RationalWiki:To do list/archive2014

. Free energy con man. By reader request. is a paleontologist of, but has also has written on the correlation of societal religiosity with social disfunction, particularly with regard to negative American exceptionalism compared to other developed countries. See The Guardian review by Sue Blackmore, Are we better off without religion?, and his most recent paper. an esoteric healing group given to legal threats to hide criticism. the dominionist, pro-conversion therapy preacher was elected to the U. S. House of Representatives from Georgia's 10th district. His book, claimed that Islam is not deserving of 1st Amendment rights. , proprietor of, a deeply fraudulent medical woo site. News reports, homeopathy of the oceans. The writing on the Facebook page should be entirely in green. And the Freeman disclaimer. - because Israel's "public diplomacy" is cuttingly close to both Propaganda and espionage. , an alleged academic journal with a taste for crankery. Includes Michael Denton on creationism intelligent design, and writings by Michael Fumento. http://inference-review.com/ developed by is a newer activity which is a partly scripted question asking method some atheists use to induce doubts in people's god beliefs-seems worth researching for potential benefits and problems it might have. Or it could just be acting like a stereotypical atheist dick. Let's write it up and see! Due to their many Mildly Decent contributions, perhaps and  of  fame should get some more scrutiny via RW. A Chinese political thinker and reformer of the late 19th century and the turn of the century who was popular in China than under the rule of the Qing Dynasty. Among other things he advocated both Constitutional Monarchy and Socialism in China. On the other hand, he was a eugenicist. The political theories he set forth in his book Da Tong Shu are objective and utterly indisputable proof that the Horseshoe theory is either mostly or completely correct, it is the "missing link" between Communism and Fascism. In light of what he wrote in that book he should be either given a prominent spot on the Horseshoe Theory page or given his own page. - He's one of thunderfoot's buddies. misogynist, conservative, and anti-feminist (and a Slymepitter), and may I add, extremely pedantic. , a Webshite about end times paranoia. Apparently thinks The Pope is the Antichrist. We had a stub article, but it was deleted. It's a company that focus of occultry, conspiracy Theories regarding Freemasons, etc. The reason this particular one gets so much attention is because it's original name was "Lucifer Publishing Company", and was acknowledged by the United Nations. - A Red Scare Proponent, and an early proponent of the Illuminati conspiracy Theory. "A lot of modern ideas about the Rothschilds come from him, and I am sick of me being linked to videos of his talk show." (example) - conservative, racist, MRA who is a leader of Gamergate. See Chicago, below, add municipal bankruptcy and dog-whistle criticisms of the decidedly non-Caucasian city administration. Who - liberals, conservatives or the Stormfront crowd - if any of them, is correct about the reasons for it becoming what it has? . claims a bunch of absurd things about the Illuminati and Freemasons, and that he'll take them down singlehandedly. This is him. a mall ninja manager of McDojo training camps who claims that, among other things, you can use your body to generate chi/bioelectricity/radio waves to block attacks and knock people out. a Catholic priest who claims to expose the Antichrist, and Conspiracy whackers claim he was kicked out of the Catholic church. an "Ex-Satanist", who claims to expose evolution. . If you have an anti-freemason claim, masonicinfo will have the refutation, and the conspiracy theorist will throw the shill gambit. By Oh boy...  Reader suggestion: "An article about the term  in my eyes its current usage in the States resembles pretty much some damn newspeak, as a great example calling French fries freedom fries because of France not.. er, supporting the forced spreading of freedom huh? Anyway, that's pretty much all I can say myself about that topic, but I'd really appreciate someone writing an essay or something about it." Two crappy articles at this title have been deleted already, so do a good one if you do this one. Possibly the clearest living embodiment of the horseshoe theory, she went from being the voice of Occupy Wall Street (literally, managing a Twitter account with the name OccupyWallSt) in 2011 to vocally supporting the neoreactionary movement in 2014, particularly its technocratic wing. (Though she has consistently stated that she is not affiliated with neoreaction.) She even said Obama should be kicked out and Google CEO Eric Schmidt installed as the new President. Arthur Chu has a nice summary of her bizarre swing here. by a book touted by Conspiracy Theorists to be froof of the Depopulation conspiracy theory a sleep-cycle-adjusting drug with some documented effects and some woo-ish notions that it's a smart drug of some sort. The nuff said. Another "messiah",, convicted on rape and incest, this one went on a breeding campaign in Israel. See and , a pseudojournal whose Wikipedia article calmly and neutrally paints them as absolutely frothing. About the only place that will publish Pierre-Marie Robitaille. I can't believe that there are medical quacks (and quite a few misguided feminists) still promulgating the bullshit in the book which argues for the completely debunked