was brilliant, but that was a pretty low moment for him.\n\nThe last time a redditor submitted this they went on and on about how Feynman has "powers of explanation."\n\nI disagreed then. I disagree now.
As in :\n\n>Three other items included in the survey, but which do not necessarily reflect paranormal beliefs, include beliefs in "psychic or spiritual healing or the power of the human mind to heal the body," "that people on earth are sometimes possessed by the devil," [ ... ]\n\n
Bad stuff such as... ?
TL;DR\n\nYou should change your handle to "i_poop_paragraphs", Mr. Loquacious.
Socrates? BITCH.
My uncle thought he was Saint Jerome...
Just for future note, dreams are a horrible way to judge time, studies show we often have multiple dreams in a night, as well, the brain processes that data different in each person, but what can seem like a few hours in your head can actually be seconds in the real world. \n\nThis is my second theory (the first one I've posted as a comment, depending on how you answer that, I'll lean heavily towards one or the other):\n\nCould be be possible that you were so tired that you fell asleep at 6 thinking it was 9 and your father was so engrossed in the TV that he did not notice you going out?
This site is a hell of a lot better than the "Search the cosmos for fake planets" site.
Anonymous is often not even a group in the classical sense of the word. People operating under the affiliation,"Anonymous"(What with the mask and other elements of style) - have both done stupid and mean things and great things.
Your question was more of a request which began with "show me an approximate quote that made you interpret the a+ position this way" to "show me a quote we will both interpret this way." The first request can be objectively satisfied. The second is a purely subjective exercise. And if we're being subjective, I feel like you're trying to dismiss how I'm made to feel when reading these discussions to justify some sort of an infallibility on the a+ side.
The Assessor's and Recorder's Office are great places to find the names of the previous owners or information on the buildings. I work as a property tax consultant and use the information all the time. I'm sure they have records dating back that far.
Well, if you're right and it's a plane, it's not fake. It's just an IFO.
Single letter?\n\nQuite a few letters on the birth certificate lighter than their neighbouring letters.
It's all about the bellybuttons.\n\nSeriously though, [center of gravity seems to be a big factor.](http://news.discovery.com/human/belly-buttons-sports-athletes.html)
Most of my brain has moved to other subjects but I think you and I have come to a basic understanding and agreement on this issue. It's an internet miracle!
so if they instead asked "Why is this woo" instead of "Is this woo" you'd have a better opinion of them?
I'd heard it said here and there. I googled around and found a couple studies that seem to disprove it at the US NIH and the JNCI. So it's apparently random Internet crap. My bad.\n\nQuick Sources :\n\nhttp://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/90/23/1830.short  \nhttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11962259
There are also inductive fallacies. But to correct myself, or, rather, clarify my statement: It is a deductive fallacy, specifically a false premise (that a pharmaceutical company can have someone "gotten rid of") and jumping to a conclusion (it can happen, therefore it will happen) based on that false premise.
sought*\n\nSaught is not a word.
Except it's not homeopathic.  It contains stuff; homeopathic "remedies" do not.  This product appears to be a different means of administering allergy injections, nothing more and nothing less.\n\nIncidentally, allergy shots "treat the source not the symptoms" and contain "common allergens found in the environment".\n\nThe author at "breakthrough-medicine.com" doesn't know his homeopathetic from his holistic.
Most would have M.D.'s, not Ph.D.'s.
When in doubt, C4!
Living up to your name, I see.
Thanks for posting the exact same video Akyu posted. Watching it for the fifteenth time now has me fully convinced...
Oh yeah i also seem to be a better judge of character than some people.
That's a matter of philosophy, not scientific theory. You have them confused. Evidence is anything empirical/tangible that can be used to validate something. We have no empirical evidence, no tangible proof, that anything even remotely close to reincarnation exists, which, following the logic, implies that there is no evidence regarding the access of past selves memories.\n\nThere are alternate ways of explaining anything, but that doesn't make them true or even negotiable. For example, I have a theory that all dogs can speak english. \n\n"But dogs don't speak english" you say..\n\nSure they do, they just don't do it around people and are super aware of their surroundings to make sure you don't hear them. Proof for this is that they have heightened hearing and a better sense of smell. Both of those help detect humans, which tells them to switch to barking instead. It's all just a clever ruse.\n\nYou would call me crazy. And you would be right. When you read about crap like aliens probing humans and zapping their memories when they walk through a forest on the way home from a pub, to accessing the memories of past lives like you're in an assassin's creed game.. you have to look at this crap with a handful of skepticism and realizes when crackpot theories are crackpot theories.
Vitamin does have many health benefits I don't know why having it in a spray would be any better and by the price it looks way more expensive per UI. \n
South Africa never even had a monarchy. We left the British Commonwealth in 1961.
Look at your assailant; now back to me; now back at your assailant - you're holding a banana!
> Off the top of my head I know that bpa is pretty bad for infants as it acts similar to estrogen and can mess with infant hormone systems\n\nBut what concentrations are harmful?  Are those the concentrations we're seeing in food?  Does the chemical bioaccumulate?
How can they legally use the word "teething" on something that is seriously dangerous for teething?  What the fuck, regulators?\n\n
Is that a twin peaks reference?  If so I can't possibly upvote you enough.
>Oh, by the way, proton therapy rocks!\n\nI've only heard about proton therapy via Wikipedia.  Is it expensive and / or only available if you're near some sort of particle smasher?  I don't have cancer (and I hope I never do).  But I suppose it's good to know these things.
Disclosure of what? That people see things in the sky they can't identify? Well, consider this an official disclosure then. There are things in the sky people cannot identify.\n\nEyewitness accounts are not really credible because of the way humans form and retrieve memories. Our brains don't work like a VHS, we don't record a duplicate copy of the event. What happens is when we store memories, our brain stores them in a way that makes the most sense to us based on our experiences and knowledge. Basically the memories need to make sense and when they do not, the brain forces them to. Then you have anxiety, stress and fear generally associated with these events, which only serve to distort the memories even more.\n\nAs far as videos and pictures go, most are of such poor quality than it's virtually impossible to determine what the object is. Then you have to consider the myriad of fakes out there.\n\nTo make the long story short, there is a lot of proof that there is stuff in the skies an average person cannot identify but virtually no proof of what that stuff is. And since an average person has trouble identifying a lot of mundane things, there is no reason for serious investigation until there is more concrete evidence.
When Neil Armstrong died, the first thing my dad said was that "he took the secret to his grave."
Well, I suppose that there are people who fall for this sort of BS.
"God is an ever receding pocket of scientific ignorance" -Neil DeGrasse Tyson
I wouldn't joke around about her, after all, she knows when you're going to die (her response: at some point in the future) and what's going to happen to your family (her response: something). I love that about her.
Okay, I'll grant you that. However, I do think they could modernize their farming technology to increase food output considerably.
Don't forget some fava beans and a nice chianti.
What are you defining as poison? In high enough doses, it's toxic - no question (so are vitamins). However, at safe amounts it's been shown to significantly improve your health by preventing cavities. \n\nhttp://jdr.sagepub.com/content/86/5/410\n\nhttp://www.cdc.gov/fluoridation/\n\nhttp://jada.ada.org/cgi/reprint/129/11/1579.pdf\n\nThe American Dental Association cite over 100 prominent health organizations that agree. The CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) lists it as one of the 10 great public health achievements of the 20th Century. Keep in mind that poor dental hygiene can lead to some non-obvious stuff too like diabetes, and heart / respiratory problems. Fluoride has shown to be effective even when you brush regularly.\n\nYour article was a commentary about a specific organization (National Treasury Employees Union) and how they thought the EPA (US Environmental Protection Agency) weren't taking fluoride risks seriously. The title of the article was also a bit dubious. "Scientists grow disillusioned..." ? I'm pretty sure that the consensus is fluoride is beneficial. The article also didn't cite any sources, but I can only assume that they mean this:\n\n[Age-specific Fluoride Exposure in Drinking Water and Osteosarcoma (United States) (Bassin et al., 2006)](http://www.ada.org.au/app_cmslib/media/lib/0703/m50725_v1_agespecificfl.pdf)\nBasically it's a study done that found a correlation between male children who ingested fluoridated water and those who developed osteosarcoma (a type of bone cancer that exists in around 250 boys a year). However, the higher risk from consuming fluoride (about 4%) was only true when you isolated the one subset of children. Even if we ignore *correlation does not necessarily imply causation*, if we take into consideration all the rest of the data outside this subset, the link disappears. This is according to both the original author and others. So not only was the study *not* a peer-reviewed paper published in any journal,  the data is far from conclusive and there needs to be a lot more research done before making such a positive claim. The NRC concludes that these negative adverse effects shown through multiple studies is all tentative. \n[Fluoride in Drinking Water: A Scientific Review of EPA’s Standard, the National Research Council (NRC, 2006)](http://www.actionpa.org/fluoride/nrc/NRC-2006.pdf) \n\n\nI think there are legitimate studies critical of fluoride that we should be considering. However, there are just as many questionable sites that will link to these studies without any context.
While that is true you should be aware that the manufacturers of these fake medicines do everything they can legally get away to make them look like real drugs.  They even have a panel on the box that is made to resemble as closely as possible the one required by the FDA listing the active ingredients.  If you don't know what to look for you can easily be fooled. \n\nedit;  I forgot to mention what to look for.  In the real panel where it lists the active ingredients it will give a weight.  In the fake panel it will give ###X.
Tell him you were offended by his link. If he can see past his own sphincter, he'll grow up and realize he's a bigot. If he can't accept that you have different views, then he's an dick and has no place in polite society, drop his ass.
[I don't know who you are, but thank you for this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=togfO6BJBdA&feature=player_detailpage#t=9s).
Fantastic and extremely informative reply. Thank you so much for the additional information! I need to get access to Evolutionary Anthropology and Evolution and Human Behavior, it seems. I have one specific question that you may be well-suited to answer:\n\n>In other words, people play nice when they think god / cthulhu / the tooth fairy / Santa Claus is watching them, and those around them. The anthropological record supports this idea. In moving from the smallest scale human societies to the largest and most complex, Big Gods- powerful, omniscient, interventionist watchers-become increasingly common, and morality and religion become increasingly intertwined (Evolution and Human Behavior, Vol 24, P 126.)\n\nMany Christians state that humanity is innately immoral, or evil (original sin, etc.). Considering the above, would you say that humans are not inherently altruistic or empathetic? That humans need something divine and unfalsifiable in order to keep each other in line to ensure the survival of the species? In other words, if left to our own devices with no divine presence (hypothetically), we would descend into anti-survival behavior?
Here's the way I see it:  This "paper" is irrelevant and unnecessary.   In short, yes, if God exists and has the powers attributed to him by scripture, then it follows that anything that happened in the Bible that departs from our observable models of the Universe is possible.  You don't have to show us how the Universe is possible given the proposition "The God of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures exists."  You have to show us that the proposition, "The God the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures exists," is true.  I suspect the paper was written to settle the author's own cognitive dissonance, not our disbelief.
It is difficult to overstate the minuteness of the portion Universe which we have observed.  To say that we have seen any portion of it at all is a gross overstatement.
The guys making the crop circle needed light, so sent a few flairs up.  What's that saying that says, "the simplest answer is often times the best answer?"
r/paleo is quite biased. (this is coming from someone on the paleo diet)
Clever.\n\n> "Anti-anti-Vaccine" is clunky, and isn't going to grab the attention you want.\n\nI also agree with this. "Anti-anti-" could easily be misconstrued as "very anti-."\n\nI would also point out that it is very hard to change someone's mind about these matters. It is *particularly* difficult to do so on facebook. And it is very easy to alienate friends in these kinds of debates (also, politics and religion) online. So if you engage these people online, you have to be very tactful if you value their friendship at all.\n\nFrom what I've seen the most effective approach is to use the Socratic method: ask lots of questions to make them actually think critically about their "woo" and try to justify them. It doesn't always work, but sometimes you'll see a light bulb turn on over someone's head.
I don't know, water seems pretty natural to me.\\\\
You are always going to have some people who are so set in their ways nothing you do will change their mind. Skeptecism, as I see it anyway, is about spreading information and teaching critical thinking more than directly persuading people that they are wrong as the later method normally makes people more likely to believe the misinformation they have been told.
Changes in the girls behavior in a negative way could be a sign. Also if she blames the skeleton when she is caught doing bad things. You are going to have to use your judgement here as young children tend to have natural mood swings and will start to lie if it gets them out of trouble.
i think the priests concluding that the energies there are of aborted babies is more based on their position against abortion and not so much on their knowledge of the paranormal. you would be better off bringing in a medium in to get a read on the place and see what they can tell you. also they would be better suited to provide you a course of action after experiencing the place firsthand rather than those of us on the internet who can only offer our thoughts and opinions.
Famous psychics like Sylvia brown won't test because they already make several million duping gullible people.\n\nless famous people have taken the test, probably because they are crazy and actually believe the nonsense they tell others.
Wow thank you so much for doing this! I was working on a transcript earlier but then literally passed out on my laptop. I will get around to posting an entire transcript on my website and when I do, I'll make sure to post it here. Thanks again. :)
Voted, Good luck
Like it or not, Tf00t has been (and still is) a big part of the online skeptic community.  While I am surprised at some of his comments, I'm equally surprised at the ban (purportedly initiated by PZ), and the immature flame war.  The whole thing is sad. \n\nEdit:spelling
What about Occam's razor? You think it has some kind of value here? That's funny.\n\n>Just because certain explanations are possible doesn't, in any way, make them likely. \n\nI never said it was likely that aliens built the pyramids, I said one explanation wasn't more likely than the other.\n\n> If you honestly think it's a 50/50 chance either way, you're lacking some basic common sense dude.\n\nOk, let's all have a good laugh. Demonstrate that one is more probable than the other without any knowledge of the variables involved. Blind intuition isn't valid.\n\nHey I know! Tell me the probability of picking a red marble in this giant bag of marbles I have right here. Just try that. Should be easy.\n\nIt's common sense, right? Should be very easy.\n\nQuick downvote him! He knows epistemology and we can't make any kind of rebuttal! Purposeful ignorants...\n
I love watching ancient aliens. I always think it's neat that the ancients were able to do advanced things and the interesting coincident they talk about in that show
Please see what lurkingallday just posted above.
I'm actually on the lake over in Indiana now, but what's up?
I actually caught myself using the illusion of knowledge the other day.  It made me realize that to see the truth, you must not only question others ideas, but also your own.
Why does anyone care *at all* what that quack's *girlfriend* says?\n\nEven if she's wearing an engagement ring, she's still *irrelevant*.
Legitimate WOT voting != spamming
Of course he was successful in locating oil, he was sent to locations where scientists believed there was a high likelihood of there being oil to find.
I'm starting to feel like Gary's just making it all up.
Just another homeotard.
The question is, would their extra weight overpower the added wind resistance, I would argue it does.
**VACCINATE YOUR KIDS YOU FUCKING RETARDS!**
Right you are, but the key point to consider here is that we don't ever really need to say "no", we need only to say "there's no reason to believe so", and like that, the idea is rejected. Should any new evidence later come to light then we can revise our positions.
Well I would think that if we had reversed engineered alien space craft we wouldn't be struggling to get F35's into service while flying F18's from 1980 and brute forcing our way into space on overblown bottle rockets.
> No, it really is not.\n\nIt is very good. I say this as a white American of drinking age.\n\nAnd the nutritional value is decent -- it IS just a duck fetus that came from a sealed egg. In other words, all the nutrients in the egg, however arranged differently, are pretty much the same.\n\nGet off your high horse.\n\nNow pearl onions? YURGH. ;)
I don't think that the separation between TED and TEDx is explicit enough. I know they include the footnote in the branding, 'independently organised TED event', but what precisely that entails isn't blatant. I've studied branding and really, this isn't enough.
Not by definition, but there is a correlation. I am an atheist.
I didn't know that Fuck me right?
The woman who does my eyebrows swears by this and half of the women I work with are trying it. I said I wasn't interested and they said accused me (as always) of being "closed minded".\n\nThey say "what's the harm in trying?" an ironic question considering they are all overweight and try every new fad. Fraud diets aren't "harmless". They can be physically damaging and almost always end in an emotional breakdown (What's wrong with *me*?) I think these fads can be quite dangerous.
The "gluten-free" thing is becoming ridiculous. People are viewing it as some sort of alternative diet thing that's healthier, not that only people who suffer from Clialac's should be eating gluten-free.
I think I'd have to oppose the wolf releasing idea.\n\nBut only on the basis that it would be cruel to feed wolves such fatty food. ;-)
The thing is that Feynman probably wasn't the best person for that job. Why? He gave up - out of understandable frustration. The best person for that job at that time would have been someone who recognized the problem, brought in Feynman on a consulting basis and pointed out the issues. They would have then either worked to educate and reform the board and process until it was evolved to the point where it could really use Feynman without driving him off or convinced the unreformable on the board to choose something else to do and chosen new board members. That would have resulted in a shift toward better books and an accelerating shift as better evaluators came in. \n\nThe event that proved there was a major problem with the process was instead not taken as a signal to make changes. A great opportunity was lost there.
Did you find an arrowhead in your knee yet? :P
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM\n\nFrom UCSF and Robert H. Lustig, MD, UCSF Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology\n\nThis video is why I emptied my house and my parent's house of all HFCS products\n\n
No, it does take a lot of wind to keep a medium sized kite aloft. Especially one of that size. 12m^2 of surface area of any lightweight canvas requires around 5-10 knots (and you'd most likely have to keep it in the air through apparent velocity i.e. moving it in 8's), for smaller surface areas you need higher wind. You'd see the tree shaking and some leaves flying off of it, if it were blowing that hard. Also, much greater cloud movement. This is not a kite. CGI, hot air balloon, meteor, plastic bag, whatever, but not a kite.\n\nFrom 0:13 - 0:18 you can see the trees clearly, there is no wind. Also you cannot hear any wind. At 5 knots you can hear the wind. Go ask /r/kiteboarding if you want further confirmation. \n\nI'd guess a plastic bag suspended by fishing lines, or something of that nature. Or the moon severely out of focus.
I don't get what you are trying to say. Yes I use my eyes to observe the effects of gravity and acupoint stimulation. And?
I think 'word choice' = message.  Especially in a text based forum.  It would be nice if you take a second to discuss this with me.  Upvote for you.
This is where you respectfully ask what information he needs to see in order to believe that Barack Obama is legitimately our president.\n\nAnd if he cannot answer this, respectfully give him the finger and walk away.
Oh, for god's sake. How long are people going to go on about that? Why are people so desperate to believe things that are obvious hoaxes? Seriously... *do the math.* As if CGI is that expensive. Bullshit.\n\nHow many people live in Moscow? And how many videos are there? At least a dozen videos would come out. *Thousands* of people would be going ape shit if this were real. But they aren't, are they. Why? Because **it's a hoax.** Let it go. Get over it. \n\nFind a better sighting (like the recent [Chili lights](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MySKr678zEM)) to puzzle over. At least that one might be real. There may not be a ton of videos, but it has characteristics that make it significant. [This](http://pindz.blogspot.com/2009/08/2nd-video-ufo-releases-intelligent.html) is also a fairly compelling video. This one was caught by two people in two videos shot over 2 miles apart, and it clearly shows behavior that effectively rules out balloons. This is the kind of thing worthy of your attention, not the Moscow "UFO".\n\nEdit: I just want to add: if we want a wider audience to start considering the possible reality of UFOs, we *have to start sifting out the bullshit.* We need to be as skeptical and honest about each video as they would be. By "we" I mean believers like you and I.
