Your humanist community for scientific, skeptical, secular, and rational inquiry
By Sandra Dunham While scientists have relentlessly researched and reported on the unmistakable impact of humans on climate change, an equally relentless counterargument has claimed that climate change does not exist, and/or that climate change is naturally occurring with no human effect. Have you ever wondered how people can persist in the counterargument in light…
Read More “How the Climate Change Denial Movement is Funded” »
By Seanna Watson In late September, a group of 500 “prominent scientists and professionals” sent a letter to the UN Secretary-General declaring that there is no climate emergency . Several science groups have followed up on this. The Climate Feedback website provides an extensive scientific analysis . In summary, they found the scientific credibility of these claims to be…
By Sandra Dunham Is there a topic more discussed than diet? Do you ever wonder what is true and what is not true? A recent study by the National Institutes of Health, published in the July issue of Cell Metabolism , examined the effects of highly processed foods on weight. The study randomly divided subjects into two groups. One…
By Zack Dumont Healthcare and medical literature is fraught with limitations: It’s complex, vulnerable to various interpretations, and ultimately not well served by fleeting headlines. To effectively translate the knowledge uncovered in a research study into clinical practice, one must first determine whether the research methods are valid (i.e., did they conduct a good study?)…
Read More “Multi-purposing a Common Science Tool for Critical Appraisal” »
It seems impossible, given how long humans have been studying the skies, but last October 19, a Canadian astrophysicist at the University of Hawaii observed the first confirmed interstellar object to travel through our solar system. The object is called ‘Oumuamua (the apostrophe is not a typo).
