Welcome, stranger, to the 130th edition of the Skeptics Circle, the blog carnival that is to blog carnivals what the Morris Minor is to Japan.

As a bit of a change, and to make things nice and concise so that you can get straight to the lovely juicy meat of the articles without having to read lots of tedious waffle by me first, I'm going to do a special "quotes" edition. Each quote links to an article containing that quote. For extra fun, you can try guessing what the article is about from the quote!

Firstly though, a few posts on the 10:23 Campaign. As you know, unless you've been living under a rock, a global mass homeopathic 'overdose' took place at the end of January, attracting the anger of homeopathologists and the attentions of the world's media. Here are a selection of posts relating to it.

"We are more possible than you can powerfully imagine."

"There may be some anecdotal evidence that, in fact, some of the skeptics who took part in this stunt are still alive...”

"In Oxford, no one died."

"...please do feel free to post your cherry-picked research should you wish to do so."

And I can't leave the subject without outlining this love exchange between myself and the BHA following a piece I wrote for The Guardian:

Martin: "British Homeopathic Association misrepresented evidence to MPs." (The Guardian)

BHA: "The Guardian Science Blog on 5th February has an entry by Martin Robbins that maligns and misrepresents the BHA’s submission to the Commons Science & Technology Committee." (Press Release)

Martin: "Over the weekend I received a rare honour, a press release directed at me with the full intellectual might of the British Homeopathic Association behind it."

Anyway, that's enough homeopathic suicide for now. Let's move on with an eclectic gaggle of entries succinctly summarized with selected sentential statements.

"One person’s broken radio is another’s groundbreaking invention that enables human contact with aliens, angels, and the dead."

"...I want the sugar without any chemicals."

"Last on my list of definitions is the oft-misapplied sense that anything “natural” or “organic” must therefore be safe. This is bullshit."

"For the Teapot to be the Unmoved Mover, it needs to be something that is immune to change."

"So overall, Mike, your examination of "what 'skeptics' really believe" has almost nothing to do with what skeptics really believe. Instead, you've crafted an army of strawmen to flail against, and even then, you fail."

"Hold onto your hats, people, he’s going to talk about thermodynamics!"

"Not all research is created equal. Consider the following bit of research as an illustration. The headline: Attendance at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings may reduce depression symptoms."

"Vague terms like those may have great appeal to Oprah-grade thinkers, but they aren’t solid science. And, strange as it may be, I expect scientists to be scientific."

"The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice. So long as men are not trained to withhold judgment in the absence of evidence, they will be led astray by cocksure prophets, and it is likely that their leaders will be either ignorant fanatics or dishonest charlatans. To endure uncertainty is difficult, but so are most of the other virtues."

Well thanks for visiting, the next Circle, the 131st, is on the 25th of February, in the 2010th year of our Lord, and will be hosted by Providentia. Get your skeptical entries in now.