Reality with K.I.S.S.

When Ideology clouds logic: influences of political, cultural or other bias in critical thinking PART TWO SAFE SPACES So how does irrational thought cloud logic and cause people to drop friendships and ignore rationality? Lets examine the topic which caused a normally rational person to turn into a self righteous social justice warrior (SJW) and end friendships because I won't think like they do (or lie to them about it making them feel better). It all started because if the University of Chicago's "anti-safe spaces letter", found here: http://www.vox.com/2016/8/26/12657684/chicago-safe-spaces-trigger-warnings-letter One may think that safe spaces are a good thing, and that these are important for life in general. So why would I state anything against safe spaces? Lets start at the beginning and work slowly. When I am presented with new information I tend to think like an investigator (imagine that) and work with things that I can validate. So this whole argument sta...

When Ideology clouds logic: influences of political, cultural or other bias in critical thinking PART ONE - GUILT I have been putting this off for a while now because I wanted the furor of the election to pass. This was predominantly because the political upheaval was causing "normal, logical critical thinkers" in my life to stick their head up their arse and lose all their ability to think. I can understand that people use politics, culture or belief systems for self-identification but it doesn't justify the suspension of logic, critical thinking or literacy. Evidence is evidence. A piece of data is a piece of data. there isn't any other way around that one. This all started over a politically motivated social justice warrior [SJW] argument. I won't get into the meat of the argument until next post but I will be using some of the arguments as evidence in this post. I am not using names, so don't ask. If one wants to self-identify and let the world know who th...

Pardon this interjection from the poverty level seats but: what can we, as a people, do about our current situation? Hey yall... I know this seems like it is only a rant, but this is actually serious. This is hard for me because not only do I hate politics, but I have a very hard time being serious for any length of time! So please bear with me for a moment. Thanks Is it just me or did everyone give up ? Especially with regard to our US, it's Constitution, the political leadership and reality in general?? (Do I really need to mention Climate Change?) I live in the deep south, and it just so happens that our state is largely democrat. It's not that we don't have republicans, it is just that they're like a rare protected species:  rare (obviously), usually very rich, and can't come out in the daytime unless heavily guarded and moving in large "gangs" for protection. They're easy to notice around here because the ...

Sorry about the silence: I am not good with regularity and updates. It interferes with my passion for reality, Science and small furry animals. I do have a great topic to discuss considering the day and it's (historically recent) connotations: Sunday. Although this is considered the "Sabbath" it is actually not as Saturday is the "7th" day, the end of the week, therefore the "Sabbath", but I digress... Lets talk about Pagans . This is an interesting topic that I was drawn into recently that I thought I would share some personal opinions and experience regarding the subject. Before we can actually get into the discussion we need to think about what the word actually means. Most people use it (colloquially) as a term for non-christian religions and natural beliefs, however, it also used to be a technical term, shockingly enough, that specifically referred to "polytheistic religions and cultures". It is no longer used as a technical term. ...

Lets talk about justice and equality for a moment. I don't want to talk about how the US has changed to an entitled society where the rich and famous can literally get away with murder (until they attempt to hide their seized assets from the law)... lets instead focus on the people who need to be represented by the law who can't speak for themselves . Recently in the news I saw where a former astronaut was charged with DUI and murder due to a DUI accident and I needed to vent a little about the situation because of the lack of prosecution for the responsible parties. Now, I am in no way attempting to vindicate or take blame away from Halsell for his actions because they are indefensible . Halsell chose to take alcohol and pills and it impaired his driving causing the accident where the two minor girls were killed. This direct action was the cause of the accident and this is why DUI is illegal. The fact that a former astronaut was so irresponsible considering the educatio...

The dangers of accepting anything at face value is part of the continuing lesson being taught in this blog, and this entry is no different. We are going to look at some of the more difficult points being made and the general refute for the claims of the pseudoscience crowd. We can get more into detail but it may not be necessary as a lot of this stuff is picked apart all over the net by physicists and scientists far more experienced than I, and anyone can find it. So I will be general for a short while and allow you to research (as taught earlier) for your own good. We can get more specific later. Russels Teapot, Special pleading and argument from misinterpretation You can't state that the lack of evidence refuting x is definitive proof that x must exist... this is another common tactic of pseudoscience and religions both. You can see a demonstration of this as: "No one has proven that the Flying Spaghetti Monster doesn't exist, therefore it MUST exist". Some o...

Ok... lets get it on out there right up front: I tend to be just a tad cynical when it comes to dealing with people. This may well have to do with my history of interacting with deviants or dealing with misfits in my work but it has left it's mark on me. I am just not the optimist when dealing with people in general. Having said that, I am also not judgemental until I've been given something which to give me pause or cause me to judge (like lying or presenting pseudoscience or false information as factual). You can be the Chief Unicorn duster of the Faerie People of La-La land and high priestess of the Holy Sauce of the Spaghetti Monster for all I care... your beliefs are just not important to me. What you believe is how you deal with your life; How you act towards others is when I take note . This was my typical mindset when getting ready for my wife's trip to Canada. I have been there before a few times so this was not a big deal for me. I had experience. I revie...

Spotting false information is not easy to do when you've never been taught how to assess information and its reliability. This is something ingrained into the typical investigator but even the most advances investigator sometimes fails to comprehend how to differentiate between reliable source information and anecdote. This is just one reason I continued this blog series. So many intelligent people fall for misinformation simply because they are not able to spot the subtle cues. In the last blog entry ( before the rant), we left off with this comment: ... we will discuss how to spot the obvious liar as well as the subtle one who can demonstrate proof of education. The second is by far the harder to spot, but there are techniques you can use to catch them with their "knowledge pants" down... if you know how to look for information. The easiest to spot liar is the one who posts blatantly false information. This is the one who says that the government is working with al...

I promise I will get back to the topics I promised in the last blog entry as soon as I vent a little... I need to vent because I received a request to sign a petition in the e-mail just today. My sincerest apologies. If you don't like talking about religion then please check back next week. Terrorism comes in many forms : Sometimes it dresses up and makes you think it's patriotism or religion and the cause is justified So long as you force your beliefs onto another, what makes you different from ISIS/ISIL*? That isn't meant to scare you, but it should at least make you consider some things. This is meant to make you think. Why do I want you to think about it? Here is a good start: I got a petition that started off stating " A group called the "Military Religious Freedom Foundation" is fighting to have all copies of the Bible removed from displays honoring U.S. POWs . " They follow this with  " My name is [deleted] . I am a retired U.S. Sen...