I was listening to The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe today, and they were interviewing Alex Tsikiris from the skeptiko podcast. Alex Tsikiris is critical of skeptics and why they sometimes dismiss evidence. It's a really good listen to find out why we consider certain things evidence, why even published journal articles aren't always enough, and why we should be skeptical by default. Here's a link.

Hey Skeptics,

Added a page for strategy for the debate and changed the questions page around. Now neither of them are visible to anyone outside the skeptics. Feel free to add strategy ideas to the strategy page. The questions page, however, shouldn't be edited on a whim: the questions we pick now are the final choices for the questions we send to the moderator. The opening statement is also available for editing. Have fun, and don't forget to contribute!

I've added a book on debating. Its purpose is to be the one spot where we can find questions to ask, arguments, counter-arguments, links to debates, and more. It's user editable and I encourage all of you to contribute. Make new pages, edit old ones, and really make it a good resource. There's a hierarchy that I made, try to stick to something similar, although we can move it all around later. Here's a link to the questions for the IVCF debate.

When the RIT skeptics started, we were just three people. We met every week in the same place: Java Wally's, the campus coffee shop. As the club has grown, it has become increasingly apparent that a public coffee shop is not the ideal venue to meet in. There is often insufficient seating and far too much noise for us to carry out a meeting.

Recently when waiting to take a final exam here at RIT in a college whose name will be changed to “College of Pseudoscience” to protect its identity, I noticed a flier on a bulletin board. Often graduate schools send these fliers to schools to post as a method of cheap advertisement. They usually have some cards attached that students can rip off and mail in to the school for more information.

A long time ago, Hugh Ross was a scientist. Nowadays he is a professional creationist who manipulates real science to justify his belief in the Christian God.

Recently he visited the Rochester Institute of Technology, so not only was he on our physical turf, but our intellectual turf as well: he claims to have a scientifically testable creation theory.

For a review of his claims and the skeptical responses to them, this site is a good resource.

This September the RIT skeptics visited the local Pagan Pride festival. We thought that it might make a good group activity because there is an association between some Pagan groups and New Age beliefs, which we have and interest in examining scientifically.

Recently the RIT skeptics investigated a local ghost legend here in Rochester: the White Lady.

Various versions of the white lady story exist, but the central story is about a mother whose daughter goes missing one evening during the middle of a walk. The mother goes looking for the daughter with her two dogs, but does not find her. Subsequently the mother commits suicide and haunts the park, in some versions attacking men.

Hey everybody, this is our new website. There's a lot of features to get acquainted with so start playing!