ICBS Everywhere

Note: This post also appears on Insight, the official blog of the Skeptic Society. A few months ago I wrote about the psychology of vaccine denial. In the post I discussed two publications, one of which (

When I saw the Washington Post headline “Internet searches are convincing us we’re smarter than we really are” in my Facebook feed yesterday, I was only a little bit skeptical. Most readers are probably aware that I have been studying self-esteem and narcissism for some time, particularly the aspect of overconfidence. Over confidence prevents learning […]

I don’t know if this could really be called “new”, but it’s a form of anti-intellectualism that usually goes unnoticed. I find it particularly frustrating because I so often see it often among people who claim to respect knowledge, education, and expertise. It is an ironic lack of respect for that same knowledge, education, and […]

So this Good Morning America piece showed up in my Facebook feed the other day touting the sensational headline “Odd-Defying Babies Born 10:11 12/13/14″. Now, I think it would be adorable to have a baby born on 10:11 12/13/14 (in America, of course. In Europe, that would be 10:11 13/12/14, which just doesn’t hold the […]

Responses to requests, demands, and criticism in the blogosphere in recent months has prompted a great deal of discussion, most of it terribly unproductive. In fact, most of it has been downright silly – a childish back-and-forth which, to an outsider, might appear to be violent agreement. In other words, camps do not appear to […]