Not the root, but the result...just as bad.\nhunger is the root of eating more then you 'should' but eating more then you should doesn't generally hurt other people, fly planes into building, stone the raped, or abuse young children.  \n\nOn the flip side religion IS a very large root of not *wanting* to gaining critical thinking skills..sort of circular reasoning..what came first: religion or idiots? ;)  let jesus take the wheel..?
I am afraid of having any medical treatment forced on me, or any citizen, against our will, and vaccination is only one aspect of that.  I'm not afraid of vaccination, I am afraid of giving up the right to decide for myself.
> Another hypothetical on human powered flight: Maybe there is some as of yet undetected energy floating around that we could some day be able to lens with our brains somehow. (ingesting some sort of exotic material or something)... and by doing so, we can create some sort of localized anti-gravity field which allows us to fly.\n\n> We don't know enough to 100% discount it.\n\nThis is why you are stupid. When you have to stretch that much and invent ridiculous scenarios simply to say "maybe", maybe what you should do instead is just concede and admit impossibility.
I give the first guy that was burned a pass, but why would 20 other people follow him?
or a sibling took it off the couch, and later felt guilty so hid it in your room for you to find so they wouldn't get found out.
From the [CANP](http://www.coloradond.org):\n\n> Natural Therapies:  \n\\\\\n>Clinical Nutrition  \n>Naturopathic doctors use food, vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and other nutritional supplements to stimulate a healing response and correct deficiencies caused by dietary or absorption limitations.  \n\nEhh, well a good diet is important, but how many conditions are really nutrition related?  \n\n>Botanical Medicine  \n>Medicinal plants and plant extracts from all over the world are used according to traditional and modern scientific principles. Naturopathic doctors are the only licensed health care providers fully trained in the use of botanical medicine.  \n\nTea and tinctures and whatnot, alrighty.  My family uses them on occasion as well.  Not a bad way to go to treat symptoms if Nyquil isn't your cup of tea.  \n\n> Homeopathy\n>This powerful system of medicine is based on the "law of similars" (like cures like). Specially prepared dilutions of substances are carefully matched with the patient to stimulate the body's innate healing forces.\n\nFail.\n\n>Physical Medicine\n>Naturopathic doctors use the application of hydrotherapy, exercise therapy, massage, and manipulation of the bones, joints, muscles, and soft tissues.  \n\nFail.  \n\n>Lifestyle Counseling  \nAddressing all aspects of a person's life, including attitude, diet, exercise, habits, and coping with and avoiding occupational stress and environmental hazards. An ND is trained to support patients in releasing emotional issues that limit optimal health.   \n\nA lifestyle coach?  Yeah I wouldn't take these people's advice on much.  \n\nI tried to be fair =/
Right, except gravity is real, homeopathy isn't.
>"They were so bright I could not distinguish a form to the object"\n\n- Muscarello\n\n>"The lights were so bright, I was unable to make out any form"\n\n- Bertrand
Actually intolerant is not what the bibles teach, some of the institutions preach intolerance, but the bible does not teach intolerance.
> Yes one. The incident itself was concerning one person.\n\nYes, and then nothing whatsoever happened as a result of her mentioning it. That must be why the entire article was one paragraph long.
It seems like a month doesn't go by with another friend falling for a get-rich-quick scheme.\n\nAt this point I've given up trying to help them. Any intervention, to matter how subtle, gives them the impression I'm cockblocking them from their riches.
>3 Try finding a scientific explanation/proof of breatharianism.\n\nThis should be an easy enough experiment:\n\n1. Deny a breatharian access to food.\n\n2. See what happens.
Aw, I'm sorry about all the issues you have that make you a whiny, annoying prick. I hope with professional therapy, and maybe some medication, we can fix some of these issues.\n\nhttp://i.imgur.com/zCIOx.gif
I don't HAVE to present any facts, sweetie.  YOU are the one making the claims, therefore YOU have the burden of proof.\n\n[Let me help you.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_burden_of_proof)\n\nI don't need to supply a counter-argument or counter-evidence, I just need to show that your reasoning is unsound.  Asking a critic to provide evidence to prove your claims false, as if a lack of countering-evidence will somehow prove your unsupported claims true, commits the fallacy of "[argument from ignorance](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance)".\n\nIs this your first day in [r/skeptic](http://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic)?
I'm really getting sick of all these big pharma shills on reddit. For centuries homeopathy has been the basis of understanding cures for almost anything. India and China have known this for a very long time. Even marijuana has been considered a wonder drug, but who is pushing against it? Big pharma.\n\nGo find out how much pfizer, glaxxo smithkline, and merck paid last year in lawsuits and fines, then talk, or just go take your fucking nyquil and go to sleep.
Not sure if legit,\nor just an April Fools Joke
"Are you afraid of science in general, or just the kind you read about on the internet?"
clearly, he wishes us to unsubscribe to /r/atheism.
Even if the Loch Ness Monster was real, it would have nothing to do with evolution.
But that's not what I wrote. These people don't quietly disagree with you, they talk about it and make people uncomfortable with their opinions.\n\nSomeone who doesn't like you or your opinions, but never talks about it or simply avoids you, isn't that the bare minimum you can require? And can't that be called tolerance?\n\nOf course it would be better if they did *more* than tolerate you. Sometimes I'm sure it would be better if they voiced their prejudice so it could get challenged. But as a bare minimum of civil, peaceful coexistance, I think tolerance is OK. Not good, but OK.
It looks like they combine two things I really hate - multi level marketing and sham medical devices that prey on people's suffering.  I would stay far away from them.
Yea this is actually the my first text post and i tried to break it up as i was typing but it all just sort of melded together.
Wikipedia does not agree with you. Night soil is raw human feces and is not even legal to use in the US just as raw bovine feces is not legal to use. You have pathogens in the feces of animals and people, both of them have to get processed and treated before they can be used as manure, and by that time all the pathogenic microbes have died.\n\nAs for you other concerns, we only mandate putting things on labels if it relates to the consumers health. If we were to start mandating that companies include the environmental impact of their products on their labels then we would start with far more important things like carbon footprint, whether or not ecologically important land has been destroyed, etc, before we started including GMOs.
Neat (snaps photo)
May I ask why this fits in r/skeptic?  Is there some fantastic claim being made the the HSUS?  Is there a skeptic-ish critical thinking lesson here?
Are you making fun of my disability? It's not my fault! I didn't realize that facebook could actually cause permanent brain damage!
Nice, did you parents caution you about other kids that might believe, or just let you loose?
I don't have to be a statistician, (which I am) to know that there can't be more than 100% pure bullshit (which this is)
Most of these claims about alleged golden ratio relationships and golden spirals in nature are spurious, or simply outright false.\n\nThese pages debunk and discuss some of the more common claims:\n\n* [Fibonacci Flim-Flam](http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/pseudo/fibonacc.htm)\n* [The Myth That Will Not Go Away](http://www.maa.org/devlin/devlin_05_07.html)\n\nIf you're looking for something more in-depth, Mario Livio's book [_The Golden Ratio: The Story of Phi, the World's Most Astonishing Number_](http://books.google.com/books?id=bUARfgWRH14C) is a highly recommended read: it covers all the things that make the golden ratio legitimately interesting, alongside debunking all the things that don't.
Uhhhh... what exactly happened?
I don't know this person
> Not in the way that most people like to believe.\n\nWell, as I understood it, they do have measurable effects, but yeah -- they still don't work like most people would hope. You're looking at minor increases in memory/information retention, clearheadedness, etc.\n\nI did a lot of reading on it several years ago. Perhaps it's time for a refresher, but I don't have the time this afternoon.
Look up normative morality. Perhaps that's a better way of explaining it. I'm confused in your argument. I think you're suggesting that objective morality can't exist because in order to have morals, you have to have a preference. Morality is knowing the difference between right and wrong. The question is, can you do it objectively or does it have to be subjective. I do not think that my preferences, etc. have a single thing to do with what is right or what is wrong, that there are universal constants of right and wrong, and that this is objective - completely ignoring my, your, everyone's individual beliefs.
yeah, like entities that have possibly traveled billions of miles to get here wouldn't notice a guy sitting in a car across the street. \n\nI'm of the belief that the only reason we are even aware of them is because they *want* us to be.
> the Buddha's exploration was a very true form of skepticism\n\nthis.  i have never thought of Buddhism, when properly practiced, as being anything but a most severe form of critical thinking.
Good grammar *are* a criteria for high intelligence.
Agreed with your conditions on a study.
If you could scoff at someone for not knowing something, you must know that 1 thing. It doesn't really comment on what *else* that person would know.
Well that idea basically allows biology and pre-pends it with. "All of this went exactly how god planned it in a deterministic manner."\n\nSo not quite so bad. I mean for an athiest it is still quite silly, but it doesn't destroy scientific research up til now.
Please update us if you do talk to your dad about it.
This is like saying, only take car buying advise from a car salesman.\n\nGood luck with that.\n\nResearch any and all advice you receive from anyone.  Legally authorized or not.
As I was saying.
Interesting question. Here's my go. \n\nThese things depend entirely on how you understand the definitions under which you operate. As others here have noted, to be skeptical is merely to carry a critical mind, and apply it to everything you happen to come upon in life, be they religious or social beliefs, practices, any form of ritual... what ever! Life in general. If you feel that you, as adequately as you can, critically examine the world around you, then even if you considered yourself a "full blown" Christian, it is easily possible to still be a skeptic as well.\n\nIt is worth keeping in mind, that even some of the most hard-nosed skeptics will take part in what we might think of as "lesser" forms of magical thinking, or supernatural ritual, even if it is something as simple as making a wish on a birthday cake. \n\nThat brings me to the definition of Christian. This is particularly hard, as the political history of Christianity has demonstrated. Many Catholics don't consider Protestants "Christian" and vice versa. Westboro Baptist Church doesn't seem to think ANYONE is a "real Christian", and NO ONE seems to consider Mormon's "Christian". Then there is the individual level. George Bush certainly seems to consider himself a Christian, but his actions during his presidency certainly didn't seem very "Christian".\n\nTo further illustrate the fluidity of the term Christian, I highly recommend "On Belief" by Slavoj Zizek. He describes a kind of atheistic Christianity. It sounds crazy, and the more austere on either side often find the idea ludicrous, but it really is an intellectually stimulating reading of Christianity. According to Zizek, when Jesus died, he really actually died. But his death brought the divine TO humanity, rather than humans trying to seek out the divine. In this way he understands the resurrection of God as a social one, not spiritual, nor physical for an actual historical Jesus. \n\nThere are many different ways to believe or not to believe, and many different ways to be skeptical. \n\n**ALTHOUGH I will add one final caveat. I personally feel the ONE true litmus test for skepticality is your stance towards homeopathy, and how you use the word "energy". If you think homeopathy cured your cat's cancer, and use the word "energy" in any context outside of a learned scientific discipline... then you aren't skeptical enough, and you need more wikipedia in your life!**\n\nCheers!
Naturopathic probably includes but isn't synonymous with homeopathic. You shouldn't be taken aback or concerned. The most successful lies are mixed with truth and not everything (although certainly most) of what a naturopathic "doctor" might do is hooey. Don't assume that what someone does is wrong or right because of what label they operate under. Approach everything with skepticism whether they are typical woo people or typical skeptics. Do your research (know how to do real research) and make an educated decision.
Stealth blimp on an shock and awe mission?
There is adrafinil which in the States doesn't need a prescription from what I've read. It seems to become modafinil once metabolised, though apparently could cause liver issues.
From what I've read there are some big problems with medical trials. People doing the research flaunt many of the proper controls needed, which leads to unreliable conclusions... Apparently this is what meta-analysis' are for, to try to figure out what's really going on when you've got a lot of bad studies.\n\nThis article and the follow up by sciencebasedmedicine are worth reading.\n\nhttp://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/lies-damned-lies-and-medical-science/8269/\n\nhttp://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/science-and-medicine/lies-damned-lies-and-science-based-medicine/
    For best results take 3 globules twice daily of Vroom-vroomium X200.
Sounds interesting, thanks for the link.
"Cats are sterile."\n\nThey're all legitimate sounding quotes, but that one is my favorite.
She's very believable. I've heard of this sighting before, but never seen this interview. \n\nJessie Roestenberg. Staffordshire, UK, 1954.
This is such a profound question; it's at the root of every 'religious' debate, and I don't know the answer, but I have found that it is decidedly NOT to present them with more evidence.  If I could get humanity to realize only one thing from which they are left to sort out of the rest on their own, this would be it: your emotions are not facts.  Good luck!
>or she was cold reading.\n\nI shouldn't have left that one out, I used to cold read myself and I know how effective it is. My mistake.
Programmers make mistakes.
http://www.factcheck.org/
Less Reposts about Steven Greer\n
Although I can totally relate to this, I have to wonder why it gets us so worked up. Should it make us angry that someone disagrees with us? Or that someone is wrong? Neither one of these seems like a reason to be upset.
Bigfoot would never do such a thing. Only the chupacabra is dastardly enough to commit such an atrocity.
Yes, that is exactly it.
I'm going to make a similar movie about how the world actually works. How we're all stuck at work watching these entertaining things that aren't actually true and how we're getting old and eventually dying in front of the tv.
So what's up with the denier obsession with al gore? I see it all the time but I can't figure out why.
Two things... One, if the sun did flash like that, wouldn't someone on Earth have noticed it, like maybe everyone? Two, it was probably a piece of dust or other small object that reflected light into the optics. That would explain the ring shape, too. When small objects up close are way out of focus they look like rings sometimes.
My grandpa died when I was about eleven, we weren't that close because he lived ages away, and in my family we call our nana and granddad's parents grandma and grandpa, if that makes sense.\n\nAnyway about a year ago I had a dream I was in my nana's house (my grandpa was her dad) and we were just doing the usual, talking in the kitchen and what not. Anyways I look out into the hall and I see my grandpa standing there, but in my dream  knew he was dead so I was really scared. I tried to go down the hall and out of the back door but I could see him walking towards me and the door wouldn't open.\n\nI don't remember the rest after that, but it was terrifying and I don't understand why I would have a nightmare with a dead family member, particularly a family member who I liked.
One of my favorite philosophical tenets is that people will agree with you only if they already agree with you. You do not change people's minds.\n~~Frank Zappa\n\n
I just love the thinking behind that. Like they're all sitting around a shadowy table discussing how to fake the landing, stymied at every point, then one has a bright idea and runs to a phone. "Hey, Stan... Have I got a job for you!"
The cool thing is that scientists, generally, are the first to admit they don't know everything. This is what science is about; isn't that awesome?
No. I am following [scientific skepticism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_skepticism) and you are accepting a position as true. I am waiting until further evidence has come out before I state anything more than "this is an unknown". Again: you are accepting this the same way that people accept ghosts. It's the same thing.
On the issue of people hating on mothers who chose to not vaccinate their children: \n>I beleive that it is the same force that drove the otherwise good, kind, otherwise-Christian Germans and Austrians to hate the Jews in the 1930's and 1940's and the same force that drives bigotry of any kind.\n\nಠ\\_ಠ
http://www.unep.org/greeneconomy/Portals/88/documents/ger/ger_final_dec_2011/Green%20EconomyReport_Final_Dec2011.pdf\n\nhttp://www.agassessment.org/reports/IAASTD/EN/Agriculture%20at%20a%20Crossroads_Global%20Report%20%28English%29.pdf\n\nhttp://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=12832&page=R1\n\nhttp://grist.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/20110308_agroecology-report-pr_en.pdf\n\nhttp://www.rodaleinstitute.org/files/FSTbookletFINAL.pdf
Seems like most of them only work sometimes. It's sort of… what's the phrase I'm looking for?
it was raining earlier that day which i also said but i know it wasnt at the time  i dont know what it is thats why i posted it  asking "anythoughts" so dont see what zooming in on anything will prove since i already said it rained that morning
I used to be a Libertarian, but after working for the Federal Government for a while I've seen that I was wrong. \n\nSeeing the incompetence, the petty politics, and the heinous waste of taxpayer dollars makes me sympathize more and more with the anarchists. \n\nCollectivism is based on the notion that, in at least some circumstances, a 'benevolent' governmental entity can make better decisions than a person will. Unfortunately, in practice, I see very little in the way of good decision making coming from the government on a day to day basis.
My problem with the 'supernatural' argument is that we live in the natural world, the natural universe. The idea of something supernatural is only fine as long as it attempts to explain something not currently modeled by natural sciences.\n\nIf ghosts, ESP, etc... are real phenomena then there should be repeatable evidence of some kind that can bring them into the systems of modeling the natural world/universe. This has been the case for a very long time and as phenomena were discovered that weren't explained yet, they were repeatably studied until they could be reasonably explained and predicted with scientific models and methods. \n\nSo far no one has satisfactorily attempted anything close to that with so-called paranormal or supernatural phenomena and many of them are recognizable as simple natural phenomena rather than assuming they are ghosts or anything else.\n\n**TL;DR: Objective repeatability. So far no 'paranormal experience' has produced that and so can't be studied scientifically.**
I don't know that I'll get around to it, so I happily defer to someone who's seen the video.  I'm glad to hear that there was more provocation involved on the part of the questioner than was implied in the blog post.
I love you optimism and effort you put in but it is naive to think that people are going to become informed voters and then improve other people's lives. my opinion of course.\n\nAlso, if you make a law saying that someone has to provide someone else health care, you are controlling other people. \n\nThere is a different b/n a positive and a negative right. A positive right would be that I am declaring that someone owes you health care treatment, so a physician must come treat you.  A negative right would be, not obstructing someone's free speech or expression. Not stealing from someone. By negative I mean, not doing something to someone. This doesn't harm anyone else. See non-aggression principle.
Look into David Rountree.  He's an electrical engineer who has done some rather interesting investigation into paranormal phenomenon, particularly the relationship of such phenomena to EMF.  \n\nFor example:  \n\n[The EVP Project](http://spinvestigations.org/EVP_Project.pdf)\n\n[The Medium Project](http://spinvestigations.org/Medium_Experiment.pdf)\n\nHis [website](http://www.spinvestigations.org/) has all kinds of interesting information and research like this on it.  That might be a good place to start.\n\nAlternatively, you could look into reincarnation.  [Ian Stevenson](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Stevenson) and his team did a long and exhaustive study on this with very compelling results.  His disciple, Jim Tucker, continues it today.  However, it would be nice to have some research done by someone not associated with Stevenson to help verify or debunk their findings.\n\nYou'd probably have an easier time conducting research into EMF and Electronic Voice Phenomenon, but I would personally be more interested to see more serious, scientific reincarnation research.  However, that would be considerably more involved, expensive, and hard to get measurable, mathematical results.\n
I'd just like to address the test-retest issue. If someone scores 3% T, retakes it later and scores 5% F, they haven't completely flipped from one side to the other. However this is often a serious criticism of the test. Every article, post, and comment complaining about retestability or the test in general seems to miss this point entirely.\n\nWhen I hear someone's MBTI results, I always ask for the scores of each letter, otherwise the test is worthless.
