Skeptophilia

One of the very first topics I addressed here at Skeptophilia  -- only a few months after I started, in fall of 2010 -- was the idea of the...

In his absolutely terrifying 1904 short story "Oh, Whistle and I'll Come For You, My Lad," British writer M. R. James  tells u...

The advent of the internet gave a whole new life to the phenomenon of urban legends.  When I was a kid (back in the good ol' Ancient Bab...

When I was about twelve, I was lying on the sofa in my living room one evening watching a horror movie called Gargoyles . From the perspec...

Past experiences in my life have instilled into me a deep dislike of being the center of attention.  Talking about what you love, what you...

It's simultaneously amusing and a little frightening how sure we all are of our own opinions. When challenged, we tend to react either...

As I mentioned in my last post, I have two dogs.  First we have Grendel: Grendel is a very mixed breed.  We think that in his ancestry ...

One of the things that strikes me about religious extremism is the fact that it always seems to be predicated on fear.  The one commonality...

It is a general rule of human behavior that it is way easier to make people afraid of something than it is to convince them that what they f...

In troubled times, people forget that one of our core values is compassion. Despite what you might have heard, it's not unique to We...

I've always been curious about why politicians spend so much time trying to make their constituencies afraid. A scared person, you wou...