I'm having a hard time finding anything quantifiable about exposure. We need a new cooking range anyways but I'm wondering how concerned I should be able my gas powered heater. We have radiators so I can replace it with an electric water heating system. My biggest concern is my daughter's bedroom is on the main floor, it's an old house and she's directly above the heater and often times her room smells like gas when it kicks in.

We've had it inspected and the gas leak is within the accepted normal levels when it turns on but I can't help but be concerned about another decade in a cold climate inhaling gas and whatever amounts of benzene are in the air.

Exercise is almost universally promoted as essential for health and longevity. From improved cardiovascular health to reduced risk of chronic disease, it seems to be the one thing everyone agrees on.

But I'm curious—are there any radical counterarguments or all-or-nothing positions that challenge this idea? Are there thinkers, researchers, or philosophical perspectives that argue exercise might not be as universally beneficial as it's claimed to be—or even that it could be harmful in the long run?

I'm not looking for 'it depends' arguments or specific scenarios where exercise might not apply. I'm talking about a wholesale critique of exercise as being overrated or outright detrimental to health and longevity.

If such arguments exist, I’d love to hear about them, especially if they’re grounded in credible sources or thought-provoking reasoning.

So, I was talking to a friend of mine recently who is fairly skeptical, and he mentioned not liking fantasy or horror. And that got me thinking, I've noticed a few people on this sub that say they don't like these sorts of media or have a hard time suspending disbelief. Which is odd to me, because I have never had a problem with imagination.

Is this a pattern? Or is it just me seeing one where there isn't one?

Are there mechanisms to detect and address such practices? What are the consequences, like loss of reputation, for those caught? How does the community ensure integrity in research? Are there specific bodies or individuals responsible for monitoring scholars and directors to prevent such misconduct, especially when promotions or career advancements are at stake?

So I'm basically a skeptic who is in favor of things like big foot, nessie, UFOs and aliens. I've found no proof but would be chuffed if I did. Sadly, there's no good evidence.

With the UAP thing kicking up again I've looked and I don't see much different from everything else I've seen over the years. The only change is the grifting seems to be more prominent or maybe I just wasn't as aware of it. There's ghost and psychic people I remember from years ago making the rounds in media and I suppose they were making a living off it.

So the common threads when it comes to all of these topics seems to be non-experts trying to do science. That's especially true for someone like a mechanical engineer looking into climate change and debunking it. He's just another layman when working outside his area of expertise. There's a lot of cherry picking to shape the argument. There's no way ancient humans could have built these monuments therefore aliens. Or if we look at christian historians they'll construct the argument the US was founded as a Christian nation and you'll note they will exclude all contemporary sources showing otherwise.

In general with conspiracy theories there's a personal validation and ego stroking to be one of the few in the know and everyone else is falling for the lie. That's a heady place to be in.

I have some sympathy for well-meaning cranks but I'm really sick of the grifters who are working angles. Steven Greer really gives off grifty vibes.

I don't know if anyone has constricted a grand unified theory of conspiracies but I have noticed people willing to fall for one will fall for the starter pack. My mom is a fundamentalist Christian and was reading books on Vatican conspiracies with human animal hybrids and is now looking at that Elizondo book Imminent. Fortunately she still thinks trump is the devil but many of the people in her church support him. I'm also aware that there's a crunchy to alt right pipeline where hippies into granola and health will start with antivax and food additive conspiracies and can eventually be moved to political conspiracy.

It's very frustrating to deal with these strange beliefs.

Hello Skeptics,
as a seasonal distraction from the overarching decline of science, civilization and democracy that has been the primary topic here recently, let's talk about something much, much more important. Let's talk about Santa Claus.

In Skeptical discussions around this, there seem to be 3 primary trends:

1. I don't lie to my children, so I tell them Santa is not real
2. I don't lie to my children, BUT I can deflect the questions for years until they figure it out
3. Childhood is about fantasy and mystery, yes, it's Santa who brough you gifts under the Christmas tree and here are half-eaten cookies as a proof. Figuring it out will be a valuable lesson.

You can make a sensible argument behind every one of these approaches, and reviewing some of the existing research there is no clear consensus on what works best. Not that I'm particularly trusting to papers based on interviews with 50 kids conducted by The Center for Dubious Research at Nowhere Polytechnic Institute.

So let's consider a >completely< hypothetical situation of a 3 yo whose kindergarden will be visited by a Man-in-Red on Wednesday, whose grandparents on both family sides are religious and very traditional, and whose parents are losing their minds trying to navigate this whole mess.

For (1) we can present SC as an idea, or tradition, risking the child having negative social experience, and big dissonance with the physical embodiments they will be seeing over next few weeks
(2) is the one I'm leaning towards, but it smells like no-guts middle-grounding, akin to tiptoeing around astrology
(3) is a no-go for me, though it seems >most< kids don't develop trust issues

There is lots to unpack here also from cultural and regional differences, but fellow skeptics, how have you navigated this terrain? What are your thoughts? Anyone here in social sciences looking into this in depth?

Daddy, who is Santa Claus?

Of all the ways the universe had to be, it was created to be as interesting as watching paint dry. I wish the world could be more like sci-fi or fantasy novels. I wish we lived in a world where there was a such thing as magic, good wizards vs evil overlords, superheroes, demons, mad scientists, aliens (that last one is likely real given the size of the universe, but they would in all likelihood be far from as exciting as the aliens we see in fiction), etc.

