Skeptic
> Of all the people on the internet pretending to be geniuses, none are more aggravating than the Weinstein brothers. You have Bret, a fake biologist who tells everyone he deserves a Nobel prize for no reason, and really just spreads misinformation about biomedical topics on the internet which get people killed. Then you have Eric, a fake physicist who tells everyone he deserves a Nobel prize for no reason, and really just spreads anti-establishment tripe all over the internet that degrades public perception of academia and the scientific community. Basically, these guys are gigantic assholes. But they've managed to convince so many people that they're brilliant renegades who have been shunned by the establishment, because their truth is just too hot to handle. How are they able to do this, and can their fans be shown what massive frauds they really are? Let's take a crack at it!
www.theguardian.com
>Diary note: it may seem a while off, but the end of the world is still scheduled for 2030, precise date TBC. After once suggesting that nameless devastation could be upon us in 2012, the evergreen eschatologist Graham Hancock subsequently updated his advice to a comet, now six years off. Or thereabouts. MailOnline, which has been exhuming an ancient Hancock text, reminds readers of his “dire warning for our age”. > >What is certain, anyway, is that a great and horrifying catastrophe will occur as soon as 16 October. This is the day Netflix will launch something astounding, almost beyond belief, something sceptics said could never happen: series 2 of Hancock’s Ancient Apocalypse. And stranger still: this terrible event stars, along with Hancock, the Hollywood actor Keanu Reeves.
> But the marker is now one of at least 15 that say, without hesitation, that aliens have come to visit Earth. > >They join more than 180,000 other historical markers dotting the country’s landscape, and NPR found they wouldn’t be the first to claim something that may, or may not, be true. > >There’s a marker in Massachusetts that claims the town was once home to a real, live wizard. New York has a marker about a ghost that plays the fiddle on a bridge in the moonlight. Edit: I can only think that the downvoters either believe the aliens are among us or that they don't understand the very obvious tongue-in-cheek nature of the article despite the whole "real, live wizard" part I pasted above.
A long conversation with one of the best people to fight the battle against archaeological pseudoscience on the internet. If you have not seen Milo's epic critical takedown of Graham Hancock's Ancient Apocalypse, I highly recommend checking it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iCIZQX9i1A&t=136s
m.imdb.com
It's sad to see the Bowery King mystery mongering.
Come on, Keanu. Not you.
www.televisual.com
Get ready for another 8 hours of speculative bullshit. This time with Keanu Reeves for some reason.
www.texastribune.org
"Shaken baby syndrome" was a fad medical diagnosis in the 80's and 90's that has led to many miscarriages of justice (e.g. Sally Clark). It has subsequently been widely discredited by most of the Medical community, but that won't stop some prosecuters...
> There is an Ancient Aliens game. It's chock full of kooky conspiracies for us to fact check and debunk, plus we get to be hypnotised by Giorgio and turned into an alien. Who could say no to that?
Looking forward to the people coming in to tell us that Adam Conover is annoying.
What Luis Elizondo got very wrong about the UFO videos in his book "Imminent: Inside the Pentagon's Hunt for UFOs" By Mick West
www.bbc.co.uk
This is a well produced series. I'm tangentially professionally exposed to the talc issue so I'm aware of a lot of these problems. I recommend folks add to their podcast feed.
www.theguardian.com
> In a May 2000 essay published on his website, Hancock writes: “I have consistently argued that the Americas were inhabited in prehistoric times by a variety of ethnic groups – Negroid, Caucasoid and Mongoloid … Such ideas have caused deep offense to some American Indians, who have long claimed to be the only ‘native’ Americans.” > >He goes on to describe various prehistoric artifacts that he says prove the presence of Caucasians and Africans before Columbus landed on the continent in 1492. This includes his research into the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl, who he says was described by the Aztecs as “tall, white-skinned and red bearded – sometimes blue eyed as well”. I don't ever want to hear that Hancock isn't a racist again. Edit: I see we have some Hancock fans lurking. Hello! Hope you enjoy the next season despite Hancock not being allowed to be a racist in the Grand Canyon.
This is from 2021, but it was news to me and yeah, we all know that show is nuts, but to have it all laid out in one place is pretty amazing.
Steven Pinker explains the cognitive biases we all suffer from and how they can short-circuit rational thinking and lead us into believing stupid things. Skip to 12:15 to bypass the preamble.
www.whats-on-netflix.com
Milo Rossi, aka Miniminuteman, a YouTuber with an archaeology degree did a multi-part deep dive into exactly all of the things Graham Hancock got wrong or just plain lied about and I highly recommend it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iCIZQX9i1A
Journalism/Media - https://www.cjr.org/ https://cpj.org/ https://freedomhouse.org/reports https://www.ifj.org/ https://ipi.media/ https://www.iwmf.org/ https://medialandscapes.org/ https://www.osce.org/representative-on-freedom-of-media https://www.osce.org/representative-on-freedom-of-media https://rsf.org/en https://en.unesco.org/themes/building-knowledge-societies/wsis Newspapers - http://www.onlinenewspapers.com/ https://www.freedomforum.org/todaysfrontpages/#1 https://www.4imn.com/ Social Media - https://ezproxy.wpunj.edu/login?url=http://www.statista.com https://www.dragonsocial.net/blog/social-media-in-china/ https://datareportal.com/library https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/03/most-popular-social-networks-mapped Extra - https://ground.news/ https://www.wikihow.com/Search-by-Image
(USA) >Some lawmakers across the country are working to sidestep vaccine mandates, not just for COVID-19, but also for measles, polio and meningitis. Public health experts worry the renewed opposition to childhood immunizations will reverse state gains in vaccination rates. Meanwhile, cases of some diseases, including measles, have increased across the country. >>We’re against the government telling us what to do with our own bodies. >– Louisiana Republican state Rep. Kathy Edmonston >“Conservatives have really moved towards that medical freedom position of where people need to be really educated about whatever vaccine that they are taking,” said Tennessee state Sen. Bo Watson, who sponsored his state’s legislation. Picture unrelated to article: 
Was Roger Penrose not completely insane when he proposed his Orch OR theory of the mind? Still doesn't explain the hard problem of consciousness, but a step closer?
> The new norms reframe the Catholic Church’s evaluation process by essentially taking off the table whether church authorities will declare a particular vision, stigmata or other seemingly divinely inspired event supernatural. > >Instead, the new criteria envisages six main outcomes, with the most favorable being that the church issues a noncommittal doctrinal green light, a so-called “nihil obstat.” Such a declaration means there is nothing about the event that is contrary to the faith, and therefore Catholics can express devotion to it. ... > The norms also allow that an event might at some point be declared “supernatural,” and that the pope can intervene in the process. But “as a rule,” the church is no longer in the business of authenticating inexplicable events or making definitive decisions about their supernatural origin.
Excellent essay from Coyne and Maroja that picks apart six widespread examples of biology being corrupted by (often well-intentioned) ideology.