The Idiot's Guide To Stupidity?"Science is an attempt, largely successful, to understand the world, to get a grip on things, to get hold of ourselves, to steer a safe course. Microbiology and meteorology now explain what only a few centuries ago was considered sufficient cause to burn women to death." Carl Sagan, in The Demon-Haunted World.
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." Carl Sagan.
"The principal cause of belief in psychic phenomena is the inability of the average man to observe accurately and estimate the value of evidence, plus a bias in favor of the phenomena being real." Douglas Blackburn (1917), psychic hoaxer.
"A skeptic is someone who looks both ways before crossing a one-way street." Jim Loy (rephrasing of someone else's joke: "A hick is someone who looks both ways before crossing a one-way street").
"I have the advantage of having found out how hard it is to get to really know something, how careful you have to be about checking the experiments, how easy it is to make mistakes and fool yourself." Richard Feynman on pseudoscience, in The Pleasure of Finding Things Out.
"Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy with the proof." John Kenneth Galbraith.
"As all conjurers know, intelligent persons are extremely easy to deceive." Martin Gardner, in On the Wild Side.
"Nobody has yet retired from making a major killing in the stock market by psychic means, and then written a book about it, as far as I know." Jim Loy.
Jay Leno's headline he has been waiting to see: "Psychic Wins Lottery!"
"We Aquarians don't believe in astrology." Someone.
"With patience and ingenuity it is not difficult to extract 666 from almost any person's name." Martin Gardner, in Skeptical Inquirer.
"Area 51 is actually a paranoid fantasy we concocted to hide the true identity of this facility, which is Area 52." Looney Toons Back in Action, the Movie
"Just as scientists may sometimes be wrong in their predictions, quacks may sometimes be right in theirs." Robert Carroll, www.skeptic.com
Astrology, biorhythms, numerology (and every religion) are all reassuring, whether they are true or not. You don't have to blame yourself when you are down or when you fail, and you know that things will get better. Well, I say that you shouldn't blame yourself when you are down and when you fail, and things will get better, anyway (See my comments on Biorhythms).
The Idiot's Guide To Stupidity?
Also see my story My Pimple, in my Humor pages.
Book Reviews of books about pseudoscience (also in my Book Review pages):
Other anti-pseudoscience links:
Crank dot net
(They called me an antiCrank!)My Netscape and NBC provide your horoscope. One of Lycos' sponsors will give you a free psychic reading (Oboy oboy oboy!). Google is sponsored by many looneys (and non-looneys).
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