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News Gathering vs. Confirmation Bias
- Remember, if you do not have at least one source of news that you turn to regularly, with which you routinely disagree, then you are not practicing news gathering! You are practicing [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: reason
Chick-fil-A and free speech
Teller (@MrTeller) on Twitter: A clear little essay on Chick-fil-A and the 1st Amendment in Boston. In addition to dealing with what the Mayor of Boston, and others such as certain Chicago Aldermen, have said on the matter, the linked piece is actually a clear and concise primer on Chick-fil-A and the First Amendment, and […]
Also tagged freespeech, government, religion, society
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Why are believers ignorant about atheists?
Greta Christina writing at AlterNet.org (via Salon.com): It’s important to remember that most atheists were once believers. We’re familiar with religion because we’ve believed it ourselves. And it’s important to remember that, in most of the world, religious belief is the dominant culture. Atheists have to be familiar with it. It’s shoved in our face […]
Also tagged freethought, religion
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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 education, freethought, skepticism
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Penn Jillette interview at Big Think
Good stuff–just what you’d expect from Penn Jillette.
Also tagged penn&teller, 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 education, science, skepticism
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TAM 9 from Outer Space!
The James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) announces the 9th annual installment of The Amaz!ng Meeting (TAM), July 14-17, 2011 at the South Point Hotel, Casino & Spa, Las Vegas, NV. This year’s speakers will include Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Nye (the Science Guy), Phil Plait, Rebecca Watson of Skepchik, Michael Shermer, Adam Savage of Mythbusters, […]