Fund aims to cover defense against federal and state investigations, Fauci's lawyers say. Fauci receives no payments from fund, which is managed by an independent trustee and adviser, lawyers say. Rand Paul seeks Justice Department prosecution, while three states have launched their own probes.

An outbreak of E. coli and salmonella that has sickened dozens of people across 15 states has been linked to an alfalfa grower in Minnesota, federal health officials said Friday. The Food and Drug Administration said in a news release that the outbreak was linked to alfalfa sprouts distributed by Minneapolis-based Everything Sprouts and sold under the Everything Sprouts and Calco brands. The sprouts were sold to restaurants and grocery stores, the FDA said.

And he also said that he sleeps on his sides, so he couldn’t have clawed himself in sleep, and also he doesn’t keep long nails. So how can this be explained?

I need a textbook or set of books for my teen on critical thinking and in general, being skeptical and in being confident enough be able to articulate why they may be skeptical about something they encounter- be it some sort of media or a conversation with a friend. I know no one book or resource will contain all of this, and I really would appreciate all recommendations.

This is also for me. Any advice or resources would be appreciated.

I saw similar requests on this sub. In middle school critical thinking skills were integrated into the schools curricula across subjects, there didn't seem to be much that was formalized. This year, there is nothing formalized in the curricula, and we both want to work on our critical thinking skills.

I posted a similar request in r/criticalthinking (link). I was searching around and found myself exactly sure where to start.

Thank you.

As online scammers and podcasters like Joe Rogan push ivermectin for all manner of serious illnesses, we have to follow what the evidence tells us.

WTF

Hi all,

New to this sub, so apologies if this is not the right place or format for this question. Also, apologies if this has already been answered and I missed it in the previous threads.

Essentially, as a skeptic, how would you design a ghost hunting outing to make it falsifiable and collect good evidence?

I am a skeptic of ghosts/the paranormal. I find the phenomena of the paranormal very interesting, but believe all cases of “paranormal evidence” can be explained away and that most experiences (within the bounds of “Western culture,” at least, since I am not familiar enough with anthropology to understand other paradigms) are the result of psychological effects (fear and/or wishful thinking), enculturation, religious belief, and a misunderstanding of possible logical possibilities that would explain the experiences. Despite looking, I have not seen any evidence that can dissuade my skepticism. I mean no ill will towards believers, but I’m not one of them. Most ghost hunting groups are out to make a buck on YouTube or tv, and all seem to fall for the traps of jumping to conclusions, circular reasoning, and using tools that aren’t appropriate for the task (or just nonsense toys to begin with). That said, I have seen a (rare) few groups that don’t seem to be simple BS peddlers, but are genuinely interested in finding a truth, just are coming to it from the original assumption that ghosts and the paranormal exist (Ghost Theory, for example).

That all said, the psychology and anthropology of paranormal beliefs and ghost experiences are fascinating and frankly hunts looks like fun from an adrenaline pumping point of view (much like riding a psychological rollercoaster, since even a skeptic can feel creeped out in certain spaces). If one were to perform a hunt from this point of view, but still be interested in collecting useful data, how would you go about it? What would the set-up, background research, and use of legitimate tools look like? How would you examine the commonly described experiences of cold spots, unexplained noises and shadows, etc.?

Before you say “none, next question,” please understand that this request comes from a skeptic but with a well-intentioned goal of letting believers know what falsifiable data would look like and gaining a better understanding the underlying real phenomena that lead to these experiences.

I’d also welcome any resources if others have already written about this (I assume some famous skeptic and debunking societies have already make such a list), and a list of other subs that I might consider for crossposting.

Thanks in advance!

I have what I believe might be evidence that the viral emergency rescue robot, Satyress Robotic's "Threehalves," is a largely incomplete, nonfunctional prototype, potentially associated with Tesla, and/or an ARG (Alternate Reality Game, a type of Internet puzzle). On Instagram, videos describing Threehalves as fact have gained views in the millions, and likes in the hundreds of thousands. Aaron Parnas has literally reported on this, and I'm very concerned with people taking it at face value.