notion that bras cause breast cancer. Full title: Dressed To Kill: The Link between Breast Cancer and Bras. Written in 2002 by two non-scientists asserting that bras cause cancer. The authors apparently did not offer up any actual evidence. A scientific study just came out that showed there is no evidence to support this wacky claim (Does Wearing a Bra Cause Cancer? New Study Says No). - reader suggestion. Conspiracists have some fondness for conspiracies involving the price of oil and US dollars as global currency. There's plenty of real economics and economics woo around this concept too. . Youtuber, conspiracy theorist, wingnut, stoner, mall ninja, racist, homophobe, and Islamophobe guilty of both consuming and promoting gratuitous amounts of paramilitary woo. Hosts a weekly political call-in show where he has, among other things, posited that not only is Obama a Muslim but one born in the Middle East who plans to destroy America by instigating a race war. On the other hand, he isn't that well-known outside of his cult following of trolls. (ISI), the Pakistani CIA, cuz we're all about authoritarianism, liars, and extremism, and ISI provides plenty of each - It might not be an understatement to call him the most insufferable National Review columnist. No seriously despite his pseudo-intellectual tone he's one of the most blatant anti-intellectuals writing for the NRO. Also a climate change denier, of course. I just read his Straw Dogs and am uncertain whether I just read brilliance or bullshit. That in itself is an achievement. Not the John Gray behind Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. , aka Dr Rima, quack and conspiracy theorist. a famous conspiracy theorist and Bircher who popularized Federal Reserve and cancer-related conspiracy whackery (he even authored the libertarian/Glenn Beck favorite The Creature from Jekyll Island). A little suprising we don't have an article on him yet since he's a far more influential figure on the radical right conspiracy circuit than the likes of Mark Dice. what with part of our mission being to criticize the media where necessary. We have an article on Saint Thomas Aquinas, and Al-Ghazali, so we ought to have an article on Averroes too. It is extremely interesting to note that, according to both Westerners and Muslims, his influence on the Western world has been far greater than his influence on the Islamic world. - suppressing opposition arguments, directly or indirectly. The idea is to claim that counterarguments don't exist. Feminist versions here, though these are highly generalisable. . Naming the father character in a pro-gun book "Dick Strong", frankly, is begging liberals to make fun of it. Even ignoring the content of this book, it's awful: wooden prose, bad grammar, hectoring tone. Yet, it's quite popular on Amazon (it was promoted by Stephen Colbert and Bill Maher according to the back cover). , a fake-ass pseudogod who migrated all across Europe via 1999-eschatology and then into China via 2012-eschatology. Nauseating face. is a new nuttiness dreamed up by the Bay Area transhumanist crowd. It's sufficiently nutty that even LessWrong posters take the piss out of it. But they're apparently attracting actual money. Anyone feel like researching and writing it up? Most of the original pages about it have been taken down, but are still in the Wayback Machine. archaeologist, once in favor of "," and who wrote a book on the comets of God. an apparent quack who is suing Steve Novella for blogging about him.  the Counter-Malcolm Gladwell. , a wingnut libertarian who is currently head of the the "go to" source for many right-wing bloggers. ACSH is either an astroturf denialist organization that spreads misinformation, or the most staunchly centrist anti-public-scare organization on the web. - Aside from being a disgusting serial killer, his career trajectory reads like a who's who's of the pre-Reagan religious right. a pro-life activist and right-wing Democrat who became a pundit who's controversial "edgy" style bascally helped lead to the rise of nearly every wingnut pundit you can think of. If Coughlin was the prototype for right-wing radio pundits Downey was basically the same for televised ones such as Hannity. I am surprised we don't have an article on it yet. - We have an article on Furry fandom, I don't think it's that much of a jump. Sandbox Start and or  Carl Jung's idea about our inborn psychic connections, and his gift to the New Age. the latest trendy bogeyman in the alternative medicine/food woo crowd. If you don't feel good, it must be because of "inflammation" caused by eating junk food/exposure to toxins/not being on the paleo diet. Plus, inflammation is why you're fat. later re-named to An evangelical group that is most famous for spawning Alcoholics Anonymous and the involvement of Mary Whitehouse. I'm surprised that the cultish, deceptive ultra-Orthodox Jewish "" organizations, such as and  haven't been mentioned here yet. a fact that cannot be explained at a more "fundamental" level, or a fact in a different category than "institutional" facts, which depend on social agreement for their validity. and/or  I continue to find at least his first book quite well argued. - a creationist group in Edinburgh with a bunch of videos (most of them by Seraph Media) on the web site featuring the guys promoted by AiG - There isn't a page on how insults and rudeness breaks the limit of free speech, and there isn't an entry on the Freedom of speech page. - The general concept; whether and where