Me too. I never even shut mine off; I think it's been running for two years straight. \n\nApparently I should be decaying by now.
This is the first I've heard of these. I'd love to learn more about them. This seems pretty legit.
There haven't yet been any studies that I'm aware of that have shown dangers and subsequently survived peer review. The issue I'm aware of that does seem to be a concern are the "superweeds" that are starting to crop up in areas with a lot of GMO crops.
As an American working in the healthcare industry I have no reply to this.
Litmus paper is, that's why he used a test similar to [this one](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_indicator). Please do not make assumptions without sufficient reason, you're in /r/skeptic after all.
For tens of millions of years, the vast majority of primates have lived in trees while adopting a wide variety of feeding strategies, including insectivory, frugivory, folivory, and omnivory. To my knowledge, all of them have binocular vision. Your "short term" statement might make sense looking across the tree of life, but context is important in biology, and your claim is wrong when it comes to primates.
go to the 54 second mark...  The chick even says "I can see the little lantern"
Many would argue that Tau is better than Pi.  Personally, I would go with Phi (its my favorite)
You could have been moving it subconsciously.
I puked a rainbow! OF DEATH.
...and your comment seems to have been roundly ignored by other commenters who're too invested in their narrative to pay attention to anything other than bitching at each other. This, I suppose, is why we can't have nice things.
Race against the machine on tour?
Can you explain briefly why a legitimate laser hair removal device is bigger than a chair? I assumed they could make a reasonably functional hand-held device because the technology had improved and they could accomplish the same thing or something similar with much smaller equipment.
Again for you skeptics. the cam is focused on the TV because i zoomed in to give you guys a better view. the full photo would have been to small. so i scanned the photos zoomed in. then saved and uploaded. and the first pic. yes the TV can be on but the one with the girl. look at the xmas tree on the reflection. if the TV was on. how would an xmas tree be visible. i mean you guys have a point on this being fake but still. i didnt touch it. got my word. and we dont know who that girl is on the first photo. on the second. we dont know who they are either
First glance its a face. Take time to look and it is the other set or curtains for the right side of that window, framed by the ladder and lit by camera flash. We just love seeing a face. It is creepy though, yet easily explainable.
If any of this is real, whoever figured it out needs to figure out how to make a prediction that could be verified on election day.  I don't see any other way of proving it will happen in the general election.  If you could make an accurate mathematical statement about the results of an election before it is held, then you have a very good case that an algorithm was applied to the outcome.
Happy horseshit.
It's very sad that people react so negatively to conversion disorders. Like it's said in the article, the symptoms are very real; the cause is psychogenic, but that doesn't mean that they're making it up, far from it. A lot of people struggle to get this stigma around conversion disorders lifted, and it doesn't help when people react in this kind of manner.
And we all know that there's no such thing as an illness until it's been recognized by the US government!
or get the population to do it for them.....
It looks legit to me. Similar things have been filmed in the sky over San Francisco too:\n\nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfqDVP_0O0c
Agreed.  Plus, for Christ's sake....on the slim chance that E.T. does show up don't fire until they act in hostility.
I'm from W.A and have actually experienced a lot of strange activity lately, i might write some things up so i can submit something to you.
Hmmm... might need to construct a DSLR-like rig with a spinning mirror that constantly switched between projecting and taking pictures; misalignment would be very hard to compensate for in software. \n
Or that the carbon from the smoke in the fire had "infested" the entire shroud and "overwritten" the older carbon in the cloth to make it appear as if the entier shroud was from the 14/1300's or whatever century they claim the fire happened in. Science wouldn't stop there but demand to carbon date a different part of the shroud, a non-repaired part, if the fire damage repair was the "cause" of the results.
I think you should straight up tell them you're not comfortable with this, that you want your own space, and that you don't believe any of the vasati stuff. Tell them you're OK with them moving the rest of the house around, but ask them to respect your feelings and what you want.
I know exactly what you're saying! Absolutely! I think the same thing about things the rogues say and stuff often. But the point is to be skeptical, and you are. It's good.\n\nBut, where he differs from quacks is that he is using science to do things, even if they may not occur. Ever.\n\nThe appeal, like you asked for, is that he's looking for these things that are normally relegated only to religion and pseudoscience, but with legitimate theories. It's all theoretical, and untested, but few others are going for this eternal life thing in a SCIENTIFIC way like he is.
Reminds me of this time I was playing baseball and I was playing first base. A friend was playing second base. I had this feeling all of a sudden that I should tell him to shift over towards me, even though the batter was a righty. I ignored it, and sure enough, the next pitch was hit perfectly in the gap between me and him, he would have got it if I had told him to shift. Kicked myself for that one.
I don't mean to give you too much to write about, but I'd honestly like to know as much of the test as possible.  Also, has it been published and peer-reviewed?  What were the controls?  Etc.  Thanks
> No, I don't mean it in a philosophical wordplay sort of way.\n\nOkay, how did you mean that statement then? Can you clarify? Because it certainly reads like 'philosophical wordplay' right now.\n\n> It depends on your definition of the word "theory." Do you mean hypothesis? Or do you mean scientific theory?\n\nGood question--it depends on who you ask, I suppose, and how the question is asked. In this instance, however, I'm confident that you would find some scientific theories in the aforementioned links I submitted as paranormal evidence. But does that mean you believe?\n\nDid people believe in 200 BC when theories on the spherical shape of the Earth came to light?
I don't see a paranormal angle to this.
The sheer amount of woo in that little town is mind-boggling.  However, the landscape of the Arizona Redrocks is one of the most beautiful in the country.  When I visit my parents in Sedona, I find myself utterly in awe of nature's beauty.  It really is a profound experience.  I have never understood why people can't take in the landscape for what it is instead of injecting New Age hippy crap into it, or why they felt it necessary to build a tacky cross-shaped chapel into the side of magnificent cliff faces.
Umm he said it was a white silhouette...
but before you get hydrogen and oxygen you generally get steam which usually escapes and so (for this and many other reasons) isn't heated to the point where it can break apart into component atoms. \n\nYou know what else cooks with steam? Just about every method that cooks something containing water.\n\n
I tweeted a link to a story about a child who died in California because her parents can't think, and was immediately descended upon by the stupidest woman in the known universe, who apparently "just wants to protect her children".\n\nAccording to her there is no "proof" that smoking causes cancer and the entire profession of journalism is in cahoots with every single scientist, pharmaceutical company, government official and medical professional, IN THE WORLD, to "cover up" the "truth" about Andrew Wakefield—who for those who don't know was found to have acted "against the interests of his patients and acted dishonestly and irresponsibly" when he was struck off the United Kingdom medical register in May of 2010 for suggesting there was a link between the MMR vaccine and autism when there is no evidence of it whatsoever.\n\nThe clear link between these people and the Tea Party, young-Earth creationist, let's all vote for a witch, immigrants raped my dingo, six toed, Fox News watching brain donors is both hilarious and sickening at the same time.\n\nI vote we organise a bloodless Coup d'état while they're not looking and install a government of national rationalism.  \n\n• Mandatory to read at least one newspaper and watch at least 16 hours per-week of any news channel not owned by Rupert Murdoch.\n\n• Illegal to run for any public office if you think atheism is a religion, or evolution is a belief.\n\n• If you got it, smoke it.\n\n• The Vatican is not a state.\n\n• Declare Deepak Chopra a national embarrassment.\n\n• Raise taxes by 1% on the richest 1% of registered Republicans.\n\n• Make the final season of Deadwood.\n\n• Free university places for every school kid in America just for watching the Paul Giamatti HBO movie 'John Adams'.\n
Well, you can clearly see the blade not coming straight out as it went in. So there's a dead giveaway. Other than that, his hat, turban, whatever it is, is very close to it. My theory is the mechanism (read, metal hairband) is underneath the hat, holding the two pieces together.
Ahahahaha my grandmother would find the way I dress when I go out too tame. She was a crazy partier - one of the first Halloweens my mom knew my father [grandmother was his mom], she had gone out in a trench coat and bikini with a wig and huge glasses and flashed people. She was very svelte and looked good and was only in her 30s at the time, though.\n\nAnyway, I don't know exactly how I feel about the prospect of ghosts, because I feel like she would have killed me by now - she, a scary Italian woman, told me to never date an Italian man, and I bred with one, so if she could manifest I doubt it'd be to give me jewelry back.
/r/collapse
so this is disclosure thru the back door then?
Just because it's reliable doesn't mean it's good for everything.\n\nAs an audio engineer, I can tell you that using Windows for that is garbage unless you spend as much building a PC as you would have on a Mac anyway.\n\nThe difference is that Macs with more modest specs still run audio and video editing and production software well, while modestly specced Windows machines are worthless for it.\n\nConversely, it doesn't really matter how fast your Mac is if you want to play games, because OpenGL is garbage and most games perform far better on DirectX.\n\nBasically if you want a computer to play games on or just browse the internet or do office work with, a Mac makes no sense. But if you're in production or media creation, you're gonna have to spend an assload for a usable computer either way. Might as well get the one the software you need is designed for/runs better on.\n\nIt makes sense to build your own desktop system and Hackintosh it, but if you need a mobile computer for production stuff then a MacBook is the only way to go. PC laptops are almost always shoddily constructed and sluggish unless you spend a fortune. And even if you do, Windows needs to be loaded down with special drivers and system services to make the various laptop-specialized peripherals work. MacOS just has all that stuff built into it.
Interesting how Novaya Zemlya and a few other Russian islands have significantly higher lactose intolerance than the mainland. I guess it's just an artefact from whatever map this was sourced from, but it seems a bit lazy.
Well the way i look at it is try to look at humans from an outsider perspective.  Assuming that the "aliens" have an intimate familiarity with us, they would know that we're highly emotional.  The majority of us also strongly believe in various gods that may or may not exist.  Oh, and we also have the power to destroy our planet at the touch of a button\n\nI'm sure they realize that there's almost no way for them to make their presence known without damaging the fragile thing we have going on here.  And who knows, maybe there really is a galactic federation of some sorts with rules/protocols about how to approach situations like this.  I'm sure higher intelligences would have some sort of "don't interfere" policy
The truth is we don't know how they know yet. But we know they know. Somehow.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAX94eA2zrA
Short answer, no this is not proof of Extra-Terrestrials. Its only proof of strange things in the sky.  I'm not a skeptic, but the level of proof is clear, the level of proof the planet Earth will need will be an encounter of the 3rd kind we all witness. \n
She's not consuming carbohydrates? What does she think is in the fruit juice that makes it sweet?\n\nIncidentally, I'm not against fasting, there is some proven medical benefit, but more than a couple of days and she is risking serious muscle and bone loss. Thirty days is crazy!
All classrooms were on the 4th floor. 3rd floor for the faculty room and dean's office and the computer room. 2nd floor and the 1st floor for the computer laboratories. Besides, I mentioned at the beginning that we were on our classroom at the 4th floor.
Unity brother.
Wow. I've never heard of this before. Many thanks for the explanation. :) i'll definitely have to look them up, and read about them some more.
reike "healing" involves touch healing for the "easy" levels. Once you level up you can do distance "healing".\n\n\nYes, it is bullshit.
Hey, **remember how fun it was to make fun of the Hitler Channel**?\n\nAnd now you're all crying for Nazi's again?\n\n*you made me this way...*
This house is actually TIED for "most haunted house" in England.  It has the exact same number of actual hauntings as every other house in England at zero.
Thanks for that, as I'm living in China it's something I'll need to try to be aware of. Though I've already told my wife I don't want her to give our daughter Chinese "medicine". Just tried to bring her attention to this and she just started screaming at me, saying that I say all Chinese medicine is bad (irrational emotional woman, never listens to what I'm actually saying which is that most of it hasn't been properly tested).
Man, the whole thread is so goddamn hilarious, thanks for making my day!\n\nEDIT: If anything happens to you, I will avenge you!
If you're interested in watching them, these are the two interviews:\n\nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FARDDcdFaQ (Richard Dawkins)\n\nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BCipg71LbI (David Silverman)
>Subluxation, whether you agree with the treatment or the supposed effects of the condition, is a real thing, medically speaking.\n\nYes, but the medical definition of subluxation and the Chiropractic use of the term are different things.  Just like the word "energy" is a real thing in physics, but the way that new agers use it is meaningless.\n
I have a terrible habit of going off on tangents. I was wondering if there was more data on the causes or if we were just making it up as we went along.\n\nEditing the post to rectify this.
Yeah. Actually, I think you're both right. I will say that astral projection is best begun with a serious meditation practice, and that a good awareness of where your energy usually is and how you can use it is very important. Otherwise, it becomes very difficult. Chakra manipulation is very useful. Remember, whatever chakra you expand infinitely is the aspect of yourself that exists on all planes at once. So make sure you get the right one, or things could get bad-decision hilarious in a way no drunken friends will ever appreciate.
Actually, you seem like a dick.\n\nOP made a great and informative post, and as he stated, it was his opinion.
Did he have a huge tattoo of Alan Partridges face on his chest?
I was surprised memetics was there. I guess the idea that it is a valid concept is just a meme.
What does this doc mean?
I'm presuming it was one of the astronauts on NASA mission STS-88, but it could have also been Marvin the Martian.  \n\nAnd how exactly are you coming to the conclusion that these are huge objects? I must have missed the yard stick floating out there too. \n\nBut for serious, you can look up the STS-88 mission and probably narrow down your search of who took the pictures.
Good rebuttal.  I'm convinced.
Are these world totals, or just for the US?
I understand the hate for the marketing and advertising lies, but there are a ton of *toxic* chemicals that were introduced into our food supply in the last 50 years. Food coloring, preservatives, flavor enhancers, stabilizers, and countless other additives. Have you read the ingredient label on any microwave dinner? It's as long as your forearm in tiny print. O sure, those things are harmless, right?\n\nWhat is meant by good faith chemical free living is eliminating toxic household cleaners in particular. And find foods that have all natural ingredients. Or cook them yourselves from scratch.
This article is based on a false premise, that being, the pharmaceutical wants us to pay them for drugs that do nothing therefore mental disorders are not real. Because treatments are not one hundred percent effective of safe does not prove that the condition is not real. They also assert a lot without providing any evidence to back it up and they use argument from authority in the form of their testimonials. There is probably more but I only made it through the first paragraph before I decided it was rubbish.
Spiritual doo doo???
You forgot a few MWAHAHAHAHA over there.
> Did anyone say that she doesn't have a right to say what she said?\n\nNo. But that is how Rebecca and her crew interpreted and characterised Richard Dawkins comments.  After reviewing Richard's first comment, I do too see that as a possible interpretation.  But 20 minutes later, Richard made a second comment to clarify the point he was trying to make.  He was not arguing that she didn't have a right to say what she said.  His argument was that it wasn't a big deal.\n\nFor clarity, here is Richard Dawkins initial satirical comment:\n\nhttp://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/07/always_name_names.php#comment-4295492\n\nWhen he saw that his intent was being misinterpreted (which isn't unusual for satire) he followed up with this comment to clarify his point:\n\nhttp://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/07/always_name_names.php#comment-4295668
Is your brother a fatter Simon Pegg?
Good point. I mixed things up and was quoting that as an example of flawed logic and an example of a clear counter argument that shows the absurdity of the logic.
Nope, Coke bottle.
Synopsis from a Russian speaking youtube commenter:\n\n "Ordinary talks with tower and aircraft.\n\nBut where a UFO near, talks a lot of noise (pilots not responding).\n\nWhen the connection came back to normal, the pilot responded that they heared a voice like a female and a cat meow\n\nSorry for my bad english"\n
A lot of people cannot be immunized as their immune system couldn't handle it. They're protected when enough people vaccinate, which, now, for retarded reasons, people aren't. These idiots say stuff "I had the measles, I survived", while not thinking about the people who would die from catching it.
Can you give some sort of TLDR for this document?  I'd love a brief summary...
Hasn't he tried to combat this by arranging to have testing done when he's not around, and not even made aware of the exact date/time they're taking place? Of course there are other excuses made after that but he certainly does as best as possible to make the tests "fair" as seen by the individual woo-peddlers.
Schrödinger's QM and Einstein's relativity were so close together and both of them (at least under the standard, Copenhagen interpretation) sort of said that normal intuitive logic about how things work doesn't totally apply to the world we live in. Instead we need something else. Some people take it to mean *anything* else.
Oh, and i'm not a sir, i'm a lady :)
His exemplary qualifications were listed, and you haven't challenged them.
Oh god. A smaller concentration can have a larger effect? Don't let the homeopaths know, they'll never shut up about it.
Those cigar shaped UFO's have always reminded me of the roomba, maybe we're just seeing a circle but at an angle that makes it seem like a tube.
Massive corporations like these make it possible that even poor people like yourself can enjoy products that were once reserved for kings.
I don't know if I would have seen it without your suggestion of what I "should" see...
Socrates said "I Know that I know nothing."  When you begin with a notion (of any kind) you undermine your data set. You have to collect data first, then find a formula to vet it. The problem is we don't know what the phenomena is, or how it effects us or our instruments.  In some situations our instruments pick it up, sometimes they don't. Sometimes people see things, sometimes they don't. If the phenomenon was as simple as a metal object in the sky we'd have more to go on. But we also have to take into account what effect this has upon those experiencing the thing. Is this a physical interaction, where the thing itself radiates some hazardous or distorting marital. Does the experience take issue in the psyche to compile or recall the experience. I could go on, but you see there are too many variables to just rule out A or B with  common sense logic based on ordinary cause and effect. Depending on what you were trying to prove you could throw out experiences that don't apply, but I wouldn't just discount something that didn't make sense- as it could after the fact, if we can ever get a sense of what's occurring. I think so many have already have made the assumption that the thing is a craft, that it's not local, etc. there just isn't prof for any of these assumptions. If too many of the accounts are dissimilar in nature but in abundance, we should start from the least common denominator. That these things do happen, and are disorienting. I don't have anything against skepticism or intuition- but these aren't the tools for science. When working in the dark you have to begin unbiased.
Sativa + Ancient Aliens = OMG aliens are here
That my be true. But without double blind studies, I wouldn't pay 1800 dollars more for something that has a small subjective benefit.
Not really true. See http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/who-built-the-pyramids.html
nah man, i get you. I'm fairly certain 99% of us in this subreddit sound "crazy" as fuck to our shirt-sighted friends and family. If my friends hadn't been there with when we saw those red orbs, they wouldn't have believed me!
I'm pretty sure a psychiatrist would be able to help you answer the question.
