Next Thursday, Skeptico is hosting the 35th Skeptics’ Circle. I am looking for your best skeptical blog posts from the previous two weeks. Here are the guidelines for what we are looking for:
Urban legends. Heard a story about a friend-of-a-friend repeated from other friends and want to find out whether or not it’s true? See a hoax you want to warn people about? Have a strange looking picture forwarded to your e-mail? Don’t leave it all to Snopes, do a little digging and see for yourself whether or not it’s true.
The paranormal. Want to prove how silly astrologists, psychics, ghosts, UFOs, or Bigfoots (Bigfeet?) are? You better belive we’ve got a place for you. All I ask is we keep it more scientific-based than snarky, although there’s nothing wrong with some sarcasm to keep it funny.
Quackery. Of all the subjects included in the Circle, this may be the most likely to save someone's life. There is a lot of potentially harmful questionable medical advice out there being pushed faster than researchers can debunk it.
Pseudoscience. You don’t need to be a professor to know something flat-out doesn’t make sense. If you hear a theory that makes everything you learned from your high school laboratory experiments sound wrong, odds are it’s wrong. Intelligent design fits into this category, because it’s less of a political issue than it is an attempt to superimpose beliefs over factsand the political connotations are side-issues at best.
Historical revision. If someone’s promoting a crooked timeline to try to deny or ignore a major event in history or forcing an incorrect view of the past, prove them wrong. Ideological reinterpretations have done too much harm to the world already.
Critical thinking. Posts dealing with the meta-analytical process behind sorting out the reason from the misinformation fit in this catch-all category.
Please email me the direct link to your post(s) by next Wednesday May 24th, 9.00pm Eastern Standard Time (US) at the latest – but preferably as soon as you have it (so I don’t have to read 20 posts all in one evening). I’ve already received some really good quality posts - send me some more and let's make it a really great Circle.
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