-
Join 1,628 other subscribers
Blog Stats
- 413,631 hits
Recent Comments
Re-Investigating Un-… on Re-Investigating Un-Haunted Ho… Stuart Certain on Absent Friends? Chris Jensen Romer on Absent Friends? Tom Ruffles on Absent Friends? Chris Jensen Romer on Webinar uploaded: Haunted Nort… Top Rated
Categories
- atheism (25)
- Debunking myths (81)
- Dreadful attempts at humour (30)
- Fiction (7)
- Fun forthcoming events (20)
- Games (45)
- History (36)
- History religion and society (3)
- Paranormal (124)
- Religion (52)
- Reviews and Past Events (82)
- Science (81)
- Social commentary desecrated (83)
- Student Life in Cheltenham (8)
- Uncategorized (15)
- Unclassifiable! (14)
- Uninteresting to others whitterings about my life (158)
Blogroll
- Cheltonia : curiosities of Cheltenham.
- Crafting Gentleness
- CRIGGO
- ersby
- Games from Folktales
- GSUK – my ghost forum
- Gurdur's Blog
- Meditative Dishwashing
- Oasis Stories – modern fiction and myth
- POLTERWOTSIT
- Public Parapsychology
- Richard Wiseman
- Roy Stenman's Paranormal Review
- Skeptiko Podcast
- The Amazing Meeting London
- The Beaker Folk of Husborne Crawley
- The BS Historian
- The Dispersal of Darwin
- The Rather Friendly Sceptic
- The Tytalan Way
Friends
Top Posts
- How To See A Ghost - At Home!
- The Day I Met Myself: or how I survived my death-omen doppleganger.
- A Gloucester Road Ghost
- An Unexpected Kindness...
- A Serious Warning to University of Gloucestershire Students: They Aren't Lying To You About Cars (Updated for 2015)
- RPG Review: Mars Colony, a 2 player Tabletop RPG by Tim Koppang
- My Father: Eulogy for Gunnar Romer.
- A Churchyard Story
- Revisiting a Haunted House: Gustav Holst and The Cheltenham Ghosts.
-
Recent Posts
Meta
Category Archives: Science
My Friend Fancies You – Gaming Romance
So I’m back from Peaky, the game writing weekend, after a few hours on site. I left at breakfast on the first full day, with a full refund and a lift to a train station, but still pretty dejected and … Continue reading
Review: The Bermuda Triangle Mystery – Solved by Lawrence David Kusche
Book titles tend to be prone to hyperbole, but this 1975 book, one of my favourite books, does exactly what it says on the cover. It simply explains the Bermuda Triangle phenomena, and also teaches a few lessons in critical … Continue reading
The Presence and the Press: Once Again Science Journalists Tell Us Ghosts Explained Away!
OK, I blog very rarely nowadays, but I thought I had best respond to all the press excitement caused by an article from Current Biology, which pretty much everyone (including the authors) seem to think explains away “ghosts”. You should … Continue reading
The Day I Met Myself: or how I survived my death-omen doppleganger.
It was an overcast day, and I was walking through Bury St Edmunds with my best friend, Hugh. After lunch sometime, killing time before our scheduled afternoon classes. I don’t know the date or even the year — and Hugh … Continue reading
Libelling Sally Morgan: the Hitler Connection.
OK, today Sally Morgan won a reported £125,000 damages from The Daily Mail in an out of court settlement. Those people who have said “The UK courts have endorsed psychic powerz!” are more out of touch than the wackiest woo-filled … Continue reading
Posted in Debunking myths, Paranormal, Reviews and Past Events, Science
Tagged Hayley Stevens, Psychic Sally, Sally Morgan
5 Comments
Is it time to give up on “Skepticism”?
Today I’m recovering from a rather unpleasant patch of illness that has left me drained, tired and at times irritable — and has prevented me posting the following thoughts for over a week. As I can’t see anyone caring anyway, … Continue reading
Re-Investigating Un-Haunted Houses
Abstract Eight couples who had never experienced any ‘haunting’ activity in their houses and had no reason to expect they would experience ‘ghosts’ were asked by the author to keep a diary for one calendar month from 17th October – … Continue reading
The Geek Shall Inherit the Earth
A fairly short piece today, on something I have mused over this week. I think it all started with a friend finally persuading me to watch the US comedy The Big Bang Theory: for the record I enjoyed it, and … Continue reading
Posted in atheism, Debunking myths, History religion and society, Science, Social commentary desecrated, Uninteresting to others whitterings about my life
Tagged Ben Goldacre, Blakes 7, Bros, D&D, Economics, Father Ted, Geek Culture, Geek History, Geeks, Graham Linehan, Jarvis Cocker, Justin Sullivan, NEw Model Army, Richard Ayaode, Richard Dawkins, Richard Wiseman, Robin Ince, Robin of Sherwood, The Big Bang Theory, The Geek Shall Inherit the Earth, The IT Crowd, The Vicar of Dibley, UK Society, xkcd
2 Comments
A Whole New Level of Weirdness: Book Review of “Live Pterosaurs In America” (3rd Edition)
The book contains 35 contemporary eye witness accounts from the USA of what appear to be live pterosaur sightings, and a great deal of analysis. Undeterred by the intrinsic seeming absurdity of believing that Pterosaurs can remain undetected in the USA (which as Whitcomb points out is a fallacious argument: they have not remained undetected at all, or he would not have eyewitness testimony — “largely undetected” perhaps?) the author has actually taken seriously and tracked down people who claim to have seen these things, talking to them on the phone and by email. He is not alone – as well as the various expeditions to PNG to look for the alleged pterosaurs there, there appears to be a small but very active research community looking for live pterosaurs in the USA. I get the impression form the book it is rather competitive, and political, and perhaps as backstabbing as any other part of cryptozoology seems to be — but then again maybe not. You see Whitcomb, and the majority of the researchers are Creationists, and not shy about proclaiming the fact. Continue reading
Posted in Paranormal, Religion, Reviews and Past Events, Science
Tagged Creationist cryptozoology, cryptozoology, cryptozoology book reviews, Glen Kuban, Jonathan David Whitcomb, LIve Pterosaurs in America, living dinosaur sightings, living pterosaurs, Marfa Lights, pterodactyl sightings, Pterosaur Sightings
16 Comments
The Case Against “Paranormal Unity”; or why Ghost Hunters have become meaningless.
Those who know me probably know that I am a ghost hunter. What does that actually mean, in real terms? Do I wear a pith helmet and shorts, and carry an elephant gun, and like the big game hunters of … Continue reading →