I don't think that characterizing her as a drama queen is fair. Consider the Xbox Live analogy where when an online gamer reveals herself to be a girl, and is suddenly inundated with 'friend requests'.  The majority of those are driven by a sexual objectification; some of it direct and vulgar, some of it desperate, pathetic, and hopeless attempts for female companionship.  Possibly some friend requests are made with no sexual motivation but merely to have a gamer buddy, but they're not helping out the situation but contributing to the deluge of friend requests made by the other online gamers. From the girl gamer's POV, the situation is one where she is being overwhelmed by overtures by males whose principal motivation is anything but gaining a gaming buddy.  This is a severe deterrent for girls who just want to play video games online.  I submit that this is the analogous situation in the ~~skeptic~~ atheist community for women who simply want to participate in the community, they can't because they are getting hit on all the time, they are being treated as sexual objects first and as members of the skeptic community second. This I believe is RW's motivation for her talk. It's not to be a drama queen, its to try to make a male dominated culture understand that they are doing a disservice to themselves and the ~~skeptic~~ atheist community by reflexively hitting on them.  And more importantly, they are doing a disservice to women by treating them as sexual objects instead of treating them as members of the ~~skeptic~~ atheist community in equal standing to the males. Once women are treated with equal respect and standing in the community, then hell yeah, let the nerd orgy begin with consent on both sides of the gender table, girls want to get laid just like boys, but they want to be treated as equals to the boys and they can't get purchase in a culture that treats them like sexual objects first.  It's not being a drama queen for RW to make this point.  But when the reaction goes all out of proportion, feminists don't have the option of backing down, because to do so would be to appear to be subservient, which is the situation that feminsts are fighting to stop.  The overblown reaction by the male ~~skeptic~~ community essentially forces feminists to stand their ground regardless of the reasonable arguments for and against the stand that they are making. Thus the shitstorm, and out of proportion responses on both sides of the issue.\n\nBut this is just my opinion, I'm not an expert on feminism by any stretch, and I can't claim to be speaking for RW on the issue.\n\nEdit: Thanks to TurboFuel for pointing out that this was at a conference on atheism, addressing the atheist community.
Rowland's death.  Because he was one of the first to show humans had an effect on the climate.  So deniers won't even believe he's dead, because they're so thick headed. Get it?
The thousands of creepy comments she receives in every medium where she speaks, and the fact that so many people give a pass to rape threats while getting offended at her suggestions for how not to be creepy, are evidence that the skeptic community has some serious issues.
Its a novel experience :D But to any impressionable kids, really fucking dangerous
I don't know that I'd really want to make contact with humans after having observed them for a while. Between religion and woo, it's hard to make a case that we'd react rationally. Not that I believe aliens have necessarily already visited and observed the Earth, but you have to ask yourself if they'd really want to get involved with us if they did.
Ah, yes indeedy
On top of that, while innocuous enough on their own, in context both "physical trainer" and "personal assistant" can easily be construed to have sexual meanings.
Wow, that's pretty amazing. Thanks for sharing.
Also back when I tried this, I found studies of the air force which concluded that every human appears to have a certain minimum sleep time. Sleeping less than that is equivalent to not sleeping at all. This rendered these kind of sleep schedules unusable on a large scale.
That was my favorite part--I'm surprised more people don't use this.  "Don't care about it? OBVIOUSLY you're under the sway of _Sodium Fluoride_!
that is some fucking insane footage...
We're all fascinated by his cat's unusual nature.  His cat does amazing, unbelievable things like looking at him and also knocking things off of shelves.  Don't try to badmouth his amazing cat. You're just jealous of their relationship, you bitter old urbanite. http://www.reddit.com/r/cats/comments/134rds/why_do_they_do_this/c719iun\n\n
This is exactly the kind of thinking that makes UFO researchers and UFO enthusiasts look like whack jobs.
So how on earth should you pronounce Nicaragua if you're an English speaker?  Should you pronounce it the way it'd be pronounced in English, which I'd assume is Nic-a-rag-oo-ah best I can figure?  Or 'Nic-a-raw-gwah', which is the only way I've ever heard it pronounced, which I guess is the way y'all are talking about when you say 'putting a false Spanish accent' on it.\n\nWhat is the correct way to pronounce Nicaragua if you're Spanish?  How about English? \n\n>  putting the false accent on a word like Nicaragua when you are a native English speaker and you are presently speaking English is just as wrong as saying supposebly. \n\n And why would it be wrong to try and pronounce a word with its original pronunciation even if you're speaking a different language currently?  If I say I want some agua, I'm not going to say 'ag-oo-a' as it'd be pronounced in English (I suppose), rather I'm going to say 'awg-wa', which is the Spanish pronunciation, but also the correct one.
>Nope, I never did that. Do you not know how to read? And what gods? There's nothing to suggest this was for gods, it's just assumed.\n\nOftenStupid was referring to the pyramids on that one. Don't be dense.\n\n>The video shows the use of wooden framework. That didn't exist at the time. That technology showed up a thousand years later.\n\nYou're not seeing the forest through the trees here. He used modern cuts of wood, and what I'm assuming to be modern bolts/nails. People have been putting together wooden structures for ages before the advent of modern wood processing and metallurgy. It would not be hard at all to make a sturdy wooden fulcrum similar to the one in the video if you cut the wood so that they fit into each other. That's a technology that was around at the time. Hell, you can make a fulcrum like that with uncut logs.\n\n>It also shows rotary devices, a thousand years before the wheel showed up in that region.\n\nAm I missing something? The video looks like dick, but I couldn't make out any wheels. Where did you see this? Also, the video states that no pulleys or hoists were used.\n\n>Saying this is how stone henge was built...\n\nThe reporter is being a bit sensationalist with saying the man solved the mystery and this is exactly how it was done. All this video is is a proof of concept. If one man can move such heavy stones by his lonesome just for the hell of it, it shows that a dedicated group of people can surely do more.\n\n>...is equivalent to saying the car was invented before the motor\n\nIt was. A car is nothing more than a motorized wagon, and wagons have existed for millenia. As much as people want to point out how crappy the current generation is, people have been lazy bastards since existence.\n\nEdit: dotting T's and crossing I's.
Actually he was a pisces 2000 years ago.
I'm kind of sad that I found this subreddit, and this post, because before I was blissfully unaware that anyone believed this "homeopathy" thing.
dude you need to photograph this in order to prove it although it may make it stop if there is concrete proof.  but try it anyways
Begin debunking!\n\n 1) Check Source\n\n 2) Is Source "Infowars.com?"\n\n 3) Successfully Debunked. Congratulations.
Upvoted your original comment for being open to opposing view points.
But you DO believe in a consistent set of interactions that manifest in certain kinds of systems...
That looks like a typical 5-drawer dresser. Those are extremely common, and they're not 6-7 feet tall. [here](http://amzn.com/B002TSAE66) are some [similar](http://amzn.com/B00534GRRS) [dressers](http://amzn.com/B0029T6IX8). Those are 44 inches, 42.8 inches, and 45.25 inches tall, respectively. I've tried to find taller dressers in that style, and they're quite hard to find, and are going to be a lot more expensive. It seems unlikely that your parents would have bought a very expensive piece of furniture that you couldn't even use to its full extent for a small child.\n\nYou're misremembering something.
The thing is that this isn't about ESP or homoeopathy or something. The general claim here is basically that the brain can be "hacked" and taken advantage of. This is in line with what the last few decades of cognitive science research has told us about the brain (the video linked in this thread is a good example of the mind blowing results studies have turned up).\n\nSo while you would require some really extraordinary evidence for a claim such as ESP you don't require it for this. Being overly sceptical about something is just as irrational as being too believing. Also I don't see why you're differentiating the placebo effect and NLP tricks, no one here is claiming that the effect is anything but deceiving the brain.
Eating more calories than your body can metabolize causes weight gain. It's that simple.\n\nWhat's not simple is - why eat more calories than your body needs? And does you body metabolize all the foods you eat equally?\n\nIt seems to me (from personal experience) that when I low-carb, I'm positively eating less calories than I would normally. For me (type 2 diabetic) eating less carbs is more important than eating less calories. However, both go hand in hand.\n\nThe real issue is what is the psychology that makes people eat more food than they need. This is where all the analysis goes wrong and I think for one reason it seems that all the folks doing the proclaiming are skinny (or at least normal weight).\n\nToo many people who advise me to "lose weight by eating less" have not the slightest idea what eating less than your body wants means. Continuous hunger pangs, difficult mental stress and many other psychological effects. It's why 90% of people return to their previous weight after a significant weight loss. \n\nI don't have any major info to contribute other than I find that a lower-carb diet seems to allow me to lose weight with less of the traditional hunger cravings than I would with a normal diet. Perhaps this is because I am COMPLETELY cutting out a particular food type and so it eventually becomes less difficult to not eat. It seems to me that a low-calorie, normal diet just reminds you that you're not eating enough of the food your want at EVERY MEAL. \n\nIMHO of course.
Yes, different heights, ages, etc.
I have heard of diamond shapes but I have never really seen anything (document, vid, whatever) that really gives much info them. Doesn't mean it's not valid, just that I haven't seen much on that.\n\nThere is something to the whole abduction thing. What is up for speculation as so much in this area is. The kooks mess it up but like the Travis Walton case there is some interesting info out there. Having witnessed many polygraphs administered before I know they are not absolutely conclusive but it is a useful investigative tool. T. Walton and the others passed multiple polygraphs which does lend credence to the story for me.
Exactly this. Being a skeptic doesn't mean you can't assert anything without a research paper sitting next to you. You don't need to be an evolutionary biologist to believe evolution is real.
these people probably think the moon landing was faked anyway.
I'm going to go with the scientist on this one. If the object was a ET of some sort it would be a huge ship at that.
Scientists are not jurors.  The scientific method is not the same as weighing the preponderance of evidence in court.  I don't think professional ridicule is the problem.  To my knowledge, there is no physical evidence to examine, and no career path (funding of research, university positions, steady income) in UFOlogy.  Astronomy is a career, aerospace engineering is a career.  A person has to make a living.  The biggest ET research org SETI is about to fold.  Also, chew on this: the government is the biggest funder of research.  If they are complicit, there is no hope of such a field opening up.  Even if they aren't complicit, try to write your congressmen and convince them at this time of economic strife, we need to give money to scientists to chase down anecdotes and blurry photos in an effort to precipitate global panic.  Think any congressman is going to stand up in the Senate and insist on prioritizing that?\n\nIf ET is here, ET seems to be trying to be unobtrusive.  Sometimes I wonder if they *are* here, maybe we should respect their clear desire to remain low profile, given their presumably advanced wisdom.
I think it's ridiculous. Psychology is a science because it uses scientific methods to try and solve problems.\n\nMedical science is no better or worse than Psychology. Doctors get shit wrong all the time. They do tests and still get things wrong. We approve medications and treatments that later get pulled because they are harmful. Yet we accept doctors as being scientific. We accept medication as being scientific.\n\nI think it's all in what people are looking for with their own confirmation bias(es).\n\nEDIT: I should add that I am proud that psychology has a lot of debate and many updates to their diagnostic routines. If medical science were that progressive, I argue it would be a lot better and safer.
Yes, all sugar is bad, but HFCS becomes the target because of how cheap it is to make (most of the reason why it is in so many of the foods we now eat).
The Catholic Church in Ireland has done a fairly good job of:\n1. Recruiting a lot of people\n2. Horribly, horribly disgracing itself in the eyes of those people.
cgi i think too, and the talking is all majestic 12 operations
[I made this for you](http://memegenerator.net/instance/13342568)
Basically, the guy cherry-picked data and claimed that very, very weak correlations (or ones with other, well-known causes not related to animal protein) were causative. One of the most complete take-downs of the study can be found [here](http://rawfoodsos.com/the-china-study/), in various parts. I highly recommend, if you have a *long* time and some technical knowledge, [this extended response](http://rawfoodsos.com/2010/08/06/final-china-study-response-html/) from the same page.
While it sucks for the kids, as long as nature gets all of them it is functionally the same as the parents dieing in the long run.
Peter Pan gives you goosebumps?
Especially when the hosting website states:\n\n> (motto): "critical thinking for a critical dilemma"\n\nand\n\n> * We are profoundly critical of the practice of vaccination.  *Vaccination is an unacceptable risk to every member of society, regardless of age.*\n\nNot really the type of "critical" implied in "critical thinking." It looks more like biased thinking to me; "critical" as in "I will find fault in everything you do, no matter what."
Often those types of shows are few and far between. To be honest the people they hire for those jobs often don't know what show they are really applying for. \n\nThe production company often doesn't care too much about the type of person doing the work just that it gets done. It's a sad truth. They also usually go from production to the next so they hire pretty generically. \n\nSorry for being a Debbie Downer. Of course if you were really interested in a show like that there's no harm writing in and giving your case.
didn't look, act, or sound like an airplane.
Correct--the PLoS study was single blind.\n\nAlso, a single study can indeed show the efficacy of a treatment, provided that it is well designed (reproducible, multiple levels of tight control (incl. placebo control), large sample sizes, multiple assays, etc.).\n\nThe scientific study of acupuncture is in its infancy, and you are right that further studies are required to draw more complete conclusions.  That said, as we see here, experimental design is just as important as the statistical analysis.  All the statistical analysis in the world is moot, if the data that is being analyzed is bad data due to poor design.
I don't think I would believe anything said on the natural news website. It is a known source of bunk.
Except she never even said it will help you.\n\nAnd this guy doesn't claim to be able to help everyone. He also doesn't charge for his services, and he tells everyone that he sees to continue seeing medical professionals and to heed their advice.\n\nI'd never watch Oprah if not for my girlfriend, and I'm usually the cynic/skeptic in the room, but in all honesty - I've never seen Oprah sit so squarely on the fence, and go so far as to look at her guests like they're very possibly crazy.
I came here to defend her and then I read your post. Hmm... You're right.
The placebo effect is a statistical anomaly. It's not something you can knowingly put into action. It's the result of patients reporting (or doctors observing) improvements in purely subjective areas like pain, discomfort, and the like.
Could be I suppose. I still have very vivid memories of going through the whole process of getting the sled, checking out the tree, walking up the hill, to sliding down and falling off.
Typically they stop after shootin
Regarding "K2 hit with smoke around me"  You're wearing what appears to be a winter jacket, and gloves.  I'm assuming it's cold.  The "smoke" appears directly around your head...or as I like to call it "condensation from your warm breath and body".  Doesn't quite have the same ring as "paranormal smoke" though.\n\nSeriously, as was stated, there are FAR too many logical explanations for these pictures to deem them paranormal, IMO.
Unfortunately, it doesn't look like the documentary can be watched outside Canada (I'm in the UK), which is a shame, it looked like it might be interesting :(
Okay. Do you see a reason to speculate about non-ordinary reality in this scenario? I don't, which is why I'm asking you about your reasons for attributing this to something paranormal.
Study one religion, and you've got part of the story.\nStudy another religion, and you've got another part.\nKeep studying.
Okay il be the first to say, thats just fucking retarded.
>Todd was arrested in May 1987 for the rape of a University of South Carolina graduate student. After his arrest, he was additionally charged with sexually molesting two children who attended a karate school where he worked. He was convicted of the rape in January 1988 and sentenced to 30 years in state prison.
Sounds like job security to me.
The moon is actually the remains of the spaceship ancient aliens used when they accidentally crashed on earth on a mission to plant starseeds across the universe. They teleported out of here and left the wreckage behind.
> Nutritiondata.self isn't verified at all\n\nWhile they don't list the sources, they mainly take from the USDA database. I downloaded the original documents from http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ and they matched for most of the foods I was interested in. I like to use it because I can make recipes and look at pretty charts, compared to the USDA DB.
[Here's the interview Robert Blaskiewicz is talking about at that link](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jTSlc2njEw&t=0m48s).  Why doesn't he link to the source material in his article?
Ya certain engines need high octane fuel. If you have a turbo then you're gonna need 91. I think they were talking about people who put high octane in regular cars. But that doesn't mean it's a rip off.
I stand corrected
My son just received some immunizations today, including the dreaded DPT. I hate that there's people out there who have for sole mission to scare away a well-meaning populace from making the safest health choices. What gets me is that they believe their own hype. \n\nSuch non-sense...
You must have me mistaken w/ either a "capitalist" or I guess a "libertarian".  I'm neither, but thanks for playing.
Hmm! So, digging a little further it seems that this has been floating around since at least 2009 and the Mail has just picked up on it.\n\nhttp://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread425628/pg1\n\nI wish the FBI would put a release date on their documents :(\n\nI'd never heard of this before. Very interesting.\n\n
there were no fallacies. but keep hitting your head against that rock with no argument. sorry. but you are wrong here and any sane person would see that.
Hey, can you get me some d1sc0unt V14gr@?
"Wait, you have proof? Well, never mind then, I'm not convinced at all!"
> "We can agree on certain assumptions"\n\nFor the sake of argument, let's say we can't...\n\nYour move.
thanks. Most excellent.\n\nWhere did you find this?\n\ntoo much UFO stuff are things that go away when you have quality photography, data, etc.
Yeah, and I'm the Queen of England....
He was asked to leave the room by Grothe for another reason that was relayed to him, but he still was allowed to attend TAM. He was not thrown out of TAM like alleged and there was no report of harassment. It is understandable but ultimately wrong to assume he wouldn't need to be notified.\n\nIt's such a big problem that these people don't want to handle it themselves or get the staff to handle it for them at the time. So that when someone doesn't accept anecdotes and hearsay they get really angry.
[Shoe on head?](https://skydrive.live.com/redir.aspx?cid=e3914fe6ddc4cc35&resid=E3914FE6DDC4CC35!1574&parid=E3914FE6DDC4CC35!1563&authkey=!AJQc7Rvun5f1fmU)
>it's a life-saver for people with Crohn's\n\nCoeliac is the disease where wheat is harmful.  Crohnies have all sorts of  triggers.
To be quite honest I don't think this is specific to USA. While the different types of Pseudoscience may differ from one nation to another its always there. You just have to walk down the streets of Paris or visit Hong Kong or Japan and Russia or anywhere your going to find it. \n
I live im kitty hawk and my parents are in Shiloh(across the sound on the mainland) a bunch of my family said something about a big shooting star. They only saw one streak though, however at the end they said it split up into a bunch of streaks for a second. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnCUYEYz454 This is a "real" OBX UFO. haha.
Please play nice, children.  You know nothing about roccco's life, and he knows nothing of yours.  \n\nLet's keep it civil.
I studied acoustics and studio design in university. When we did experiments and tests in an anechoic chamber(a room that reduces a rooms acoustics to almost none - all sound is absorbed). When we would stand alone in silence in the chamber 2 sounds could be heard if you could listen padt the sound of your breathing: a low frequency noise and a high frequency ringing. \nThe low frequency was the sound of blood flowing through your body. The high frequency is the sound of your nervous system. \nOver time in silence, the muscles in your ears contract around the 3 tiny bones in your ear, causing low amplitude noises to be picked up. At this level where the sound of your nerves and blood become audible, you could also be hearing anything else. Distant sounds, trembling limbs, your own imagination.\nDoubtful that ghost noises are heard through nerve impulses.
Goofing around with google earth, you can work out that the view is from roughly 500 to 600 meters high (about 1500 to 1700 feet) about a mile east of Fort Worth Convention Center (that dome building among all of the skyscrapers).\n\nSo the height is reasonable for many birds.
Interesting. But paranormal?