it's effective, in what cases the members of any activist movement are and aren't sensible, etc.. - (not the degree of wit) somehow we have expert witness without the article of witness. one of the cults in New Mexico with UK TV coverage. Google "Wayne Bent" for more info because he was "elected" to prime minister of Iraq during the United States occupation, acted like a dictator, used American troops to carry out ethnic killings, and had the full backing of the US government. (Or who's also become a straight-up asshole.) I can't be the only one who remembers the days when the Internet would create a global village of peace and understanding. a Twitter propaganda site run by none other than Michelle Malkin herself. the favorite rabbi of the Christian Religious Right. other than a link to the Focus on the Family page. the Chinese "Church of the Almighty God" - A cult in China formed in the 1990s which hijacks both religious (Protestant or Islam) and other cult meetings, and used to preach the 2012 Apocalypse. Recently they murdered people in public for refusing to make contact with them. the half-assed attempt to re-open the eugenics debate by once-influental NYT correspondent Nicholas Wade. a real but somewhat cranklike physicist. The WP article is bowdlerised but the crankiness shines through, and just check that talk page. Collaborates with Nassim Haramein. White nationalist, neoreactionary internet kook obsessed with masculinity. Hates gays despite, bizarrely, being gay himself. Currently a paragraph in Manosphere. , or some similar phrase, for every conservative Christian who starts a bout of proselytizing with "I used to be atheist/liberal/evolutionist/whatever, but then I learned about Jesus." the UK Spectator's dumb loud younger brother. , a book and blog by a non-endocrinologist non-doctor who blames everything that's wrong in the lives of people with hypothyroidism on the mainstream treatment regimen. Focus is on how much better you feel when you switch to desiccated thyroid extract, the "natural" treatment we used in the good ol' days. Because he's, you know, Robert Zubrin. , like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, just substitute "Jew" with "Jap". A formal argument for the existence of God proposed by mathematician Kurt Godel. Covered slightly in ontological argument. An INCREDIBLY well done hoax/parody showing an Illuminati training video. Although the video producer admitted it was a joke a while back, it still is being touted as real by conspiracy whackers that didn't quite get the message. This could be its own article, or an add-on to our current Illuminati article. On our page, we ought to have a mention of  considering how influential he was to the movement. : Social media's answer to NaturalNews and mercola.com. Essentially a hive of misinformation advocating raw foodism, nature woo, alternative medicine, and other bogus crap. Unfortunately, they're also extremely popular and, being a Facebook page, their claims spread like wildfire. apparently increasing in popularity to cure all skin/nail/hair ailments. I encountered it on a Dutch website where it is touted as `miracle cure' and `liquid gold', with `positive effects never seen before' ... all of which are supposed to be `scientific proven' (the louder it says that...the bigger the chance it's woo). Yet, perhaps there is some (kernel of) truth here? - a woo-freindly, anti-vaxxer promoting site, only a few rungs above NaturalNews. Also has articles such as "Intelligent Design vs. Scientism" (sic) and "More Evidence of Scientism as Religion." Website - States that introducing definite criteria (often quantitative) into a decision-making process can make it easier to game the system, and so degrade the quality of decisions made based on those criteria. deserves a fisking of its "methods" (e.g. "common law" copyrighting of your name), or at least a section in the suitable article, whichever it is. (Prompted by someone linking to RW in their forum and the assertion that they are not FOTL; please don't touch this unless you have a good understanding of (pseudo)law) a consumer complaints website whose owner and operator is somewhat paranoid and which is sometimes accused of being an extortion racket. - I've heard some people making arguments involving vicious cycles being falsely accused of making circular arguments. a made-up condition that alt med practitioners use to blame general aches and fatigue on a failing of the adrenal gland. The (ACSH). Orac calls these guys a "questionable science-based organization". They're staunchly anti-smoking and anti-hysteria (particularly when it comes to food scares), but they also have a definite axe to grind and it's hard to say how trustworthy they are. They call themselves a "consumer education consortium," and are currently funded by various large corporations. (They weren't corporate funded for the first two years, but were accused of being corporate shills during that period anyway.) SourceWatch article Added: See also the mess on Talk:Skepticism. unless we have it merged somewhere. : phenomena believed within a culture to be diseases, but which are completely unknown outside of that culture, suggesting psychological rather than physiological origin. An example would be, the belief that sleeping in a room with a running fan can be fatal, which is widespread in both North and South Korea but unheard of elsewhere. Fad pop-psychology butchery of MBTI, which is itself suspect, but this takes it up to eleven. Popular in Eastern Europe.