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Earth

Drought Inspires a Boom In Pseudoscience, From Rain Machines To 'Water Witches' 266

Posted by timothy from the hi-cousin-barry dept.
merbs (2708203) writes Across drought-stricken California, farmers are desperate for water. Now, many of them are calling dowsers. These "water witches," draped in dubious pseudoscience or self-assembled mythologies—or both—typically use divining rods and some sort of practiced intuition to "find" water. The professional variety do so for a fee. And business is booming. They're just part of a storied tradition of pseudoscientific hucksters exploiting our thirst for water, with everything from cloudbusters to rainmachines to New Age rituals.

Comment Re:Slashdot comments indicative of the problem (Score 2) 1262

In a very real sense, she is a preacher of hate. Some people take exception to that to the point of losing rationality. On the other hand, lets wait and see whether her story actually pans out. This may still be a publicity stunt, and it actually has all the characteristics of one.

Comment Re:And this is how we get to the more concrete har (Score 1) 528

by gweihir (#47775163) Attached to: Limiting the Teaching of the Scientific Process In Ohio

You are overlooking the question of consistency of your chosen axioms with reality. That is very much a part of rationality. In fact, it is the basis. Deriving things from axioms is just a tool that usually comes in handy and is required in basically all practical applications of rationality, but it is not strictly necessary if you get axiom consistency with reality in some other way (which is not practical, hence reasoning is usually regarded as a part of rationality).
Crime

Anita Sarkeesian, Creator of "Tropes vs. Women," Driven From Home By Trolls 1262

Posted by timothy from the bad-childhoods-never-end dept.
Sonny Yatsen writes: Anita Sarkeesian, the creator of Tropes vs. Women — a video series exploring negative tropes and misogynistic depictions of women in video games — reports that she has been driven from her home after a series of extremely violent sexual threats made against her. Her videos have previously drawn criticism from many male gamers, often coupled with violent imagery or threats of violence. The Verge story linked has this to say: The threats against Sarkeesian have become a nasty backdrop to her entire project — and her life. If the trolls making them hoped for attention, they've gotten it. They've also inexorably linked criticism of her work, valid or not, with semi-delusional vigilantism, and arguably propelled Tropes vs. Women to its current level of visibility. If a major plank of your platform is that misogyny is a lie propagated by Sarkeesian and other "social justice warriors," it might help to not constantly prove it wrong.

Comment Re:And this is how we get to the more concrete har (Score 1) 528

by gweihir (#47766987) Attached to: Limiting the Teaching of the Scientific Process In Ohio

Bullshit. No concept of god is required, not even a negative one. You can derive that if the scientific method works then there is no god, but that goes the other way round. You can also not prove that the scientific method works, you can just observe it. Why do people always screw up implications?

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