|
Skeptic's Guide To The Universe
''The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe'' (''SGU'') is an American weekly skeptical podcast hosted by Steven Novella, MD, along with a panel of contributors. The official podcast of the New England Skeptical Society, it was named to evoke ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.'' The show features discussions of recent scientific developments in layman's terms, and interviews authors, people in the area of science, and other famous skeptics. The SGU podcast includes discussions of myths, conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, the paranormal, and other forms of superstition, from the point of view of scientific skepticism. Hosts The SGU podcast was first released in May 2005. The original lineup of the podcast consisted of the Novella brothers, Steven Novella, Robert "Bob" Novella and Jay Novella, along with Evan Bernstein, and Perry DeAngelis. DeAngelis contributed until his death in 2007, shortly before his 44th birthday. Rebecca Watson joined in 2006 and later left the podcast ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steven Novella
Steven Paul Novella (born July 29, 1964) is an American neurology, clinical neurologist and Professors in the United States#Associate Professor, associate professor at Yale University School of Medicine. Novella is best known for his involvement in the scientific skepticism, skeptical movement as a host of ''The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe'' podcast and as the president of the New England Skeptical Society. He is a fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI). Early life and education Novella was born July 29, 1964 to Joseph Novella and Patricia Novella née Danbury. He was raised in New Fairfield, Connecticut, and has four siblings. Novella considered becoming a lawyer prior to attending college but decided to go into medicine as a teenager. As an undergraduate, he pursued premed and science. In 1991, Novella earned a medical degree from Georgetown University School of Medicine. He spent the first year of residency at Georgetown University Hospital/Washington Hos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Patreon
Patreon (, ) is a monetization platform operated by Patreon, Inc., that provides business tools for content creators to run a subscription service and sell digital products. It helps artists and other creators earn a recurring income by providing rewards and perks to its subscribers. Patreon charges a commission of 8 to 12 percent of creators' monthly income, in addition to payment processing fees. Patreon is used by writers, videographers, webcomic artists, video game developers, podcasters, musicians, adult content creators, and other kinds of creators who post regularly online. It allows artists to receive funding directly from their fans, or patrons, on a recurring basis or per work of art. The company is based in San Francisco. History Patreon, Inc., was co-founded in May 2013 by developer Sam Yam and musician Jack Conte, who was looking for a way to make a living from his YouTube videos. It developed a platform that allowed 'patrons' to pay a set amount of money ever ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phil Plait
Philip Cary Plait (born September 30, 1964), also known as The Bad Astronomer, is an American astronomer, skeptic, and popular science blogger. Plait has worked as part of the Hubble Space Telescope team, images and spectra of astronomical objects, as well as engaging in public outreach advocacy for NASA missions. He has written three books, '' Bad Astronomy'', '' Death from the Skies'', and '' Under Alien Skies''. He has also appeared in several science documentaries, including '' How the Universe Works'' on the Discovery Channel. From August 2008 through 2009, he served as president of the James Randi Educational Foundation. Additionally, he wrote and hosted episodes of '' Crash Course'' Astronomy, which aired its last episode in 2016. Early life Plait grew up in the Washington, D.C. area. He has said he became interested in astronomy when his father brought home a telescope when Plait was 5 years old or so. According to Plait, he "aimed it at Saturn that night. One look, an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Randi Educational Foundation
The James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) is an American grant-making institution founded in 1996 by magician and skeptic James Randi. As a nonprofit organization, the mission of JREF includes educating the public and the media on the dangers of accepting unproven claims, and to support research into paranormal claims in controlled scientific experimental conditions. The organization announced its change to a grant-making foundation in September 2015. The organization previously administered the One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge, a prize of one million U.S. dollars to anyone who could demonstrate a supernatural or paranormal ability under agreed-upon scientific testing criteria. The organization has been funded through member contributions, grants, and conferences, though it ceased accepting memberships after 2015. For several years, the JREF website published the blog ''Swift'', which included news and information as well as exposés of paranormal claimants. Hist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magician (illusion)
Magician or The Magician may refer to: Performers * A practitioner of magic (supernatural) * A practitioner of magic (illusion) * Magician (fantasy), a character in a fictional fantasy context Entertainment Books * ''The Magician'', an 18th-century novel by Leitch Ritchie * ''The Magician'' (Maugham novel), a 1908 novel by Somerset Maugham * ''The Magicians'' (Priestley novel), a 1954 novel by J. B. Priestley * ''The Magician'' (Stein novel), a 1971 young adult novel by Sol Stein * ''The Magicians'', a 1976 novel by James E. Gunn * '' The Magician: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel'', a 2008 novel by Michael Scott * ''The Magicians'' (Grossman novel), by Lev Grossman, published 2009 * ''Magician'' (Feist novel), a 1982 novel in the ''Riftwar'' series by Raymond E. Feist * ''The Magician'', a 2021 novel by Colm Tóibín Films * ''The Magician'' (1898 film), a French short directed by Georges Méliès * ''The Magician'' (1900 film), a silent film by Thomas Ed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Canadian-American
