Re: Spin of the Week: Uganda Child Sacrificle and Witch Doctors

[Dan Kaminsky <dan () doxpara com>]

I was pretty weirded out by this whole thing. It felt like a throwback  
to another era of old school yellow journalism a la 'Did you hear  
those SAVAGES in AFRICA kill their OWN CHILDREN to appease their PAGAN  
GODS?!?'

Super creepy. Then I remember a few months back, we were hearing about  
that Ugandan law to kill the gays and jail anyone who had a problem  
with that.

I ain't saying there's a relationship between the two events, but  
there's certainly been a lot of strange talk about Uganda as of late.

On Jan 10, 2010, at 10:08 AM, Gadi Evron <ge () linuxbox org> wrote:

> The spin of the week catch goes to Brandon K. Thorp, on the James  
> Randi
> Educational Foundation blog in an article titled Child Sacrifice in
> Uganda, where he discusses the recent outrage in regard to claims of
> witch doctors sacrificing children in Uganda.
>
> The post is built of three sections, claiming:
> 1. That by merely writing on it and repeating it in a few  
> publications,
> it has now become truth.
> 2. That evidence is seriously lacking, and what facts are known are
> questioned.
> 3. That there are consequences to scaring people about witches,  
> namely,
> witch hunts.
>
> He ties it all together by discussing the bad journalistic work
> performed here, from the assumptions made by the reporters who later
> insinuate them as evidence, to why the evidence actually provided is
> unlikely to hold any water when scrutinized.
>
> He asks to see what children had actually been murdered, as the claims
> made about numbers, even if witch doctors do ritually sacrifice
> children, are ridiculous.
>
> A great work of skepticism, writing and argumentation! I definitely
> recommend reading it:
>
> http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/829-child-sacrifice-in-uganda.html
>
>    Gadi
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