That's why I love sci-fi and fantasy, it gives me a brief escape from this hellishly dull world. Maybe I sound childish, and I am, goddammit! Childish is not a bad thing inherently. I want that sense of wonder. I would sell my fucking soul in order for the world to be more exciting.

Don't know if this is the right place to say this, but I had to get this off my chest somewhere. I envy the people who actually belive in these things. I wish I could. It would make the world interesting and take away my depression.

Given the cesspool that is now X, I've grown numbed to craziness, and it's not very often that I read a tweet that makes my jaw literally drop to the floor, but this one had that effect on me:

https://x.com/michaelshermer/status/1862557762590519589

"When Biden won in 2020, did any Republican celebrity Trump supporters check themselves into facilities or leave the country?"

No Mr. Shermer, they did something far worse: THEY LITERALLY TRIED TO STORM THE CAPITOL ON JANUARY 6TH AND OVERTURN AN ELECTION TO INSTALL TRUMP AS A DICTATOR. Funny how you don't seem to think that it's important to mention that shocking turn of events.

What a joke Shermer has become. I can't believe that I used to respect him.

The photo was taken in 2020 at Lake Auburn, Maine by the girlfriend of the man in the picture, standing 10 feet behind the bench. The couple claims that only they and their daughter were present, yet there appears to be the face of a woman in the top left corner of the photo. Apparently, the face resembles that of a woman whose body was recovered nearby, having died two years earlier.

Comparison with a photo of Jessica Gallant whose body was found in a pond near that spot in 2018.

Original Facebook post with the photo taken by Stephanie Renaud of Kristopher Levasseur and their daughter sitting on a bench at the north end of Lake Auburn, Maine in 2020.

Are they full of it, or some truth?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sNRKnhhcF4

It’s the classic divide and conquer strategy. A tale as old as time. The entire lgbtq community together and all its allies unified, can’t possibly be messed with. Not with any measure of success. We all know what it’s like to be oppressed and trampled and we all fight for one another.

But what happens when very famous and influential people like JK Rowling start publishing things like “trans is gay conversion 2.0. There’s nothing wrong with being a gay man, you don’t have to turn into a woman to like men”. Then a whole bunch of gay people, without even consciously realizing they are puppets on strings are going “you know what she’s right!” And now such groups are really taking off, trying to cut off trans people like an infectious limb when we’ve done nothing but fight for their rights the same as ours.

What happens if you succeed in severing that limb? Do they really think the conservative types are just gonna go “good job guys. Now that the trans demons are gone we’ll leave you alone. Enjoy your gay weddings”

Of course not. But that seems to be what a lot of people genuinely think. They are all too ready and eager to throw us under the bus to spare themselves. Except they won’t be spared.

When you can’t defeat a large enemy, you divide it into smaller enemies. Divide your enemy against itself, and take out those pockets one at a time, starting with the weakest. Which in this scenario would be trans folks.

I get it. “But Victoria, even if trans people are gone, there’s way more gay people than trans people” well then I guess for them it’s a really good thing they won’t go after the whole at large gay community at once isn’t it?

Once trans people are effectively erased, the gay community will then be separated into good gays and bad gays. The ones who demand equality vs the ones who don’t flaunt it.

Eventually, the ones who don’t flaunt it trying to be pick me’s will assist in the erasure of their former brethren, just as they used to assist the people they are now reporting on in ruining the lives of trans folks and erasing us.

It won’t end there. Once the outspoken gays are gone, they’ll smell blood in the water and start making a move for the jugular. But then, some of the gays still around will start to wake up and say wait a minute, we just want rights. We just want to be treated like people.

THEY DO NOT THINK OF YOU AS HUMAN. YOU ARE SCUM TO THEM. IT DOESN’T MATTER HOW GOOD OR HOW WELL BEHAVED YOU ARE OR HOW MUCH YOU DO THEIR BIDDING.

Yes, some of the gays still around then will start to speak up, and the other half, still intent on appeasement and playing respectability politics, will think that they are finally the ones who are “good enough” to just be left alone when it’s all over.

Their goal isn’t respectable and decent trans people and gay people. Their goal isn’t trans and gay people who don’t “shove it in their face”. Their goal is not the mere removal of pride parades. Their goal, in its simplest sense, is the complete eradication and erasure of any and all trans and gay people in public life ANYWHERE. They don’t want to know we exist. They don’t want to have to look at us.

To paraphrase a well known poem:

“First they came for the transgender people, and I did not speak out because I’m not a transgender person”

You can’t appease fascists, and when their goal is your complete and utter eradication and erasure, no appeasement you offer them will truly be good enough. But they will gladly pretend that it is, until such time when it is no longer advantageous to them to use it, or you.

Now more than ever the lgbt community, ALL of us, MUST stick together. Do not fall for their games of division. A house divided against itself cannot stand, and that goes for all of us.

This is basically all a moot point anyway because I fear far too many people have fallen for the smoke and mirrors already to go back.

Eventually, a whole lot of people will realize they’ve been swindled, but it will be far too late. The round is in the chamber, and we personally loaded the gun for them and handed it to them.