Tag: Canberra Skeptics

April 21, 2016

A Skeptic’s Guide to Conspiracy Theories

This article first appeared as a Vic Skeptics discussion pamphlet.
The full range of our discussion pamphlets (and a lot more) can be downloaded from our USEFUL INFO page.

A Skeptic’s Guide to

by Peter Barrett, Canberra Skeptics (2016 edit by Ken Greatorex)

Test 1: Is the argument factually correct?

It’s remarkable how many conspiracy theories are based on arguments which are simply factually incorrect. If you’re presented with a conspiracy theory argument, check the facts.

[Sites such as

http://www.snopes.com/

http://urbanlegends.about.com/

https://www.truthorfiction.com/

are useful here.]

Many incorrect arguments are repeated in ignorance. But there are also some people who knowingly repeat conspiracy arguments they know are wrong. View More A Skeptic’s Guide to Conspiracy Theories

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March 4, 2011

A Skeptic's Guide to Bible Codes

This article first appeared as a Vic Skeptics discussion pamphlet.
The full range of our discussion pamphlets can be downloaded here: http://www.skeptics.com.au/resources/educational/
or by clicking on the “Useful Info” link at the top of this page.

 by Peter Barrett, Canberra Skeptics

In the late 1990s, a book called “The Bible Code” was published. Its author, Michael Drosnin, claimed that a high-powered computer program had uncovered a large number of secret messages in the Jewish Bible (the Christian Old Testament). The most amazing claim was that a few years before the book’s publication, this program had discovered that the then Prime Minister of Israel, Yitzakh Rabin, faced assassination. Several months after Drosnin and his partners warned him, Mr Rabin was assassinated. View More A Skeptic's Guide to Bible Codes

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