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Daniel Loxton 🇨🇦

@danielloxton.bsky.social

4.7K followers 680 following 5.4K posts

Author, illustrator, and researcher of misinformation and fringe claims. Former Editor (2002–2021) of Junior Skeptic, and author of Evolution: How We and All Living Things Came to Be and other science books for kids and adults. https://www.danielloxton.com

www.danielloxton.com

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Daniel Loxton 🇨🇦 @danielloxton.bsky.social · Nov 9

A very incomplete list drawn from accounts I follow:
go.bsky.app/DyXUn9n

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Daniel Loxton 🇨🇦 @danielloxton.bsky.social · 17h

And the single season cancellation doesn’t even hint whether it was good or not. The Peripheral was fantastic and also promptly cancelled

Daniel Loxton 🇨🇦 @danielloxton.bsky.social · 17h

It feels like an indicator of our fractured media environment that they can make, release, and cancel a lush-looking Brave New World TV series and I (a pretty dedicated sci fi nerd) hear about it for the first time 5 years later

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Reposted by Daniel Loxton 🇨🇦

bioGraphic @biographic.bsky.social · 17h

Happy pub day to our contributing editor @hillaryrosner.bsky.social! At the link below, read an adapted excerpt of her new book, "Roam: Wild Animals and the Race to Repair Our Fractured World." 🦌🦥🐆🦍🐢🐅🐘

www.biographic.com/the-beauty-a...

The Beauty—and the Beasts—of Coexistence

In the mountains of Italy, local people are adapting with a growing number of brown bears, wolves, and other fairy tale predators.

www.biographic.com

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Daniel Loxton 🇨🇦 @danielloxton.bsky.social · 1d

My elderly relatives keep sending me the anti-vaccine disinformation they’re fed by Facebook, and that doesn’t seem great to me

Daniel Loxton 🇨🇦 @danielloxton.bsky.social · 2d

I’ve always thought of them as “snuffleupagus trees” if that helps

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Daniel Loxton 🇨🇦 @danielloxton.bsky.social · 3d

Like, Aliens is a genre masterpiece, but my recollection of the “making of” story is Cameron angered his entire crew to the point of mutiny, and Sigourney Weaver had to intervene and persuade them to finish the film? That sounds to me like a guy who’s good at movies *and also* getting in his own way

Reposted by Daniel Loxton 🇨🇦

Glenn Branch @glennbranch.bsky.social · 3d

Lexicographic enshrinement for Eugenie C. Scott's coinage "Gish Gallop"! @eugeniescott.bsky.social

Gish gallop

Gish gallop (sometimes gish gallop or Gish/gish galloping) refers to a rhetorical technique or strategy by which a debater puts forth too many false arguments for their opponent to be able to refute i...

www.merriam-webster.com

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Daniel Loxton 🇨🇦 @danielloxton.bsky.social · 3d

Tedious, everyday Bad Bosses are nowhere near to being Steve Jobs or James Cameron, and I’m not convinced Bad Boss antics improve anything, on net, even for people like Jobs or Cameron

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Daniel Loxton 🇨🇦 @danielloxton.bsky.social · 3d

Congratulations to this year’s nominees!

The Lane Anderson Award @laneandersonaward.bsky.social · 15d

Introducing the 2025 Lane Anderson Award Adult Shortlist! Visit our website for more info: laneandersonaward.ca/2025-shortli... @penguinrandomhouse.bsky.social @jennifergrenz.bsky.social @gooselane.bsky.social @sarahkcox.bsky.social

Daniel Loxton 🇨🇦 @danielloxton.bsky.social · 4d

Kinda nice to see decent folks reclaiming frogs, frogs are great

Reposted by Daniel Loxton 🇨🇦

BK. Titanji @boghuma.bsky.social · 4d

Most people are not anti-vaccine and hesitancy is a wide spectrum ranging from not wanting to be inconvenienced to needing to know more, having questions & getting the timing right. I find that I have the most success when I try to meet people where they are without judgement.
Better luck next time

