Critical Thinking In Everyday Life

The Mona Vie Meeting

2009-05-30T19:15:00.000-07:00

Sorry, but this comic is temporarily gone. I'm at a point right now where a comic criticizing the person in question is not to my advantage.

During the presentation shown in the comic, the pitchman actually asked if anyone'd heard of Mona Vie before. Well, I had. I'd heard about from the Skeptoid podcast, put out by Brian Dunning, who manages to put together a brief, yet extremely informative podcast. He did an episode on superjuices, where Mona Vie was mentioned.

However, I still hold fast to my statement that if someone trying to sell you on Mona Vie says it got rid of cancer cells, they're full of shit, and I urge you to tell them so.

My Journey to Skepticism

2009-05-24T18:48:00.000-07:00

ABOUT THIS COMIC:

This one took a little time, just due to life getting in the way. A good swift kick in the ass from my wife has inspired me to get back to more regularly working on these comics. This also marks the first comic appearance of my dog, Tessa.

Work In Progress

2009-05-17T18:26:00.000-07:00

One more good night of drawing and I'll have another comic for you. In the meantime, here's a portion of it in progress.

Stupid Shit Michele Bachman Says - 4/29/2009

2009-04-30T08:17:00.000-07:00

First the video:

She means the Smoot-Hawley Act. It was passed in 1930, three years before FDR took office. My one minute of research leads me to believe that Hoover opposed the law, but was pressured into signing it. FDR vocally opposed the law while campaigning in 1932. Again, Congresswoman Bachmann could stand to do a little research before going before cameras.

I regret having to use such a politically tinted video. If anyone knows if the raw feed from C-Span is available for embedding, please direct me toward it.

Stupid Shit Michele Bachmann Says - 4/28/2009

2009-04-28T19:00:00.000-07:00

Okay, I mentioned her yesterday and I've decided to start a little feature on her. Without further ado, I give you the April 28, 2009 edition of Stupid Shit Michele Bachmann Says.

This will be a recurring feature that will occur whenever Michele Bachmann says something that is untrue and can be fact-checked with just two minutes on Google or Wikipedia. Not opinions that I disagree with, but statements of facts that are just plain wrong.

It's good to see that I'm also not the only person to misspell her name.

Critical Thinking and the Vegas Train

2009-04-27T17:14:00.000-07:00

ABOUT THIS COMIC:

Some Clarifications: The Bobby Jindal quote is actually "Eight billion dollars for high-speed rail projects such as a magnetic levitation line from Las Vegas to Disneyland." It doesn't fit well into the space, so I changed it. It's been repeated over and over and over in various ways. Just when I think it's settled, I'll hear either a Republican Congressman or a talk radio host bring it up again. Just because you say it, doesn't make it true.

This is also the first of what will probably be more than a few politically-themed comics, that demonstrate the use of critical thinking skills when it applies to politics. I mean, Michele Bachmann could give me material almost constantly. The goal is to keep ideology out of these comics. While I'm debunking the claim about the "Vegas Train," I am not saying that high-speed rail will save the economy, and I'm not saying that the stimulus bill will save the economy. Critical thinking skills cannot come to that conclusion. What I'm saying is that when a claim is made that you can check, then check it, and if it's wrong, call them out for being wrong.

Comic-wise, I'm working on a standard rendition of myself, and it will continue to evolve. I'm also working on improving my lettering, and the appearance of my word balloons. Bear with me while I work the kinks out. Someday we will look back at these first strips and laugh.

Battlestar Galactica

2009-04-05T19:41:00.000-07:00

ABOUT THIS COMIC:

It seems a little past tense to post this two weeks after the finale, but I absolutely had to finish it. Chronologically, it's actually the third comic, but the first comic isn't done at all, and my comic about Mona Vie hasn't gotten out of thumbnail stages yet. The good news is that I have this entire week off of work, so expect at least one other comic to be posted this week!

Introduction

2009-03-17T17:33:00.000-07:00

Hey, everyone. My name is Jerry and I'm a skeptic. I'm certain that you doubt my sincerity, but hopefully, I can present you with empirical evidence to prove my claim. This is a new little side project that I'm working on that will be comics of examples in daily life where critical thinking and/or science intersect with daily life.

There's a half-finished page on my drawing table now, and another instance came up late last week when someone tried to get me to become a Mona Vie distributor. Hopefully, by this weekend, I'll have the first one done. I've got to find a way to do the Mona Vie comic so that the identity of the pitchman is concealed. There's the possibility of a third comic that just broke today, but it may be too "inside" as far as comics are concerned.

I work full-time and try to maintain a healthy balance of attention with my wife and two dogs, so this will not be a regular thing that I do. I'm also working on another comic and redesigning my website, carpaltunnelpress. It's all a matter of finding the time to draw, but then again, there's that balance thing.

I'm going to work on the design of this little blog in the meantime, so please check out some of the links I'll put somewhere, just in case you already don't know about these people. If you came here because you were searching for something skeptical, you probably already know about them. If you came here because of comics, then check them out.