Everyday Feminism promotes astrology

Is it mansplaining if I advise feminists to not link their movement to astrology? I don’t think so, as it’s good advice. Of course, the Everyday Feminism site is beyond the pale, and I really should stop looking at it because their extreme form of Authoritarian and Prescriptive Leftism makes me dyspeptic. (Sample articles on […]

VICE defends astrology, selling it by saying it’s hated by “straight men”

It’s odd that any respectable media would defend astrology these days, since there’s no evidence for a correlation of birth sign with personality (a comprehensive double-blind test published in Nature in 1985 showed that pretty definitively). In many ways astrology is like religion: they’re both based on faith, there’s no evidence for their overweening truth claims, […]

Nature Scientific Reports publishes peer-reviewed paper showing efficacy of homeopathy

Reader Ryan (aka “vampyricon”) recently called my attention to this paper in Nature’s Scientific Reports (reference at bottom, click on screenshot below to read it online, and get pdf here). It’s important because it claims to demonstrate that homeopathy works. In this case, a homeopathic dilution of up to 10-30 of a solution of poison oak (Toxicodendron […]

Here we go again: a Templeton-sponsored conference designed to “expand” evolutionary biology

When I was sent this announcement of a conference on evolution at Cambridge University next year (click on screenshots), and when I read the program and saw the speakers (links at third screenshot), I smelled a RAT (abbreviation for “rubbish and Templeton”), but I didn’t know for sure that the John Templeton Foundation was one […]

Teleogical views predict not just creationism, but conspiracy theories

I’ll be brief here because the paper itself, just published in Current Biology (reference below, access free, pdf here) is short: just over a page of text. After finding evidence in a small survey (N = 157) that teleology  (“the tendency to ascribe function and final cause to nonintentional natural facts and events”) was significantly […]

Teen Vogue pushes astrology as “wellness” and “spirituality”

I haven’t yet concluded that Control Leftism goes along with woo, but Teen Vogue, a girl’s fashion magazine that’s been turning into a nubile Huffington Post after replacing its editor with a former editor of Feministing, has shown a certain penchant for woo. For example, its “Wellness” section is actually a “wellness and spirituality” section, […]

NYT op-ed endorses amulets and other woo for disease

As part of the continuing decline of the New York Times, we have this new op-ed by Steve Petrow, a writer from North Carolina who, the paper says, “is a regular contributor to Well” (the paper’s health column). But this is more about woo than about health. Click the link below to read the piece. Petrow’s point […]

Jordan Peterson, Sophisticated Theologian

I am still deliberately avoiding reading or listening to Jordan Peterson. He seems to be a maelstrom, a black hole who will suck you into Internet arguments that will eat up all your time and energy.  As Bert Jansch sang, “I have no time to spend with you; you talk of nothing, what can you […]

New York Times pushes pseudoscience: detoxing!

Most of you probably know that the concept of “detoxing”—taking various nostrums to purge your body of supposedly retained “toxins”—is a scam. Our body doesn’t retain toxins (except for things like ingested polonium fed you by Russian operatives); and the “purges,” ranging from drinking lemon juice to taking coffee enemas—do nothing. (Thanks, Gwyneth!) Despite that, […]

Diseases are correlated with birth months

Five days ago I reported on the unctuous Dr. Mehmet Oz and his new claim that various medical conditions and ailments were correlated with your astrological sign. I poo-pooed this since I couldn’t see any obvious connection between birth date and medical conditions. Well, I may have spoken a bit too fast, though, as I […]