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Reposted by Daniel Loxton 🇨🇦

AIPT Science @science.aiptcomics.com · 4d

The research on misinformation is growing, but do we have any solutions yet? We review the new book 'Misguided,' by social scientist @matthewfacciani.bsky.social. @danielloxton.bsky.social @caulfieldtim.bsky.social @jonathanstea.bsky.social @critikid.bsky.social

‘Misguided’ offers games and ‘prebunking’ to abate misinformation

A new entry in the growing field of misinformation research.

aiptcomics.com

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Reposted by Daniel Loxton 🇨🇦

Dr. Jonathan N. Stea @jonathanstea.bsky.social · 5d

Brandolini’s Law (also known as the bullshit asymmetry principle):

The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it.

H/t @unbiasedscipod.bsky.social

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Daniel Loxton 🇨🇦 @danielloxton.bsky.social · 5d

I could use a little help bridging the next few days — just enough to free up mental space for illustration www.paypal.com/paypalme/dan...

Daniel Loxton 🇨🇦 @danielloxton.bsky.social · 5d

why call it spikevax when stabjab was right there

Daniel Loxton 🇨🇦 @danielloxton.bsky.social · 5d

Same!

Daniel Loxton 🇨🇦 @danielloxton.bsky.social · 5d

I’m not sure I’m up to learning more about anything happening in the world today

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Daniel Loxton 🇨🇦 @danielloxton.bsky.social · 6d

That strikes me as bad

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Daniel Loxton 🇨🇦 @danielloxton.bsky.social · 6d

Listening to a back episode of the Embrace the Void podcast with @etvpod.bsky.social interviewing @jonathanjarry.bsky.social, and boy is the Joe Mercola medical misinformation story taking a weird turn podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/t...

The Spiral of Joe Mercola with Jonathan Jarry

Podcast Episode · Embrace The Void · 2025-03-20 · 1h 5m

podcasts.apple.com

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Daniel Loxton 🇨🇦 @danielloxton.bsky.social · 7d

Honestly it would be handy if everyone could keep re-upping their disinformation-themed podcasts, I have a lot more drawing to do

Daniel Loxton 🇨🇦 @danielloxton.bsky.social · 7d

Lovely shots!

Reposted by Daniel Loxton 🇨🇦

Lindsay Beyerstein @beyerstein.bsky.social · 7d

Conspiricism can build coalitions because it can unite people with different obsessions. The conspiracy is always unsolved so you can agree to disagree about whether the Jews are a front for the Communists or vice versa, or whether they're both a front for the Illuminati.

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Reposted by Daniel Loxton 🇨🇦

Alex Wild @alexwild.bsky.social · 7d

A textbook image I did a few years ago showing a trap-jaw ant (Odontomachus rixosus) with her mandibles held open and trigger hairs forward, and then in the closed position.

The snapping shut of the trap is one of the fastest measured animal movements.

A split-screen image showing (top) a face view of an elongated ant standing on a reflective surfave, facing us with toothy brown jaws held 180 degrees open, and (bottom), the same ant with jaws closed, the bluntly toothed tips held together.

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Daniel Loxton 🇨🇦 @danielloxton.bsky.social · 7d

Anyone can get scammed, but the part that jumps out at me is “sponsored ad on Facebook.” Major platforms are crawling with scams they also profit from. Twitter was overrun with paid crypto ads with Elon’s face on them when I bailed

Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social · 11d

I FOIA'd the FTC for consumer complaints about crypto scammers who pretend to be Elon Musk.

People are cashing out their retirement accounts and losing ridiculous sums of money.

Elon Musk Fans Are Still Losing Ridiculous Amounts of Money to Crypto Scams

gizmodo.com

Daniel Loxton 🇨🇦 @danielloxton.bsky.social · 7d

I was out to visit my brother in Cape Breton a couple years ago, and the variety in accent was interesting: lots of kind of North American standard, lots of mild Nova Scotia accents, and then a few accents so strong I could barely understand them