George Orwell Versus the Flat Earth (2015)

Daniel Loxton (Old) Insight blog, Posts March 12, 2025flat earth, George Bernard Shaw, George Orwell, Junior Skeptic 0 Comment

This article was originally published at the defunct Insight blog at Skeptic.com on March 3, 2015. An archived version is available here.

In recent months I’ve been hard at work on a three-part series of Junior Skeptic articles exploring fringe theories regarding the shape of the Earth. The issue on newsstands now [archive link] considers the peculiar history of claims that our world is as flat as a pancake. Our upcoming issue considers the (surprisingly) much more reputable history of hollow-Earth thinking through to the end of the 19th century. To complete the series, I am working now on an issue about 20th century hollow-Earth beliefs with their frankly creepy intersections with conspiracy theories, flying saucers, Nazis, and madness. Read more

Skeptic Investigates: Is the Earth Flat? (2018)

Daniel Loxton (Old) Insight blog, Posts March 12, 2025flat earth, pseudoscience, skepticism, zetetic astronomy 0 Comment

This article was originally published at the defunct Insight blog at Skeptic.com on March 20, 2018. An archived version is available here. Portions of this article appeared previously in Junior Skeptic #53, bound within Skeptic magazine 19.4 (2014).

Recent news stories,¹ celebrity endorsements, and Google search trends² have highlighted an apparently growing conspiracy theory belief that the Earth is not a globe, but instead a flat disc. According to believers, government forces promote a completely fictitious model of the cosmos in order to conceal the true nature of the Earth. Are these claims true?

No. The Earth is Round

The evidence for a spherical Earth is overwhelming.³ Most obviously, there are many thousands of images and videos of the Earth from space, including a continually changing live stream view of the globe from the International Space Station—not to mention all the astronauts who have personally seen the Earth from orbit. Flat Earthers claim that all images of the globe are fraudulent inventions, and all testimony from astronauts is false. It is unreasonable to dismiss all of the evidence from the entire history of space exploration, especially when there is zero evidence for a decades-long “globularist” conspiracy. However, we do not need to rely on evidence from modern space agencies to confirm the roundness of the Earth for ourselves. Read more

I Don’t Know WHAT You Mean (2015)

Daniel Loxton (Old) Insight blog, Posts March 11, 2025bullshit, communication, gibberish, intelligibility 0 Comment

This article was originally published at the defunct Insight blog at Skeptic.com on Dec 11, 2015. An archived version is available here.

Painting by Daniel Loxton, c.1999. Acrylic on canvas. 24″x36″.

The journal Judgment and Decision Making has stirred considerable interest with a recent paper titled “On the Reception and Detection of Pseudo-Profound Bullshit,” by Pennycook et al. The authors conducted four surveys designed to explore differing individual reactions to “seemingly impressive assertions that are presented as true and meaningful but are actually vacuous.” That is, the authors are “interested in the factors that predispose one to become or to resist becoming a bullshittee.”¹ Read more

So… Who ARE You Gonna Call? (2015)

Daniel Loxton (Old) Insight blog, Posts March 9, 2025investigation, paranomral, scope, skepticism 0 Comment

This article was originally published at the defunct Insight blog at Skeptic.com on Dec 3, 2015. An archived version is available here.

Outside of Junior Skeptic (my primary ongoing project [2002–2021]) a surprising amount of my professional output—most of my blogging, stage appearances, op-eds (PDF), and interviews—is given over to the oddly controversial argument that my field should exist.

It’s my opinion that “scientific” skepticism should be acknowledged as a distinct field of study with a unique mandate: the critical, science-informed, scholarly examination of paranormal, pseudoscientific, and other fringe claims. Consequently, I’ve rejected (PDF) periodic suggestions that skepticism should shift its focus from fringe topics toward arguably “more important” matters, or that skepticism ought to be subsumed as a side-project within some other sphere (such as “science,” humanism, or atheism). Read more

Carl Sagan and the Dangers of Skepticism (2015)

Daniel Loxton (Old) Insight blog, Posts March 9, 2025books, Carl Sagan, history of skepticism, Junior Skeptic, skepticism 0 Comment

This article was originally published at the defunct Insight blog at Skeptic.com on May 19, 2015. An archived version is available here.

This is an excerpt from Junior Skeptic 50 (published in 2014 inside Skeptic magazine Vol. 19, No. 1), which is a ten-page biography of Sagan emphasizing his work in scientific skepticism. Junior Skeptic was written for (older) children, and did not include endnotes. Here, I’ve included some relevant citations here for your interest.

