Fact or Fiction? - The Art of the Prank

March 26, 2007January 15, 2019

A Practical Guide To Critical Thinking by Greg R. Haskins

An excellent reference for anyone who professes to believe in anything.

The full article is on the skepdic.com Web site and is full of models, charts and graphs. It is well worth the read. -JS

Introduction

There have been many definitions of critical thinking. From a practical perspective, it may be defined as:

A process by which we use our knowledge and intelligence to effectively arrive at the most reasonable and justifiable positions on issues, and which endeavors to identify and overcome the numerous hindrances to rational thinking.

Not everyone values the need for critical thinking. Often, being methodically objective is viewed as cold, sterile, and worst of all, boring. To those who say “Have faith and let your feelings guide you to the truth,” or “Don”t let facts get in the way of an inspiring or interesting story,” these words will probably not resonate. But for those who truly understand and appreciate the importance of critical thinking, this paper, including the attached tables, can become a useful reference for daily life. Continue reading “A Practical Guide To Critical Thinking by Greg R. Haskins”

March 25, 2007January 15, 2019

God’s dupes by Sam Harris

This article from the LA Times, March 15, 2007 is so incisive and deserving of attention, I hope everyone reads it! Sam Harris is the author of “The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason” and “Letter to a Christian Nation.” -JS

Moderate believers give cover to religious fanatics — and are every bit as delusional.

Pete Stark, a California Democrat, appears to be the first congressman in U.S. history to acknowledge that he doesn’t believe in God. In a country in which 83% of the population thinks that the Bible is the literal or “inspired” word of the creator of the universe, this took political courage.

Of course, one can imagine that Cicero’s handlers in the 1st century BC lost some sleep when he likened the traditional accounts of the Greco-Roman gods to the “dreams of madmen” and to the “insane mythology of Egypt.”

Mythology is where all gods go to die, and it seems that Stark has secured a place in American history simply by admitting that a fresh grave should be dug for the God of Abraham “” the jealous, genocidal, priggish and self-contradictory tyrant of the Bible and the Koran. Continue reading “God’s dupes by Sam Harris”

March 18, 2007January 15, 2019

Natural Born Faker (Article is in Spanish)

This article, previously published in Cultura/s in June 2003, is about Michael Born, a German television reporter who made up his stories. He was far more extreme than Jayson Blair at the New York Times. He created events with actors, tomato sauce blood, etc. and sold them to German cable channels in the 1990’s.

The real question is whether Born is the only one culpable, as the court decision decreed, or were the buyers of the stories equally guilty for not checking them out. -JS

El caso de Jayson Blair y sus artàculos falseados y/o inventados en The New York Times ha supuesto un nuevo impulso para la instauracià³n del “fake journalism” –o como lo define el gran Tom Kummer, “borderline journalism”-, como género en sà mismo que tarde o temprano se estudiarà¡ en las facultades de periodismo. Continue reading “Natural Born Faker (Article is in Spanish)”

March 15, 2007January 15, 2019

The New Virtuality, and Truth is Stranger than Fiction

Strom writes his “Web Informant” blog about current trends in technology and Internet marketing. This appeared in the fall of 2006, and was originally published for the site TidBITS.com, a site geared towards Apple computer users. The article is updated for ArtofthePrank.com.

The news in the fall of 2006 has me confused; so let me see if I have this straight. MTV is now doing a game where you can play as one of the characters from one of their reality TV shows, a show that employs script writers. These are different writers from the ones who not too long ago were protesting that they weren’t paid enough and had to falsify their time sheets to show that they worked fewer hours.

Then there are people making money off of selling Second Life businesses that sell virtual goods to others inside their virtual world. Continue reading “The New Virtuality, and Truth is Stranger than Fiction”