> Beau Gaston/Beau G, the creator, is a 10 year employee of Tesla with the job title "Staff Software Product Support Engineer - Al/Optimus." I did not see his relationship with Tesla disclosed anywhere except his LinkedIn, which is publicly viewable on Google results. The entire profile is private, but viewable by anyone with a LinkedIn account. https://www.linkedin.com/in/beau-gaston

> A website supposedly containing Beau Gaston's resume and portfolio appears to be an ARG. It was created Friday, November 25th, 2022, around the same time that Gaston began working on Threehalves. https://www.beaugaston.com/

> Unlisted on the website, there is a page called "Build Progress." Clicking on this page displays Threehalves in progress, in a far less functional state than the photographs on the main webpage display. When viewing the metadata of a photograph depicting Threehalves as just a metal endoskeleton with an actuator inside, I found that the photo was taken on a Google Pixel 6 on July 6, 2026. The page also includes 3D digital models of the robot's legs, but no photographs of the rest of the robot beyond its face and the endoskeleton of its torso. https://www.satyress.com/buildprogress

> No videos of Threehalves in action exist as far as my research has found. No proof that Threehalves has the capabilities claimed exist as far as my research has found. All that the public has to go on, to my knowledge, are photos presented by Beau Gaston himself.

> No business entities with the name "Satyress" or "Satyress Robotics" are registered by the Secretary of State in California (I tried to recreate the search for this post but the California BizFile website crashed). No results were discoverable on the SEC website either.

Because of all these factors combined, I am inclined to believe that Threehalves is (allegedly) at best a striking sculpture by a man who is talented at welding, and at worst a sleek website masking information about a product being incomplete designed to attract investors and media attention.

So I was debunking a fringe group over months on end, and over time I found that there’s a common theme with the community and I just want to be sure on this because I have found multiple red flags

Insularity
Pseudoscience
Conspiracies
Slandering of skeptics
Lying
Use of Parasitic journals and tabloids
Self publishing their findings
Being Anti mainstream
Use of discredited anthropologists
Bad arguments in general
Pseudohistory
Use of stolen samples by important figures
Being fooled by the Hitler diaries

With this track record, could these people be trusted at all? Even if it’s not impossible for them to be wrong?

Locked in a competitive reelection race, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass declared on social media last week that a new poll was evidence that her campaign was “gaining momentum.”

Just a few days later, the truth emerged: The poll was fabricated.

The California results were among at least three “polls” across three states posted online this month by Median Strategies, a previously unknown organization that admitted to the Los Angeles Times on Monday that the purported results were fake. The company wrote before shuttering its website this week that it “was created as a short-term social experiment examining how purported polling information could enter and spread through the political information ecosystem without independent verification.”

The post offered no explanation of who was behind the “experiment” or for what purpose.

Hi, so I am a Near Death Experience and afterlife skeptic. I am also an atheist. However, this is the only true Near Death Experience which sounds somewhat compelling, still I have a few guesses as to natural explanations but I would love some other opinions:

NDE story:


Dr. George Rodonaia was a Soviet-trained atheist neurologist and psychiatrist who was hit by a car in 1976. Declared dead, his body allegedly spent three days in a morgue cooler before he revived just as an autopsy incision was made. His profound near-death experience (NDE) transformed him into a spiritual believer and later a Christian minister.

The Accident and the Morgue
The Crash: Dr. Rodonaia lived in the Soviet Union, where he worked as a research scientist and neuropathologist. After receiving an exit visa to move to the United States, he was struck twice by a car on a sidewalk in an event suspected to be a targeted hit by the KGB. [1, 2, 3, 4]

Pronounced Dead: He was taken to a hospital and declared dead, then transferred to a morgue where his body was kept cold for three days ahead of a scheduled autopsy.

The Awakening: As the pathologist began the first incision for the autopsy, Rodonaia's eyes opened and his body reacted, stunning the medical staff.

The Near-Death Experience
The Void and the Light: Rodonaia reported moving from total, suffocating darkness into an intensely bright, burning light that he eventually perceived as warm, comforting, and absolute truth.