Canadian Americans () are Citizenship of the United States, American citizens or in some uses residents whose ancestry is wholly or partly Canadians, Canadian, or citizens of either country who hold dual citizenship. Today, many Canadian Americans hold both US and Canadian citizenship. The term ''Canadian'' can mean a nationality or an ethnicity. Canadians are considered North Americans due their residing in the North American continent. English Canadian, English-speaking Canadian immigrants easily integrate and assimilate into northern and western U.S. states as a result of many cultural similarities, and in the similar accent in spoken English. French-Canadians, French Canadians, because of language and culture, tend to take longer to assimilate. However, by the 3rd generation, they are often fully culturally assimilated, and the Canadian identity is more or less folklore. This took place, even though half of the population of the province of Quebec emigrated to the US between 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Randi
James Randi (born Randall James Hamilton Zwinge; August 7, 1928 – October 20, 2020) was a Canadian-American stage magician, author, and scientific skeptic who extensively challenged paranormal and pseudoscientific claims.#Rodrigues, Rodrigues 2010p. 271 He was the co-founder of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), and founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF). Randi began his career as a magician under the stage name The Amazing Randi and later chose to devote most of his time to investigating paranormal, occult, and supernatural claims. Randi retired from practicing magic at age 60, and from his foundation at 87. Although often referred to as a "debunker", Randi said he disliked the term's connotations and preferred to describe himself as an "investigator". He wrote about paranormal phenomena, skepticism, and the history of magic. He was a frequent guest on ''The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson'', famously exposing fraudulent faith healer Peter Pop ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fringe Science
Fringe science refers to ideas whose attributes include being highly speculative or relying on premises already Objection (argument), refuted. The chance of ideas rejected by editors and published outside the mainstream being correct is remote. When the general public does not distinguish between science and imitators, it risks exploitation, and in some cases, a "yearning to believe or a generalized suspicion of experts is a very potent incentive to accepting some pseudoscientific claims". The term "fringe science" covers everything from novel hypotheses, which can be tested utilizing the scientific method, to wild ad hoc hypotheses and Mumbo jumbo (phrase), mumbo jumbo. This has resulted in a tendency to dismiss all fringe science as the domain of Pseudoscience, pseudoscientists, hobbyists, and Quackery, quacks. A concept that was once accepted by the mainstream scientific community may become fringe science because of a later evaluation of previous research. For example, focal i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joe Nickell
Joe Herman Nickell (December 1, 1944 – March 4, 2025) was an American skeptic and investigator of the paranormal. Nickell was a senior research fellow for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and wrote regularly for their journal, '' Skeptical Inquirer''. He was also an associate dean of the Center for Inquiry Institute. He was the author or editor of over 30 books. Among his career highlights, Nickell helped expose the James Maybrick "Jack the Ripper Diary" as a hoax. In 2002, Nickell was one of a number of experts asked by scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. to evaluate the authenticity of the manuscript of Hannah Crafts' '' The Bondwoman's Narrative'' (1853–1860), possibly the first novel by an African-American woman. At the request of document dealer and historian Seth Keller, Nickell analyzed documentation in the dispute over the authorship of "The Night Before Christmas", ultimately supporting the Clement Clarke Moore claim. Background Joe Nickell was the son of J. W ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Massimo Pigliucci
Massimo Pigliucci (; born January 16, 1964) is an American philosopher and biologist who is professor of philosophy at the City College of New York, former co-host of the '' Rationally Speaking Podcast'', and former editor in chief for the online magazine ''Scientia Salon''. He is a critic of pseudoscience (including creationism), and an advocate for secularism and science education. His recent work has focused on stoicism. Biography Pigliucci was born in Monrovia, Liberia and raised in Rome. He has a doctorate in genetics from the University of Ferrara, a PhD in biology from the University of Connecticut, and a PhD in philosophy of science from the University of Tennessee. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. Pigliucci was formerly a professor of ecology and evolution at Stony Brook University. He explored phenotypic plasticity, genotype–environment interactions, natural selection, and the constra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Interview
An interview is a structured conversation where one participant asks questions, and the other provides answers.Merriam Webster DictionaryInterview Dictionary definition, Retrieved February 16, 2016 In common parlance, the word "interview" refers to a one-on-one conversation between an ''interviewer'' and an ''interviewee''. The interviewer asks questions to which the interviewee responds, usually providing information. That information may be used or provided to other audiences immediately or later. This feature is common to many types of interviews – a job interview or interview with a witness to an event may have no other audience present at the time, but the answers will be later provided to others in the employment or investigative process. An interview may also transfer information in both directions. Interviews usually take place face-to-face, in person, but the parties may instead be separated geographically, as in videoconferencing or telephone interviews. Int ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
She Blinded Me With Science
"She Blinded Me with Science" is a song by the English musician Thomas Dolby, released in 1982. It was first released as a single in the United Kingdom in October 1982. It was subsequently included on the EP ''Blinded by Science'' and the 1983 re-release of Dolby's debut album ''The Golden Age of Wireless''. Although viewed as a success in both the United States and Canada, peaking at No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100, ''Billboard'' Hot 100 and 2 weeks at No. 1 in Canada's ''RPM (magazine), RPM'' magazine, the song barely managed to score among the Top 50 in Dolby's native United Kingdom, peaking at No. 49 on the UK Singles Chart in 1982. Dolby is often considered a one-hit wonder in the United States on the basis of the song's chart success there. In 2002, US cable television network VH1 named "She Blinded Me with Science" No. 20 on its list of the "100 Greatest One-hit Wonders". While the song is Dolby's only Top 40 single on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100, he has had other songs that s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
