Tag Archives: evaluating evidence

Assumptions vs. inductive logic: is radiometric dating based on assumptions?

Anyone who has tried to debate a creationist has invariably encountered their liberal use of the word, “assumption.” This is one of their trump-card, catch-all arguments that they use to handily “defeat” any evidence that opposes their position. For example, … Continue reading

Posted in Nature of Science, Science of Evolution | Tagged , , , , | 20 Comments

5 simple chemistry facts that everyone should understand before talking about science

One of the most ludicrous things about the anti-science movement is the enormous number of arguments that are based on a lack of knowledge about high school level chemistry. These chemistry facts are so elementary and fundamental to science that … Continue reading

Posted in Nature of Science, Vaccines/Alternative Medicine | Tagged , , , , | 483 Comments

Falling branches: the illusion of miraculous divine intervention

Human beings like to have explanations for everything, and we find seemingly inexplicable events extremely troubling. We disdain the notion that some things just happen without any rhyme or reason for them. This dependency on meaningful events makes us prone … Continue reading

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Winning the war with the “Food Babe Army”

Over the past week, something truly amazing has happened on the internet. The skeptic community has risen up and unanimously decried the quackery and fear mongering that constantly spews from Vani Hari’s mouth (and website). Vani Hari, better known as … Continue reading

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Basic Statistics Part 3: The Dangers of Large Data Sets: A Tale of P values, Error Rates, and Bonferroni Corrections

In previous posts, I have explained the importance of having lots of data, but what I failed to mention was the dangers of analyzing these large data sets. You see, all real data has variation in it, and when you … Continue reading

Posted in Nature of Science | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments