This is the first part of a three-part series examining mass shootings from a critical thinking and media literacy perspective. With the recent tragic attacks in Dayton and El Paso, the world once again turns its attention to mass shootings. It’s a subject that has...
Benjamin Radford
Why Chupacabra Reports Only Go Back To 1995
I recently came across a blog by a fellow cryptozoology writer, Nick Redfern, which began with a well-deserved rant about armchair debunkers. The shabby state of research into Fortean topics is widely acknowledged by skeptics—and some “believers” (for lack of a better...
The Pseudoscience of Personalysis
Speaking at the Center for Inquiry, Buffalo New York. Corporate America is ripe for scams, half-baked twaddle masquerading as insightful business advice, and dressed-up children’s books about misplaced cheese. One needs only to peruse the Business section of a local...
Caught Between the Possible and the Paranormal
I’ve often been asked if, in the course of my research into myriad mysteries and seemingly paranormal events, I’ve ever encountered something I couldn’t explain. It’s a fair and...
‘Bring Back Our Girls’ At 5: Boko Haram’s Forgotten Captives
It was a bold and brash attack on innocent girls that outraged the world and spawned unprecedented online activism: Boko Haram, an extremist Muslim group in Nigeria, abducted about 276 schoolgirls from a rural secondary school in the town of Chibok on April 14, 2014....
Squaring the Strange: Organ Theft Urban Legends
The new episode of Squaring the Strange is about organ theft urban legends, a favorite subject of mine. Richard Saunders of The Skeptic Zone joins us to discuss organ theft tales! The notion of waking up one day without a few organs, the biological equivalent of being...
Squaring the Strange: Psychics and the Holly Bobo Murder
In 2011 I had just written an article for Discovery News about a bogus psychic in Long Island when a young woman named Holly Bobo went missing in Tennessee. Her abduction made national news, and I decided to monitor psychic predictions and information about her...
Misleading Memes As Cloaked Propaganda
Soon after a university cheating scandal recently broke, a meme declared that “White privilege is REAL,” and gave three examples presumably illustrating that premise. The first shows a photo of actress Felicity Huffman and states that “Feds will seek 4 months jail...
Squaring the Strange: MLMs with Special Guest SciBabe!
For those who didn't see it, special guest SciBabe recently joined us to examine Multi Level Marketing (MLM) and pyramid schemes on the new episode of Squaring the Strange. MLM crap annoys us so Celestia spent plenty of time bleeping out choice curse words! Ben and...
Guest on the Skeptic Zone!
I was recently on the Skeptic Zone podcast with the great Richard Saunders! you can hear the show here! You can find more on me and my work with a search for "Benjamin Radford" (not "Ben Radford") on Vimeo, and please check out my podcast Squaring the...