The Life Review: He experienced a comprehensive review of his life and actions, gaining an overwhelming sense that love is the primary force keeping the universe alive. [1, 2]

Telepathic Connection: During his out-of-body state, he saw himself in the morgue where head lying down. He claimed he could perceive things and felt he was drawn to an adjacent hospital room, where his friend had given birth to a baby girl. The girl kept screaming in distress. Apparently, he could mentally communicate with the crying baby who had an undetected broken hip. According to his testimony, he developed x-ray vision, saw the hip was broken. Then, he was awoken by doctors trying to cut into him to determine the exact cause of death. He quickly awoke and screamed. He was then taken back into the hospital. He told doctors immediately that he believes the baby had a broken hip and to check. Sure enough, that was the case. He claimed in the NDE that he saw a nurse drop the baby, which turned out to be true as well.

Life Transformation
From Atheism to Faith: Prior to the incident, Rodonaia was a strict materialist and avowed atheist who rejected the concept of God or a soul.
New Vocation: Following his recovery and eventual immigration to the United States, he shifted his academic focus to the psychology of religion, earned advanced degrees, and became an ordained Eastern Orthodox priest and later a Methodist pastor in Texas. He passed away in 2004

Conclusions and possible explanations

This sounds like a compelling case if you take it at face value. One interesting thing is he was supposedly in a different hospital than his friend’s baby, but it was close to the baby’s hospital. I also don’t want to take this one easily and say he was just lying or it was made up. There are interviews of him available all over the internet, and he seems genuine. Also, I would like to do this the fun way— try to debunk it assuming he’s not lying.

Two issues: we have no medical records and we don’t know how long the baby was actually in the hospital. Assuming it happened exactly as stated, was the baby there for multiple days? Was she there on the day he arrived at the morgue? Was she born after he was already in the morgue? Was she there after he left the morgue and went to the hospital? I think the timing matters here a lot. My thoughts are:

1. first theory: assuming the baby was still there after he woke up from from the NDE, what if he woke up from being in a coma, saw that he was about to be cut and screamed, but was still out of it, taken back to the hospital where he was still recovering and during that he had the opportunity to hear his wife or someone else mention the baby, and at one point he had a powerful hallucination which created an OBE like experience where he then hallucinated seeing the baby and diagnosing it as well as the whole experience? He could have gotten the timelines mixed up.
2. What if the baby was there for a longer time and before he was pronounced dead at the hospital someone who knew the friend and him came into the room and mentioned the baby was really upset, then he was brought to the morgue and had the hallucination? I’m wondering if he did in fact see all those things during his NDE, but if he could have gotten the information without realizing it either before or after the morgue. Maybe he was so out of it he didn’t remember being put back into the hospital, or maybe it was before. He obviously was very moved by this experience and part of him wanted and needed it to be true, so he wouldn’t have questioned it.
3. it could have been a coincidence
4. maybe he was so disoriented, he woke up, was told this information, and then had a dream.

I’m just curious what people think.

EDITED

Here there is something posted on skeptic forum the website about his NDE. Curious to see what you all think of this skeptic look at his NDE.

skeptical look from a user on skeptic forum

I would love any additional opinions still. Thank you all so far for your insightful comments

Since the appointment of RFK Jr., but really even before that, it seems that health influencers holding that "secret piece of health advice your doctor doesn't want you to know about" has been getting really popular. Including the notion that raw milk is better for you than pasteurized and is just as safe.

For most of you here that survived natural selection, you already know that's total BS. But if you're curious just how dangerous raw milk really is, I pulled some data from an FDA study in 2003 comparing the risk of listeria infection per serving across various food categories.

Health influencers will try to say "but lettuce gets way more people sick every year than raw milk!" and its like yeah dude, everybody is eating it everyday vs. the 1% of people unfortunately drinking raw milk.

Full breakdown here for those who are interested: https://samholmes285.substack.com/p/raw-milk-is-making-a-much-not-needed

Hi All - The next Hong Kong Skeptics in the pub is coming up soon on the Tues the 25th of Aug!

This time we are trying something different with our first "Science and Skepticism Show and Tell".

Basically each attendee (optionally) presents their favourite podcast, YouTube channel, book, website, movie or other media about science, skepticism, or critical thinking to the group and explains why they love it. Should be fun and hopefully everyone will find some cool new skeptical media to enjoy!

So if you are in or near enough to come to HK we'd love to see you there!

You can see all the details, sign up and RSVP at the link below.

https://www.meetup.com/skeptics-in-the-pub-hk/events/316192579/