Book Review:- The Scope of Skepticism

    

Kylie Sturgess is a powerhouse..really..I just looked at her "About Me" page and I just went Wow, she's busy...
She writes for the Skeptical Enquirer, has been the co-host for the Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne in 2010 and 2012, she also writes for Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, appears on The Skeptic Zone podcast and The Pod Delusion, all this while teaching philosophy and studying psychology.
 
I first came across Kylie when looking for podcasts that feature scientists, and found the  Token Skeptic podcast and she has just produced a book about some of the people she has interviewed on the show.

The book is titled:-

The Scope of Skepticism: Interviews, Essays and Observations From the Token Skeptic Podcast

Kylie started the Token Skeptic podcast on 26th December 2009, and now has about 15,000 downloads a month. Episodes can be from 20 minutes to over an hour, and encompasses a wide variety of guests over the 137 (Another one!) 138 episodes she has done so far. 

Token Skeptic episodes include interviews with Andy Lewis of the Quackometer, Dr Steve Novella and his talk at QEDCon (highly recommended), Robin Ince, members of StoptheAVN, Laurence Leung, Dr Richard Wiseman, and Warren Bonett of Embiggen Books. (Warren gets a special mention as he put my suggestion in a window display once.)

The book is a collection of interviews that include Tim Minchin, Stephen Fry, Daniel Loxton, Dr Pamela Gay, Dr Petra Boynton (who I follow on twitter), with 18 interviews in total.

I enjoyed reading many of them, Tim Minchin, Steven Fry are well known and totally wonderful, others I have not heard of before, such as Benjamin Radford, Liz Liddell and some who I didn't know by name, but by what they did such as Sharon Hill of doubtful news.

I admit I did find the one with Caroline Watt to be most interesting and also about the online parapsychology course that she runs (Started 24th September so a bit late now if anyone was interested, sorry).

There was one interview where I'm thinking "What?...what?..call yourself a skeptic?.... You have to buy the book to find out who that was...It's not expensive...so go ahead.. 

If that is not enough Kylie, also blogs at Free Thought Blogs

Do yourself a favor and add the Token Skeptic podcast to your podcast list.


“Education has failed in a very serious way to convey the most important lesson science can teach: skepticism" - David Suzuki 

Token Skeptic image used with permission of Kylie Sturguess

Book Review - Stephen Law and his Believing Bullshit

     When you say "philosopher" most people imagine old men with great white beards, possibly this was true in old Greece, but we have have moved on a bit since then. I have been reading a book from Stephen Law called  Believing Bullshit.

I have only started reading philosophy recently, and came across Stephen Law when I bought his earlier book The War for Childrens Minds, as I had hoped it would have been useful in our current battle in Australia with the Chaplains, and Religious Indoctrination classes in schools. Maybe he can add a chapter for the next edition on Australia.

 I have to admit I'm not sure who Believing Bullshit aimed at, I would be encouraging younger people to read it, as it covers a good range of logical fallacies, some basic philosophical questions, and it's not a book that is hard going. I'm sure it would have been helpful to me when I was younger. If you have spent some time in the atheist movement, or reading atheist blogs, and watching the debates with religious and theological people you will probably have seen most of the areas covered in the book. It's not particularly aimed solely towards religion, but also alternative medicine and much of the New Age style of thinking. 

The Book has eight chapters

1. Playing the Mystery Card
2. But it Fits and the Blunderbuss
3. Going Nuclear
4. Moving the Semantic Goalposts
5. I Just Know!
6. Pseudoprofunity
7. Piling up the Anecdotes
8. Pressing your buttons

These are some of the methods and verbal strategies used by those who seek to defend their positions when put under rational scrutiny.

I have to admit its the only book I have read with two appendixes to the Introduction, but the contents are entertaining,and provide good examples of woolly thinking, one such being a theological reason for earthquakes.

Each Chapter explains how the method is used and applied, the author also explains what is wrong with it.   

It does seem to have rather more italics in the text than I am used to.

I have made a few of my own examples, and found another a few days ago. I think the chapters they relate to are quite obvious.

And from the web a few days ago

I wasn't so keen on the Screwtape letters at the end of the book, but then I didn't read the original by C S Lewis, as I usually steer clear of Christian hypocrites.

I really do sympathise that Stephen must have to read an awful lot of this rubbish, in order to refute it.
If you can read an interview with Stephen Law at New Scientist and you can hear him talk at the Poddelusion podcast from the BHA Convention in June.

Stephen Law is lecturer in Philosophy at Heythrop College, The University of London. He is also editor of THINK, a journal of the Royal Institute of Philosophy aimed at the general public.

How many Bishops does it take to change a light bulb? They don't want the lightbulb to be changed as they prefer everyone be kept in the dark. -Anon  

New SL books

A new SL book is coming out The Unofficial Tourists' Guide to Second Life

Tim guest has Second Lifes coming out soon.

Aimee Weber has a book coming out on advanced building.

Hamlet Linden is working on his own book to come out soon.

Now all we need is the Phinn Boffin/Vint Falkin coffee table picture book.

A room without books is like a body without a soul - Cicero

Book Review

I have seen a few mentions of the book "The Victorian Internet" by Tom Standage, from Ordinal and Erbo.

So on my last visit to the Library, I ordered a copy. It was not as big as I thought it would be, but quite a good read. It's about 200 pages long.

It's full of lurid tales of vice and naked ambition and seedy hotels with record company executives ripping off young talented..hang on, sorry wrong book.

Victorian Internet is mostly about Samuel Morse and how the telegraph system he invented changed the times it takes to communicate news from months to minutes.

It gives a backgroud to people and ideas leading up to his invention, and the incredible amount of trouble it took to get some backing to get it recognized as something worthwhile.

But I suspect most people who read this blog will recognize the misunderstandings that people had then, as now.

An ISP where I used to work, was once asked to send a caller the Internet on CD. There was also the ever popular, "Do I have to be connected to the Internet to get my Email"?


BTW: Blogger has taken all my formatting away! ( Stupid Blogger )



If only we'd stop trying to be happy, we could have a pretty good time.
~Edith Wharton