Category: Fact or Fiction?

A look at conspiracy theories, “official truths”, political spin, propaganda, tall tales, urban legends, magic, and illusion, all as they relate to the Art of the Prank. When truth intersects with a personal agenda, established facts are challenged, or human gullibility is preyed upon for ulterior motives, we hope that skepticism, logic, reason, and facts have a balancing effect.

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How much would you pay to wear Beethoven on your finger?

Thanks to the fine folks at LifeGem, when a loved one is cremated, instead of keeping their ashes in a box on the mantel, you can have them made into a diamond. Not content to rest on their laurels, they’ve now teamed up with John Reznikoff and his collection of celebrity hair (valued at over $5 million) to bring you diamonds made at least partially from the ashes of someone famous. The diamond comes in a box, but it wouldn’t be hard to have it put in an appropriately garish setting.

beethoven_100à—100.jpgThe Beethoven LifeGem® diamond. To showcase our newest technology, we are creating three LifeGem diamonds with the carbon from Ludwig van Beethoven’s hair!

Seeing is believing!

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But I just saw him yesterday!

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It’s unclear what Maria Estela Lima thought she would gain by claiming her husband had been swallowed by a boa constrictor, but in the wash of media attention that followed, it was discovered that the Paraguayan housewife was spinning a yarn. Her husband had simply left her, as husbands sometimes do. Perhaps she wanted to find a nice reporter or cameraman to keep her company. Read on at Reuters…

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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”

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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”

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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)”

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