Veteran investigative journalist, Sharyl Attkisson has famously broken down the phenomenon of astroturfing, i.e.,the  fake “grassroots movements” of trolls funded by political, corporate, or other special interests.  Read more

Beware of false prophets peddling  false-memory hype

Skeptic Founder James Randi  and adviser for the False Memory Syndrome Foundation

Journalist and activist Michele Landsberg writes about Skeptics founder James Randi colourful past in her column in the Toronto Star February 11 1996  ” What I had hesitated to mention is that the colorful Randi has been involved in a number of lawsuits. Part of the evidence brought against Randi was a tape of his telephone conversations, of explicit sexual content, with teenage boys. Randi has at different times claimed that the tape was a hoax made by his enemies to blackmail him, that he made the tape himself, and that the police asked him to make it.
Whichever version is true, it’s amazing indeed that such a person could be taken seriously as a scientific adviser in an organization dedicated to denying claims of child sexual abuse”  Read more 

Deepak Chopra on the Skeptics

“I cannot otherwise explain why being skeptical, without any additional positive contribution, is considered somehow admirable. I dislike skepticism when it sits by the road and shoots down any traveler trying to take a different way. I oppose skepticism when it turns destructive, using disdainful dismissiveness as its chief tactic” Read more