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Just kidding.

THEY KILL HIM!

Okay not really. Bigfoot isn’t real.

“People who believe in bullshit aren’t looking to learn anything. They just want to dazzle you with the same tired old questions that have been answered more times than Alex Trebek.”

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I don’t know if this is the same stuff that Daniel wrote about, but the charlatanism and sheer horribleness of it is at least as bad. It makes some incredible claims, including:

What is this substance, you ask? Bleach. Strong, chlorine-based bleach. I’m not kidding.

Slight digression: For those of you who don’t know, I live in Wales. Wales is theoretically a principality and a nation in its own right, but in reality is a rural suburb of England where people have suspiciously tangled family trees and find sheep to be more entertaining than they should.

Imagine my (pleasant) surprise to discover that “Miracle Mineral Solution” is to be banned in the UK thanks to the efforts of a 15 year-old Welsh boy!

“A SCHOOLBOY’S campaign to ban a “miracle” health drink was hailed yesterday by UK Government officials after it was taken off sale in Britain.

Rhys Morgan, 15, highlighted the dangers of Miracle Mineral Solution to trading standards officials.

And the Food Standards Agency (FSA) yesterday said it had warned other European countries about it after Rhys’ campaign.”

A fiteeen year old from Wales named Rhys Morgan might be responsible for getting a dangerous snake-oil banned in all of Europe. If I was him, I’d be damned proud – and I can’t help feeling a little pleased that the future of scepticism in Wales seems to be in good hands.

What is the difference between a sceptic and a denier? When I call myself a sceptic, I mean that I take a scientific approach to the evaluation of claims. A climate sceptic, for example, examines specific claims one by one, carefully considers the evidence for each, and is willing to follow the facts wherever they lead.

A climate denier has a position staked out in advance, and sorts through the data employing “confirmation bias” – the tendency to look for and find confirmatory evidence for pre-existing beliefs and ignore or dismiss the rest.

Scepticism is integral to the scientific process, because most claims turn out to be false. Weeding out the few kernels of wheat from the large pile of chaff requires extensive observation, careful experimentation and cautious inference. Science is scepticism and good scientists are sceptical.

Denial is different. It is the automatic gainsaying of a claim regardless of the evidence for it – sometimes even in the teeth of evidence. Denialism is typically driven by ideology or religious belief, where the commitment to the belief takes precedence over the evidence. Belief comes first, reasons for belief follow, and those reasons are winnowed to ensure that the belief survives intact.

You can read the whole thing here. I think it’s very important to be a skeptic and important not to be a denialist.