This column marks my one year anniversary of writing Thinking Critically. When I started it I ostensibly intended it to be a science column, but critical thinking applies every aspect of life. Looking back over 52 weeks there are some themes that emerge. In celebration, I present some of my favourites.
Double Standard
Mike Duffy must be quite pleased this week. With the release of an independent review of Senator Pamela Wallin's expenses, the embattled Duffy has a bit of respite from the limelight.
Although Wallin, consummate manipulator that she is, got out in front of the report Monday calling it "fundamentally flawed and unfair" she is clearly guilty as charged.
Of course, aside from getting kicked out of the Conservative Party (a benefit in my opinion), she will suffer no consequences because politicians never do, a double standard that is aggravating beyond belief.
One could argue having to repay her ill-begotten gains is a consequence, but you won't find any sympathy here. It must be nice to be so rich that you can casually pay back more than 100,000 in stolen money and still hold onto your $130,000-plus salary until you're 75 and a hefty public pension beyond that.
Disgusting.
Quacks like a quack
Nothing drives me crazier than medical quackery. Despite thorough debunking, practitioners of dubious and outright fraudulent nonsense abound.
The best of these are relatively benign and act as a placebo for true believers.
The worst endanger all of society as in the case of the anti-vaccination movement.
I have never said scientific medicine has all the answers, but resorting to superstition in the absence of evidence-based treatment is just silly.
The final frontier
I have been fascinated by space since the very first time I was able to understand that we live on a tiny rock in a universe vast beyond comprehension.
I can remember vaguely when people first landed on the moon. Since then our knowledge has exploded. Every year brings exponential gains in our understanding.
It's an exciting time to be alive.
It's NOT a "theory"
Ever since Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species creationists have been fighting evolution. They have lost every argument, very attempt to undermine the education system and every court battle for the simple reason that Darwin was right.
Recently, creationists have even started their own institutes of "higher" learning in an attempt to shoe-horn the creation mythology into some kind of evidentiary framework.
This too will be futile because no matter how many times they tell the lie, it will not become true.