Carl Sagan cared a lot about kooky, far out, pseudoscientific topics. He knew this was quite unusual. He introduced a book section on these fringe science topics by saying, “The attention given to borderline science may seem curious to some readers. … The usual practice of scientists is to ignore them, hoping they will go away.”¹ He wished other scientists would care more, and that they were more willing to share their criticisms in public:

I believe that scientists should spend more time in discussing these issues…. There are many cases where the belief system is so absurd that scientists dismiss it instantly but never commit their arguments to print. I believe this is a mistake.²

Bigfoot Versus the Quest for World Peace? (2016)

Daniel Loxton (Old) Insight blog, Posts March 9, 2025criticism, mission, science, scope, skepticism 0 Comment

This article was originally published at the defunct Insight blog at Skeptic.com on May 17, 2016. An archived version is available here.

For the entire history of scientific skepticism, folks in our weird and wonderful little field have heard two criticisms offered with metronomic regularity from people who are “skeptical of the skeptics.”¹ One is the obvious: “Skeptics are closed-minded!” The other, no less predictable or routine, is my topic today: “Why do you bother with this trivial stuff about pseudoscience and the paranormal? Aren’t there more important things to worry about?” Read more

The Skeptical Virtue of Seriously Just Being Quiet (2018)

Daniel Loxton (Old) Insight blog, Posts March 4, 2025cultural competence, outreach, skepticism, understanding 0 Comment

This article was originally published at the defunct Insight blog at Skeptic.com on April 10, 2018. An archived version is available here.

Recently I attended a dinner party as the guest of a new friend among people who’ve known each other for decades. After dinner, the conversation turned to a story that had puzzled and intrigued the hosts. They were excited to share a YouTube video about a black leopard whose behavior was allegedly improved through the intervention of an “animal communicator” (pet psychic).

Now, this is a literate, philosophical bunch. They like debating, speculating, and devil’s advocacy, so they didn’t much mind that my friend found the claims of the video preposterous. After some lively verbal fencing, she turned to me in exasperation and said, “We have a professional skeptic right here! Daniel, you write about this stuff for a living. What do you think?” Read more

Fringe Claims: Unified by Neglect, Structural Similarity, and Direct Interconnection (2016)

Daniel Loxton (Old) Insight blog, Posts March 4, 2025fringe claims, investigation, pseudoscience, skepticism 0 Comment

This article was originally published at the defunct Insight blog at Skeptic.com on June 6, 2016. An archived version is available here.

A recent Scientific American blog post raised a very tedious and very old complaint about scientific skepticism—in essence, “Paranormal and pseudoscientific claims are trivial. Why don’t you do something I consider important?” The answer I expressed in my previous post is that fringe beliefs are a significant part of the fabric of human existence, and yes, sometimes important in their own right. Seeking to understand those beliefs is a worthwhile research endeavor.

This brought to mind a more interesting question: why does modern skepticism seek to study such a broad and seemingly heterogeneous group of topics—everything from UFOs to climate denialism to mermaids to quack cancer cures?
Read more

The Complexity of Alien Abduction and the Multidisciplinary Nature of Fringe Claims (2016)

Daniel Loxton (Old) Insight blog, Posts March 4, 2025alien abduction, aliens, paranormal, skepticism 0 Comment

This article was originally published at the defunct Insight blog at Skeptic.com on June 7, 2016. An archived version is available here.

Looming "grey" alien reflected in close up of a human eye

Image by Daniel Loxton with Jim W.W. Smith and Jason Loxton

In my last post I explained that the teeming menagerie of seemingly dissimilar fringe claims studied by skeptics are unified by the neglect of other scholars, by structural similarities, and (in some cases) by direct interconnection. For this reason, a range of topics can be usefully gathered under the skeptics’ umbrella, and useful insights drawn between them.

Today I’ll ask a related question: why are skeptics a mixed group of magicians, psychologists, doctors, historians, science popularizers, artists, and so on?
Read more

The American Medical Association and the Fight Against Quackery (2015)

Daniel Loxton (Old) Insight blog, Posts March 2, 2025alternative medicine, American Medical Association, books, quackery 0 Comment

This article was originally published at the defunct Insight blog at Skeptic.com on June 14, 2015. An archived version is available here.

“The American Medical Association is finally taking a stand on quacks like Dr. Oz,” announced a post yesterday by Julia Belluz. A health writer at Vox, Belluz has emerged as a sharp critic of popular medical talk show personality Dr. Mehmet Oz with posts such as this, this, and this. (I recommend her thoughtful reflection on the ethics, challenges, and public health concerns of countering medical misinformers, titled “How should journalists cover quacks like Dr. Oz or the Food Babe?” Generations of skeptical critics of quackery have asked those same troubling questions.)
Read more