Scout Archives

Fewer topics are more important or more fraught with misinformation than health and medicine. General readers, health care professionals, writers, and journalists who want to get the best scientific perspectives on alternative medicine, miracle cures, medical fraud, and the wellness industry should look no further than Science-Based Medicine (SBM), which promotes scientific reasoning and critical...

The ambiguity and openness of works of art makes them wonderful objects for critical analysis and reasoning. Teachers and art lovers will enjoy this free online professional development course from the National Gallery of Art (previously featured in the 03-27-2020 edition of the Scout Report). Adapted from the museum's professional development programs for teachers, Teaching Critical Thinking...

Every week since 2006, the award-winning podcast Skeptoid has taken a critical, science-based look at popular pseudoscience and misinformation. Hosted by Brian Dunning, each 15-minute episode dispenses with the rhetoric in favor of what the evidence can (and cannot) say about topics such as consumer frauds, urban legends, alternative medicine, and conspiracy theories. In the spirit of Halloween,...

Is it true that chewing gum stays in your gut for seven years? Did a megalodon really terrorize cruise ship passengers? How much should parents worry about the Halloween candy their children receive? Founded in 1994 by David Mikkelson, Snopes has grown into one of the internet's most reputable (and busy) fact-checkers of such claims and other folklore, urban legends, hoaxes, frauds, and...

You're Wrong About, the hilarious and edifying "podcast about misremembered history," revisits pop culture stories, public figures, and historical events that have been widely misrepresented or misunderstood. Hosted by journalists Michael Hobbes and Sarah Marshall, each one-hour episode thoroughly debunks everything that you thought you knew about pop history, tackling subjects as diverse as the...