From Abracadabra to Zombies - 783 entries | View All
The Skeptic's Dictionary features definitions, arguments, and essays on hundreds of strange beliefs, amusing deceptions, and dangerous delusions. It also features dozens of entries on logical fallacies, cognitive biases, perception, science, and philosophy.
Also posted are over 20 years of reader comments.
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- Recent Entries or Modifications
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Date Status* Entry
16 Feb
new SD Newsletter
Sample the Skeptic's Dictionary
single cause bias/ fallacy/ illusion
The single cause bias is a cognitive bias characterized by thetendency to think that there is one cause of a complex phenomenon. The single cause fallacy is the belief that there is a single cause for some complex phenomenon based on no evidence, and thus is a fallacy of assumption. The single causeillusion is the belief that there is a single cause for some complex phenomenon based on testimonials, biased scientific evidence, orcommunal reinforcement for the single cause. The illusion is based on confirmation bias and the fallacies of omitting relevant evidence, hasty conclusion, and false cause. The single cause bias is exemplified by the tendency to think that such complex phenomena as alcoholism, autism, cancer, mental illness, extreme weather conditions, or economic recessions are each due to a distinct single cause.>>more
sample Mysteries and Science (for kids 9 and up)
aliens
In a nutshell: Some people say that creatures from other planets have landed on Earth. They say they've seen them and been on their spacecraft. Some say that aliens have made drawings on rocks, on the ground, on pottery, and on ancient buildings. Some say aliens taught ancient peoples on Earth how to build monuments. Some say aliens have carved patterns in wheat and corn fields. Some say that aliens have crash landed here. Even so, the science doesn't favor the likelihood that any creatures from other star systems have made their way to our planet.
Aliens are creatures from other planets. Do they exist? Most scientists think so. Since there are billions of galaxies and each has billions of stars, and we know that many stars have planets, it seems likely that some other planets out there have living creatures on them.>>more
a blast from the past
Book Review
Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism
by Susan Jacoby
Owl Books (2004)
Susan Jacoby's Freethinkers is subtitled A History of American Secularism. Her much-needed book is a primer on the anti-secularism that characterizes much of American history. It might well have been subtitled How We Got from a Kingless/Godless Constitution to a Faith-Based Monarchy.
Jacoby's account begins with the pre-revolutionary colonial boys and their concern for peace and justice on earth. It ends with the Texas theocrats (like George W. Bush and Tom Delay) claiming to be doing some god's work. She details how we got to a world of politics dominated by concerns over evolution, abortion, stem-cell research, flag burning, and same-sex marriage, while the real and significant issues of our day are ignored or given a make-over by conservative contrarians whose job is to rewrite history, science, or whatever else stands in the way of a fact-based account of reality.>>more