Yes there is. It's called Bayesian filtering. It's mainly use to separate good emails (ham) from spam but you can use it for a purpose such as yours.
Yes, different heights, ages, etc.
Can't believe you're getting downvoted. It's the most likely explaination.\n\nHere are some videos of blimps at night:\n\nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ND6sHf7go6I&NR=1\n\nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEvGLcNFKV8
Astrology is bullshit, I'll give you that. Astronomy, however, is not. You may think that knowing what your "sign" is is bullshit, but knowing the astronomical aspects of the sky is very interesting. The point I'm trying to make is, if you have a girl who is into astrology, take her to look at the sky, and impress her with fact. \n\nMost people who do astrology don't even understand the basics, like even that fact that to say you were "born under a certain sign" really just means that the Sun at its zenith during that day just happened to be within that constellation.\n\ntl;dr: Astrology is bullshit, but Astronomy is kick ass.
I'm about THIS close to full-blown commie, and even I can't stomach HP. It's an idealogical sewer.
Damn. When you say that the blinds smashed the ceiling do you mean that it looked like someone had pulled the cord that opens them really hard?
Most atheists (at least the vocal ones) are skeptics which puts them at odds with the whole supernatural/paranormal thing.
>Like the Soup-nazi, diseases won't tailor themselves to you.  \n\nNo croup for you!
Interesting that nearly every fallacy I know is actually an informal, rather than formal, fallacy.
It seems unwise to conclude that it's ALL bullshit just because 95% of it is indeed bullshit. It does suck, but it's up to us to sift the truth (and the noteworthy cases) from the copycat hoaxers and disinformation and bullshit. It takes a lot of patience and perseverance and a strong will to not jump to premature conclusions. \n\nEvery time you get frustrated I'd recommend going over to r/UAP and reading over the well-documented cases throughout history. There is a ton of solid information as far as UFOs go.\n\nNot sure what to think about these reported sounds yet. It is very difficult to tell how many of the reports are just other unexplained industrial noise or whatever. I've been following along over at Earthfiles, but... grain of salt. It sure as hell isn't seismic in my opinion. I am more inclined to believe witness reports over youtube videos, though, and Linda Howe seems to be one of the few people interviewing witnesses still.\n\nI will say this, though: it isn't inconceivable that a massive UFO (or a thousand of them) would have the technology to visually cloak itself. Not sure why they'd make that much noise, but it isn't completely implausible at this point IMO. Lack of information.
I loved this line: "Perhaps fearful of another Million Ghost March, skeptics are holding this year’s convention at the little-known South Point Hotel & Casino."\n\nHaven't they been holding it at that casino since the start?
Being a skeptic does not give us a right to disrespect others.
Life does not make us optimists. However, optimists are happier and healthier ( just go with me here for a second ). Therefore, I've taught my son to be optimistic as a path. It's mainly, at this point, a ploy for success. It can do a lot for your sex life and attitude as well. This may seem dishonest, but it's a victimless crime and it works!  :)
But isn't the total amount of water vapor in the atmosphere a symptom of the global climate?  Where CO2 levels are pretty steady regardless?
I must say that I agree with his assessment on Lazar.  Bob has never offered any details on his back engineering or have answered any hard-ball questions regarding the operation of the ship.  It was as if Bob was a pretty good stand in for Gene Roddenberry- great at the overall, made-up concepts but lacking in the nuts and bolts physics behind it.  For instance, what methods did they use to determine the existence of the gravity A and gravity B wave?\n\nBob is a modern day P.T. Barnum, and a pretty damn good one.
People who say "I'm a skeptic, but..." are tiresome to those of us who just say "I'm a skeptic". Being a skeptic means NOT jumping straight to "ghost waitress". Being a skeptic means you understand how fallible memory is. \n\nBetter?
In away we're all dead men talking.
Upvoted for your good explanation of Occam's Razor. \n\n"Entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity."
James Randi is cool. HB-)>
Thanks for the links. The one on possible research biases is especially informative and I have bookmarked it for future reference. As mentioned on one of your links, the observer-expectancy effect can be controlled by doing double-blind studies, and I think this is also controlled to some extent with single-blind studies since the evaluators are not aware of which treatment the group received. \n\nNevertheless, I do agree with you that it would be good if researchers are not affliated with EFT in any way. There is a a TFT practitioner who conducted [8 controlled, single-blind studies comparing the differences in the efficacy of TFT and EFT](http://books.google.com.sg/books?id=cYUQb9l-DQYC&pg=PA16&lpg=PA16&dq=pignotti+tft+eft+2005&source=bl&ots=RMumG1ALAs&sig=D8rJ1yoh2iyza_kzhkTdf_a_XpY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=8eIMUKL5NI7SrQfuqZ3KCA&ved=0CE0Q6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=pignotti%20tft%20eft%202005&f=false) (p16) and had equivalent significantly positive results for both. In case you don't know, there is a little bit of competition between TFT and EFT practitioners so these results were actually contradictory to her personal expectations. This is probably one of the studies out there that may show impartiality or at least bias in the other direction. \n\nNoted on your points on testimonials and agreed. \n\nMay I know which is the clinical study you found that were conducted by researchers with no conflicting interests and with no evidence for EFT? \n\nThanks for the information and the example research illustrating funnel plots. This is new to me, though I do know that there is much for me to learn in the area of research. So are you saying that even though the majority of existing research for EFT shows the efficacy of EFT, it is not enough and we need to have more large and strong studies as well as to examine all the research as a whole to look for the overall pattern? If this is the case, it sounds like there are still a lot of research work that needs to be done in the field of EFT. \n\n\n
I must admit, there certainly does seem to be something in those pictures... not sure what, but something.
They are sugar pills.
That's a very simplistic statement so I don't think many skeptics will upvote that. What exactly are you asserting is in meat that the liver needs to detoxify the body.
Looks convincing to me. But I have little experience with this kind of image. Anyone have any ideas on what else this could be?
That would be one hell of an inconvenience.
I don't understand this.  The sound of 18hz?  Could you play 18hz out of a home theater system and get the same effect?
lol panacea, based on composition: fibrous so good for your pooper, cept it is highly absorbent while being non digestable so the potential for dehydration is real. It is basically silica so your body won't do anything with it.
Not true. I laughed twice.
I only ever buy natural, homeopathic alcohol. It has none of the nasty side-effects. No hangover, no regrettable one night stands, and you can drive after!
He's amazing at debunking so much of the pseudo-scientific crap out there. Here's a few random favorites. \n\nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toCcR6D6d5E&feature=related\n\nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWqRFKuryqw&feature=related\n\nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUYq4Iu3OqI&feature=related
Don't let her sneeze on you.
Oh for sure. Michigan (I'm in WV) was already allowing girls to be on the altar. It definitely varies from diocese to diocese.
Agreed.
http://www.englishbaby.com/lessons/5003/slang/the_stars_aligned
There are several portions of your experience that deserve attention if we are to make an honest assessment:\n\n>I'm a firm believer in spirits myself, though I have never seen anything abnormal.\n\nThis is an extremely telling opening statement, as you are stating that you are capable of holding a belief in something that you have no reason to believe in, other than intuition and/or a want to believe. This also implies that you are likely to observe strange phenomena outside of the frame of the paranormal. Would you agree? Disagree?\n\n>I see a woman with blonde hair bent over tending to what I at first think is a dog. I try to adjust my eyes more, and I see that there's no dog. Okay, that's fine. I was just seeing things.\n\nYou're beginning to "see things" that aren't there.\n\n>I try to focus in on the woman more, and she's incredibly dark even though there is a good amount of light down there. I'm looking and looking at her and she almost looks translucent.\n\nYou're now seeing through what appears to be a human body.\n\n>I look away for a split second, the amount of time it took was the equivalent to a blink. I look back, and she's gone.\n\nYou're witnessing something that you are visually perceiving disappear.\n\n>I'm very spooked at this point, so I immediately throw my blinds down, shut my light off and close my eyes. I feel VERY uneasy at this point.\n\nPanic and anxiety set in.\n\n>I just have a sudden feeling that she's in the room with me. I start getting very intense, gruesome visuals of a woman very bloody and beaten, possessed, and just in terrible states that look absolutely terrifying. These visuals are incredibly vivid.\n\nThe panic and anxiety intensifies, along with mental visuals.\n\n>Now, I was already very scared at this point, and I would not want to be conjuring these things up at this point, nor is it something my mind would normally think about.\n\nYou're experiencing disassociation with your normal behavior.\n\n>I kept trying to get myself to stop picturing these things, but no matter how hard I tried to veer my thoughts in a different direction, these visuals wouldn't go away.\n\nYou're losing control.\n\n>But I still couldn't open my eyes. I was completely frozen. I firmly believe that I was not in control of my own thoughts at this point.\n\nYour cognitive and physical reactions are significantly hindered.\n\n>Then suddenly, I get a rush of warmth up my legs, and there's almost like a pressure on them, even though I don't even have a blanket covering them. Then, the warmth goes away, and my legs are completely cold. A very fast and drastic change of temperature and feeling. I feel like she was sitting on my legs.\n\nYou experience hot/cold flashes.\n\n>I'm just looking for opinions and relatable experiences. I'm still rather shaken up and disturbed with what happened and what I saw. Just looking for a little clarity. Thank you all!\n\nI fully understand. I would be spooked, too! But consider your experience reasonably. Yes, it's possible that you experienced a genuine paranormal event in which you were affected in a material way by an immaterial entity that used to be a material human. It's more likely, in my opinion, that you experienced something along the lines of an anxiety attack with hallucinatory effects. There's no downside to relaying this to your doctor, while at the same time burning sage and performing ritual magick.
1:28-1:30 you see a dolphin or something behind the shape. (I think).
Don't get me wrong, champ. I'm not trying to change minds or anything. But while on the one hand we keep an open mind about the potential for conspiracy, we need to keep an open mind on good ol' fashioned fascination and enthusiasm ;)
Haven't you heard? Clerical errors, fatal drug interactions, those totally never happen!!**\n\n ** = False.\n\n// A friend of mine's son died from a fatal drug interaction, the result of a clerical error.\n\n/// I work in the IT department of the hospital he died at.\n\n/// Our hospital has since gone completely electronic with our health records, one of only maybe 100 in the country. We now catch (on average) about 1,000 such potentially harmful/fatal drug interactions per month. The system catches these automatically, and will literally lock down drug-dispensing stations---physically preventing a physician or nurse from obtaining the specific meds that might harm the patient. Just this one improvement in technology not only improves health, but saves lives. \n\nPlease, PLEASE eat a dick, HuffPo.\n\n
That sounds about right. :|\n\nCan I ask another, I have a dream about doing something I love for a living but can never find the time as I work so hard to keep myself afloat. Will I ever achieve what I dream of doing?
Considering how much power and authority the House has, I'd say they are some rather important political jobs there...
[This thread is currently being gamed by /r/whiterights Nazis.](http://www.reddit.com/r/WhiteRights/comments/15cowb/not_all_skepticism_is_warmly_received_at_rskeptic/)\n\nJust thought you should know.
I heard if I listen to Bill Nye, I'll swallow a fly and then I'll die and I won't know why.
It also destroys your intended contact's food supply and potentially pisses them off.
Perverse? The information is public, it just so happened that there was something relevant there - this is the reason for citations no?\n\nAnd seeing as you think citing books, scientific journals and papers is not a solid grounding for applying extra terrestrial hypotheses, I decided to cite you. After all, it seems that your overriding sense of superiority on this subject makes you more right than others. \n\nEDIT: And an FYI, seeing as this is buried in the comments now, and only you will see it. I think it would help you to know that, just because a website does not "look nice" doesn't mean the information presented on such sites are any less worthy of credit or less accurate. It is often the most bare looking and basic websites that provide the best information.
could also be that not everyone we encounter in our daily lives is 'real' so to speak.  the automatons can glitch but the real people can't.  now watch everyone try to convince themselves that they are real.
Which denominations?
If gasoline was 85 percent ethanol then yes. As to your percentages you are right. Since gas is often 10 percent then a loss of 11.7 percent is a fair estimate.
Merely saying "no" is a contradiction for a skeptic?  What if the question is "Is *a* not *a*?"  I was responding to your claim that a politician should have good reasons to be gay in order for his coming out to be a good thing.  As being gay isn't a truth-claim, one's sexual orientation doesn't need reasons.  \n\nA politician who comes out as gay, and fights for gay causes using reason and evidence is better than one that comes out as gay and fights for gay causes by saying that whoever is against gay rights is "weak-minded and finds strength in numbers."\n\n>The value of a well known, well liked person coming out as an atheist is the same as a well known, well liked person coming out as gay is, or at least was in the past couple of decades. Americans don't know a lot of atheists or a lot about atheists. Hearing someone they like and respect happens to be one helps with that. More people coming out as atheists in general helps with that. This is fairly obvious to everyone on /r/atheism so that's the context what he's said is taken.\n\nYes, and it's called the bandwagon effect.  Whoops...sorry to name drop a fallacy...oh wait, its not a fallacy but a cognitive bias.  And, as you say this is obvious to everyone on /r/atheism, a sub replete with the bandwagon effect. [QED](http://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/ds4da/so_ratheism_is_in_love_with_jesse_ventura_this_is/c12hmt8).
Nice job obscuring her identity.
In fact, it isn't. Statistics show that if you were born a second child, you're more likely to be rebellious than your older sibling. Would I have moved so far away from my family if I weren't a second child? Would I have abandoned the evangelical religion my mother did her best to raise me in, or would I have stayed in it like my older brother? Curiously, I'm of all my family I'm the one most likely to handle stress better, and to be tolerant of opposing viewpoints. I sleep soundly, as opposed to the light sleepers in the rest of my family, and generally regarded to be smarter than is probably good for me (my father's words).\n\nNow, would I have chosen to move to Australia as I did if I had learned to be less tolerant or less rebellious? Would I have put up with my ex-wife as long as I did if I weren't also fundamentally calmer and patient than the rest of my family? It's easy to say that my free will directed these choices, but I literally can't see all the factors that came together to make these decisions.\n\n> We're not leaves blowing in the wind here, anything that doesn't violate spacetime can be altered going forward. I understand it's more complex in toto but the past does not always dictate the future.\n\nYou're missing the fact that it's more than just the past determining these factors. What we're prone to eat, how our biochemistry reacts to our food and environment also plays a big factor in determining our personality, and ultimately our behavioral patterns.
You can't prove that the ghosts *didnt* do it!  ;)
While my knowledge of mythology or whatever is less extensive than thou's, unicorn tears were named rather than blood.  \n\nI'll feel like a jerk if unicorn tears are also fucked or if you meant to type tears rather then blood.
This thing gives me a headache. From BEKs to the Piri Reis map... ugh. Very poorly researched. It's sensationalism in blog form.
But there is an ingredient in cinchona active against malaria; there is no active ingredient in a homeopathic preparation.
Ghosts touch my penis while I sleep. You can't prove me wrong so it must be true.
Yeah it can make things way worse
I was with a friend who would have thought i was crazy, it happened quickly and i kinda laughed
OK, good. I can hardly tell anymore.
wut
Don't be deceived by her motherly looks, methinks an apple lies in her pocket!
Tampering of candy? More like cooking something. That's a completely separate thing.
I'm in P-town, too. What have you heard?
People are being rather nasty, but I will say that, if it was real to you, and you're suffering from PTSD symptoms, there may have been something there, something that your sub-concious is terrified of. When children are very young we don't know what to be afraid of, we imagine later on, perhaps it's like a suppressed memory that is causing the PTSD. \n\nAlso, I would like to add that I am scared and exhilarated by the idea of Aliens or UFO's. \n\nKeep the anxiety under control OP, that can do more harm.
Google "Balloon". :)
Thanx for the explanations. Looks like you've got some experience with this kind of thing. The camera i used is a Canon is s2 not a cheap point n click.\n\nAs far as the weather it was a bit  windy and our breath could only be seen if you breathed out hard and it was very faint. I always held my breath during shots to eliminate that possibility, or at least i hoped. And if you look at those some shots they were in places that my breath wouldn't likely show up.  Really high up and far off . And the last smoke shot we got was just last Saturday. It was 75 degrees outside. \n\n\nA couple of the orbs seen to have motion as well.  \n\nNot trying to say your wrong by any means, just trying to give some insight to the situation.\n\nThanks for your reply and knowledge.\n
> Omega 3 is good for you in food but was found not to be good as a supplement. \n\nWat? Fish oil supplementation has been shown to work.
they're not spraying it - it occurs because the motion of the plane moving through the air pulls the particles out of suspension so that you can see them. You ever seen a jet go super-sonic? you know that little cloud that forms around them? The jet isn't "spraying" that - it's a natural phenomenon. SCIENCE FTW
I don't know. I've already cashed the ticket, but you're welcome to try.  I would assume they use some kind of magnetic ink or other counterfeit prevention device.
>Yeah, and once medicine finishes their research, we can bin biology.\n\nHaha perfect response. \n\nEven if we're generous and assume he meant "neuroscience" there, it still represents such a fundamental misunderstanding of science that it's hard to gather the will to respond to such assertions. I've always wondered if people who think that neuroscience can replace psychology also think that physics is going to replace chemistry.
Ha, sounds a bit to pseudoscience for me. I assume it was a psychosomatic response to the thought of a ball hitting me which I guess I had subconsciously calculated that it would
....but......but they have someone speaking clearly and confidently.
Damn his wife.
Well the governor of Tokyo is a follower of Buddhism and Shintoism, and said that the earthquake/tsunamai was divine punishment. But then again, he's just a huge idiot. His [wikipedia page](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shintar%C5%8D_Ishihara) is pretty hilarious, though some of the things he has said are just damn awful.
Pakistan and Al Qaeda have confirmed what the US has said.
I've never been able to really get a good feel on whether Chopra knows he's a fraud or not. Reading things like this though, makes me lean very heavily into the idea that he is. Launching into personal attacks to defend a work the people in question haven't even seen is a fairly big red flag.
No way to tell without a heading, date and time. But given the approximate height from horizon (and seeing as it's in Australia and I'm out nightly with a 16" dobsonian telescope), I'd say, almost positively, that's Jupiter.\n\nVenus right now is only visible just before and after sunset in our wsw. No need for ir filters. Apparent magnitude is similar to the moon (albeit far smaller). Whereas Jupiter is, by my last reckoning, nnw at about 80 degrees. Similar magnitude to venus, but a far larger and noticeable object. It's visible before and after sundown, but visible until morning, where venus disappears after a short -but glorious- performance after sundown.\n\n\n
I agree that it's bullshit FaustTheBird is being downvoted. I upvoted for what it's worth.\n\nAs far as you removing /r/skeptic and hoping everyone is insulted: I think it's safe to say that you won't be missed. We're happy to engage you in discussion - as I did below, though you never responded - but your contributions, at least in this thread, have consisted of emotional histrionics.
In SI units it's a large number, but SI units are chosen fairly arbitrarily. It would be equally valid to use parsecs and nanoseconds as base units, in which case c=9.7×10^-18 is a very *small* number, which means c^2 is a tiny conversion factor. In practice, physicists generally use a system of units in which c=1, which are called natural units, motivated in large part by the way they simplify equations like E = m c^2 + p^2 c^4 , which becomes E = m^2 + p^2 .
