Odd. No one is in denial of America’s Aug 21 total solar eclipse. Like Climate Change, methods & tools of science predict it.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) August 10, 2017
Tag: False Beliefs
YouTube Channels We Love: Anthony Magnabosco
Anthony Magnabosco is a Street Epistemologist who converses with and interviews random strangers on the street to ask about their beliefs, such as faith, superstitions, and so much more.
Check out his YouTube channel at:
https://www.youtube.com/user/magnabosco210
According to Magnabosco, “I initiate friendly conversations with people to see how they arrived at their deeply-held beliefs (e.g., Gods, karma, ghosts, politics, etc.), and then ask respectful questions to help them discover if the method(s) used are unreliable so that more reliable methods can be employed to maintain the belief and/or the level of confidence in the belief can be adjusted to be more in line with reality.”
Of particular interest are these playlists:
My Top Ten Talks
Street Epistemology Presentations
Relativism (“It’s true for me.”)
Street Epistemology Tutorials
(20,599 subscribers • 2,096,049 views Joined Dec 25, 2011)
Skeptics We Love: James Randi
James Randi has an international reputation as a magician and escape artist, but today he is best known as the world’s most tireless investigator and demystifier of paranormal and pseudoscientific claims. Randi has pursued “psychic” spoonbenders, exposed the dirty tricks of faith healers, investigated homeopathic water “with a memory,” and generally been a thorn in the sides of those who try to pull the wool over the public’s eyes in the name of the supernatural.
He has received numerous awards and recognitions, including a Fellowship from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in 1986 for his work in investigating claims of the supernatural, occult, and paranormal powers—in particular his exposures of TV evangelist/healers and of “psychics” such as Uri Geller.
He is the author of numerous books, including The Truth About Uri Geller, The Faith Healers, Flim-Flam!, and An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural. His lectures and television appearances have delighted — and vexed — audiences around the world.
Our Favorite Quotes:
“No amount of belief makes something a fact.”
“There is a distinct difference between having an open mind and having a hole in your head from which your brain leaks out.”
“The New Age? It’s just the old age stuck in a microwave oven for fifteen seconds.”
Website:
Skeptics We Love: Peter Boghossian
Peter Boghossian teaches Critical Thinking, Science and Pseudoscience, the Philosophy of Education, and Atheism at Portland State University, is an Affiliate Research Assistant Professor at Oregon Health Sciences University in the Department of General Internal Medicine, is a national speaker for the Center for Inquiry and the Secular Student Alliance, an international speaker for the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.
Boghossian’s primary research areas are critical thinking and moral reasoning. His doctoral research studies, funded by the State of Oregon and supported by the Oregon Department of Corrections, consisted of using the Socratic method to help prison inmates to increase their critical thinking and moral reasoning abilities and to increase their desistance to criminal behavior.
Boghossian published A Manual for Creating Atheists in 2013 and developed the Atheos app to help people have non-confrontational discussions about gods, religion, faith, and superstition. As of August, 2017 he is wrapping up his second book. More on this to follow.
Our Favorite Quotes:
“Belief in God(s) is not the problem. Belief without evidence is the problem.”
“Your new role is that of interventionist. Liberator. Your target is faith. Your pro bono clients are individuals who’ve been infected by faith.”
“Few things are more dangerous than people who think they’re in possession of absolute truth. Honest inquirers with sincere questions and an open mind rarely contribute to the misery of the world.”
Website: www.peterboghossian.com