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News Gathering vs. Confirmation Bias
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Science
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[S]cience is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time – when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.
The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.
— Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (New York: Ballantine Books, 1996) at p.32.
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[S]cience is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time – when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.
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Tag Archives: education
Obama’s Secret to Surviving the White House Years: Books
Books: they’re like TV for smart people.
Also tagged entertainment, health
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Want to live longer? Pick up a book…
It turns out all those hours I spend reading my Facebook feed won’t extend my life. It has to be books. The study, The Guardian reports, “looked at the reading patterns of 3,635 people who were 50 or older. On average, book readers were found to live for almost two years longer than non-readers.” And […]
Also tagged entertainment, health
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Pediatrician: Vaccinate Your Kids—Or Get Out of My Office
Russell Saunders, a pediatrician in New England, writing at The Daily Beast: Declining vaccines is, at best, misguided. But of course those inclined to refuse them don’t agree with me, and I’m not going to try to change their minds. I’ve had too many of that kind of conversation over the years to hold out […]
‘Cosmos: A Space-Time Odyssey’ Will Breathe New Life Into Sagan’s Vision
Phil Plait (@BadAstronomer on Twitter): “For those questioning the idea of #Cosmos airing on Fox and not PBS, please read this.” We live in a time when the denial of reality is as prevalent (or more) than the acceptance of it. Much of that denial comes from a provincial view of the Universe, a narrowly […]
Also tagged documentary, history, science, tv
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How reliable is the science behind forensic science?
Fascinating PBS: FRONTLINE show from April, “The Real CSI: How reliable is the science behind forensics?” So it turns out that the Forensic sciences (with the notable exception of DNA) are no more “hard science” than Creation “science”, social “science”, or Scientology… Most have no scientific basis at all, and those that do rarely reach […]
Also tagged crime, government, reason, science, skepticism, tv
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States Vary Widely in Number of Tax Filers with No Income Tax Liability
Scott A. Hodge writing at TaxFoundation.org back in 2010: Southern States Have Highest Percentages of “Nonpayers” Generally speaking, the most populated states have the most nonpayers. More than 6 million tax-filing Californians paid nothing to Uncle Sam for the 2008 tax year. That was 37 percent of the 16.4 million tax filers in California. The […]
Also tagged government, money, politics, religion, taxes
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Bill Nye the Science Guy: Why Creationism is Bad for Children
Speaking of Bill Nye, here’s another excellent video from Big Think wherein Bill Nye the Science Guy explains why Creationism is not appropriate for children.
Also tagged evolution, reason, religion, science, skepticism
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Bill Nye, the Science Guy, Death Hoax
via Gossip Cop: Bill Nye is the latest victim of a death hoax. The sick rumor was started on Twitter late Sunday until a “R.I.P. Bill Nye The Science Guy” topic began trending, which in turn spawned thousands of messages mourning his supposed death. It is 100% false. Nye is NOT dead. Funny thing is […]
Also tagged bullshit, news, reason, science, skepticism
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Christopher Hitchens dies at 62
Associated Press: Eloquent and intemperate, bawdy and urbane, Hitchens was an acknowledged contrarian and contradiction — half-Christian, half-Jewish and fully non-believing; a native of England who settled in America; a former Trotskyite who backed the Iraq war and supported George W. Bush. But his passions remained constant and targets of his youth, from Henry Kissinger […]
Also tagged freethought, reason, skepticism
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Nobel Laureate: Science is a totally misunderstood subject
Harold Kroto, 1996 Nobel Laureate (chemistry), speaking to an audience of students yesterday at the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting in Germany: I’m going to talk about what science is because it’s a totally misunderstood sort of subject […] it’s the only philosophical construct we have to determine truth with any degree of reliability. […] The […]
Also tagged reason, science, skepticism
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