The 131st Skeptics' Circle

You can now find the 131st Skeptcs' Circle at Providentia. I found the list of areas of knowledge needed for skeptics, and the dowsing for bombs articles to be particularly interesting.
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The 130th Skeptics' Circle

I've been feeling a little overwhelmed lately, so I have not posted much. Meanwhile, a very nice compilation was made at The Lay Scientist for the 130th edition of the Skeptics' Circle. Featured is reported on the massive homeopathic overdoses seen in England in late January, the results of which were predictable (at least to skeptics).
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The 129th Skeptics' Circle

You can now find the 129th Skeptics' Circle over at the blog maintained by The SkepVet. I haven't had a chance to read it yet, and probably won't for a while, but I am eagerly looking forward to it.
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The 128th Skeptics' Circle

At Ionian Enchantment you can find the 128th edition of the Skeptics' Circle. Greg Laden's post is particularly interesting to me.
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The 127th edition of the Skeptics' Circle

One of the nice things about this time of year is that, with my classes ended, I have time for other things. That's why I am finally able to take the time needed to host the 127th Skeptics' Circle. I probably won't have another chance until the 153rd. While I had hoped to have either a best-of-2009 theme or a beginnings-and-endings theme, only one cool cat noticed. Still, I should have been more proactive, so I can only blame myself. At any rate, this is my 100th post (yeah!), and I'm just going with a straight-up listing below the fold.

We'll start with a look at historical electrical quackery at Providentia. For me, it was a reminder that as awful as quackery is today, it seems like it was even worse a hundred years ago.

Next, at Stuff and Nonsense, we get an entry on how repeating a myth, even in the course of debunking it, can backfire, and another on argumentation tactics that do more harm than good. I'm not too sure on Fail #10, some ideas are so ridiculous that only mockery seems to do them justice.

Over at The Uncredible Hallq, we get a criticism of an AP story on how the scientists reacted to unfounded complaints. He blames overly active journalistic balance, my first thought is sensationalism bias.

A Stone-Cold Creationist talk is discussed over at Bay of Fundie. If I were to call him the six million dollar creationist, would that date me too severely?

Apparently, Australian Television actually mixes some skepticism into its news on occasion. Rainbow of Chaos offers a video of a skeptic embarrassing a woomeister.

While the PodBlack Cat goes on a hiatus (with our condolences), she leaves us with a couple of choice offerings: a list of good skeptical books and a a new podcast project called the Token Skeptic.

If you want to know who in Sweden did the most to enlighten and who did the most to confuse, look no further than the official annual announcements from the Swedish Skeptic Society's, reported to us by Aardvarchaeology.

Skepdude celebrates the tendency of skeptics to turn on each other at the slightest hint of irrationality, even the the irrational person is none other than the Great Randi, over on Skepfeeds.

We have a trio from The Skeptical Teacher, which you might call the cool, the snarky, and the fun. Next time I want to put some stickers on a few eggs and then vaporize them from friction, I know who to talk to.

My final blog guest this week, Weird Things, has posted a reality check for Deepak Chopra. No one expects Chopra to cash it, naturally.

In a slight change of pace, one of my favorite posters at the Skeptics' Annotated Bible Discussion Board, Xenolan, posted thoughts on the differences between how skeptics and religious people approach knowledge, and I really wanted to include them.

Finally, because I am much too vain to not include one of my own posts, we have the thirteenth, and probably last, part of my response to The Last Superstition.

I'll be looking for the 128th Skeptics' circle on January 14th at Ionian Enchantment, and hope to see many of you there too.
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The 126th edition of the Skeptics' Circle

Weird things has put up the 126th edition of the Skeptics' Circle. Plenty to see, plenty to read.

The 127th Skeptics' Circle will feature beginnings and endings. It will be the beginning of my hosting of the circle, the end of 2009, the beginning of 2010, and the end of my review series of The Last Superstition. In addition to the usual posts, feel free to submit examples of your most memorable posts from 2009 and any beginnings or ending you want to include. My email is one_brow(at)yahoo.com.
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The 125th Skeptics' Circle

You can no find the 125th Skeptics' Circle at Effort Sisyphus, with two ways to experience the journey. Is your pill red or blue?
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The 124th Skeptics' Circle

There is a huge collection of links at Beyond the Short Coat for the 124th edition of the Skeptics' Circle. I might get to them all this weekend, but you can bet Jay Leno's "reading" by Sylvia Browne will be near the top of the list!
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The 123rd Skeptics' Circle

Colin channels Galileo in the 123rd edition of the Skeptics' Circle at Blue Genes, with a list of links that is simply huge. Highly recommended.
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The 122nd Skeptics' Circle

As the lone self-aware monobrow on the skeptical comittee dominated by humans, I was in general peased with the overall quality of their presentations, and offer my congratualtions to the hosts, the Young Australian Skeptics, and in particular Mr. Hughes.
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The 121st Skeptics' Circle

The 121st Skeptics' Circle is up and running at The Mad Skpetic, where Myron does an amusing bit as an announcer for W.E.B.S.
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The 120th Skeptics' Circle

You can fine the 120th Skeptics' Circle at Pro-science, with a straight-forward roundup and topic indicator, and a lot of very good reading.
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The 119th Skeptics' Circle

You can find the 119th Skeptics' Circle up at Cubik's Rube, with a long narrative and a host of links i don't have time to read today. There is also a shorter, link-only version.
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The 118th Skeptics' Circle

At Evolving Mind we have the Looking Closely edition of the Skeptics' Circle. There are nice bits about the development of precision lenses in microscopes and telescopes as well as the usual links, and I enjoyed it immensely.
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The 117th Skeptics Circle

The 117th Skeptics Circle is up at Ionian Enchantment. No post from me this time, but there will be for the 118th. I'm also helping out in the proposed Google bomb on the words chiropractor and chiropractic, because the use of English libel law by the British Chiropractic Association to defend the unwarranted claims of its chiropractors using chiropractic techniques for conditions like asthma, when the chiropractic techniques of chiropractors are little more than good back massages.
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The 116th Skeptics' Circle

The 116th edition of the Skeptics' Circle is up at Beyond the Short Coat, as a doctor wander through a homeopathic ER. Very amusing.
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The 115th Skeptics' Circle

You will find the 115th edition of the Skeptics' Circle at Effort Sisyphus, where in it is revealed, among other things, that when asked to name a planet, I can't even figure out they don't mean one of the eight around our sun. Otherwise (or perhaps because of that), it's a delight and a treat.
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The 114th edition of the Skeptics' Circle

You can now find the 114th edition of the Skeptics' Circle at Homologous Legs. He was even kind enough to include my last-minute submission.

I plan on having two new posts up this weekend (one a very long response to some 28 comments of another post, the other on how some philosophers are as bad at mathematics as I am at philosophy, and an example of how the job should be done). Until then, may all you fellow Americans enjoy Independence Day.
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The 113 Skeptics Circle

Skeptics circle #133 is up and running at The Uncredible Hallq. Low quantity, but high quality (whether that is despite my not having a post, or in part because of it, is left as an exercise to the reader).
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The 111th Skeptics' Circle is up

One of the funniest presentations I've seen for a Skeptic's Circle is now up at Action Skeptics, and I have no doubt my regular poster (aintnuthin) will find unintentional irony in the presentation.
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