Pseudoscience

A new peer-produced skeptical website, De-fact-o, has popped up to provide skeptical, fact-based evaluation of claims of history, politics, science, health, environment, religion, pop culture, conspiracy theories, questionable quotes, fake photos, and more. There’s a page per claim, and the claim is rated true, false, mostly false, probably false, or unknown. The site is reminiscent of (and not yet as comprehensive as) Snopes.com, but I hope to see it grow substantially with member-produced content. The articles I’ve checked out appear to be well-done. Those who register on the site can comment on articles, vote on their accuracy, and write new ones, but unlike Wikipedia, approval from the site owners is required before new articles get posted. All articles on the site are licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL). I would have preferred a Creative Commons license, myself, due to some oddities of the GFDL (see the Wikipedia article on the GFDL, which is where the term is linked to from this paragraph). ...

Radley Balko points out an article on the Answers in Genesis website (dating to before its split with Creation Ministries International) by CMI head Carl Wieland and Don Batten interviewing Christian “physicist of medicine” Saami Shaibani, and observes that this individual is a phony who has lied about his credentials and academic affiliation when testifying as an expert witness in several trials. He claimed to be a clinical associate professor at Temple University, when he was not. This is not the first time that creationist organizations have promoted individuals with phony credentials (see Dmitri Kouznetsov), and I’m sure it won’t be the last. Will AiG and CMI point out that they’ve been duped again? I pointed out issues with Saami Shaibani to CMI in October 2003, to which they responded that they were satisfied that he has the degrees he claimed–though they agreed to some concern about his claiming a false affiliation. I sent them multiple sources including this CourtTV link and three other newspaper links that are now dead links. Shaibani gets some terrible ratings as a teacher for his alleged repeated assertions that the United States sucks and England is wonderful.

Orac at Respectful Insolence critiques Dr. Jay Gordon’s argument that breastfeeding and eating less cheese is a better way to prevent communicable diseases than vaccination.

Rottin’ in Denmark points out Yahoo’s absurd promotion of handwriting analysis of the presidential candidates. Historical Comments Reed (2008-05-27): Add to that Yahoo's mindless promotion of astrology.

What happens when you rely on the Bible (compounded by even misunderstanding that) instead of oil geology to decide where to drill for oil…