Comments on: Dear FSM, I Am a Skeptic Living in a House of Woo https://the-orbit.net/entequilaesverdad/2015/07/27/dear-fsm-i-am-living-in-a-house-of-woo/ Thu, 30 Jul 2015 23:02:14 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.1.6 By: moarscienceplz https://the-orbit.net/entequilaesverdad/2015/07/27/dear-fsm-i-am-living-in-a-house-of-woo/#comment-16096 Thu, 30 Jul 2015 23:02:14 +0000 http://freethoughtblogs.com/entequilaesverdad/?p=24925#comment-16096

I started digging deeper into science, and let me just say that the natural universe is more than intriguing enough.

This! So much This!

I remember when Avatar came out. I saw a comment somewhere from someone who said, “Oh, I wish I could go live on Pandora! I want to study all those amazing species!” ARGH! You ARE living on the one planet known in the whole flipping cosmos to have a biosphere – and what a rich biosphere it is! There are species and ecosystems everywhere that are screaming to be studied and protected RIGHT HERE ON THE PLANET YOU ACTUALLY LIVE ON and you spend you time dreaming of studying cartoon lifeforms on a CGI moon! YOU FUCKING MORON!

]]> By: Arkady https://the-orbit.net/entequilaesverdad/2015/07/27/dear-fsm-i-am-living-in-a-house-of-woo/#comment-16095 Tue, 28 Jul 2015 23:45:20 +0000 http://freethoughtblogs.com/entequilaesverdad/?p=24925#comment-16095 A new housemate recently moved in where I live. They work on the reception desk of a place that hosts people coming from abroad to undergo cancer treatment. A couple of days ago they asked me, knowing I work in medical research, ‘should I recommend this fantastic new cancer treatment I read about online to the patients I see?’… it’s one that Orac’s written up in some detail that recently may have killed 5 people in Switzerland due to the unlicenced lab that made it contaminating the stuff. I hope my spluttered, ‘oh hell no’ replies sunk in, but I’m not optimistic….

]]> By: Gregory in Seattle https://the-orbit.net/entequilaesverdad/2015/07/27/dear-fsm-i-am-living-in-a-house-of-woo/#comment-16094 Tue, 28 Jul 2015 07:02:01 +0000 http://freethoughtblogs.com/entequilaesverdad/?p=24925#comment-16094 In reply to Mobius.

I’m considering buying property in Greenland. Land is cheap now, but should become an excellent investment once the glacier melts and the central latitudes become uninhabitable.

]]> By: Uncle Ebeneezer https://the-orbit.net/entequilaesverdad/2015/07/27/dear-fsm-i-am-living-in-a-house-of-woo/#comment-16093 Tue, 28 Jul 2015 02:54:44 +0000 http://freethoughtblogs.com/entequilaesverdad/?p=24925#comment-16093 Woo is the worst because it is so widespread. I can probably count on one hand the number of friends I have that DON’T believe in some form of Woo or another. Especially here in Los Angeles, even among fairly well-educated Liberal Atheists. I know EFT therapists, people who claim to be spiritual healers, and lots of fairly intelligent people who believe the accounts of Near Death Experiences, crystals, magnets and of course The Afterlife (TM). I usually just roll my eyes and change the subject. The only way I can tolerate those kinds of conversations are if the person is so bat-shit that I can enjoy just how far out there they will get, or if we are good enough friends that I can challenge and even mock their beliefs without it getting heated.

]]> By: lpetrich https://the-orbit.net/entequilaesverdad/2015/07/27/dear-fsm-i-am-living-in-a-house-of-woo/#comment-16092 Tue, 28 Jul 2015 02:20:23 +0000 http://freethoughtblogs.com/entequilaesverdad/?p=24925#comment-16092 I feel very annoyed at quantum-mechanics woo-woo. As far as I can tell, it’s derived from various interpretations of quantum mechanics, not the theoretical content itself.

I can say that because I’m very familiar with QM and quantum field theory, complete with their rather complicated mathematics. Do any QM woowoomeisters know even the tiniest bit about the math of QM?

I must say that I find some QM math very elegant, like the ladder-operator versions of the harmonic oscillator and angular momentum. I’m sometimes disappointed that such things aren’t more widely appreciated.

]]> By: elly https://the-orbit.net/entequilaesverdad/2015/07/27/dear-fsm-i-am-living-in-a-house-of-woo/#comment-16091 Mon, 27 Jul 2015 18:24:42 +0000 http://freethoughtblogs.com/entequilaesverdad/?p=24925#comment-16091 I hear ya, Dana.

My next door neighbor – a lovely and seemingly sensible-in-most-other-respects person – believes in ghosts. She is convinced that her house is haunted and apparently has cell phone pictures that she took during various paranormal events that (she believes) prove it.

She also believes that our house is haunted too; and was quite surprised (and mildly disappointed) when I informed her that we’d experienced nothing unusual in the 3+ years we’ve lived in it… let alone in any of the other places we’ve lived or visited.

Fortunately, we seem to have “agreed to disagree” on this particular issue: she hasn’t raised the subject since, which is good because I like her and want to get along with her… but not at the cost of passively accepting nonsense.

]]> By: Trebuchet https://the-orbit.net/entequilaesverdad/2015/07/27/dear-fsm-i-am-living-in-a-house-of-woo/#comment-16090 Mon, 27 Jul 2015 16:58:15 +0000 http://freethoughtblogs.com/entequilaesverdad/?p=24925#comment-16090

To me, being skeptical of woo is the same as being skeptical of religion.

FTFY

]]> By: Crimson Clupeidae https://the-orbit.net/entequilaesverdad/2015/07/27/dear-fsm-i-am-living-in-a-house-of-woo/#comment-16089 Mon, 27 Jul 2015 16:43:34 +0000 http://freethoughtblogs.com/entequilaesverdad/?p=24925#comment-16089 To me, being skeptical of woo is the same as being skeptical of religion. I will give the perpetrator exactly one chance (very politely) to back out. If, after that, they still feel the need to share their opinions, I will have no compunction about also sharing mine.

]]> By: speedwell https://the-orbit.net/entequilaesverdad/2015/07/27/dear-fsm-i-am-living-in-a-house-of-woo/#comment-16088 Mon, 27 Jul 2015 15:18:07 +0000 http://freethoughtblogs.com/entequilaesverdad/?p=24925#comment-16088 The best thing about having a bunch of woo friends: they’re all very loving, well-meaning, helpful, positive, sharing people. They can do much with little, they are open and friendly, and they don’t care too much whether you have money or not, so long as you contribute what you can.

The worst thing about having a bunch of woo friends: when they turn negative, they turn on each other, and use the language of “lightworking” and “healing” to mask their nastiness as concern and to play “more psychic than thou” oneupmanship games. If this starts to happen, just leave, it isn’t worth getting involved in the playground politics. On the bright side, they aren’t all that good at it.

]]> By: Mobius https://the-orbit.net/entequilaesverdad/2015/07/27/dear-fsm-i-am-living-in-a-house-of-woo/#comment-16087 Mon, 27 Jul 2015 14:43:15 +0000 http://freethoughtblogs.com/entequilaesverdad/?p=24925#comment-16087 Sometimes I consider buying up a bunch of cheap property in the Yukon, at an elevation of about 200 feet. Then sit back and cheer the climate change denialists on, waiting for my property to become temperate beachfront.

Then integrity kicks in. Oh well.

]]>