A crash course in shooting down bad arguments. Two skeptics examine poor reasoning - 1 fallacy each week - real fallacies from pseudoscience, science misconceptions, politics, philosophy and media.
The Burden of Proof fallacy is the entire “argument” employed in the advocacy of intelligent design - which is the first example we look at. I interview Sandra Quincey about her win in the retraction of the “Sex Magnet”. How did she do this? By correctly employing the burden of proof. We also start a semi-new segment “spot that fallacy”, based on the non sequiturist Jeni Barnett. Head the website www.skepticsfieldguide.net for full show notes.
Simple Minded Certitude is the topic of discussion in this podcast. Hit the link to head to the website for further examples. Thanks to Geoff Orr for being in this podcast. Note: the podcast is going to be fortnightly for a while as I’ve a lot on. Sorry…
Dawkins on homeopathy from the Enemies of Reason Part 2
Dawkins on the scientific ideal from The Root of All Evil? Part 1
We have a clip from Richard Dawkins’ The Enemies of Reason (Part 2)
And the winner of our, “Oy! Give us a review on iTunes” competition was Zach Nereim. Shoot me an email with your mailing address Zach, and a copy of Humbug! will be on its way shortly. And thanks to all of you who’ve written reviews. I cry as much as Roger Federer losing or winning the Australian Open every time I read them. It hurts so good.
