Skeptical Inquirer

New CSI Curiouser And Curiouser Column! Embiggen Books Interview!

by podblack on June 30, 2010

I’m really happy that this is featuring and will be zipping in more to the site very soon! Thanks CSI! Warren Bonett is the proprietor of the Embiggen Books Bookshop in Noosaville, Queensland, in northeast Australia. The bookshop, devoted to promoting rationalism and science, features videoed lectures by the likes of Andrew Doherty (The Quantum [...]

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Is It ‘Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic’? Health, Confidence And Teaching Tricks

by podblack on April 29, 2010

Okay, colour-changing-card-me confused about the combination of a new paper and a much older report on the benefits of magic tricks for children! Questioning something that even I find rather palatable upon first reading isn’t unusual, particularly if it involves education claims. I guess I like to question even my own fervent hope that an [...]

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New Curiouser And Curiouser Article – The Token Skeptic At #AtheistCon

by podblack on April 2, 2010

Here’s a sneak preview of my latest article for my Curiouser and Curiouser column at the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry site!!* The ‘Token Skeptic’ at the Rise of Atheism—Global Atheist Convention, Melbourne, Australia As I tugged my suitcase across the foyer of the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, I remembered the last time I visited [...]

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Curiouser And Curiouser – I Write For The Skeptical Inquirer!

by podblack on March 6, 2010

Announcement! I’m now a columnist with Skeptical Inquirer website! The CSI one! With yet another cat-icon by the talented Michael McRae, getting all Cheshire-like on the top. Rworr… A little while back I was approached about contributing something regularly to the Skeptical Inquirer site and so, here it is! It’s been very difficult keeping it [...]

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Day One, Part Two of Dragon*Con 2008

by podblack on August 30, 2008

Right now, I’m typing whilst sitting on the floor of the conference room for the Skeptic Track. Although the program says that Alison Smith should be presenting, it’s actually Ben Radford, talking about ‘Medium’ and the NBC website providing false information about the biography of Allison DuBois, which they later took down off their pages [...]

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Supernatural And Science On MSNBC!

by podblack on August 19, 2008

Considering all the monsters in the press recently, I guess it was inevitable: ‘So, why were we so willing to be into weird things?’ Monsters are everywhere these days, and belief in them is as strong as ever. What’s harder to believe is why so many people buy into hazy evidence, shady schemes and downright [...]

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Dungeons And Dragons – Or Mazes And Monsters?

by gazza666 on July 14, 2008

The following post is for On The Shoulders of Giants — if you’re interested, my earlier entry is here! Traditional board games (such as chess, checkers, Scrabble, Parcheesi) have involved no role-playing on the part of the players, and some have involved a very minimum amount of role-playing within a board setting (such as Monopoly, [...]

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Darwin Day – For Kids

by podblack on February 12, 2008

First, I’d like to say that I’m not an expert on Darwin. But I sure do like to read. And some of the best introduction-to-Darwin books out there are designed for children. Yesterday I wrote about how the Bible has gone Manga – well, it appears that Darwin has been taught in comic book form [...]

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