Downvoting is for posts that do not contribute to the discussion.  None of the downvoted posts fell under that category.  It's /r/proofread.  If the post is about proofreading, it is relevant.
In my experience, the side that believes in something supernatural is the side that gets upset when they find out I don't believe the same thing(s) they do.  I think believing without knowing stresses the mind and they feel the need to justify that somehow.  I don't know.  It just seems like a lot of stress to protect a fantasy.\n\nI usually just state my position and if they want a debate, and I feel they can be at least civil and somewhat rational, that's fine; if not, I just try to end the conversation as soon as possible.  There really is no need to argue with anyone that's so stubborn and thick in the head.
Well that's the real problem seems the tards can't keep it to themselves they actually believe they have to tell us how to live, eat, and act.
I hate evolutionary psychology.
Took me a while too.
Oh man, I remember the draft thing.\n\nThere was this woman I knew who was convinced that there would be a draft, and we would all be sent off at 18 to go fight in some sort of Middle Eastern Vietnam (I mean in number of troops/deaths, not in the never ending quagmire of it all.
I have written a post debunking these bracelets (if you don't know already), here: http://sciencebasedlife.wordpress.com/2010/06/15/balance-bracelets/
If this is real, which seems doubtful enough already, it just looks like a human arm that swelled up as it absorbed the water as it travelled along the sea.\n\nNothing to see here.
The question, can you make use of all of it... in one paragraph?
Yeah, this is largely true, although the usual objection to plastics is not necessarily the impact of manufacturing them, but rather that they tend to be very hard to "un-manufacture", as it were, and just kinda float around in the ocean and such.\n\nThe reason paper companies don't use old-growth forests (at least in N. america, they still do elsewhere) is partly due to logging regulations, partly due to pressure form environmental groups, and partly because old-school slash and burn is unsustainable enough that it's not really that viable, economically.  Generally, with paper the rule is that you can only recycle from longer fibres into shorter, so the stuff that feels really nice and looks really clean and white and holds ink well is mostly virgin material, then as you go down the quality scale you get shorter and shorter fibres, more and more rounds of recycling until you get to stuff like newsprint
You'll get your chance.  Sighting in England have tripled I think I read in the last year?  Not sure, but there are a ton of sightings now or they seem to be increasing.  \n\nHey, if we've got visitors, its stands to reason that we'll slowly be seeing more and more of them.\n\nWe once thought the world was flat, and that the sun revolved around the planet.  Its time to wake up and smell the universe.
[The Haunted](http://animal.discovery.com/tv/the-haunted/) is really good. It's from *Animal Planet* and streaming on Netflix.
They are sugar pills with an added drop of "remedy".
I'm really not sure why people want to be dicks about this, you're not jumping to conclusions. It could very well be bad energy. Like vornan19 said, it might help to just rearrange things. If you feel like you can pinpoint where the energy is coming from, remove that object (unless it's a wall or something, obviously).
What is the switch for?\n\nCredulous people...
Funny. I was behind a guy buying 4 ice cream and 4 pork skins. The kicker was it was at the pharmacy counter and he was getting his free gubment cholesterol medicine!
Or El Duderino if you're not into the whole brevity thing.
the disinfo agent has arrived!
Funny.  I know this is a parody of the evolution question, but didn't the eventual winner of Miss USA actually believe in evolution.  So yeah for that I guess.
MLK Jr. was **not** a fundie, however.
My roommates eat a paleo diet, so "my experience" is merely what I know from them. \n\nFrom my experience, there is a lot of quackery behind the reasoning for the diet, but it seems unnecessary. The claims about humans ability to adapt to starch don't really need to be in the equation, because the diet itself is unquestionably good for you. It amounts to just eating meat and vegetables (the ratios of which I do not know - for my roommates it just means "BACON!", so I don't want to pretend like I'm coming from a definitive source here). \n\nThat's a healthy diet, regardless of the claims they make about evolution. Although I'm not sure how intertwined those claims are with the people who promote it. \n\nFun Fact: I do know that it's a staple of the Cross-fit community and that Rich Froning, the winner of the Crossfit games ("The Fittest Man in the World") does not advocate the diet because he denies evolution.
Surely this backfired on the Buddha.
i'm not entirely sure you can shift the burden of proof like that... i'm pretty sure it always lies with the positive claim "alien life exists" it's not so hard to say that alien life probably exists because of those arguments, but i think without hard evidence, to be SURE that aliens exist is a bit presumptuous.
human race is over 100k years old , in less then 100 we went from wooden air plains to rockets to travel to the moon , with so much hidden history of the ancestors of the human race it might be true that one had discovered how to actualy go to the moon ..vimana aircraft of ancient india anyone ?
I've experienced countless unexplainable events throughout my life that I've recounted in a number of different replies on reddit, but im always happy to re tell some of the best ones. ***INCOMING WALL OF TEXT***\n\n1. Arriving at a friends house to set up for a LAN party i found out i was the last to arrive, and that i'd been delegated space in the back room of the house by myself with everyone else set up taking all the room in the front room. I set all my gear up and turn everything on, then walk into the kitchen to get a drink of soft drink in a coffee cup. Walking back into the room i sit down and place my cup on the table next to me. Not a second later as im still looking at the cup, it rotates almost 90 degrees in a stationary turn, as if someone was pushing on the handle of the mug and rotating it, i screamed and yelled and legged it out of the room. People try and say "it was condensation on the cup "etc etc but no, with 100% certainty i can tell you the cup was dry and had no moisture on it. \n\n2. While camping with my mum and 2 sisters, my mum and younger sister had gone to bed, leaving my sister and I awake around the fire chatting and roasting marshmellows. So were chatting and then i notice she has gotten quiet. I look up at her and see her leaned back in her chair staring up at the sky visible between breaks in the tree canopy overhead. Then she looks down at me with a strange look on here face "Ok MidnightCladNoctis, I don't want you to think im crazy, but i swear i just saw 3 stars move" so after 15 minutes or so of pointing and observation i finally sit right next to her and by following exact directions of where to look next, i finally see the 'stars' she means. 3 stars in a roughly triangular shape, that every 30 seconds or so, would drift into different positions... once they stopped moving they would still hold the same triangular shape, but t was very very clear to both of us that *multiple* stars were moving in the sky. I've always been interested in astronomy, and have studied to get my pilots license, and there was no explanation i could come up with to rationalise what we were seeing. We literally sat there for an hour, watching these 3 stars drift around and move. Sounds crazy but it happened. \n\n3. I have a very distinctive eye colour that almost seems to appear as different colours (greeny blue/hazel) depending on the light of the room im in. Whenever i asked as a kid about my abnormal eyes i was always given answers that seemed odd to me, until one day in primary school i finally confront my mum and ask her why she acts so sheepish about never explaining it. She goes on to tell me that my great grandfather had the exact same eye colour. A great grandfather whom my mum was very close to and who it turned out had passed away within an hour or two of myself being born. She then goes on to tell me that as an young child i many times described an elderly man standing in the room watching over me who no one else could see, and that my descriptions despite me at that age never even seen a photo of him, matched descriptions very closely of that same great grandfather of mine. It's always been a belief of my mums that a part of my great grandfather somehow bonded with me and that he watched over me as some form of 'guardian angel' \n\n4. In high school i caught public transport home on a bus route that was always filled with other students from my school. One day I get onto the bus and make my way down towards the midsection and seeing that there arent many seats left available, i sit down next to a sad looking girl clutching her bag to her chest and not paying attention to anyone else. Im sitting down and i think pulled out a book to read, when a few seconds later i get a tap on my shoulder and am told to stop hogging space and move over. I freeze for a second and slowly look to my right.. and there's an empty seat there. Utterly confused and more than a bit freaked out i slide over to the window seat, and i shit you not the air was noticeably colder, though that dissipated after a moment or two. I remember looking around the bus and wanting to ask anyone else if they had seen what i had, but at that point i was already and unpopular kid, and asking if anyone else had seen a ghost on the bus would probably have done more harm than good.  In no way did the girl look ethereal or somehow 'not real', she appeared to be perfectly normal. No way i can rationalise that. \n\n5. High school again, I'm sitting in geography class and am copying information down from the whiteboard into my notepad. For some reason or another the teacher had left the room. A few minutes have passed with the teacher out of the room when the door rolls open and she walks back in. I look up and am shocked into a sense of paralysis almost at what im seeing. Moving along behind the teacher are two humanoid figures. To describe them as shadow figures wouldn't quite be correct, as they weren't substantial dark masses moving about, but it was almost as if there was 'nothing there', that what composed their shape was a slightly obscured/darker patch of space. There were no discernible facial features/clothing that i could see displayed by either of them... I watched them move from side to side behind my teacher as she stood at the front of the room and answered a few other students questions. It was like looking at the 'invisible' shape of the predator, except that there was no 'shine' to it, it was just that i could see something with the shapes of people moving about where there was nothing really there... just a slightly shaded colour. Watching them i continued to take down noted, and as the lesson went on they moved around, and for various amounts of time became stationary. Eventually either i was distracted by someone talking to me or looking down at my notepad, and when i looked back up they had disappeared. \n\n6. Going into the city to go shopping with a few family members we are driving down a street when someone in the car remarks something along the lines of "oh look they're finally going to get rid of that disgusting derelict building above that shopfront and replace it with apartments" pointing to a large sign on the footpath displaying concept art of the intended apartments. Confused, i ask what derelict building they mean, and they say " the building above the shoe store". This part is important, the shoe store in question was one i had been coming to in all the 20+ years of my life, probably at least once a year. And at *NO POINT* was there ever anything above/on top of that store. I look out the window of the car above the shoe store and there, in the place of the empty space I'm looking for is a 10-15 story building all smashed up and covered in graffiti. In confusion i state that im freaking out a bit and that I must have been having a reality glitch/glitch in the matrix type thing and that in no point in my life has there ever been anything built on top of that shoe store. Everyone else in the car laughs and tells me I'm crazy, but i continue to insist that I've literally never seen that building before in my life. After much what the fucking, the subject is changed and its forgotten about, but i've never forgotten about it, that mother fucking building *was not there* till that day. \n\n\n\n7. The most bizarre and actually crazy sounding one for last. Various situations/moments seem to 'repeat' in some way or another for me, with such clarity and so many times that I am able to recount the exact progress of what happens around me etc etc. One of these moments that I've experienced 6 times involved me being in my stepdads parents houses bathroom in a house across the other side of the country to where i live. I had travelled there for a holiday. Now this repeated event involved me bizarrely enough finishing going to the toilet, then looking up across the bathroom to where they had a framed copy of the newspaper from the day the titanic sank, then hearing a person walk past the bathroom door, then the dog bark from outside the house. The first few times i experienced the 'repetition' i concluded i got very strong senses of de ja vu after all the repeated things had happened and realised i had experienced them before. I concluded many times that I must just be having very strong memory orientated dreams but after the 4th or maybe 5th time, i began recognising the events as they were occurring, until i reached the last time, the 6th time. Im sitting on the toilet at the house and look up at the framed newspaper and immediately my blood runs cold and i say outloud "person walks past, then dog barks" and perfectly in sync as i say them the person walks past and then the dog barks. I know haw ludicrous it seems, but after that last time, of literally have precognition of what was going to happen, I havent in the 2 years since experienced a repetition of it again. In my own head i summarised that since i had finally recognised the repetition for what it was, that i had somehow broken the 'loop'. Now let me make if clear that I don't think I'm time travelling or that I have knowledge of the future, that shit is egotistical and crazy, but i have literally no way to rationalise what i have experienced. \n\n
If a person has a choice of four flavours of ice cream, all four have objective existence, and the persons taste buds have objective existence. The room they are in has objective existence. But when the person says "This is the best flavour." they are still making a fully subjective claim. You are just straight up, totally wrong about this.
Sorry, no.  I can pass on his advice on finding a good doctor of Chinese medicine though: if your herbalist uses herbal pills, he's not a great herbalist. Find someone who actually has the real herbs, and instructs you how to make a tea from them.
Al Jazeera English isn't directed at Muslims, it's directed at anglophones. They've also interviewed Richard Dawkins and Maryam Namazie (both atheists) on that [very same program](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXjvgkBNVpQ), by the same woman. Here's another critical research failure comment by you:\n\n["I lived in the middle east and watched Al Jazeera and it was not pro american and not pro Israel, there was plenty of anti-american propaganda. It didn't seem to be a western propaganda tool at all."](http://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/xu26h/al_jazeera_using_david_futrelle_as_a_useful_idiot/c5pkntr)\n\nAl Jazeera has been criticizing for being ["pro-American" and "anti-American" at the same time, by different parties. They've heard it all. Usually when everyone is opposed to you and accusing you of working for the other side, that means you're doing something right.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jazeera#Criticism_and_controversy)\n\nI'll ask again:\n\nDo you even identify as a skeptic or a progressive?
my dear all i can suggest is get as far away from him as possible and sever contact because from what ive read this is going to end badly. im going through a similar thing and its slowly killing me from the inside, out. but in the few years when me and him lost contact my life became more structured and clearer, my heart hurt yes but it started to get better and then it all started again when we got back in contact so please dont make my mistake. get out while you still can. feel free to not take this advice.
Two words: technology licensing. A shadow government uses shadow financing, and that financing comes in the form of the military industrial complex.\n\nSo I give UFO tech to Lockheed Martin or General Dynamics, and they reverse-engineer it, and now I have the world's best night-vision, lasers, microwaves, etc. Stuff we don't even know about yet.\n\nThese companies are then expected to support the shadow candidates, I guess. I don't know. It's called a conspiracy "theory" for a reason.
HAM radio guy here.\n\nIt's bullshit. If it caused any problems, we radio folks would be dropping dead like flies under DDT rain.\n\nThere's nothing quite so awesome like an out of tune antenna, buzzing and crackling under a few kW of radio power. :)
Yosemite doesn't have any gondolas.
>ometimes that standard of discussion is "males check your privilege plz," and whether or not that makes sense or is defensible I don't think it counts as discrimination.<\n\nThat is exactly where you loose me. While male privilege exists (as does Female privilege, though many refuse to even discuss that idea) it is not to the extent that many people like to claim it does. Well, I think extent is the wrong word to describe that. I think that male privilege is not nearly as significant or as powerful as people want to believe it is...that is closer to what I mean. As another way of restating that, only because I feel my thoughts aren't translating well, is that male privilege in the vast majority of situations does skew the situation toward the male perspective it is likely that skewing is on the order of providing males 1-2 points of additional credence on a 10 point scale, where pretty much anyone using the term "check your privilege" likely believe it is more like a 9-10 point bump. I also believe that, while nearly 100% undiscussed, and outright denied by a large majority of feminists, female privilege is just as common and has an equal impact on societal discussions. Personally, I would go so far as to say that there is no such thing as gender privilege, but that would get me cut out of most conversations on the topic. I truly do believe that basically everything I have seen cited as a "privilege" is something that the other side would actually define as discrimination, so both parties feel wronged.  \n\nNow as to why your statement causes me a great deal of pause. I truly do consider myself egalitarian, and while I tend to take on a greater number of male rights causes (because my perspective is irrevocably skewed to the male side of things) I am a staunch defender, some may say militant, of women's rights. I love researching gender topics, and have read a significant amount of research on the subject (though today I generally dismiss anything coming out of a Women's Studies department due to essentially dismissing scientific process and displaying massive bias) and also seek out gender studies blogs and news stories. This has led to me having many conversations, both IRL and online, with both Feminists and with MRA's. Throughout years of involvement with egalitarianism and activism of this sort I have noticed a number of consistent behaviors, but no so consistent as the use of the phrase "Check your privilege" to remove a persons voice from the conversation, essentially stripping them of their own agency, and place a person squarely in an out-group identifier. Not only this, but the constant aggressive use of that phrase creates a self-affirming group-think fueled environment in which critical thought is quite literally impossible lest you be placed in the "privileged" outgroup. \n\nIn online forums "check your privilege" is most often followed by an immediate ban (or at minimum, much more scrutiny which usually leads to a ban) which means that the person who is supposedly "privileged" isn't given the choice or even the opportunity to identify where their behavior may have been inappropriate and actually learn to be more conscious of triggering statements (which only exacerbates the problem), but more sinister is that they now have yet another piece of evidence about how feminists are "man haters" or "female supremacists" who "won't even let a man speak". See, the use of the phrase actually produces a more voracious misogynist but one with greater evidence, thus increasing their ability to draw other people further away from an egalitarian mindset.   \n\nI'm not going to get into how I feel that this action, the creation of ones own enemy out of a potential ally, is definitive of the current feminist movement participants as that is a much longer conversation for a different time. I will however say that it is my honest to god conviction, and one which I have come to after significant reading and interaction as well as after being raised as a feminist and involved in feminist organizations, that modern Second Wave (and to a lesser degree Third Wave) feminism has been the single largest driving force behind the continuation and development of nearly every problem that currently faces women in today's society, not to mention the creation of a significant number of overt and covert misogynists. I know that is a HUGELY controversial statement, but one which I have not come to lightly or without evidence.  If you want to discuss this further I am happy to do so, however I do have to warn you that my school begins next week (which means I'm already 2 weeks behind in the quarter) so my time and energy will be pretty limited. Translation: it may take me quite some time to respond to anything and it may not be as coherent or as well cited as it should be. \n\nPS: I wanted to point out to you, since you used it as an example in a semi-mocking manner, that it is not fallacious to state the wage gap is a myth, it is now a well researched and evidence-based argument. An argument, I might add, that is supported by a long-term and massive study conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics overseen by a number of outspoken feminists and conceived as a study which would provide incontrovertible evidence of a major wage gap that necessitates legislative actions such as the Equal Pay amendment. It is best if you don't continue to canonize "the wage-gap" as your argument of societal sexism, as it is a major indicator that you may be the type of person who cares more about ideology than about facts. Just an FYI as many people do not know about the BLS study and because they have heard the stats so often have accepted the wage gap myth as a fact.
> by proving vaccines do not cause autism, have we not proven a negative?\n\nNobody ever *proved* vaccines can't cause autism.  At most, we proved that it's *statistically very, very, very unlikely* that they're causing autism in an ongoing way.\n\nTo be rigorous about it you can't technically *prove* - for instance - that vaccines didn't cause autism right up until the first data included in the statistical analysis, and didn't continue causing autism immediately after the last data they considered.\n\nIt's akin to hypothetically "proving" the non-existence of God - all you can show is that he's unnecessary to explain the state of universe around us, and trust to Occam's Razor that people therefore shouldn't believe in him.\n\nYou can't ever *prove*, for example, that he isn't lurking behind an atom in the Grand Canyon.  Or somewhere in the orbit of Uranus.  Or stationed exactly behind Alpha Centuri.
Agreed.
Well to be fair... [dihydrogen monoxide](http://i.imgur.com/4V7XH.gif) can also kill rodent and was used by the Nazis. \n\nMaybe we should all stop using it.
