Friday, June 10, 2005

Skeptical AND new-agey

Thanks, Skeptico, for including U.S. Food Policy in your recent carnival of skeptical thinking (not a self-nomination!). Funny that this should happen on the same day that a commenter on the pro-gun weblog Say Uncle called us "newagy" (new-agey?). Can we be both skeptical and new-agey? I have been reading three public-interest-oriented health-policy weblogs regularly that are even more deserving of the title skeptical, in the sense of being fiercely secular: Effect Measure, Chris C. Mooney, and Majikthise. I mentioned recently that Effect Measure is published under the pseudonym "Revere." Paul Revere, incidentally, was a freemason, a tradition that is sometimes thought to be purely secular. In fact, though, freemasons aren't so much strictly secular as they are determined not to argue about religion -- an essentially tolerant point of view well suited to a diverse community ruled by a democracy.

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