Humor

Artificial Intelligence wrote a poem about the Skeptical Raptor

I asked Chat GPT, the artificial intelligence bot, to write a poem about the Skeptical Raptor. And this is what we got.

Big Milk says that the moon is not made of cheese — using logical fallacies

I just spent several days telling you about logical fallacies, let’s take a look at the argument that the moon is made of cheese. It’s kind of simple, instead of arguing about the evidence, the science denier will try to tell me that I shill for Big Pharma when I discuss the settled science of vaccine safety and effectiveness. Or I shill for Big Agriculture when I say that GMOs are safe or that glyphosate does not cause cancer.

So here is an imaginary (or is it?) conversation between myself and a member of the Moon Denier Society who claims that the moon landings were a hoax and that the moon is made of cheese. Apparently, I am a shill for Big Milk. I’m sure if I wrote that almond milk is bad for the environment, I received significant compensation from Big Milk. Fair disclosure, nope.

person aspirating the vaccine from the vial

Skeptical Raptor got their COVID-19 vaccination – Bill Gates 5G nanobots are working

On a beautiful March morning in Southern California, the ancient feathered dinosaur got their COVID-19 vaccination. Although it was difficult to go incognito to the vaccination center, this old raptor sat down in a tiny chair to get the Moderna mRNA COVID-19 vaccine.

Then it happened – I got the worst possible adverse effect to the COVID-19 vaccination, I entered the Bill Gates 5G nanobot Matrix. And I’m scared.

Project Steve – the petition about science that actually supports science

Some of you know about Project Steve. Most probably don’t. So what is Project Steve?

Well, it is a tongue-in-cheek, sarcastic, humorous parody of the various declarations, petitions, and proclamations that science deniers use to “prove” there is a controversy about science, usually climate change, HIV/AIDS, evolution, and most recently, COVID-19.

One of the most famous is the Scientific Dissent from Darwinism (SDD), set up by the Seattle based, intelligent design think-tank (yes, you probably see all the irony). One more thing – Darwinism is one of those creationist code words that doesn’t mean what they think it means.

Although Charles Darwin was one of the first scientists to recognize evolution and natural selection, that was over 150 years ago. We know so much more about evolution today including the existence of DNA, genes, mutations, and so much more. Modern evolutionary biology has its roots in Darwin, but it has “evolved” far beyond what Darwin understood.

Anti-vaccine musical – thanks to Australian humor about vaccine deniers

I don’t do this very often (or ever), but out of nowhere, there appears a wonderful anti-vaccine musical with humor, pointed comments, and good old-fashioned snark. And I need to share it with the loyal readers of the ancient feathered… Read More »Anti-vaccine musical – thanks to Australian humor about vaccine deniers

Nobel laureate Andrew Wakefield – and other delusions

You’d think I would be kidding, but I am not. But I am not the delusional one. Yes, there is an effort to try to get the world’s greatest scientific fraud to become Nobel laureate Andrew Wakefield.

I know. I have to give all of you a few minutes to vomit or go scream at the wall. Please, take your time. I’m here for you.

Before you get too upset, this is just a change.org petition. Change.org is probably the least one can do to effect change in the world. Many of us think it’s the center of the slacktivist universe.

What’s a slacktivist? Well, it’s those individuals who think they’re making change by literally sitting on their butts and sharing a meme on Facebook.

What I’m saying, in so many words, is that there is more of a chance that sasquatch exists than the Nobel Foundation even considering Wakefield for any award. Then again, Donald Trump won the Republican nomination for US President, so who knows? Maybe the Nobel Foundation will drink too much aquavit and wake up the next morning with a hangover – Wakefield is announced as the winner by some clerk.

David Gorski conspiracies – Mike Adams is wrong

The blogosphere has been all intoxicated by Mike Adams, the self-styled Health Ranger who publishes the Natural News website, and his detailing of various David Gorski conspiracies. At first, I thought that Adams was a bit insane, a view that Dr. Gorski himself stated.

In case you don’t know, David Gorski is the managing editor of the website Science-Based Medicine, which is like the anti-Natural News.

But upon further review, and doing my own research, I have come to the conclusion that Mike Adams is pretty much wrong but not for the reasons you might think. I think Adams got lazy and didn’t do a thorough investigation, as befits someone who claims to be the Health Ranger.

I hope that Mike Adams forwards an official Shill Check™ to me for performing this valuable duty to science and the Truth™.

Grammar Police – reactions to written errors

Now for something completely different. Let’s talk about Grammar Police, those people who take glee in pointing out and correcting your mistakes. It could be spelling, grammar, usage, or anything. You know the type.

I don’t like Grammar Police, because they appear to be more focused on showing you that you misspelled something rather than comment about the content. Sure, I’d like to be a perfect speller, but I’ve gotten lazy, since modern operating systems now auto-correct mistakes to what it thinks is the right one. I used to check. Now I don’t.

I do try to focus on my grammar, and word usage. I was once criticized and complimented for using the Harvard comma (called the Oxford comma in non-American English speaking countries), which is a very formal way of separating a list of conjunctions. My usage style is quite formal, and I write at the college educated level (according to the Flesch reading scale), which is automatically tracked by my blogging software.

But that doesn’t mean I’m perfect. My lame excuse is that editing what I’ve already written is difficult. I already know what I’m trying to say, so I accidentally overlook some errors.

However, my intentions are to communicate an idea, and unless my writing style or spelling errors destroy the effectiveness of communicating complex and nuanced points, I don’t care all that much.

On the other hand, my personal rules about joining the ranks of Grammar Police in comments are quite simple:

If something written is confusing, and I don’t easily comprehend what the author is communicating, I’ll ask. Sometimes people, myself included, will accidentally say “pro-vaccine” instead of “anti-vaccine,” and, of course, that can be confusing. But if I know the author, I try to be polite, and ask for clarification.
If I want to troll truly incompetent or unscientific junk, I will point out grammar errors just to make my overall point. Yes, I can be a card-carrying member of the Grammar Police, just to mock an anti-vaccination cult member. But that’s rare, I don’t comment frequently on the internet.

Otherwise, I don’t really care. I see spelling errors and grammar mistakes all the time on blogs, in high quality well-edited newspapers, and even published books. As long as I get the point, I don’t care. Seriously, I have better things to do with my time, like counting my shill payments from Big Pharma.

On the other hand, some people really make it their (or is it there) life’s objectives. Let’s take a look at the personality of these Grammar Police individuals.Read More »Grammar Police – reactions to written errors

A vaccine holiday gift to all

So here it is, another holiday. Christmas. Chanukah (which has evolved into Jewish version of Christmas in the USA). The Winter Solstice. Sol Invictus, the Roman festival celebrating rebirth of the sun which just randomly fell on December 25th. Kwanza.… Read More »A vaccine holiday gift to all

The moon is made of cheese–Big Milk’s coverup of the Truth

Presented herewith is an online discussion with someone about the science of the earth’s moon. Or, pseudoscience.

Skeptical Raptor: The moon is a large, rocky body that orbits the earth. It is approximately 4.4 billion years old.

Moon Denier Society: The moon is made of cheese. That is the truth.

SR: The moon is not made of cheese. NASA landed on the moon and brought back rocks.

MDS: The moon is made of cheese. NASA faked the moon landings, everyone knows that. Those are just earth rocks.

SR: The moon is not made of cheese. We have evidence of the moon landings. And moon rocks differ so much from earth rocks, you couldn’t just exchange some rocks found on the ground with moon rocks. And they found no evidence of cheese anywhere.