Thanks. I'm make graphs without thinking so much why exactly A connects to B, because that's usually just physical + and - forces, and the testing of belief requires not only a single observation but how to update or rebuild the model.\n\nProbability can be both. A frequency of events like in a straight forward chain or part of a belief where causality splits and join.
Give me one reason why humans couldn't come up with heat ray technology by themselves.
Well, in this case the point wasn't really fun, or the magic trick. It was to demonstrate how the "abilities" of psychics can be duplicated with trickery. I think not revealing it undermined this demonstration a bit, especially given how long he drew it out. In a magic show, we expect the climax to come when the results are revealed. In an informative lecture, we expect the climax to come with the explanation.\n\nI think Randi realized this eventually, because I've seen him explain tricks in later lectures that he used to keep secret.
> we simply put it reste 1/4 of the times (*as the other farms do*) \n\nIn fact it's illegal not to do it here, it's not a jail sentence just they can loose all the gov funding as you can see on the [maps](http://www.applications.mayenne.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/cartographie-des-sites-natura-2000-r116.html) with the natura 2000, Yes its french and to resume me - hug trees and not war.\n\nThe OP didn't ask how to be a bio-farmer but the internets opinion on what's wrong in monsanto, that was my opinion, i clearly stated that, we don't they have too much power and no can stop them (doesn't mean we have to bend over), about really about *corn* or how to grow something. \n\nI will leave this here and hope you understand it's my personnal opnion, we don't live in the same country, the regulations are different and i guess we don't do the same work.\n\noff to bed.
Well if we don't have a definition for intelligence then there's nothing to argue about    ಠ\\_ಠ\n
You know what they say, it's not about foxes!
The AMA states that is unethical to perform a non-therapeutic surgery on anyone who cannot consent to it. Which makes circumcision the only exception to that rule. As far as "Elective Surgery" versus "Medically Unnecessary", you're not going to give a kid an appendectomy when they are born in the hopes they don't get a case of appendicitis as an adult.
Blogspam again from this poster.
I always wish they would show more history than just WWII but I did enjoy the stuff.
ufo = unidentified flying object. Sure, it *might* not be in the air (ie: reflection inside the car), but it's certainly unidentified.
the fact that we don't get any landmarks really makes this video hard to swallow =/
You saying that a long time ago, in another life time, you were a kid playing with that exact toy and actually did drop it there. Sometime later, you were born again and the memory carried on with you. Thats what I thought when I first read it.\n\nLook back to your memory of you playing with the car, can you remember anyhting else? type of shoes you have? clothing? fence style?
Yes, perhaps.
Sometimes I get too into what I am doing and don't really listen to the song and I forget my player's on repeat and i listen to it twice, more or less. I know you said your player wasn't on repeat but the interface could have been glitched and was showing it wasn't on repeat when it actually was. Either that, or you went into a timewarp.
 This is a good credible witness. I believe he is being honest and now he faces ridicule and a damaged reputation as an eccentric. I will look into his past better, but I believe his claim is likely valid.\n\n However, the document itself is questionable. In that was it speculation or observation? I mean, UFOs were in the skies and they were a major concern during the 50s. I find it questionable the gov't would take such a hospitable view of the situation. \n\n  The amount of names he adds his own to is impressive, and I don't know how people can just disregard what these people are saying without a second thought. When you have people who would know such things saying its so, on top of decades of UFO sightings, pictures, videos, radar..... How do you just discount that as irrelevant? \n
Booth and others were also from Maryland. During a lot of the war Lincoln basically declared Federal Martial Law in Maryland to keep them from joining the South. Lincoln was called (rightfully so) a tyrant by almost everyone in the state. In fact it's in their [official state song](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryland,_My_Maryland).
Do you require the entire name, or just the first name?
Glad I could help! I hope it doesn't cause you too much more misery.
>2000 years of testing is not enough. It must be passed by the AMA in addition to Reddit. Everyone knows that the Chinese know nothing, and the sum-total of their knowledge is zero.\n\nThe Chinese in general do know very little about medicine. That is changing now, my wife's cousin is going to medical school here in China and learning about critical thinking and how proper medical trials are conducted, etc etc.\n\n2,000 years of usage (not testing, they didn't know how to design proper medical tests) is not good enough. Astrology is even older and it's a load of bollocks.\n\nIf you find that many people around here dismiss acupuncture, perhaps it's because many people here have read about the trials that have compared the efficacy of acupuncture to sham acupuncture which used tooth picks and pricked patients in random places, and found it to be just as efficacious as the genuine acupuncture.
It's a conspiracy, I tell you! All the paranoids are in cahoots!\n\n:)
>Doesn't this disprove that it's a healthier diet?\n\nHow does this follow? Either way health reasons isn't the only reason to become a vegetarian, some people do it for ethical reasons.
I was just wondering about this the other day! I occasionally hear people touting websites that can aid you with subvocalization-cessation by applying a cursor to your text and gradually speeding it up forcing your eyes across the text faster. They ALWAYS claim that once you stop saying the words in your head 'you just understand it!' My intuition was that even if they were processing the words, any sort of inflection or voice the author wished to convey to the reader must surely be lost. I also imagine that it must really feel like you're comprehending it because you can look back and remember the words, but objective testing would probably indicate the comprehension sacrificed.
If you ever do end up doing serious research into the events at Roswell, you will find that it is a complex historical event with incomplete records and dramatically contradictory testimonies. One might be inclined to research such a topic to arm themselves to deal more readily with gullible UFO believers who challenge your skepticism. You might teach them a thing or two about skepticism and serious thinking.\n\nI personally think there are some very interesting aspects to the Roswell events. First of all, people forget that the AAF 509th was stationed at Roswell. In 1947, the [509th were the only nuclear equipped armed forces on planet Earth](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walker_Air_Force_Base#509th_Bombardment_Wing). People forget that the base commander actually issued [a press release](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUlCBY-K9A8) stating that a flying saucer had been found, and that its mysteries would soon be unleashed. People also forget that the events at Roswell transpired in the midst of the United State's first major UFO wave in the summer of 1947. There's an excellent and extremely well-referenced book on the subject that gathers all of the 800ish reports made during a 30 day period that summer: [Report on the UFO Wave of 1947](http://nicap.org/waves/Wave47Rpt/ReportOnWaveOf1947.pdf). So I think there is a bigger picture that is more interesting, and I can certainly see the seduction of the case from a narrative and perhaps dramatic viewpoint. I feel that obsessing about Roswell as a "smoking gun" case proving much of anything is a big mistake. \n\nThe final offical words on the subject came in the 1994. The story is that a Project Mogul balloon crashed. I have read that at some point the USAF claimed the bodies that were reported were in fact test dummies associated with Project Mogul, but I do not have a source to verify that claim.\n\n> Comparison of\tall information developed or obtained indicated that the material recovered near Roswell was consistent with a balloon device and most likely from one of the Mogul balloons that had not been previously recovered. Air Force research efforts did not disclose any records of the recovery of any "alien" bodies or extraterrestrial materials.\n\n[REPORT OF AIR FORCE RESEARCH REGARDING THE "ROSWELL INCIDENT"](http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/ufo/report_af_roswell.pdf)\n\nInterestingly, the General Account Office did its own audit of Roswell documents and found:\n\n> In our search for records concerning the Roswell crash, we learned that some government records covering RAAF activities had been destroyed and others had not. For example, RAAF administrative records (from Mar. 1945 through Dec. 1949) and RAAF outgoing messages (from Oct. 1946 through Dec. 1949) were destroyed. The document disposition form does not indicate what organization or person destroyed the records and when or under what authority the records were destroyed.\n\n[The GAO Report on The Roswell Incident Records](http://www.gao.gov/archive/1995/ns95187.pdf)\n\nThis has been taken to imply some form of cover up by some Roswell researchers (Richard Dolan comes to mind, though I'm sure Stan Friedman has something stupid and angry to say about it). \n\nPresident Clinton has mentioned Roswell a couple of times in public. He was predident during the 50th anniversary of Roswell. Clinton's administration was also specifically lobbied by Laurence Rockerfeller, who wanted them to disclose all the US's UFO files. Here is [a brain-meltingly ugly but original document rich website about Rockerfeller's efforts](http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller_Initiative_Documents.htm). I'm sorry about your eyes. There's [Clinton's speech in 1995 with his famous "I wanna know!" comment](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSMhNk8wSng). There's also his comments in a 2004 interview. Skip to about 4 minutes in for [Clinton's discussion of Roswell](http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller_Initiative_Documents.htm). \n\n**TL,DR**\n\nSome history about Roswell. No deep conspiracies explored or answers offered.
There are hundreds out there. Just make some pill, fill it with with "essence of lettuce" and sell it as a dietary "supplement". Get 5 friends and put them on a strict diet for a couple weeks, watch them lose weight, and boom, you've got the necessary "studying" an average scam pill has done.
Grapefruit and pineapple are alkaline?  I seem to remember bringing litmus strips home in grade school and testing different items (grapefruit juice included) for homework, and neither were basic.
Anyone who promotes Intelligent Design is either  an idiot or has a hidden agenda.However you can't beat them by misrepresenting their arguments. In the article the main quote is\n\n>Here we run into our first glaring problem with ID.  Here is the logic of that argument.\n\n   1. All designed objects exhibit CSI.\n   2. Natural object X has CSI.\n   3. Thus, X was designed.\n\n\nWhen it should say "**Only** designed objects exhibit CSI", making it a logical, albeit moronic, statement.
Do you really not understand what a blog carnival is?
Who knew Bear Grylls was a yogi?
I'm very sure. Although in the spirit of skepticism I'd love for you to prove me wrong.
I did not intend to say that poachers aren't a problem, but the headline gives the impression that it was the last rhino in SA, and that is far from true.
Meh, I'm not trying to get into a long-winded debate over my choice of words. My point is that even if you are 100% indisputably correct you shouldn't get mad at another person for being wrong. I don't think you should necessarily give validity to things that are obviously false. I generally choose to feel pity for a person for deluding themselves rather than anger that they don't "get it."
That I think is the problem for me. It's not even if they made "science instruments" or not. It's that they're pushing it to kids as something that has to do with science.
So if it's that dangerous, and I know it can be, how many people have been harmed by it here on terrestrial Earth?
What about them is bullshit, exactly?
So, your answer to the question is...?
The science is there for piracetam+choline, I believe.
I was aware, but I had only been there half a dozen times or so and it was pretty crazy. \n\nI forgot to add that I attempted to debunk the light in the laundry room with the tiny window leading outside, but nothing I did produced anything big enough to look like a person.
I'm reading a lot of insults and hostility to homeopaths. Yes, it's a bunch of crap, but often they don't know that.\n\nEveryone in /r/skeptic should read [this](http://www.csicop.org/si/show/bridging_the_chasm_between_two_cultures/). It's about a leader in "new age culture" losing her belief in all of it, and explaining why **we** all suck at educating people.
Sgt. Williams is the highlander
huffpo\n/disregard.
Last year I Googled my street and apartment building out of curiosity. I found newspaper clippings from different newspapers on Google News archives spanning from the late 19th century to the present. Some of them were about the deaths of some affluent people in the late 1800s that used to live on my street (downtown Montreal), and then two from the 1970s which interested me. \n\nOne of them was about a man who lived in a building near by who killed his two year old son and left his body in an alley, possibly due to a divorce dispute. The second one concerned a murder that happened in my building (through other clippings I found out that it was built some time in the '60s). Sort of freaked out, I found excerpts from other newspapers and eventually figured out that the murderer happened on the 3rd floor, and that a man killed his girlfriend by strangling her with his belt. She was found in the bathroom. It turned out that he killed other women he met previously, in different parts of the city. \n\nI had trouble sleeping that night, to be honest. I doubt that the people who live in that apartment now know what happened in their bathroom. Chilling thought. \n\nSo I suggest you try the same; I was actually surprised by how much information I found.
Exactly
Good point ;)
I have, on occasion, been persuaded to be slightly sympathetic to complementary care in desperate situations, but the astounding out-of-pocket expense here makes me think those sympathies were misguided. \n\nThis is expected to be a quality of life hit. This effectively exploits friends and family (spreading vulnerability). It is a big score, and big scores avoid/subvert mitigating market forces and it's self-selecting -- success stories live on while failure stories might bury thsemselves.
A great free paranormal magazine that covers loads of topics such as equipment for ghost hunters and lots lots more.
But do they really have such ridiculous flashes on them?
Bacteria do not have organelles.
That video was a CNN reenactment of what likely happened.  If you want to kn ow more about this incident and others involving UFOs and Nukes, I would suggest Robert Hastings new book: UFOs and Nukes.  Fascinating stuff folks!
I still like her.  I like lots of people who believe dumb things.
> I would definitely not call history and economics inherently unscientific\n\nBut they're not *science*.\n
Pretty sure that's a xenomorph in pic five.
>Arent these "fundamental laws" always changing?\n\nNot really, but some of the principles are modified once new data is accumulated, or new ones are created to describe alternate environmental variables. We just landed a one-ton vehicle on Mars using a skycrane based on calculations from these very same fundamentals.\n\n>I dont want to get into quantum mechanics because I dont much much about it haha\n\nDon't feel bad. This is more about basic physics.\n\n>Human arrogance knows no bounds...." I cant do it so how could anyone else?"\n\nBecause you believe that we are being visited by extraterrestrials, the known laws of physics *must* be wrong. Would this be an accurate summation of what you're saying?
But nothing else on the radar moves...
Why? I wrote this in a different reply. It would be hypocritical if the Dalai Lama would still be supporting an armed resistance. Not if he did so in the past and has now changed his mind.
Tyson takes a skeptical position, one that requires verification rather than presumption of truth.\n\nYeah, you can find people in government who are worried about it, you can probably even find memos that say 'ohmygodwhatonearthisthat' but there's still a big leap from 'what on earth is that' to 'aliens'.  You should question your own beliefs just as highly as you question 'the establishment's' views on the matter.
Nice try, secret chemical tank refiller of a C17. You almost had me.
Upvote times a bijillion.
If there is a more appropriate subreddit you could point me to I'll take my funny there. Didn't mean to raise any hackles. I do think its ironic (in the Alanis Morrisette sense) that I refrained from saying this to the aforementioned women to avoid offense, only to clearly offend some here. At least you all are strangers.
I've watched a lot of his comedy and considered him to be a wonderful ally to atheism with his brand of skepticism. Unfortunately, He applies skepticism too strongly and too broadly and is really more of a conspiracy theorist that happens to be right about a few issues than he can be considered a skeptic.
How much can we influence? We have no limits but those we are allowed. \n\nIf you've read Patrick Rothfuss' Kingkiller Chronicles, the magic system in \nthe books has a concept called the Alar, which is described as riding-crop belief (controlled, absolute belief, which can be applied to various things). This is what I use, and mine is a fixed point which I place and force reality to accommodate.\n\nYou're allowed to lust after the results, what's important is keeping out any doubts. Have faith in your abilities, or if it's easier, have faith in the universe. \n\nThat all said, this is what works for me. What's important is what works for you. I'm sure you've got personal metaphors that would work as much better conduits for your faith, or some such thing.\n\nIf you encounter any failures, remember that this is something that you can get better at, and which you will, with practice.\n\nGood luck. You have my blessing.
And most dangerous one; \n \n"Why the jews are taking over the world."   \n\nUsed extensively all over the world,especially in muslim countries to suppress the population.
In this case, it's a slang term for bullshit, parading as science.
How the fuck is this my most popular post?
that's chomsky's view on  9/11
And then you made sweet, sweet love to that third sock.
>Seth Macfarlane is gay\n\nis he really?
I'm saying I wouldn't go and take a baby to have fifty holes punched in his skin for no good reason.
>I might take good care of my health and work out- why should I subsidize someone who chooses to abuse their body?\n\nThis right here is what is wrong with libertarian philosophy. So many people are adamantly against subsidizing others that they fail to realize that by doing so, they effectively are spending more on their own health care. No matter what you think, turning health care into a business makes the goal profit, not health care. Now, profit requires that people make money over and above the cost of care.\n\nNow, even if this doesn't sway you, perhaps this will. You already subsidize multiple things for other people. Education, infrastructure, relief and aid during disasters, and even emergency room health care. Now the last one about emergency rooms is very important, because it is a great cost to the state to pay for this, yet these costs can be greatly reduced if people had universal health care and doctors advised preventative measures. But that doesn't happen when people can't go to the doctor. Regular check ups do more than just tell you where you stand health wise, they provide a service that is essential to mitigating further costs upon the system.\n\nBut yet another argument could be that it's the governments role to protect its citizens. That's why we have military forces, and police forces, and fire departments. One could easily make the case that the governments role should be to do all it can to ensure its citizens are taken care of not only from immediate threats (like other nations or criminals) but also from internal health threats as well. \n\nThere are many diseases and illnesses you can contract even if you stay completely healthy. Cancer and hereditary diseases to name a couple. Should a person who is afflicted with cancer through no fault of their own, be forced to die simply because you don't want to subsidize their treatment. Even knowing full well that if you are in the same situation you'll never have to worry about insurance companies doing all they can to not pay for you.\n\nNo, libertarian philosophy is immorally bankrupt when it comes to such matters. It espouses a view that says "It doesn't affect me, so why should I pay?", and it doesn't offer any kind of future insight into how things might affect you later.\n
What's the best way of being wrongly cold read if you meet a "psychic".
maybe we should move this to /r/conspiracy since it seems an effort to discredit UFOs by posting meteors as if they were UFOs
Interesting line of thought, but it's really nothing new in terms of UFO cosmology and metaphysics, to say that we are interpreting UFOs the "same way" as our ancestors did in their own mythological context.  I do like Nick Redfern but he makes a crucial assumption that is common in that he claims to know some aspect of *motive* behind ostensible "alien" thinking.  e.g.\n\n>If, however, we critically analyze events of this type, it becomes obvious that a trend is at work. These were not matters of an accidental or stumbled upon nature – at all. The entities were seen because **they clearly wished to be seen**\n\n(emphasis mine)\nHow can we, or any human observer claim to know even the most basic motives of the other if we have no recourse to ask them ourselves?  No, it's interesting to imagine that they wish to be seen, or that it seems like they do, but that is hardly an assumption we can make, definitively, upon critical inspection.
I have no doubt they were leaping.
Looks similar to those in [this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IjQRpFDO-8) video.
Skeptical Science has an [extensive review](http://www.skepticalscience.com/watts_new_paper_critique.html). A choice quote (emphasis mine):\n\n>*Ultimately the paper concludes "that reported 1979-2008 U.S. temperature trends are spuriously doubled."  However, this conclusion is not supported by the analysis in the paper itself.  Here we offer preliminary constructive criticism, noting some issues we have identified with the paper in its current form, which we suggest the authors address prior to submittal to a journal.* As it currently stands, **the issues we discuss below appear to entirely compromise the conclusions of the paper**.
Do you really think that strategy will actually change their mind so much as just make them feel defensive and oppressed?
I haven't heard of the phoenix lights, but will check it out.
