“It is better to think of Hanlon’s razor as a disposable one. If you think you can to use it very often on the same person, you are being naive.”
Category: Skepticism

Settlement in Santilli vs. Van Erp and Israel
Two years ago Ruggero Santilli sued me for defamation. He was not pleased by some sentences in a post I wrote about one of his inventions, the Santilli Telescope. This telescope with concave lenses can detect ‘anti-matter light’, which is something completely different from ordinary light according to the genius from Florida. He also sued professor Frank Israel, chairman of the board of Stichting Skepsis, and my web host, Hosting2Go. The lawsuit has now been settled. I’ll give you an update on what happened in those two years.

Playing chess with a dead man – Maroczy vs Korchnoi
From 1985 until 1993 two chess grandmasters, Viktor Korchnoi and Géza Maróczy, played a correspondence game. Quite remarkable because Maróczy had already been dead for more than thirty years when the game began.

The Archive of Gerard Croiset
The archive of Dutch clairvoyant and healer Gerard Croiset, who became famous internationally as psychic detective, has been indexed and will be made publicly available. Could there be anything of interest in the annotations he wrote about his cases?

Simple UFO video – no CGI
Just filmed through a window on which I stuck a small black sticker. Made as an example to show how easily you can make a video like the one of Robbert van den Broeken without having to use more advanced video editing techniques.

15-year-old Canadian Schoolkid Discovers Maya City. Really?
15 year old William Gadoury has discovered the ruins of a Mayan city in the jungle of Yucatan following his theory that the Mayans picked the locations of their cities according to star constellations. I have some doubts about this.

Dutch medium Robbert van den Broeke arrested for threatening several people
A local broadcaster reports that Dutch medium Robbert van den Broeke was arrested on January 6th and was held for three days. Five people have made statements against him for making threats, including at least one death threat. Van den Broeke has quite a history in harassing people, but has always claimed that he is the victim of a hacker.

Michael Shermer and the Witch Theory of Causality in The Moral Arc
Recently Michael Shermer did a book tour in Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. I had the opportunity to interview him about his book for Skepter, the magazine of the Dutch skeptics foundation Skepsis.

Science Babe Takes 50 Homeopathic Sleeping Pills. Does it Debunk Homeopathy?
In a video the Science Babe ‘debunks’ homeopathy by taking 50 homeopathic sleeping pills and not feeling drowsy. Is it really a good debunk?

Update on #KoftaGate – Egyptian Miracle Detectors and Cures for Hepatitis C and AIDS
Egyptian Armed Forces under heavy criticism after claims to have found a cure for AIDS and HCV