It seems to me…
… Penn & Teller are wrong (on their show Bullshit!) at least as often as they’re right. They’re right about religion and creationism, of course, but beyond that, their ability to identify junk science has less to do with rationality than it does with their ridiculous political convictions.
They get the obvious ones, like ESP, ghosts, and Bigfoot, and they even manage to get some political ones, like the death penalty, but they completely miss anything they just don’t want to believe, like gun control, the dangers of second-hand smoke, recycling, minimum wage, even global fucking warming.
I appreciate the importance of getting the message out, as far as religion and some of the more ridiculous superstitions go, but too many people seem to be afraid to call them on their bullshit because “they’re on our side against a greater evil”.
Nobody should get a free pass to be irrational.
(See for yourself, BTW. These guys have a few episodes of Bullshit!, Google Video intermittently has a bunch more.)
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