I dig you idea on it all, i lover reading/hearing other peoples ideas and theory's on this topic. so thank you for your time to post this. i thought it was really interesting and i actually agree with you on a lot of the things you were talking about. Specially that advance life would of made contact or taken over us by now if they really wanted too. i think they have a different idea for us. To throw my theory on that, i think that there wait to up lift us into there civilization but are waiting for humans to mature as a whole and to understand them better so we don't have a fool retaliation against them and they are forced to destroy us.
Thanks for sharing.  I am very similar to you in that I walk around on clear nights with my head tipped back constantly.  I always look for constellations and planets and orient myself with the north star just for fun.  I am subbed to this reddit because of a single sighting that I had about 8 years ago.  I was walking out to my car from my aunt's house after thanksgiving dinner and saw 2 red lights next to each other in the sky about 30 degrees from the horizon separated by about the width of a quarter held at arms length.  At first glance I thought they were radio tower lights, but I stopped in my tracks when I remembered there were no radio towers anywhere nearby and the lights were steady, unlike the flashing of any beacon.  I stood there staring for about 30 seconds when they both flashed and quickly came together, spinning around each other a few times and then flying off in opposite directions over the horizon in opposite directions at an impossible speed.  The entire flash, spinning and zooming off process took under 1 second.  Ever since, I have been really into researching this topic.
70% of people who believe the world will end, think it will be the most ridiculous one.  Are these useful statistics for determining the cause?
Are you saying evil doesn't exist?
If anything correct the word illegal that he spelt wrong. Not fucking forgetting an apostrophe on the word it's...fag.
Yeah that actually sounds like a good idea. Not sure how we would actually go about it.
Remind me of the babe.
hah! i suppose i do mean that.
YOU DO NOT NEED TO TRANSFER MONEY TO NIGERIA MY FRIEND YOU MAY TRANSFER IT TO MY BARRISTER AGENT IN LONDON U.K. LOTTERY DEPARTMENT I WILL FACILITATE THIS
I seed what you did there.
Came here to post this.  haha
Christian high school in Texas. I got both! :D\n\nNow instead of hot, sweaty con sex next month, I'll be getting awkward, fumbly con sex. TMI? Yeah.
Seeing Walter Haut at the time of that oh-so-famous press release is worth hearing about: McQuiddy had his hand in history. Hearing Colonel Blanchard indicate that it was a UFO was unverifiable, but also worth hearing. Just knowing Glen Dennis was cool.\n\nIt doesn't settle the argument, but it's worth our time.
Sure, but there are a lot of people who haven't thought twice about homeopathy and buy the stuff not realizing what bullshit it is.  I know I bought a couple of things like that back before I looked into what homeopathy is all about.
I'd be interested in what you find out. Of all aircraft, the B-52 would seem the least feasible to use for such an experiment. Is your buddy from Travis AFB?
If you're hoping to make it in film school you might want to refine your technique a bit before you apply.
Oh yeah? How?
Watch [Screw Loose Change](http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3214024953129565561#)
I guess all those people who died of cancer just didn't wish hard enough.
It was a glitch in the matrix.
Clicked expecting moose testicles. \n\nLink delivers.
Reading the vast amount of antivax comments on this subreddit makes me pretty amazing. "We're skeptics... except when it comes to vaccinations, we're totally on board with that. Not only that, but people who don't agree with us are pieces of shit, assholes, and are stupid."\n\nRegarding the couple front page posts on the topic of anti-vaccers, this entire subreddit quickly turned from [/r/skeptic](/r/skeptic) to [/r/conservative](/r/conservative). Sorry this doesn't really respond to your question OP.\n\nI have also not been vaccinated at all since I was probably 8 years old. I don't get the flu. I don't get strange mutated diseases. Same with my brother. At the same, I have a cousin who vaccinated her kid as her doctor informed her. Didn't over vaccinate, didn't vaccinate too early, didn't vaccinate while pregnant, kept on what she thought was a good schedule during child development, the kid ended up developing autism anyways.\n\nI think instead of coming to this subreddit looking for answers, you should just read a few books, do a set of your own research, become informed, because from what I'm seeing on this topic here you're just going to get a very biased opinion. Some, maybe a lot, being true, with substantial facts to back it up. But a lot of it seems built on an antithesis of skepticism.
No it's a bad analogy because cancer, unlike the gangster, is not a sentient being who intentionally tried to kill its victim, so the moral calculus is different.
+1 for news fanfic
Yeah, that was my first thought. Anything "supernatural" by definition cannot be observed in conventional experiment. File it under "well, duh!"
As opposed to skeptic tanks, obviously.
[One of the most convincing arguments I've seen toward an extraterrestrial hand in Ancient structures](http://youtu.be/mFP3C4Xel_s), 5:20 being the most amazing. It's very surprising more people don't know about Ollantaytambo.\n\nAlso, you argue that mainstream archaeology is accepted as "fact" due to all the "evidence behind it", and that those disagreeing need to provide more evidence, but one of the primary issues with this is that researching in a way that looks for evidence of extraterrestrials is very taboo, and anyone who wishes to do so is risking their reputation and possibly even their career. I'm sure there is a plethora of evidence which we don't yet know about because our scientists are practically forbidden to search for the information.
[So we still have to build the massive rocket?](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6MOnehCOUw)
You certainly seem to be having lots of fun!
Exactly
>Check out this Frontline report on how the seed industry has bankrupted rural farmers across India and led to a huge wave of suicides.\n\nI felt that the frontline report highlighted the fact that the suicides were more complex than "the seed did it". Rather it is poor conditions, predatory advertising and a cultural institution of loan sharking that creates these deaths.
My favorite podcast. Their 3 parts on Buddhism especially.
The title comes directly from the NY Times article, so I guess that would be more par for the course as far as science journalism goes.\n\nOther than that, that's a good point about the subjectivity of pain. And the effectiveness of exercise vs chiropractic. \n\nAnd in regards to your post above, I tend to avoid talking about the sketchy-ness of Chiropractic medicine for family relation purposes, but that is some hella useful information.
I do that sometimes and I almost always catch my error. It's totally possible but I'm almost 100% sure I did not misread the clock because I looked at a different one and they were in sync.
So is the whole "high acid level in your body causes disease" thing fully debunked?\n\nI heard a shithead on the radio talking about that one recently, he also mentioned how people need to get back to respecting their elders and praying to god more, so that clinched his assholedom for me.
I don't know which I want to educate you about more:  Sleep Paralysis or Paragraphs.
While witty, I think this quote can fall short, as it seems to indicate that there is a limit to how open minded you should be, i.e., that you should only be *so willing* to consider new ideas.\n\nIn reality you should consider *all* new ideas, however briefly. This doesn't mean that you need to *accept* any new idea that comes along, especially when it isn't supported by evidence.
By stating that some herbs "work", you're implying that skeptics think that none do. This is a straw man. Every skeptic I've met admits that many herbs can and do work. Herbs are just cocktails of drugs, sometimes one or more of those drugs can help, but they can also hurt.
Hey they work, no-one who has used these has gotten cancer from their cell phone.
/r/climateskeptics+null . Easy trick for downvoting where-ever you want.
When I was in college I was an athlete and us athletes as a group had a higher average GPA than the student body on average. Some particular sports (Fencing, Tennis, Swimming, Cross-Country) had much higher average GPA's. Fencing and Tennis, for example, floated around 3.5 on average. The fact of the matter was athletes had more incentive to do well. If you do poorly in school you get cut, loose funding, and are generally fucked. For athletes in college a lot of them have never known anything besides school and competition. Getting cut would change their life as they know it.
The Secret just sounds like they're just replacing "praying" with "positive thinking."\nI mean, praying has been working out rather well for everyone, right?
there is a way to express this, and it doesn't involve commenting
All the contrary, when it comes to your own health you want a really objective judgement, and you are the least qualified to be objective regarding your own health.
[It may also contain a pork pie](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iAecAtJVdE)
There's a unit of measurement for pain which is called **dol**^1, I guess this was what they tried to refer to.  \nBut there's certainly no known "maximum amount" of dol that humans can handle and I couldn't find any sources claiming that childbirth was 'valued' at 57dol.\n\n--  \n1: [According to Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_units_of_measurement#Pain)
I looked into this quite deeply recently.\n\nIt turns out that all dental benefits from minimal amounts of fluoride are topical only (think sunscreen for skin, helps on the surface, swallowing it not a great idea). There is no stated benefit for the consumption of any amount of fluoride, and recently the "safe levels" past which dental or skeletal fluorosis occur have been revised downward. \n\nUnfortunately objections to water fluoridation are inexorably bound up with wacko conspiracy theorist stigma, however it truly does appear in this instance to not be a net health benefit.
>The purpose of the government is to serve the people. \n\nSure and the mafia says that they're here to protect me and all they require is 20% of my income. The mafia may keep out drugs, crime, build schools and parks, but that doesn't make what they do virtuous or moral.\n\nIt doesn't mean the mafia is actually designed to serve my interests. Even if most of the people in the town, many of which profit from the money spent by the mafia, all agree that the mafia is great and their shakedowns are just and necessary (otherwise a worse mafia might invade us), it doesn't make it true or moral. \n\nBoth the state and the mafia are corrupt at their core. They both use force/violence to instantiate a monopoly on the legitimate use of force among other services which they monopolize like policing, justice/law making, defense, etc.\n\nYes, all of these things are good services that people do want, however they force those services on people according to their rules and you cannot compete with them. This is just to name a few issues with statism.\n\nThe state by and large is a predatory institution that uses violence or threats thereof (like the church) to benefit a minority group of people at the expense of the many. This often manifests itself through granting others' monopolies, passing favourable laws, etc.
excellent!  gonna email this to my experimental psyc prof
>Would love to hear more of your thoughts on this. 2012 is such an interesting subject. It seems to have gripped our collective consciousness.\n\nSure has! Apocalyptic prophecies have endured throughout recorded human history. Christianity and Islam, two of the world's major religions, hinge upon an end to the world. There isn't much to say on the topic of 2012. Belief in the idea requires a combination of a lack of knowledge about how the Earth works, an ignorance of how cosmology knows what it knows, and a complete misunderstanding of the Mayan calendar.\n\nAstrophysicist (and internet sensation) Neil DeGrasse Tyson goes into this in fairly entertaining detail in [this video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HghEBxHvgg). When he was on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, he had this to say: "*There’s no greater sign of the failure of the American educational system than the extent to which Americans are distracted by the possibility that the Earth might end on December 21st, 2012. It’s a profound absence of awareness of the laws of physics and how nature works. So they’re missing some science classes in their training, in high school, or in college that would empower you to understand and to judge when someone else is basically just full of it. Science is like an inoculation against charlatans who would have you believe whatever it is they tell you.*"\n\n>If attributing crop circle formation to a UFO or other unexplained phenomenon is deemed ridiculous, I remind humbly myself that life is ridiculous [...] People arrogant enough to scoff at things that are currently unexplainable via the scientific method are doing themselves and science a great dis-service.\n\nHaha. Life *is* ridiculous sometimes, isn't it?\n\nIn his book Perfect Symmetry: The Search for the Beginning of Time, physicist Heinz Pagels states: "*The capacity to tolerate complexity and welcome contradiction, not the need for simplicity and certainty, is the attribute of an explorer. Centuries ago, when some people suspended their search for absolute truth and began instead to ask how things worked, modern science was born. Curiously, it was by abandoning the search for absolute truth that science began to make progress, opening the material universe to human exploration. It was only by being provisional and open to change, even radical change, that scientific knowledge began to evolve. And ironically, its vulnerability to change is the source of its strength.*"\n\nI think this speaks directly to what you've said.\n\nThe scientific problem with attributing crop circles to unexplained phenomenon is that doing so doesn't solve anything. It doesn't expand our understanding of the universe's workings. In fact, it literally abandons rational thought, replacing it with speculation and assumption, the foundation of which is ignorance. This is a reversal of scientific progress. It's nearly the same as us claiming that illnesses were caused by demons before Germ Theory was discovered.\n\nWhat I'm saying here is that just because some people are astounded at the creation of some crop circle formations doesn't mean that the explanation is astounding, too. Especially when we have many earth-bound explanations that do not require a belief in something that we cannot prove in order to explain it.
I reject your implied assertion that the only 2 options available are a) forcibly stabbing people with needles and b) the return of polio.  Wasn't expecting such a fear-mongering reaction in /r/skeptic.\n\n-------\n\nedit:  \nThe herd immunity threshold for polio is [between 80-86%](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity).  And the WHO estimates the immunization coverage for 'Pol3' (the 3rd dose of polio vaccine) in U.S. in 2011 is [94%](http://www.who.int/immunization_monitoring/data/usa.pdf) [PDF, pg 5] — the [highest it has been since 1988](http://apps.who.int/immunization_monitoring/en/globalsummary/timeseries/tscoveragebycountry.cfm?C=USA).  So, surely we are not in a *'forced vaccination'* vs *'return of polio'* scenario.
Alan Aragon is the only person anyone ever links to.  It's a pretty good read though.  Lustig responds in the comments.  It's not as cut and dry as Lustig presents it but I personally think he's on the right track.  Many more studies need to be done (Lustig is doing some as are others).
This is a post about an *Identified Flying Object* which won't even be *flying* much longer. \n
I did the same thing and a couple people, including my brother flipped shit.  You'd figure they would listen when a pediatrician, my mother, jumped in but hey some people are just too far gone.
... and people say that the universe has no sense of humour. Awesome!
This is probably just semantics - I would read YaoPau's "I can respect her beliefs" more as "I can respect her right to hold her beliefs" - which is really respecting the person, not the beliefs.
Nope. He wrote the manuscript, submitted it on a forum, and people started printing it out for their friends to read, which gave him the confidence to send it to a publisher. The publisher decided that at least some people would buy it if they were willing to print it off the internet themselves, so they published a very limited run of it. He doesn't have any "connections".
I've made smaller magnet motor based on Bedini design. It's not as powerful as these designs.\n\nAt the moment, my work is geared towards solid state devices.
How exactly does it "touch upon" the paranormal?  Can you give some concrete examples?
It's not even about being scared for me. My mom claims to have a "friendly ghost" that's followed her from house to house since she was little. I don't know what it is, but there's definitely *something*. It's not normal to hear the sound of high heels on a wooden floor walking up and down your carpeted hallway all night ._.\n\nStill, unexplainable occurrences are rare, so experiencing them is less about "OMG WHAT IF IT KILLRAPES ME". It's a superhuman force that I don't understand; if it wanted to harm me it would just use it's awesome, implicit superpowers. It's more about "I'm gonna fucking prove/disprove something this time, even if only to myself."
Reptilian CG disinfo agents are notorious all caps users!
What does all powerful mean?
re: O'Reilly - I have trouble understanding why anyone can claim their own ignorance as support of their position.\n\nWhile I admit this lack of understanding on my part is in itself ignorance, I don't claim that it is evidence of anything except my own failure to understand the reasoning.
By the sound of this guy's politics, I'm thinking the whole point is not to find the body at all.  The inevitable lack of evidence will be used as more fuel for conspiracy theory.\n\nAnyway, did anyone else find it odd that they mentioned his Russian girlfriend is apparently part of some official Russian intelligence circles?  WTF was that all about?
No, he made the initial denial but then in later videos talked about the operation.  There are also other as-Sahab video releases that talk about the Manhattan raid.
Good job reporting this to us.  Make sure to report this to MUFON as well.  Thanks!
Much appreciated.
If you were familiar with the math/physics involved you would realize he is twisting the meaning of scientific words to peddle unrelated metaphysical assumptions. Independently of the accuracy of his metaphysics, he is (i believe consciously and dishonestly, but perhaps he is only misguided) linking concepts that are unrelated. Let's take for example his use of the term "non-local", he makes it seem that whenever physical theories are non-local that means that it implies some sort of conscious entity arising from the system it models which acts upon it with some manner of "free-will", what-ever that may be, and that is what we usually call our souls or just our consciousness, though he doesn't give good definitions of these words or how exactly this implication occurs within quantum mechanical models (Notice how he is talking about quantum mechanics and he doesn't show any equations? That's a red flag).\n\nWhile non-locality in physical models just mean that distant events can have instantaneous effects on other events. If some forms of telepathy exists it can be argued that that would imply our physical models should be non-local, but by no means a physical model that shows non-locality implies the existence of consciousness. For example in some models of fluid mechanics where we assume fluids are incompressible, these systems show non-local features. For example if we assume cars don't compress (they do, but this is just a model to make a point), and we have a line of cars touching each other end to end then hitting the last car with a truck will instantaneously move the last one (assuming no energy is wasted as heat or sound. Remember, this is just a model). There, we have non-locality and no conscious entity in our model of fluid mechanics.\n\nThe problem with what Chopra and new-agers who think quantum mechanics implies the existence of a soul is that they think they know what they are talking about because they are familiar with one meaning of the words that pop-up in scientific speech, even though in that context it means a completely different thing.
The Myers-Briggs test is not accepted at all in psychology. If her professor is promoting it, then he either doesn't know what he's doing or he's intentionally doing it as part of an informal experiment where he later shows how we can be deceived by shitty tests if we don't run the appropriate scientific tests to validate them.
some choice kookerie right there
where do I buy bubbles for the shower like that?
My point was to do with the dog being smart and claims that it could understand maths. If it could be trained to tap six times to the instructions "what is 2 x 3" (with all proper care taken to avoid the Clever Hans effect) then to test understanding you could just reverse the order of the numbers "3 x 2".... You could even try teaching it numbers separately, only train it on certain equations, then ask it ones it doesn't understand... My bet is it would fail.\n\nAnyway, Clever Hans effect seems overwhelmingly likely here.
The increase in *reported* allergies is also suspect. There was a [/r/science](/r/science) article a week or two ago that pointed out the tests we currently use to identify allergies give too many false positives.
The diet curing cancer thing sounds like BS, but I'm fairly certain that there are credible studies out there that show that eating factory farmed meats is not good for you and as a whole most people have too much meat in their diets. \n\nAlso from an environmental aspect it would be better if people stopped entirely or severely decreased their intake of meat products.
(x-posted from the other discussion on the same article):\n\nI haven't read the original study-- but, I take issue with the statement in this article that "the skull is thin around the ear canal area, and a very good proportion of the light gets through".\n\nTake a look at this illustration of a coronal cross section of the human head (illustrator Chris Gralapp, copyright RK Jackler): http://med.stanford.edu/ohns/atlas_sb/images/1.1_figure_8.jpg\n\nThe point at which the cartilaginous ear canal ends and the bony ear canal begins is not "thin", certainly not thinner than other parts of the skull. This bony region is also filled with pockets of air -- how would this affect transmission of light? There's certainly no way the light is being transmitted to the brain medially, given the middle and inner ear structures in the way. It would probably have to go "up", through this thick bone.\n\nHave they measured how much light can actually be transmitted through this kind of bone?\n\nMaybe the light in the ear canal is stimulating something else, such as the portion of the facial nerve that passes through the middle ear space or the nerves that innervate middle ear muscles?\n
But how are we ever going to start producing shit-free adults unless we start *behaving* like shit-free adults?
Actually, just the opposite is true. High populations CAUSE poverty. The more people there are to do a job, the less the job pays. The rich have historically opposed population control among the poor- I thought everyone knew this (Republicans are transparently opposed to family planning).