Society

The Ockham Awards 2023: recognising the best in skepticism, and the worst in pseudoscience

Nominations for the 2023 Ockham Awards are now open, with our annual award for Skeptical Activism and our Rusty Razor award for pseudoscience.

Closed coffins and open coffers: the costs of Singaporean Chinese funeral practices

Chinese funerals are extremely expensive, with prescriptive periods of extended mourning - but their value is for the living, not the dead

Hit them in the feels: confirmation bias and the emotional component of reason

We may see ourselves as rational decision makers, but we are all prone to judging ideas based on how well they agree with what we already think

What really happened in the case of the Philadelphia Experiment?

According to legend, in 1943 the USS Eldridge disappeared, victim of an experiment gone wrong - but the reality was much more mundane

The Oceangate tragedy has brought some of society’s ghouls to the surface

Tragedies like the implosion of the Oceangate Titan submersible inevitably attract a slew of people trying to exploit them for their own agenda

Joss paper offerings: how to make Chinese hell a fun place for your ancestors

Chinese mourners traditionally burn paper offerings for dead relatives - but recently, the practice has expanded to involve paper versions of iPhones and luxury goods

If you should go at midnight: legends and legend tripping in America

In his new book, sociologist Jeffrey S. Debies-Carl examines 'legend tripping': the adolescent rite of passage of seeking out purported sites of creepy or paranormal experiences

Celebrity chef Gino D’Acampo isn’t dead… but the credibility of Twitter ads might well be

Twitter accepted payment to promote tweets falsely claiming celebrity deaths, linking to scam sites impersonating national newspapers to push cryptocurrency scams
- Advertisement -spot_img

Latest news