Tagged with skeptical-zen

A few weeks ago I spoke with a mom at a playground. She mentioned that our library does a toddler storytime on Mondays. So the next Monday, when I checked the library schedule and saw nothing about it, I was confused. A quick call confirmed that they weren't doing it this week, or all summer: school is out, so most of the events are geared towards older kids now. ...

Recently I had a revelation. My wife was doing a pharmacy internship for a month at a downtown hospital. Because it's downtown, parking is tight, so most of the hospital staff is required to park at a remote parking garage and take a 20 minute shuttle ride to the hospital proper (I assume surgeons and high-ranking doctors are exempt from riding with the commoners). However, my wife gets terrible motion sickness if she's not the one driving. Not "I feel yucky", but nausea so severe it induces a panic attack and reduces her to a puddle on the floor, shaking and shivering for hours. ...

A long time ago, in some class I don't remember anything else about, and in an unknown grade level, I remember the teacher going over the topic of logical fallacies. From that day, I remember mostly the ones with funny names: the "bandwagon fallacy" (everyone believes it, so it must be true!), the "red herring fallacy" (bringing in unrelated), the "ad hominem fallacy" (it's wrong because you're stupid), and lastly "hasty generalization". There's a particular variety of "hasty generalization" which is very important to me. ...

It's easy to see that my political/personal opponents are stupid, or evil, or both. ...

"Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime." We've all heard it, and we have a general idea of what it means. As an instruction manual, it gives you two choices for helping people: either do it for them, or educate them so they can do it themselves. There's no third option, but a lot of people add one anyway. ...

Over the years you've blended into your community, in part by taking on the beliefs and behaviors of those around you, and in part by influencing others in your community with your beliefs and behaviors. In your little community, you fit in. You're quietly living your life. You understand the beliefs in your community. You all proudly, if quietly, stand for A and B! ...

Suppose you're on Facebook, minding your own business, when somebody posts a link to an article. This article is about a study, or, more accurately, the article uses the study to support its argument. ...

Don't you hate it when someone who disagrees with you uses stupid arguments to support their position? Like "Yeah, well, if global warming is true, how come it's snowing outside?!" Or "If evolution is true and we evolved from monkeys, then why are there still monkeys?!" ...

Hi kids! Today's topic is "over-generalization"! ...

At least once a day, someone I know will post something to Facebook which I'm 99.9% certain has been proven wrong. Several times a day someone will post items that I'm fairly certain would fall apart under a 5-10 minute Google hunt. You might suppose that I, being the ever-vigilant skeptic, would be the first to comment, tearing their post apart. ...