As many of you have undoubtedly noticed, my older blog entries tend to get overwhelmed with spam comments (spam, by the way, is one of the few pure evils in our world). Attempts at fixing this problem with our prior blog software were unsuccessful, so we moved the blog over to WordPress – a more tried and true blog application with real anti-spam functionality.

Hopefully the transition will be seamless. Our goal is to port over all the old posts, keep all the links the same, keep the real comments and delete all the spam comments.

Thanks to my webmaster (and brother) Jay for donating his time to this project.

Note: The RSS feed has changed, so click on the RSS button at the bottom of the page to update your RSS feeder.

Barry Beyerstein, a psychologist, skeptic, teacher, promoter of science and reason – and without hyperbole the single nicest guy in the skeptical movement, passed away two days ago. He was only 60 and his death was unexpected, it certainly came as a shock to me. The premature death of such a wonderful person is always a tragedy, it is a terrible loss for his family, and I feel as if the skeptical family has also suffered a great loss.

I had the good fortune of knowing Barry, although our paths crossed only occasionally. We worked together on the Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine, and I always enjoyed seeing him at skeptical meetings. I am glad we had the opportunity to interview him recently for the Skeptics Guide. Take a listen to the interview – his good humor comes through no matter what topic we were discussing.

The inner circle of the skeptical movement is actually quite small. Although we are geographically spread out, I feel as if we are tied closely together by our common cause, by a shared worldview and purpose, and by the virtual bonds of blogs, podcasts, magazines, and e-mail. It’s an intellectual community and every member is extremely valued. I hate to be reminded of that in this way.

Barry was a CSI fellow – you can read their tribute to him which includes a summary of his many skeptical accomplishments. His daughter, Lindsay, also has a touching tribute to her father here.

So long, Barry.

Continuing the tradition of former Star Trek stars appearing in science (or pseudoscience) related programs, Patrick Stewart (Captain Jean-Luc Picard from The Next Generation) is starring in a new BBC drama called The Eleventh Hour. He plays Professor Ian Hood, a Sherlockian character whose job is to investigate and head off potential disasters caused by modern technology.

I’m glad to see the increase in such programming – mainstream dramas featuring protagonists who are decidedly scientific and even skeptical. My favorite such character is Gil Grissom from CSI, but others come to mind, including Dr. House.
Continue Reading »