05 April 2013 by Ethan Clow
Update! – Victoria is now on-board! Update! – Winnipeg is now on-board! Update! – Halifax is now on-board! The time has finally come. It is time to figure out who are the biggest skeptical know-it-alls in Canada. That’s right, it’s time for the Cross-Canada Skeptical Smackdown Pub Quiz!! This year I have the honour of [...]
Posted in Announcements, Canada, Skepticism4 Comments
20 March 2013 by Ethan Clow
(Note – this is crossed posted to Radio Freethinker) It’s been a busy month for skeptical activists in Vancouver. I wanted to write about some of the recent news regarding an anti-vaccination conference that was held at the Simon Fraser University, here in Vancouver. The anti-vaccination conference was organized by this group: the Vaccine Resistance [...]
Posted in British Columbia, Canada, Featured, Health, Vaccines5 Comments
10 January 2013 by Ethan Clow
Movie fans are no doubt aware that the Academy Award nominations came out today (Thursday the 10th) Leading the pack in total number of nominations with twelve is Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” including ‘Best Picture’, ‘Best Actor for Daniel Day-Lewis’ and ‘Best Director.’ I’ve seen it. It was an impressive film, with high quality acting [...]
Posted in Featured, History, Media, Reviews2 Comments
04 January 2013 by Ethan Clow
Over the holiday break I got caught up on some reading, including Oliver Sacks new book “Hallucinations” Did Sacks deliver a mind-bending or mind-numbing account of the powerful hallucinations the human brain can conjure up? I had never read any of Oliver Sacks book’s before, but I had heard good things about his previous works [...]
29 August 2012 by Ethan Clow
To imagine a world that was poor, nasty, brutish, and short (a world Thomas Hobbes imagined) we modern Westerners, might turn to fiction. Fantasy, science fiction, and horror all have their dystopias which serve as a dark inspiration for a world like the one described by Hobbes. We could also look in history books and [...]
Posted in Critical Thinking, Featured, History, Skepticism, Social Sciences15 Comments
13 July 2012 by Ethan Clow
As a dog owner I have frequently heard of César Millán the Dog Whisperer. Millán is a Mexican-American dog trainer, best known for his National Geographic TV show, The Dog Whisperer, in which he rehabilitates trouble dogs. Here is a typical video showing what Millán does with aggressive dogs. When watching his show, one can’t [...]
Posted in Featured, Media, Skepticism25 Comments
15 February 2012 by Ethan Clow
Recently I was watching the History Channel when a commercial for Brad Meltzer’s Decoded came on. At first I found the commercial enraging and further eroded my lingering embers of hope that the History Channel had a legitimate interested in promoting actual history and not bunk dressed up to look like a Dan Brown book. [...]
Posted in Conspiracy Theories, Critical Thinking, History, Media, Reviews, Skepticism, Social Sciences3 Comments
10 January 2012 by Ethan Clow
A few weeks ago I talked about a strange hockey-skepticism convergence on Radio Freethinker. That convergence of course is about the goaltender for the Montreal Canadiens in particular. Carry Price, the BC born goalie who currently plays for the Montreal Canadiens is a spokesperson for the homeopathic product Oscillococcinum produced by the Boiron company in [...]
Posted in Alternative Medicine, Health, Media, Medicinal Advertising, Quebec, Skepticism6 Comments
06 October 2011 by Ethan Clow
About five months ago I wrote about the situation of Insite, Vancouver’s safe injection site where drug addicts could receive clean needles, medical supervision during drug use, and access to drug treatment. I was very concerned as a skeptic that a new form of science based drug policy known as harm reduction was going to [...]
Posted in British Columbia, Canada, Health, Health Policy26 Comments
08 September 2011 by Ethan Clow
Earlier in the week, I discussed how to talk about ghost on Radio Freethinker. It’s a topic that I’ve thought about for a while and there’s a possibility that my advice might serve other skeptics out there. I have several family members who believe in ghosts and have their own unique ghostly experiences they like [...]
Posted in Critical Thinking, Paranormal, Science, Skepticism11 Comments
Ethan Clow, born and raised in the Vancouver area, is best known in the skeptical community as Ethan the Freethinking Historian, co-host of Radio Freethinker, a skeptical podcast and radio show on CiTR in Vancouver. And as the former Executive Director of the Centre for Inquiry Vancouver. Ethan graduated with a B.A. in History from UBC in the fall of 2009 and has an active role with skeptical movements in Vancouver and British Columbia. He was an executive member of the UBC Freethinkers, a campus club that promotes skepticism and critical thinking. He still maintains a close relationship with the UBC Freethinkers and helps plan events and organizes skeptical activism as best he can. Currently he works for the Centre for Inquiry as the Executive Director of CFI Vancouver.
