Randi

Is your dog psychic? Does your dog jump around like an idiot right before you get home, and seem to "know", you know, telepathically, when you're coming home? Ours seem to. We have two ginormous English Mastiffs who hop around like morons whenever someone comes to the door - sometimes they start even before we realize that there is someone at the door! Amazing! They love meeting new people, and it's almost like they have a keener sense of smell and hearing than we do! But of course, it's probably because they're psychic. Yeah. That's the ticket.

If your dogs do this too, then Dr. Rupert Sheldrake wants to pay you a thousand bucks to perform totally scientifical-sounding experiments on your dog. And he would too...

...except for those darned skeptics and atheists! Those guys are always hanging around, whining about "evidence" and whatnot. *shaking fist at the dirty unbelieving atheist skeptics*

From his interview at Alex Tsakiris' breathtakingly credulous woo-factory, Skeptiko.com (That's SkeptiKo.com, NOT NOT NOT our good friend SkeptiCo.com folks!):

[link] Dr. Sheldrake: Well, I mean, I’ve had to think long and hard about this because, of course, I often have encountered some skeptics and… I think that, for many of them, it…they’ve made science, not into a method of inquiry, but into a kind of ideology. Michael Shermer likes to say, “Skepticism is a method not a position.” But, actually, for him, it is a position. And, so it is for most skeptics.

I think, what lies behind it for many of them is that they’ve…many of them are atheists, dogmatic and often militant atheists.

Alex: Right.

More below the fold...

The ride had been long, but coming back to the town of Skeptic's Circle after being away for nearly two years felt good.

My appy mare smelled the fresh hay layed in next to the livery about a mile out of town and I let her prance a bit. I looked to my left and grinned. This time the UTI brand was represented well. Jim Downey, my ranch manager, trotted his horse alongside mine, his Sharps 50 rifle riding high in it's scabbard, the vernier sights packed away in their own leather pouch. Rick Ulrey, a former soldier, rode slightly behind us, his eyes scanning our backtrail for sign. Hank Fox, a grizzled veteran of many skeptical campaigns, rode ahead. Eric Lorson, brought up the rear, his oiled-leather guitar case strapped where a long rifle scabbard would normally go, his crossed pistols secured with leather.

My old partner DS, who had been with me two years ago when we came in to town, had started working for the Kos brand a while back, and from what I'd heard was doing good work there. Not that I ever doubted it. DS was a hell of a hard worker.

As we got closer I noticed that the town of Skeptic's Circle was...

(This one ran a lot longer than I thought it would, folks. There were a lot of submissions! If you want to skip reading the story, and instead just have a plain-jane list of links, you can find them here. Thanks for reading! -Brent)