MetaFilter posts tagged with debunking

A certain film just lost its engineer demographic...

Taft — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 23:17:48 -0800

NASA debunks 2012 conspiracy theories

Helping to dismantle the walls of deception, one brick at a time

owhydididoit — Wed, 21 May 2008 08:03:14 -0800

Catchpenny Mysteries of Ancient Egypt Explained by Larry Orcutt.

What, No Killer Tomatoes?

owhydididoit — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 23:13:55 -0800

The Biology of B-Movie Monsters

No need for tinfoil hats.

blahblahblah — Tue, 29 Mar 2005 09:19:50 -0800

Mind control revealed. Derren Brown, magician turned hypnotist, performs amazing feats of mind control and then gives away the basic psychological tricks he uses. The link is to the video clips from England's Channel 4, an article is here. Via boingboing.

Dowsing for love and money.

OmieWise — Fri, 07 Jan 2005 12:02:39 -0800

Dowsing can be used to find water, find caves, find landmines, heal yourself and others, and clear your house of bad energy. There are several studies that purport to prove that dowsing works (one ten year study found a 96% success rate among dowsers in arid regions). There are online lessons for how to dowse, from the Digital Dowsers Society. The Journal of Christian Research thinks it might be a tool of the devil. But the scientific evidence is at best equivocal (as you might expect.) Scroll down on this page for more experiment debunking. Also always check The Skeptics Dictionary.

Not So Fast...

zarq — Fri, 03 Dec 2004 16:05:46 -0800

That BBC article about AIDS and NYC? Debunked. This one's for schroedinger, who posted the original BBC story about the documentary accusing the NYC Association for Children’s Services of using children in foster care for drug testing experiments without parental consent on MeFi here. Here's an intelligent and well thought out rebuttal from blogger respectfulofotters to the points made (and sources used by,) the documentary.

Dyson On The Paranormal or Expect A Miracle

Jos Bleau — Wed, 14 Jul 2004 07:55:27 -0800

Expect a miracle? Freeman Dyson on Littlewood's Law of Miracles: "...the total number of events that happen to us is about thirty thousand per day, or about a million per month. ...The chance of a miracle is about one per million events. Therefore we should expect about one miracle to happen, on the average, every month." From his review of book debunking the paranormal (whose views he isn't entirely willing to accept). Via Marginal Revolution

The Skeptic's Dictionary

chrisgregory — Fri, 06 Feb 2004 06:01:49 -0800

The Skeptic's Dictionary is a wonderful resource for all sentient individuals: 'A Collection of Strange Beliefs, Amusing Deceptions, and Dangerous Delusions (and how to think critically about them)'. It's where I send people when they start telling me nonsense. It is also a jolly good read: try the entry for natural, for example. And some entries, like the entry for IQ and race, verge on the profound. There is a print edition, but the extensive internal and external site linkage makes reading the collection online a particular joy. While The Skeptic's Dictionary has been referred to before on MeFi, the link made the site out to be a cornucopia of Urban legend-style oddities, like Snopes. Which I thought was a shame: not dissing Snopes, but the Skeptic's Dictionary delivers a firm grounding in critical thinking as well. This post is dedicated to all of my relatives who chipped in to buy shark cartilage tablets and several fifty-dollar pamphlets full of testimonials after my father had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and who probably still think the worse of me for not contributing to their folly.

mikrophon — Fri, 06 Sep 2002 09:52:59 -0800

The frequency of chocolate cake compared to my freakin' laptop computer? Kirlian Photography? God! So much hype! The Q-Link! That stupid "arm test!" The more I think about it, the more bogus it seems!

A true believer discusses the flim flam behind a Tony Robbins seminar in James Randi's online newsletter Swift.

Postroad — Fri, 14 Sep 2001 03:54:10 -0800

Nostradamus full of beans Yes. That guy again. But this shows how wrong the nonsense going around truly is.

revbrian — Fri, 30 Mar 2001 05:32:08 -0800

The Scholars and the Godess In "The scholars and the Godess" Charlotte Allen writes of the now debunked history of Wicca.

"Diotima Mantineia," age forty-eight, is the associate editor of The Witches' Voice summed up her feelings on the debunking of the official Wiccan narrative this way: "It doesn't matter to me how old Wicca is, because when I connect with Deity as Lady and Lord, I know that I am connecting with something much larger and vaster than I can fully comprehend. The Creator of this universe has been manifesting to us for all time, in the forms of gods and goddesses that we can relate to. This personal connection with Deity is what is meaningful. For me, Wicca works to facilitate that connection, and that is what really matters."

I agree. Simply that it works for the individual is all that matters. What works for you?