Critical Thinking and Skepticism Resources
- All About Critical Thinking
- Logical Fallacies
- Specific Information on Card Topics
- Tools, Information and Organizations
- Related Weblogs
- Recommended Books
- Relevant Media
- Humor
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Bite-sized lessons on critical thinking.
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An overview of the rules of evidential reasoning.
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List and brief description of the most commonly encountered fallacies.
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A complete alphabetical list of fallacies with descriptions and examples.
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A brief but solid overview of the tools in the Baloney Detection Kit, spoken of by Carl Sagan in The Demon-Haunted World.
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Covers all of the claims regularly made by anti-vaccinationists for each of their moving goalposts over the years, all backed up with evidence and citations.
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A very thorough discussion, with evidence and citations, of every single creationist claim ever heard or conceived.
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The indispensable reference for all topics crank, quackery, anti-science and just nonsense-related.
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The longest-running urban and internet legend examination site on the Intertubes. Got a forwarded email with dubious sources? Check here.
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Another Crackpot Bingo card generator, from the team at ScienceForums. (I genuinely didn't know this existed until months after building this site.)
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Real life examples of harm caused by poor critical thinking skills.
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US-based organization that has worked since 1981 to promote good and complete science education, and challenge attempts by creationists and "intelligent design" advocates to remove or water down the teaching of evolution.
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The Amazing Randi's non-profit educational foundation for science and reason.
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US non-profit organization dedicated to spreading scientific knowledge and secular values in society.
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UK charitable trust dedicated to responding to misinformation about science on issues that matter to society. They are currently challenging the libel laws in the UK, which can put journalists at serious financial risk for reporting factual information that anyone does not like.
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A professional blog with frequent posts, co-authored by several medical doctors, exploring issues and controversies in the relationship between science and medicine.
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The home blog of Orac, a surgeon and scientist, covering various forms of medical quackery and pseudoscience in great detail and with citations. A particular beef of his is anti-vaccinationism, and thus it gets a lot of attention. One of the team bloggers from Science-Based Medicine, but the topics are different between the sites.
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A combination blog and reference of medical quackery, alongside a database and automated tools to rate or determine the quackery level of people or websites.
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Ben Goldacre's columns from the Guardian (UK) and many other goodies are on display at this site primarily focused on medicine-based woo, its treatment in journalism, and its effects on society.
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Dr Phil Plait was not only the President of the James Randi Educational Foundation (until Jan 1 2010), he's also a client, and an all-around swell guy, covering general space and astronomy topics, but including more than a few sideswipes at moon-landing deniers and other general anti-science nonsense.
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A related project by Tim Farley (of WhatsTheHarm), blogging about software and resources for critical thinking.
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The Skepchicks are a group of women (and one deserving guy) who write about science, skepticism, and pseudoscience. With intelligence, curiosity, and occasional snark, the group tackles diverse topics from astronomy to astrology, psychics to psychology.
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The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan
Perhaps one of the most respected tomes covering critical thinking and pseudoscience. Sagan's thinking and writing is well-reasoned and clear, and just as applicable today as when it was written.
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Why People Believe Weird Things by Michael Shermer
Shermer carefully lays the foundation for critical thinking, and then holds our hand on a journey covering numerous pseudoscience claims and examining why they are silly. A very instructive read.
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An entertaining and informative long-running weekly podcast covering news and humor from a reality-based perspective.
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Brief, weekly podcasts covering a variety of science and pseudoscience, with transcripts.
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The Podcast from Australia, for Reason and Science. Many topics are covered, but a highlight is Dr Rachie's segment confronting Australian anti-vaxers and medical quackery head-on. A marvelous, eclectic and welcoming show.
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A video examining some of the flawed thinking that prompts people who believe in certain non-scientific concepts to advise others who don't to be more open-minded.
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A tongue-in-cheek scoring system for rating physics crackpots. Much of the inspiration for this site came from here.
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A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language. This is one particular strip, but most of them are excellent and meaningful.
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Calvin & Hobbes was a marvelous comic that often touched on many deeper subjects. Here is Hobbes behaving like a typical crank.
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The story of a student arguing about astronauts having to wear heavy boots to avoid flying off the surface of the moon.
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